Chapter 24

If I had to pick a way to sum up things for me lately I’d say I was at a high point. The cross country season was moving along nicely. I was placing as a varisty runner each race, ranging anywhere from fourth to as low as sixth from our team. But since the top seven were varsity that had me set to be on the varsity squad for when we ran in the regional and state meet. As a team we could all qualify if we were able to place second or higher at the regional meet. Each of the previous sesons that’s where we had been. We had hope on improving that this year though, we all wanted to get over the hump and win region, especially those of us who would be graduating and finishing our running “careers”.

The other part that was going well was my time with Julie. We seemed compatible not only person to person but also in enjoying what we were doing sexually as well. Over the six weeks that we had been dating we still hadn’t gone beyond oral and anal, but I for one wasn’t going to complain about that. I just had to make sure I was staying stocked up on baby oil or KY jelly (that, and make sure that neither my parents nor hers knew about it, of course). The only drawback was that as teenagers who lived at home it wasn’t always easy to find adequate alone time, but that was to be expected.

This year’s race at the Layton park didn’t have the rain as it had the previous year. Nor was I running in the junior varsity race. This year it was varsity all the way. So for us we had to wait for the junior varisty both boys and girls, then the varsity girls, and finally our race was the last of the day. Given that amount of time I took ample time stretching in addition to helping lead the team varsity and junior varsity stretches as one of the captains. With the number of runners it was held as a Saturday race, allowing for a total of four races to be run that way.

The race itself kicked off well. Each time sectioned off a portion of the starting line with there three fast starters lined up in a row making for fifteen people across with each school. As I’ve mentioned previous, I’m usually the type of runner to get off to a quick start and then settle into pace, with roughly eighty percent of my race being the same pace and the first ten and last ten percent being faster. In my case my start put me in the top twenty-five or so runners and gave some room to maneuver. Looking around I could also see that as a team we looked to be off to a good start as well. Our two best runners were up further in the lead pack with another two between them and myself. They weren’t positions that would necessarily guarantee us winning the race, but put us in contention early at the least. As the fifth runner I would be the last of us scoring points.

Since I had time prior to our race I had scouted the route so knew the hill that had been problematic last year with mud was fine this year. So unfortunately I couldn’t plan on gaining ground over people who didn’t plan ahead there. But with this being a race with every school in the county I felt motivated to help get our team the points to win. Anytime we could beat Viewmont we wanted the bragging rights for it as they were our big rivalry school in the region and district. With that in mind I scanned those ahead and only saw four of the Viewmont jerseys in front of me. Picking the closest I started using that target to “reel him in” as I liked to try doing. I would picture their back with a hook on it and me reeling them back to me so I could pass them.

It also helped I was feeling good that day. Energy and stamina felt like I had more to give so once I had passed him I used my hook visual and went after more. Coming down the last portion the closest runner in front was another of our guys, so while it wouldn’t affect our scoring I still went after him for myself. While doing so I took a few looks behind to make sure we didn’t have anyone else pushing to beat us in the last rush.

We ended up having to wait another fifteen minutes for the scores to officially be tabulated (a couple of the schools weren’t very good, so to be official we still had to wait for their fifth runner to finish). As it would turn out I had finished fifteenth overall and we had enough people placed high enough to once again win the county race. Coach brough us together at the end to talk about it. We all already knew, but he still made a point of saying it was a barometer of how we could do for regional finals. Each of the teams that should threaten were the top three teams in the county, with a couple more that were in our region from the Salt Lake City area with Highland, Skyline, and Cottonwood the three furthest south.

Once coach was finished with us it was predictably time for family and personal friends to get their say in. My grandparents and both parents able to make this race since it was after school and just a five minute drive for my grandparents and only fifteen or so for my parents.

As we were starting to get herded back up to head to the bus I was approached by Julie and given a quick hug and kiss. “Just a peck, you need to go take a shower. But once you’re done lets go get dinner. I think you need a reward date for running so well today.”

I gave her a smile and a quick kiss back before gathering up my bag. “Sounds good to me. I’ll probably need about an hour between getting back on the bus and then getting cleaned up. I’ll see you soon, though.”