First XC race

I'll start off by telling you about the dinner I had last night with my "adopted" parents, as they like to be called. Their names are Al and Miriam Washington, and they have a little dog named Brin. They are a really cool couple, and they design water fountains for yards...they have a beautiful back yard! The four other students (sophomores) that they adopted picked me up last night. Miriam made homemade sloppy jos and some wonderful pies. I usually don't like sloppy jos, but these were good! We basically just talked the whole time and went for a little walk in between dinner and desert. They also gave us each a little box with cupcakes, cookies, and a $20 gift certificate to a coffee shop close to campus! I was amazed by their generosity! I'm really excited to get to know them better. They already treat me like family. It was nice to be in a home rather than having dinner at the dining hall (the "Bon").

This morning I had my first college level cross country meet! Girls run a 6K (3.7 miles), and the guys run an 8K (about 5 miles). I didn't really have any expectations going into it for how fast I should run, so I just did my best. Another girl on my team, Kelsey, has never run cross country before, and we're about the same speed, so we ran together. It was nice to have someone to be encouraged by and to encourage the whole time. Our team got last place because one of the top five on our team ended up dropping out...therefore, I scored for our team (only the first five from the team score), giving us lots of points (points are BAD in cross country). I was in the back, but not last place, which was all I really cared about! My time was about 29:28. I want to beat 28:00 by the end of the season, which I think I'll be able to do. These pictures are of me and Kelsey. We were so excited to finish. Oh yeah, I also got to run against Lauren, so that was really cool to see her! I didn't realize we were doing the same race! And I'm really happy I don't have to wear spandex shorts or a belly shirt...we had the option for spandex, but I took shorts :-)