Hey everyone, I’m Jesse Southard and I am going to be another one of the bloggers this fall. I am starting my senior year at Gorham High School and, like many seniors, have been dealing with the large and complicated process of the college search. Outside of runner I am a Boy Scout who is working on finishing up my Eagle Scout award.
I had never run a 5k in my life until we had our team run out at Shaw Park the first week of preseason. Honestly, until the week started I don’t know if I had ever run 3 miles straight. I didn’t even decide to run XC until really the morning of the first day of preseason 3 years ago. The night before I said if I woke up in time I would go, and the next morning I woke up in time and I headed over to the High School. That morning is easily the day when my life changed.
I remember every day of the first week of High School XC. Each morning I showed up, and after the first day I knew my place. Coach Tanguay decided to put me in a group that had been running all summer and were all upperclassmen. I had run maybe 3 times all summer and was only 14 years old. I don’t know how it happened, but it all worked out. We went for a long slow the first day and I made it through that, then the next day we did a 10 minute run. Coach set us on a track with a cone with our names on it and told us to run for 10 minutes and see how far we could get. I made it the second farthest of anyone one the team. Wednesday was when I realized I was on that team for good. I was brought by a bunch of the upperclassmen on a woods loop called River Run, its name comes from the fact that we cross a couple streams and also that after a heavy rain a section of the trail becomes a river. We reached one of the streams and we randomly stopped. That’s when I got my baptism. I swam under a bridge with a small brook running under. After that I knew I had found my place.
Since then I have decided to become a three season runner, but I didn’t give up the sports I loved. I ran XC, Indoor & Outdoor track, as well as playing basketball and baseball. That just made my life chaotic, but for now it is XC season and that has all my focus.
Good luck to everybody this fall