Thought for the week: "For we walk by faith, not by sight”" 2 Corinthians 5:7

One theme that runs through Scripture is the idea that we must ultimately trust God and, in spite of any bad stuff that may go on around us, believe we’ll be ok. That is, although we may experience things that seem to run counter to how we think things should go, we’re called to trust that everything will work out. The problem here is that it’s difficult to develop this kind of trust without at least some tangible evidence. At some point, we all prefer to have at least some proof that we’re walking down the right path. Without that evidence, the call for faith can maybe seem like a call for blind faith.

In running, there’s a very similar dynamic. You’re asked to run and fight through pain, all so that you can maybe finish with a good time. But training is one thing and racing another, and until you’ve actually run in a race, it’s difficult to really believe that you’re capable of doing what we talk about at practice or in our meetings. Strong faith is much easier to come by when you feel like you’ve walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and survived. You don’t walk the Valley by talking about the Valley, you walk the Valley by going out and doing just that. What most of you needed was experience and that’s exactly what you got last Wednesday evening. This is exactly why we entered this race – not to win, not to run fast, but to gain some experience so that we have a starting point from which to grow. And now, with that first race under your belt, it’s time to consider how you might improve. The starting point is to recognize the connection between practice and races, and that practice is as much about developing confidence and psychological strength as it is about developing physical fitness.

The Frosh-Soph race on Wednesday pitted us against several good frosh-soph teams and I was quite pleased with how we held up against those teams. When we talk about how added experience can be a real asset, we have abundant evidence in our top finishers. Lindsay Marko and Colleen McKiernan were our first two girls to finish and both did quite well. Lindsay has the potential to do some very good things by season’s end, and Colleen is very capable of stepping up in a big way from last year. As these two gain experience, they’ll run with even more confidence and that alone will help them improve. Sarah Steier finished right behind Colleen. She also ran a good race, but got out too fast and had to hang on through her finish. Added experience will help Sarah better understand that Cross Country is more about running well through the interior of a race than at the start.

After our top three, things were a bit more difficult to predict. We had some small surprises and some more predictable results. One surprise was Emily Bryan, and while Emily may have surprised the rest of us, she apparently didn’t surprise herself as she predicted a win before the race. The win didn’t exactly happen, but Emily still ran very well. Erin McHugh’s finish was more predictable. She has started running well in practice and showed this in her race. Natalie Remmers was also a nice surprise and she ran a good competitive race. Shelby Holzknecht and Abby Crum followed Natalie and, like Erin and our top 3 finishers, are starting to show the effects of training with our Group A girls. There are many others, but the basic story here is that we got some solid first races from our Frosh-Soph girls. Many of you have the potential to run even better, however, and we’ll give you that opportunity in the coming weeks.

Meet MVPs: Lindsay Marko, Colleen McKiernan, Sarah Steier