University of Richmond Athletics
Taylor's Take: Our Season, My Story
09/22/2011 | Cross Country
Sept. 22,
2011
Editor's Note: Cross country freshman and Richmond native Taylor Clevinger will share her thoughts and experiences in an ongoing blog that offers readers an inside look into life as a Spider on the course, in the classroom and around campus. Below is her fourth entry of the season.
Wow! So many fun and exciting things have happened since the last blog, I can't even list them all. Let me start off by mentioning our second meet, which was the William and Mary Invitational last weekend. This meet was our first big invitational as a team, and for the freshmen it was our first college 5K. We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to meet the bus at 6:45 a.m. Come to find out that the bus was parked right outside of our dorm... very convenient!
Shortly after boarding the big bus with free Wi-Fi and TVs, we arrived at the William and Mary cross country course. We knew we were there because you could hear the screams and chants of the fans as the high school races were beginning. The sight of the extra-long lines at the port-a-potties gave it away.
It was raining slightly and the temperature was right around 60 degrees, but the weather made for perfect racing conditions. Before the race we got our warm up and stretching in, and then it was time for the pre-race ritual: a peanut butter PowerBar that I split with Steph (Paradis).
Watching the Spider men run an awesome race got us pumped and excited. The gun went off and all I can think of was trying to catch as many William and Mary girls as possible. It also helped having my teammates there pushing me along the way and trying to stay right with them. In the end, I was so proud to be Spider because we won and left the Tribe in the dust. Everyone had a great race because we stuck together like a team and pushed ourselves to the limit.
I have to give a shout-out to Jill (Prentice) for an outstanding win and leading us all the way, but like I said, everyone had a great race. Many of us had PRs (personal records). Week in and week out we are getting stronger and stronger, and at race time we're showing it.
Also, Ryan (Lee), Billy (Fayette) and Clare (Moretz) got back last week from competing in the Junior World Mountain Running Championship in Albania. They all had fantastic races and represented Team USA and the Spiders very well.
Oh yeah, I also can't forget to mention that President Obama visited campus a couple of Fridays ago! It was exciting around campus. There were so many people, and we literally waited in a line that was more than a mile long. Despite the long wait, it was really cool to see the President of the United States and be in the same building as him!
As you can probably tell from my blogs, the past couple of weeks have been really exciting. And now with the football season in full swing, there's an additional fun activity on campus. The home football games on Saturday nights are so much fun, especially when they hand out bam-bams (noise makers), glow-in-the-dark t-shirts and glow-in-the-dark sticks!
My classes have also been going pretty well. Even though they are tough, I've come to find out if you try to stay on top of your work, then everything works out so much better.
Parents Weekend is this weekend at UR, and I can't wait for the fun activities they have planned for all of our families. I think my family signed up to go on the high ropes course on campus, which should be really funny... I can't wait!
We have this weekend off of racing, but
next weekend we'll be back in racing mode at the Paul Short Invitational at
Lehigh. GO SPIDERS!!
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