During the winter months, Rugby and Football are certainly the two sports which our boys participate in with the greatest numbers. In fact, there may be some in our community who don’t know a great deal about our third winter GPS sport that runs during this time of the year. In Year 7 we have two boys who represent us in the official GPS Cross Country competition. Each week they head off to different venues around Sydney to compete in a gruelling race with up to 200 other competitors – just in their age group.

Jack Ridal (Mosman) and Rory McHugh (Pennant Hills) represent us in the Junior Division of Cross Country and always do so giving their best effort. Below is a short report written by Jack after his race on Saturday.

In Cross Country we have two days of training a week. Training consists of either hopping on the bus and driving to a track or just running to a random location about 5 kilometers away then running back again.

We’re ranked in age rather than ability in Cross Country and Rory and I run with the Year 8 boys. This makes it a little annoying this season because when we run, the top 50 is usually filled with older boys. But this also means there’s no chance of getting dropped! I guess next season we’ll be at a bit of an advantage.

On Saturday, the bus leaves around 8:30am so we have enough time to walk the course and warm up. The course that we run is usually around two and a half kilometres so by the time we walk it and then run it we do about five kilometres.

I can’t really describe what I feel when I’m running, you don’t really feel the burning muscles or how hot or cold it is. You just run, every thing else just disappears, its sorta weird. Any way theres always mars bars, choc chip muffins and water bottles at the end so I guess its all worth it.

Thanks to Jack for giving us a little insight into how the Cross Country sport works and we certainly wish them luck in the coming few weeks of competition ahead.

Photo 1: Jack Ridal (Mosman)

Photo 2: Rory McHugh (Pennant Hills)