The Woodberry Harrier 2017: Volume 2

Team Pride

We drove by an elongated brown building, which looked similar to a jail. Battlefield Middle School – Have a great summer! was written on a sign out front. It was odd that they hadn’t changed it since their school year had already started. I knew this because that was my Middle School Alma Mater.  We took the next right turn into Loriella Park, a place where I had practically grown up. I played soccer here. I played baseball here. My buddies worked here. It seemed perfect that this is where I would be running my first race of the season.

After Mr. Hale had woken up the bus, we took off to warm up on the course. Riverbend, Massaponax, Spotsy, all the teams we were running against were my Spotsylvania schools. It made sense, of course, but seeing them still created a bubble of pride in me. I suddenly couldn’t focus on the race. I could only smile and wave to the people I knew. I wasn’t ready to run, and a small part of me worried about embarrassing myself in in front of old friends. It was a stupid thought, and I tried to push it away. But with each recognizable face, it came back.

When warm-up was over, I didn’t feel very warm. It was cold and raining. I didn’t take my sweatshirt and sweatpants off until Mr. Hale hurried us to finish our bounds and head to the line.  When I took them off though, all of my hometown distractions vanished. The orange and black letters emblazoning Woodberry across my chest filled me with a new kind of pride. 

The Spottslyvania teams were just opponents now. I now looked at my teammates. No more distractions. I could’ve cared less about disappointing my hometown friends. I could’ve cared less about recognizing anyone I knew or having them recognize me.  The only people who mattered were the ones standing beside me. They were the guys I was running with and running for. They were the reason I was shivering on the starting line with tense muscles and a wet uniform, and they were the reason I couldn’t think of anywhere else I would rather be at that moment.

           

Jackson Sompayrac ‘18

There was a good rush of team pride on Saturday at the 42nd Annual Woodberry Invitational.  After we week off, we were eager to race, and we had a beautiful morning for what is always one of the most fun meets of the year.  We ended the day just as you always want to end one:  proud of what we accomplished but confident we can run better next week.   Here are the results:

Woodberry Forest Invitational
Woodberry Forest, VA
16 Sept, 2017
1st out of 18 teams 1-5   spread: 1:43 1-7 spread: 3:24
	Place out of 147	Time
Fletcher	5th	17:42	1 sec. under last week
Rich	12th	18:02	7 sec. under last week
Watt	14th	18:12	54 sec. under last year
Clark	29th	19:01
Singleton	40th	19:25
Daniels	50th	19:44	7 sec under last week; 53 sec. WFS PR
Sompayrac	83rd	21:06
Richard	84th	21:09
Dearborn	85th	21:09	1 sec under last week
Wall	86th	21:10
Lindner	DNR
McKay	DNR

This weekend we run in the Fork Union Invitational, which will be a huge meet with very stiff competition.  Wish us luck.