Brit & I have decided to blog for IR our final cross season of high school. We also blog for a website called PrepGold, so the blogs on both websites will be very similar or the same. We aren’t really big fans of posting all of our training online, but we’ll share a typical week of xc training. We focus more on the other aspects of running besides the physical part. For a little bio on us, we are the “Neeley twins” who go to Eastern (Greentown), a 2A school about 10 miles east of Kokomo. We have both been fortunate enough to medal at state in track four times (Brit- 8th in 400, 5th in 400, 8th in 4×4, 3rd in 800) (Beth- 3rd in 800, 2nd in 800, 8th in 4×4, 1st in 1600) and led our xc team to its first state finals in school history last season. A little bio on Eastern, we’ve only won two state championships in school history (Softball in ’03 & ’05) and I was the first girl to win an individual state championship this spring. Living in a small town and going to a school with an enrollment of 460 definitely has its ups and downs, but I wouldn’t trade this small school experience for anything. I mean yeah it would be amazing to go to Carmel or a big competitive school, but the memories and history that have been made during my cross seasons here are far greater than I would experience anywhere else. This year we have a new PR of 13 girls on the team, including a foreign exchange student from Denmark and another one from Russia! For a little recap on our team, Brittany, Sarah, and I came in freshman year and made an instant impact on the team. Sarah is our third runner, co-captain of EXC, and could easily be the #1 runner at most schools in the state. We came into a team that couldn’t even field a complete team at Sectionals the year before. Fast forward three seasons ahead and we’ve won three sectional championships, three conference championships, one regional runner-up by one point, one regional championship, qualified for three semi-state appearances, and qualified for one state final (All firsts in school history). The best thing about it all is there’s still one season remaining. Our coach told us freshman year what he thought the team could accomplish our senior year and it’s finally here, and believe it or not, the goal is definitely reachable.

-Bethany