Being on a sports team is a once in a lifetime experience which is only really fully cherished by few, which in my personal experience I have been taking for granted recently.
I am part of cross country which for the ones who don’t get the gist of it, it is in a nutshell, people running long distances around various terrains which can get very rough at times (I am not the best messenger as for how rough but according to many cross country runners, terrains can be very rough), and points are given to runners depending on what place they are in (Top five runners from each school I believe), with the goal being to have the lowest score, but don’t let rough terrains and a weird scoring system be what keeps you away, in my personal experience,
I have truly loved cross country with all my being (Even if I feel near dead after a practice). What I believe makes cross country bearable for me, are my teammates (Or in Russian “Comrades”) who really lift me up if I’m down and teach me a lot, my running has seen improvement and my mile time is going down by a lot because of cross country (Three whole minutes from where I started). When doing cross country one of the things that really stuck to me is the fact that no matter how tired everyone gets they always keep going, which really makes me determined to keep going as well. In conclusion, my time in cross country has taught me so much and given me so much experiences to meet people I wouldn’t have otherwise met and to just have fun in general, if anyone reads this and decides to join (which is probably a long shot but who knows) make sure you ask for a bear hug, it’s very cool, trust!