I ran very competitively in college and definitely found it thrilling, challenging and rewarding. I thought the all time highs of my career would've been running under the lights at Penn Relays, or having our team win our conference championship.
I was wrong.
I just started coaching at a high school that has a terrible xc team. Last year they had 11 kids on the team and this year I've seen the team grow to almost 30. The kids are driven and goal oriented. Today, we had our first meet with 5 other local teams. (xc is not big around here so 5 teams means 60 runners) Both our boys and girls teams were able to pull off the victory. The girls went 1-2-3 all running the 5K course under 21:00 and the guys had 5 under 20 minutes with the top runner just breaking 18 minutes. I can't remember the last time I've ever seen kids so happy, or felt so happy personally.
It was a great day for me and I figured I'd share with my fellow runners.
Now, it's my turn to go run. Take Care