After my 5k race last week, I decided to give cross country another shot. Over the summer I tried a few practice sessions with the San Diego Socal Roadrunners which is a local running club. It was fun but since I was also doing soccer at the time, I decided not to do it.

But now that soccer is coming to an end, I thought about it again and met with the coach to possibly join the team. I didn’t realize, however, that the cross country season is practically over. The coach said that the only races left were two qualifiers for the USATF National Junior Olympics. He was nice and invited me to come to practice anyway.

My first practice was on Tuesday, the same day as the NBC News taping at my school. It was a long day since I was up at 5am, ran 7 miles at school, and then had his practice at 5pm.

The practice was kind of hard for me. I had never done any sort of special warm-up or stretching before running and the team all seemed to know what they were doing. Also, the practice was a series of six 600 meter runs at race pace with very little rest in between. The coach told me to run with certain kids and I did my best. My cough was getting worse but I didn’t want to complain. After the workout, the coach asked me to come back and try to compete in the first national qualifier which is this weekend, on Sunday. I said “okay.”

So far, I don’t know anyone on the team. They have all been together since June and they all know each other. I’m sort of a stranger to them and nobody really talks to me, but it’s okay.

I’ve started taking antibiotics and doubling up on my green smoothies every day to get rid of my cough. I am looking forward to the race and hope to do well.