Ben's first season of XC

My son Ben entered sixth grade this fall and turned 12 in September and had his first chance to be a part of a school running team. His coach was someone I have known for years and even worked under as an assistant back before Ben was born, so that was cool.

Prior to the fall season, Ben's running had consisted of a handful of road/trail races and some consistent racing at Roger Perham's Monday night summer Asbury Grove races.

(Every Monday from early July to early September Roger holds races at 6:00 pm. The fee is $1 for the week or $2 for the whole summer. He runs 4 races: 5 and under (250m?), 8 and under (600m?), 12 and under (~800m) and an open mile. He gives out ribbons with name, date, race and your time and we have collected quite a few as a family over the past eleven summers. I would guess Roger has been doing these races for about 30 years, and they start about a quarter mile from our front step, so we usually find our way there at least a couple times per summer.)

I had little expectation that Ben would fall in love with running as hard as I have, but I was excited to see him doing it. He was committed to the practice schedule and I forced him to do his weekend runs and I hope he got a kick out of how interested I was in what they had done each day and how he was reacting to it.

The boys team was about 10-12 kids and Ben was in the middle of that group. He got faster as the season went on, which spoke to the value of his regular training, and I think he'll stick with it.

Here he is, finishing strong at the last home meet of the season:

He's running track this spring, after playing basketball this winter, but will be taking part in the long jump, the 200 and the 400 in the first meet.