After a long, strenuous day of testing and meeting deadlines, many SHS students want nothing more than to simply go home and relax, but the cross country team is outside by 3:10 and running by 3:30. The team’s runners this season were filled with ceaseless commitment and motivation. On October 3rd, the cross country team competed in the Woodlands Invitational meet at Woodlands High School. Out of the nine teams competing, the varsity boys’ team came in first, and the varsity girls’ team came in third.“I got a twenty-one minute flat 5K,” states Sophia Rosset ‘18 who came in first for Scarsdale. Rosset explains her steps toward achieving first place, “this summer I trained a lot, and it’s really just about consistency and putting in the miles everyday.”
After-school practices build the foundation of victory for the cross country team. “We started off not very unified, but then the farther we went on, the better we got,” said Nicolas Rudloff ‘18 who stated his greatest accomplishment was running a 4K in fourteen minutes.
Being a cross country runner requires a great amount of perseverance and strength – both physically and mentally – but all of the hardships are worth the large amount of reward gained from this experience. Aside from obvious physical benefits, running releases certain chemicals in our brains which make us happier, and can even get us addicted to this exercise. Perhaps this is a part of why so many people join and remain a part of cross country, or maybe it is because of the lasting friendships they make by taking part in this sports team. Sharing the experience of running together for two hours everyday creates extremely strong bonds between teammates. Along with victories in meets, the best victory was “definitely at our league meet. After all the girls ran, we all went up onto this huge rock formation that overlooked the city and you could see the Manhattan skyline from it. We all just kind of hung out and we took a lot of pictures and it was fun to be with all of the girls from the team,” said Kaitlin Doyle ‘16. Of course the team greatly values their scores and bringing pride to the Scarsdale name, but the greatest victory of all is the experience itself and being part of a community who shares a common passion.
By Amanda Chu & Netali Zaff
Photo Courtesy Ariel Kachuro
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