What a crazy and unforgettable trip.
A car ride and trip with cross country hooligans makes you want to join the fun. Though it sometimes may lead you to question where your hearing and voice went by the end of the trip. Oh well. When I first heard about the trip to Arizona for another cross country race, I wasn't sure if I was able to go or not or if I wanted to. I'm super happy I was able to go.
Nike Cross Country Regionals or NXR is a professional cross country race that our team had the opportunity to go to. This year the race was in Arizona so a group of us on the cross country team, along with our coaches, loaded up for a long 12+ hour drive to go race. We had the girls and coaches in a Sprinter van and the boys split up with the chaperones in 2 cars. To pass the time we sang a lot of songs. One of our favorites from the trip, that we sang at least a 100 times a day, was the song from the movie Titanic, 'My Heart Will Go On.' I think that song was the reason why we didn't have a voice by the end of the trip. Along with lots of laughing there was also a bit of screaming a few times when Maddie our coach ran a red light and Ty our other couch got close to breaking 100 mph. The drive was definitely an adventure, but we all lived to tell the tale.
One of the many stops on our way to Arizona was at Southern Utah University for a tour of the campus. It was really cool to see the campus and learn about it. The college track coach gave us the tour and took us all over. It was kind of long and toward then end we were all ready to just get to the Airbnb in St. George. It was still a neat experience especially since I'll soon have to think about what college I want to go to later.
Finally we made it to the Airbnb. The house we stayed at for the first night was awesome! We all wanted to just stay there for the weekend and not worry about the race. There was a pool and a TV room! The rooms we stayed in for the night had triple bunk beds. Before dinner we went on a shake out run. We ran in the dark and tried not to get lost. It was fun! After the run, we went to go find where the boys ran to go scare them. We ended up hiding behind a car and when the boys ran past we jumped out and scared them. We scared them so good, even though they wouldn't admit it. After dinner we played in the pool and then watched a movie. We ended up watching the movie Desendents.
After going to bed past midnight, we woke up really early the next morning and drove the rest of the way to Arizona. It was a really long drive. That was when Ty almost broke 100 mph on the long stretch of road. When we finally made it to Arizona, surprisingly in one piece, we went to the race course to get the race packets and check out the course.
For the shake out run that day we ran part of the course which was really nice. After the run we all found out that we got cool hot pink beanies! After checking out the course, we piled back into the cars to go to the houses we were staying at. The houses we stayed at were Ty's sister's neighbors' houses. They were all really nice to let us stay with them. Ty's sister's house was the main house we hung out at.
That night we played badminton, had really good food and just had fun, trying not to think of the race the next morning. After playing around we all split up to go to the different houses we were staying at. Lily, Celeste, Morgan, and I, with Lily's Mom, stayed together. We didn't see the family we were staying with very often.
The next morning we got up really early and met at Ty's sister's house for a quick breakfast before we headed for the race course. When we got to the course we were all really nervous and there was so many people. Finally it was time to race. The race course and the weather was really nice and we were at lower elevation so I was hoping for a PR. During the race I ran with Josie the whole time. I'm glad I did, because she pushed me to go faster.
Sadly I didn't end the race with a PR but I did finish strong with a time of 22:17. A few of the girls and boys on the team finished with huge PRs which was awesome! The race was a good race and a good end to the cross country season. It was cool to race with a lot of people from many different high schools.
When the race was finally over we were able to explore the race venue and cheer for the boys racing. Lily, Josie, and I went to stand in line to get sweaters. I didn't end up getting one because they were really expensive. Now I regret not getting one though. Oh well. As part of my exploring I noticed that a lot of the racers were ripping off the flags on the course markers and taking them has souvenirs. They had to do it so they didn't get caught. I wanted to get one because I thought I would be a cool souvenir to have since I didn't get a sweater. Lily already took one of the cones to add to her collection of track and cross country cones that she's been given. I didn't want to get I trouble though so I didn't get a flag at that moment. Over at the finish line we met up with Lily's mom and another chaperone and watched the boys finish. We told them about the flags and they told me to get one. I still was nervous about it because there were officials watching the flags. They tried to stop the people from taking the flags but it was no use, there were too many people. Finally there was one flag left, and two of the race officials were guarding it determined to not let go of it until the champion races were finished in a couple hours.
Lily's mom was determined to get the flag. She agreed with the officials and told them she would also wait until the end of the races to get the flag for me. It was a funny story. While waiting, Lily's mom had the flag signed by a lot of people including the race officials. While waiting, I was able to find a way to get another flag over where the finish line was by making friends with 2 random girls from a different high school and the race officials' coach. The coach said that at the end of the race to come find him and he would get the flags for us. At the end of the races, Lily's mom got her flag and we were able to get front row seats to the girls champion race finish because that is where we were waiting to get the flags by the finish line. It was cool to see some of the fastest girls at the race finish so fast, it was crazy. Finally, I was able to get my long awaited flag from the race officials handing them out at the finish line while they were cleaning up. After meeting up with the rest of the team we took a picture and left talking about all the things we did at the race. We were already talking about next year's plans to race here again.
After the race we went back to the house, had lunch, and played Uno No Mercy. When we were bored of that we decided to go to a mall in town and explore. It was raining when we got there so everything was wet but, luckily, it stopped since the mall was an outdoor one and we didn't want to get wet. At the mall we split up and went browsing. We basically were window shopping because no one in our group bought anything except for Maddie. When we were done exploring all the stores we met back up with everyone and went back to the house.
At the house we had dinner and then all of the girls hung out for a minute. The boys wanted to swim but we decided it was too cold and didn't swim. I did go outside to play around and ended up getting a little wet because of the squirt guns the boys had. They tried to get the girls outside to get them wet but it didn't work. It was a lot of fun. Finally, I went inside and chatted with the girls some more, then we went downstairs and convinced some of the boys to play some games with us. One of the games was spinning around with a piece of paper, dropping the paper on the ground, and trying to land on it while being super dizzy. It was super funny to watch. We thought the other boys were boring for not joining us. Instead, they were too into the F1 race they were watching with Maddie. After the games and laughing a lot, we sat a round and I plunked around on the piano that was there. We were all really tired from a long day so we decided to call it a night and get packed for the long drive home the next day.
Sadly we still had to wake up extra early the next morning so we could get on the road and not get home really late because it was a 12 hour drive. After signing each others cones and flags we got the day before at the race, we said goodbye to our host family's and thanked them for letting us stay with them.
The car ride was really long. One of the stops that day was a gas station where some of us stocked up on left over food and snacks from the trip and others went sight seeing. After that we went down a road with 15 plus church houses that were all different. Then we stopped at an overlook of the Colorado river. It was a cool view but a really steep drop off. I was able to get some homework done on the drive and then we all just hung out and talked. Toward the end of the drive Lily and I were making some funny memes of the pictures we took. Finally, we made it to the school and sang the Titanic song one last time as we pulled in. Mom said we were so loud that she heard us clear from the light at the corner, it was funny.
It was a really, really fun trip and a super cool experience. I hope we are able to do it again next year. It took a few days after the trip for my voice to completely come back because it was so dead from all of the fun we had. There was a lot of fun memories made.
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