Indoor Track has started, but on Tuesday, December 15th, the cross country team held a party at J & P’s celebrating their season. The cross country team makes up most of the distance side of the track team. As the team ate up, the coaches awarded the players with post season awards.

Coach Anderson has started a tradition in which he gives all of the veteran seniors a watch. Coach Ryun has also started a tradition in which he gives the captains a pair of Maryland themed running shorts. The runners also pitched in money to get gifts for both Coach Dillard and Coach Anderson. This event brings the distance team together, improves the team’s chemistry, and creates a family atmosphere among the group.

The distance portion of the track team is the smallest, number wise, nineteen, to be exact. When many people join track, most want to be sprinters. Almost none want to be distance runners. I don’t know if this is because they are just too lazy to run more than a mile, or they believe that they are a better short distance runner. Whatever the case, most distance runners are just people willing to get the job done. This is shown among the distance runners because whenever a problem occurs, everyone jokes, “[w]e all know it’s not the distance squad.”

The captains of the distance team are seniors Beth Taye and Shane McGovern. Every day, afterschool, from 3:00-5:30, these seniors are out leading the distance team. There isn’t a day that goes by in which either of these two are slacking. They really live out the motto: You practice like you play. Their hard work influences others to work harder too.

The distance team always stays together. On easy runs, people are cracking jokes, having fun, and messing around. Even outside of school, the distance team stays together. They spend so much time with each other that they really get to know each other. The distance team is like a family.

Coach Anderson and Coach Ryun make up the coaches for the distance team. They create the workouts that the distance runners do on hard days. An example of a workout would include running 1000 meters six times. This is one of the most frequent workouts that the distance team does. These workouts must be working, because Taye was voted to an All-Met post cross country team.

Coach Ryun ran at Paint Branch from the school year 2011-2012 to the year 2014-2015. He was on the 4×8 team last year that has the Paint Branch record, and he holds the school’s two mile record. When asked why he came back to Paint Branch as a coach, he replied, “I love seeing people reach their fullest potential. Plus, I like to come back and see the program I was part of continue to develop.”

Comparing this year’s team to last years, he stated, “[The team’s] definitely deeper than last year. We’ve got some younger runners with potential. Also, our girls team is a lot better, and we have one of the best girls distance runner in Maryland to lead them.”

When asked what event will be a key factor to the team’s success, he stated, “The 4×8 on the boys side. We don’t have enough individual talent to score high in many individual events, but we could steal some points in a relay. The 3200 will be huge on the girl’s side; we’ll also be aiming for Nationals in the 4×8 and Distance Medley Relay.”

Senior runner Yoseph Gebru also has a positive attitude on the Paint Branch distance squad. He states that the reason he decided to stick with track was that, “[he] really loved the people that did track.” This is another example of the positive chemistry among the runners. Gebru stated that track has made his high school experience more enjoyable, because it “helped mold [his] personality into being funny and cheerful.” This year, Gebru hopes to run sub 4:50 in the mile and sub 2:10 in the 800 meter run. We will have to see how the indoor season plays out for him and the other runners.

The distance team is all about balancing their mentality with their physical abilities and emotions. The equal balance among all three of these factors will lead to great success. Every day at practice, the distance teams works on their physical abilities. At home, they work on their mentality by planning out their race. Finally, right before the race, the team gets pumped emotionally for their race. When race day comes, there’s no messing around with the distance team.