Even though Michael Rowe didn’t burst through all of the competition at the state cross country meet in Fort Dodge on October 28, he won something out of his experience at Fort Dodge. “It was a humbling experience to see all of the great competition,” he said. During the state meet, Michael placed 100th out of the 121 runners who participated, with a time of 17:28. As a talented runner only in his junior year here at Mason City, he is hoping to receive a scholarship for cross country, and is hoping for an offer from either Wisconsin or Minnesota. Michael is hoping to study to become an orthopedic surgeon.
One of Mason City’s most beloved seniors, Homecoming King Derek Johnson, also is hoping to pursue a college degree. As Derek said, “I plan to go to North Park University in Chicago and study to hopefully become either famous or a Youth Pastor… possibly both.” Derek has been a part of the Cross Country team since freshman year, and started because of his older brother, Tommy Johnson. Tommy told Derek that it was a fun experience, and after Derek tried it out, he fully agreed with him! One of Derek’s favorite cross country memories was their annual midnight practice, “One memory that I really like is on the first day of practice we have a midnight and meet, warm up, and run… or so I thought. Apparently it began at 11:30 instead of 12:00 so my brother David and I showed up 30 minutes late and everyone was already on the run. So David and I sprinted a 3 mile run so fast in order to catch up. It was exhausting but fun!” This is one of the things he’s going to miss after high school. When asked about how he feels about finishing his last year of cross country, he explained that he is going to miss going to practice and spending time with some amazing teammates.
As for the girls cross country team, our freshman Kylie Hansen had good things to say this season. “This season had a very young and promising team. Our team has the potential to have great success in these oncoming years. In this year’s team races, our team showed a lot of perseverance and our team really supported each other which I believe lead to many of our wins. My highlight of the season was going to cross country camp in the summer. It was a good experience getting to know the members of the team better.”
Overall, this year’s cross country season is definitely one that will is going to be running through their heads for a while.