WC Cross Country travels to Pennsylvania

The Quakers traveled to Pennsylvania on Thursday, September 24th.  The trip to Gettysburg was interesting to say the least-highlighted by the Pennsylvania Turnpike being closed when we got to it and a charter bus that had a faulty oil pressure gauge which made some alarm on the bus go off every time we went up a hill.  There are alot of hills in Pennsylvania!  After touring the countryside of Pennsylvania on Thursday evening we finally arrived at the hotel about 1:30am and the team tried to get some rest.  Friday morning the plan was to have practice(run) in the Gettysburg National Military Park at 10am.  We moved practice back to 11am to get some more sleep, the problem with this plan was that it was not raining at 10am, but it was pouring at 11am.  This run is one of my favorites-we start near the sight of Pickett's Charge and run down by the Pennsylvania monument and head up to Little Round Top-then we head to the Wheatfield-the Peach Orchard and loop back around for about 5 miles.  I decided to run with assistant coach Kyle Wolf back to the hotel from the park.  I had never seen that much water in a downtown area in my life-at times we were running through water that was more than a foot deep!  Sirens began to blare as we returned to the hotel, which I initially thought were Tornado Sirens, but they were for flash floods. The rain eventually subsided with no further problems for the team. The team cleaned up and grabbed a quick lunch before heading over to the Visitors Center at the National Military Park where we got to see the film "Birth of Freedom", the Cyclorama(the biggest painting in the U.S. that depicts Pickett's Charge-its the size of  football field), and toured the museum.  I think the team leaned alot about the Battle of Gettysburg and enjoyed the day!  On Saturday, we made the short drive to Dickinson College for the Long Course/Short Course Invitational which was being held on a new course this year at Big Spring High School in Newville, PA.  I was under the impression that the new course would be easier than the old course, but I was wrong!  The course turned out to be very challenging with a nasty combination of hills and lots of mud, due to the amount of rain that the area had received in previous days.  Both teams stepped up to the challenge in all four of the races that we ran in.  In the combined Men's score we finished 7th and the Women finished 5th against some of the best teams in the Mideast Region.  On the day we had two top 10 finishes with Annie Cekada finishing 9th in the 6k race and  Pat Carroll breaking the 4k school record for cross country with a 10th place finish.  We also receice top 20 finishes from Jenna Parlette(6k), Myles Corcoran(6k), and Tricia Steffan(4k).  On Monday, Pat Carroll was recognized by the Ohio Athletic Conference as the Cross Country Athlete of the week for his performance at Dickinson.  Now the team turns its attention to the All-Ohio Championship this Friday at Cedarville University.  I am very excited to see where both teams fit in the state and the OAC!  Stay tuned!