Mai Cachila

Starting his second lap of the race, senior Sanil Desai continues through the course at the Vista Ridge cross country invitational on Aug. 25. This was the second meet of the season and Desai finished in 19th place. “I was thinking about the team placements,” Desai said. “A lot of the schools at the Vista meet will be at districts so I was trying to pass as many people as I could, I’m mostly worried about Leander because they have an all around strong team.”

Getting into position at the start of the course, they anxiously wait to hear the sound of the horn. Lined up with eyes ahead, the horn blares, initiating the first race of the season. As they take off, the colors of other school jerseys swarm around them, engulfing them in a sea of determined runners. They are all going to the same place, it is just a matter of who they can pass in the process.

The team’s next meet is the McNeil Cross Country Invitational on Saturday where they will run the Old Settler’s Park course. To start their season, the cross country team has had two pre-season meets, one at Temple and another at Vista Ridge. They also hosted the Cedar Park invitationals on Sept. 9. The invitational acts like a kick-off for district meets as they will be attending more in the upcoming weeks. The Temple invitational meet was on Aug 18.

“We have a lot less meets this year so we’re focusing more on training and making sure we’re ready for the meets we’re racing in,” senior Sanil Desai said. “I’ve never raced at Temple before so a lot of it was getting used to the course and getting used to racing again.”

Returning to school after the summer, Desai started his last cross country season on the varsity team this year with a new coach. In the past three years, the team has had three different coaches. Runners met the new coach at the end of summer before school started.

“It’s tough because coaches have different training regiments so every year you’re changing your training,” Desai said. “It was harder to adjust when we were younger during sophomore and junior year, but as a senior, it’s easier because [we have] done it more.”

During the last month of summer, the team went on runs and practiced together. Senior Isabel Conde De Frankenberg spent the majority of her summer running for the Argentina national team and did not have an opportunity to run with her team before the start of school.

“I came back from Argentina on the first day of school so my first practice was the first day of school,” Conde De Frankenberg said. “My team was working hard the whole summer and the new coach came in July, so they’ve been training for a long time. I think the whole team is excited for this season.”

While her team was starting their meets earlier this season, Isabel spent her time training and preparing for a longer season that ends with Nationals in December. Because she is in the top five runners in the state, Conde De Frankenberg’s season ends after the rest of her team’s does, so she started her season two meets later than them. Her first meet of the season was at the Cedar Park Invitational meet, where she placed first.

“I had done the Cedar Park course every year, so I felt a little bit of pressure because I had won it every year and needed to keep the streak,” Conde De Frankenberg said. “I really like the course because there’s no sidewalk or track, just gravel, grass, and dirt. It’s a place I have trained every day for five years, and it just feels like home. It was an honor to be able to win.”

The team is currently training for the upcoming district meets and while they still have many more meets to come, championship season is approaching. The team lost a lot of their runners and is much smaller now, but new athletes are coming to fill their spots.

“In seventh grade, running was easier for me because I didn’t have a lot of expectations or pressures,” freshman Lyla Gamez said. “Now I have expectations for myself [and] it’s super easy to mentally be really hard on myself. I’m excited for this upcoming season, but as we close in on championship season, I’m nervous. After the first races I know what to expect.”