Chad Trains with the College View Middle School Cross Country Team [Video]

And I lived to tell about it!  Lol!  My nephew Jacob is a cross country standout at College View Middle School.  And, last week, I decided to go to Yellow Creek Park and train with his team.  Now, here's the deal.  I run every single day.  But not like this.  This kids put me through the ringer.  After a two-mile "warm-up," we ran a series of 400M sprints.  And I was quickly gasping for air and warding off the angels.  Here's how practice unfolded.

After my brief introduction and a two-mile run which had me sweating like a farm animal with a fever, it was time for warm-ups and stretches.  Take a look at this.

I did it.  I felt like a reindeer on crack, but I jogged along, as instructed, lifting my knees as high as possible as I galloped along the meadow.  Then . . . then . . . we stretched.  Finally!!

After our two-mile warm-up lap, our Kentucky Derby pre-race trots, and our stretches, it was time for the 400M sprints.  400 meters.  A quarter of a mile.  8 times.  As fast as we could.

I'm not going to lie.  I ran cross country when I was in middle school and the one thing I absolutely despised was the 400M sprint.  It didn't take long for those painful memories to coming flooding back as I galloped across the hillside at Yellow Creek Park.  But the one motivation was the fact that these kids were talking way too much smack to me.  So, just when they though the old guy was down for the count and he was going to collapse and go to heaven, he kicked into turbo and left some middle-schoolers in his wake!

At last!  I finished.  I was the 4th fastest middle schooler!!  Then the coach said the dreaded words, "Two minute rest, then we're going again!"  What?  Seriously?  I just got hooked up to the oxygen tank.  I just started my I.V.  I have to do this again??

But I DID do it again . . . and again . . . and again.  By the end of the day, we had completed eight 400 meter sprints.  Two miles of sprints.  And I did it without being driven out of East Daviess County in an ambulance or being whisked away to the afterlife by deceased relatives who were trying to wave me home.

As for the kids, their training paid off.  They returned to Yellow Creek Park on Saturday for the FastCats meet.  The girls finished 2nd as a team.

The boys?  Well, they finished 2nd as a team as well.

And my nephew, Jacob?  He finished 3rd overall and was proudly carrying around the rather bizarre looking team trophy.

Is that trophy not the strangest thing you have ever seen?  Did it get spray-tanned before its big day at Yellow Creek?

At any rate, congratulations to the College View Middle School cross country team.  I can tell you, from first hand/foot experience, these kids train hard.  They really are incredible young athletes who lay it all on the line from race to race.

I have been invited back to train with them again this week.  I am currently weighing my options.  Am I up for running another series of 400M sprints?  Or would it be easier just to give someone the keys to my truck and have them run over me with Rhonda with Ram?