Sports Create so many Emotions, Thats why we Love them!

The last poll showed that there was no clear favorite when it comes to our favorite sport. Each of us most likely have a sport that we like or are passionate about. The High school I teach at is full of fun discussions between the various sports teams. They will argue about which sports are harder than other, which require more skill, or even which one is more entertaining to play.

I love all sports. I have been competitive all my life and sports have provided me plenty of opportunities to quench that competitiveness. Coaching has also been a great blessing in my life and just a few years ago I started coaching Cross Country. What an interesting sport this has proven to be. If you do not know much about it, it is simply distance running. The High School Races we run at range from a 5k (5000 meters or 3.2 miles) up to a 7k.

At first this may sound a bit boring to many of you but I have been impressed at how entertaining it has really become. Some races we go to are pretty simple. You start, run your distance, and then it is over. Others however are more of an experience than simply just a race. One race our team went to the past 2 years is called “The Monster.” It is held in the SIlver Creek Falls State Park in Oregon and it starts off easy enough, just a nice run around the forest, then just for fun they decided to make the race go up a small trail. It just so happens the up part is an insanely steep climb that lasts a half a mile. That is where the nickname comes from.

This past weekend our team participated in the “3 Course Challenge” in Seaside Oregon. It is a very unique event. There are 3 courses (easy, moderate, difficult) each progressively longer in distance (5k, 6k, 7k). The atmosphere is incredible, at the start of each race of which there are 6, all with nearly 500 runners in them, there is a complete drum line pounding away adding to the intensity. The courses are on a Coast Guard base along the beach. It provides many different types of terrain from sand to rocks, plenty of hills and my personal favorite, a pit about twenty feet long that has about 2 feet of standing water in it.

If you have never been to a Cross Country race I highly recommend it. The uniqueness of some of the better events is only out done by the craziness that many of these kids bring to the event. I have truly fallen in love with this sport and for a lifetime football guy, thats saying something.

Here is a quick clip of the start of one of our races this past Saturday at the Nike 3 course challenge.