Follow North Yarmouth Academy senior Hannah Austin during her senior xc season. Austin was the Class C state xc runner-up a year ago, and returns as the individual favorite to win the Class C title this fall. While she is small in stature she certainly makes up for with her grit & determination on the course.
Hi everyone!
It’s so weird to think that the cross country season is already almost half over and that fall is upon us, especially since we’ve had some really hot weather lately! Personally, I’m ready for the cooler weather to come!
Even stranger for me to think about however, is that I ran my last Manchester Invitational meet ever yesterday. This meet is always one that I look forward to, and it has such a fun and exciting atmosphere. This year, my team drove up together the night before so we wouldn’t have such an early start the following morning. We first drove to the course and did the course walk that night, then did a short, relaxed easy run together. After that, we went out to dinner, then stopped at Ben and Jerry’s for ice cream! Though we had a fun-filled night, we all surprisingly were in our hotel rooms for bed at a decent hour.
The following morning, I woke up feeling sick. I had been fighting a cold for the whole week, even needing to forgo a workout at practice a few days ago, but I felt worse than I ever had so far. My coach gave me the option of not racing, but I was still determined to race and just do the best I could, especially considering this would be my last chance to race at Manchester. I spent the time before my race relaxing as best I could while cheering the girls and boys from my team who were in the freshman and JV races. Before long, it was time for my own race. It was late in the morning by then, and it was a hot day, especially for this time of year. Manchester can be a pretty fast course in certain circumstances, but on this day, it was slower for pretty much everyone, probably because of the heat. Also, there was a lot of loose rock and dirt on some of the hills, which are all hard already! One of them is actually a ski hill with ski lifts next to it! Even though it can be pretty challenging, Manchester is definitely one of my favorite cross country courses to run on, so I was happy to be running on it one last time. In the end, the heat combined with my sickness gave me a time that was significantly slower than I was originally hoping for, but under the circumstances, I know I did the best I could. Besides, the actual race is only part of what makes Manchester such a fun experience. Lots of different schools go there, so I got to see a lot of my friends from other schools. There are also many teams from other states that come. It’s always cool to race against runners you’ve never seen before! Also, Manchester has awesome t-shirts! The first thing my team and I did when we got to the meet was get in line and buy a t-shirt. They had a huge selection this year, which made me really want to buy more than one. I didn’t, but I kind of regret that now. There were just so many different ones to choose from; I would have taken one of each if I could! I ended up buying a nice blue tye-dye long sleeve t-shirt!
Overall, I can definitely say I had a great time at my last Manchester Invitational! My team and I had a lot of fun spending time together before and after we ran, and we fought hard during the race despite the heat. Even though our times may not have shown it, since many of us have run faster before, we all finished knowing we gave everything we had, which is really all that matters. I’m sad to think that I ran my last Manchester race ever, but I’m glad that it was a memorable one. I will hopefully attend the race at some point in the future, although I would unfortunately have to be a spectator instead of a runner!
I hope everyone’s seasons are all going well so far, it certainly looks like it based on the results from many of the meets across the state! I can’t wait to see a lot of you at Belfast, that’s going to be a great race!
~Hannah