When we let the animals do the talking this week, we observed the baby Wildebeest and how quickly they can walk and then run. Within two weeks after their first step, they can run with the pack. A couple of weeks after his first race, Freshman Aiden Pullen can now run with our pack of panthers! Aiden surprised his teammates, coaches and family members by moving up into 7th place for most of the last mile at Ridgefield's Abrams Park. He held on to 8th at the finish, running 18:12 on a short but challenging course, 53 seconds faster than his Saxon invite time. His running form has also improved as he can now run with the ever improving Panther Pack.
Or more accurately, back on XC! After a couple of disappointing early season races as our 5th Panther, Karina Miller found a nice park with fun play equipment (this is a motivator for her) to get back into her standard level of performance. In mapping out the race against a formidable opponent in Ridgefield, we knew we needed one or two of our girls to step it up, and Karina took two giant steps up. She ran over 1 and a half minutes faster than she did in her previous race: her 22:03 is one of her top 5 times ever. She is now back on Track and XC! Her closing comments before leaving one of her favorite parks was 'It is nice to be back!'