So school just started for me last Monday, and it's going okay, I guess. All my teachers are pretty chill and I like them, except for my Biology teacher. She annoys me so much, and sometimes I just feel like punching her in the face. I don't know why, maybe it's just her voice. Or her face. Or something.

Every day after school I have Cross Country practice, which is definitely my favorite part of the day! Practice runs from 1:45 - 4:00 PM, and we usually run anywhere from 3 to 5 miles a day! I like it a lot though, even though it's usually 109 freaking degrees outside. The team is like my second family, and they're definitely some of the most hilarious people I have ever met.

This last Saturday was the first race of the season! We had to meet at the course at 7:00, then walk half of it so that we knew where to go. Then for our warm up, we ran half of it, then did Agilities on the Start/Finish line. My age group of girls got to run the first race, which started at 8:00. Besides me, there were only three other girls from my team running in the 8:00 set! Anyways, so the race started off with me in the very back, but I passed two girls near the beginning, and they fell behind pretty far. The course was 2.8 miles, and it circled around the high school and the college campus twice.

There was this one hill that we had to run on each loop near the end called "Heartbreak Hill" which was basically a straight up-and-down slope with a huge heart painted in the center of it, and we had to run up the middle of it. There were also a bunch of random haybales on the course that we had to jump over. If you didn't want to jump over, you could run to the side of them, but you got a short penalty if you did, so I just jumped over them. It wasn't too bad.

I came in 87th place out of 89 girls, which is really bad, but I had to start somewhere, right? My time ended up being about 33:56 minutes, so I know I can get a lot better. We have another competition this Tuesday, but it's at my school, so it's not as stressful! Wish me luck :)

- Mariya