by: Carter Caldwell

Even though the 2017 cross country season has drawn to a close for most of the athletes, proper recognition is still due to the athletes who began training in early August.  This week, one particular athlete, JV runner and junior Caleb Stone, talks about the season as whole, and how the seemingly individual sport really is a team effort.

Stone, whose PR is 20:50.78, says that although the team appears to be split into JV and Varsity, they really all practice together and function as one.  At the last race for the team which took place at Young’s Dairy–a course that is shorter than the intended 5K, which means that most athletes PR–Stone opted to pace fellow junior Steve Wellbaum instead of taking the opportunity to PR for himself.

At the race on October 14, Stone and Wellbaum started the race with a goal of breaking 22 minutes, which would put Wellbaum 1.75 minutes under his former PR for the season.  During the race, Stone says the cold weather and the fact that Wellbaum had recently been sick made the race all the more difficult, but in the end, Stone successfully paced Wellbaum to an impressive 21:46.39, significantly faster than the pace they had set out to go.  Stone says he was shocked to find out that they had ran that fast, but glad that he had been able to help Wellbaum achieve his goals.

Aside from Wellbaum, numerous other cross country athletes set personal records at the race, some with pacers of their own.  It was a good way to end the season for the Junior Varsity athletes, some of who went on to cheer for their teammates at the District meet.