OACS (The Best Part of the Season)

 This weekend I had another cross-country meet. Yes, I’m aware I talk about running a lot on here. It’s a good thing my blog is called “Meals and Miles”! This one was no regular season meet, it was our conference! Throughout the season, we will only see the teams in our conference a handful of times. So, this was the big conference showdown! If you attend an OAC school, you understand how exciting these competitions are. 

Leading up to the meet, the team had spirit week and a team meal on Friday. We had some fun dress-up days, but Friday was my favorite. We get decked out in school colors and preview the course. This year, the conference meet was held at a golf course in Findlay. This made for an easy trip and allowed for a lot of bears to come to support us Saturday morning! After we previewed the course on Friday, we held a team dinner at Kinghorn. The meal was catered by Viva’s so you know it was delicious, especially the baked ziti! 

Although, the pasta isn’t my favorite part about the night before the conference. Our team has a tradition where seniors write everyone a letter and we get to share them all after the team meal. Writing them was hard, how do you put how much the people you’ve run with for so long into a few paragraphs? It also made me realize how close I was getting to my last few weeks of cross-country. Being the sentimental person I am, I teared up a little when we were reading the letters. I love my team so much and I hope they all know how much they mean to me. When the miles get hard, they’re the reason I keep showing up! 

Saturday morning we showed up ready to roll. We had orange glitter in our hair and the positive energy was flowing! The team showed up and gave it their all on the course. We took home second place, losing to John Carroll, but fought for it! It would have been very exciting to win, but I think it was still exciting seeing how well everyone ran. We had four women who were all-conference! Our coach was happy with our efforts and overall it was a good day for the polar bears! 

Cross senior class!

Following the meet, there was a family and team potluck. The weather was perfect for cornhole and buffalo chicken dip. It was also a good opportunity to be with the entire team one last time this season. The remainder of the season will be the regional squad only, meaning our team shrinks to a third of its original size. Conference went great, so now we have to keep pushing forward, working hard and preparing for regionals so that we can crush it! 

That’s all for now,

Abby