Over the past few weeks, the girls and boys varsity cross country teams have competed in multiple meets: the Friday Night Hawk Invite, Luke’s Locker Six Mile Relay and the Marcus Coach T Cross Country Invitational.
The girls team placed second in the Luke Locker Relay, marking their highest recorded score in the history of Greenhill’s hosting this event.
“We came second in our division, which is amazing,” sophomore Lilly Williams said. “We have never made the podium, so to get second was really great.”
During the preseason before school started, the teams would practice for two and half hours, allowing them to become educated and familiarized with drills and how to warm up properly.
In addition to an emphasis placed on running, the teams would swim after almost every practice and worked on strength and mobility during their High Performance Center workouts.
“We were doing a fair amount of cross training, strength and mobility in regular HPC sessions,” boys and girls cross country Coach Jason Yaffe said. “We got in the pool pretty much every day in preseason.”
Now, the teams practice every morning before school, and Williams says they are taking advantage of this as it is easier to run in the morning than in the evening.
Additionally, the teams must take care of their bodies outside of practice this season to prevent injuries.
“There have not been many injuries this season yet, which I think is one of the most important things, that everyone is staying healthy,” senior Gabe Shiloh said.
Shiloh says the teams have become close and created a competitive but supportive environment.
“Team spirits are really high,” Shiloh said. “Everyone is having fun and always very supportive of each other,”
The teams both had many new additions this year from freshman to seniors joining. Yaffe says these new runners have been an important piece to the team, as they are all putting in the effort.
“We love surprises, and there have been many of those, either returning team members who put in the summer training and are seeing results, or newcomers: ninth graders or people who have not run before,” Yaffe said.
Yaffe also says the runners have been setting goals which they hope to achieve throughout the season.
“Everyone has individual goals that they articulate for themselves,” Yaffe said. “We compete against high level programs, and for us to finish in the middle of the pack in these races is a really respectable and commendable thing.”
