Cross-Country Stories: Team Work

My daughter Clara will be completing her first season of high school cross country this weekend when the team competes at the California State Cross Country Championships. The meet is held in Fresno on the Saturday following Thanksgiving, and she and I will be traveling with the team and staying there for a few days. To celebrate qualifying for State, I thought I would mark the weekend by posting a few cross country stories. I hope you enjoy them.
In order to do well at cross country, there needs to be team work. Typically seven runners participate in the 3-mile varsity race, and the top five finishers "score."  In a cross-country race, the low score wins. A runner's score is equivalent to the place in which she crosses the finish line. So, a perfect score is 15 (the top five runners come in 1st-5th place). Although the 6th and 7th runners don't score, they can affect the scores of other teams by finishing fast and claiming some of the lower finishing positions. 
In order to qualify for the State Championships, the girls had to be one of the top four teams at the Central Coast Section Championship Meet (and they had to qualify for the CCS Championships by doing well at the Peninsula Athletic League Championship Meet). Qualifying for CCS was easy. Qualifying for State, not so much. 
Carmen C., our top runner, ran her typical fast race and placed 8th. But two of our team's other top runners were battling injuries (including Clara - notice her knee brace). Yet they pushed through.  Clara, whose been finishing as our second runner for the last few meets, actually fell down at about mile 2.5 when her knee gave way. She says that a couple of runners from other schools smiled at her misfortune.  She may or may not have sworn at them. She definitely got up. And she definitely passed them. Because she's that competitive. Clara was upset that she couldn't run as fast as she normally does. She finished as the third runner for our team in 20th place. Kyleen, typically our second or third place runner, ran through pain to score as our fourth runner across the finish line in 31st place.  Luckily, their teammates were stepping up. Carmen Z., our second runner across the finish line, ran a fantastic race and placed 14th. And Cleome, who only occasionally runs Varsity, ran the race of her life to complete our top five, finishing 32nd. The team's total score was 105, good for third place and a berth in the State Championship Meet! The winning team scored 31 points; second place, 97;  and the fourth place team came in at 136. The team would not have qualified if the hobbled runners hadn't persevered or if the other runners hadn't stepped up. 
So proud of the girls individually and, more importantly, as a team for working together so that we can spend Thanksgiving weekend together in Fresno.