Follow Cape Elizabeth senior Mitch Morris as he embarks on his final xc season. Morris a newcomer to xc last fall is the top returning runner in Class B from the state meet a year ago. Mitch will be looking to chase the individual title, as well as try to lead his team to a third straight Class B title. On the track Morris showed his skills this winter running a 9:36.51 for 2 miles.
So this is my first blog post, and, as I promised in my XC Watchlist Q&A, I’ll talk a little about how my running career got started. To tell it right, this story can get a little long, so I might break it up over a couple of posts.
Even though I didn’t really start racing until last fall, being from Cape Elizabeth meant that running was already a part of my life and personality, whether I knew it at the time or not. Every Summer, my town hosts the Beach to Beacon, a 10k race I’m sure most of you have heard of, which brought the excitement and energy of racing right past my front door. The Beach to Beacon was founded by Joan Benoit Samuelson, an Olympic gold medal-winning marathoner, and a statue dedicated to her currently sits outside of our town’s library and middle school. As a result of the race’s popularity, running the Beach to Beacon became a sort of rite of passage for kids growing up in my town, especially for non-runners like myself for whom simply completing the race would be a challenge. Despite this, I found myself in the summer before my Sophomore year without a Beach to Beacon bib, and without having completed this rite.
You see, I hated running, or at least I didn't really understand it. Sure I had a done a season of outdoor track (during which I skipped most of the meets, before logging the very impressive 1600 meter PR of 5:36.51, a PR that embarrassingly held until this past winter at the USM relays), but that was mainly to stay in shape for soccer, which at the time was my favorite sport. All of this meant that when Beach to Beacon registration opened for Cape Elizabeth residents bright and early in January, I, unlike thousands of fervent runners in my town, was sleeping soundly in my bed. Although I felt guilty about wimping out on the race, without a bib I thought I was in the clear; I would be spared one more year without having to run those 10 kilometers, however long that was. All of that changed when, despite all odds, my last name was pulled from a hat at a raffle to win a Beach to Beacon number.
I’ll continue the story in my next blog post, but until then, enjoy the end of the summer and the start of your cross country season!
- Mitch Morris
