Cross Country team keeps pace with season; Charm City Run keeps athletes moving forward

KIMBERLY EDGAR, Reporter

     “In an attempt to keep our runners running, Charm City Run of Bel Air offered Harford County high school students an opportunity to get together in a socially distant way to keep training,” says Laura O’Leary, cross country coach.

Charm City Run is a Running & Walking Specialty company that offered a Cross Country Race Series as well as other races that the participants could sign up for. According to O’Leary, the cross-country team met up on Mondays and Wednesdays at the Harford County Farm Fair grounds and ran workouts and met Saturdays for long runs. They were given an individual training program to follow on the days they were not meeting.

There were 83 kids signed up from schools all over the county except Fallston because they had their own program. O’Leary also mentioned that “Kids were put into groups based on their mile times and coaches alternated coaching different groups! It was fun.”

During practices students would warmup all together, then break into their groups and do drills. The workout portion comes after which included activities like hill repeats and speed change challenges. Towards the end of practice, they would participate in a 10-minute cooldown, according to Erin O’Leary, a senior.

There were coaches from all over Harford County that were very supportive and encouraging. Senior Laurel Brown said. “They divided everyone into groups based on speed so you could run with people the same pace as you.” Students were able to challenge themselves to gain skill, and to meet new friends.

“My group was B which was a little daunting at first because it was all boys besides two girls. But all the guys were really friendly and inclusive. It was great running with them. I’m really happy with the progress I made,” states Brown.

O’Leary says she loved the Charm City run group. “I was always really motivated during practices because there were so many people around me who were also motivated and excited to be there,” says the coach.

The groups that were divided seem to bring students together from all over Harford County. O’Leary states that she met a lot of people from C Milton and Patterson Mill. “We all ran together most of the time and really supported each other and cheered each other on.”

The amount of support and encouragement led to many improvements for many of the participants. Brown mentioned that she just did “a 1600-meter time trial Tuesday and got a PR of 5:20.” O’Leary also went from running 4 miles during long runs to 6 miles.

Even though it was challenging, O’Leary says that anytime they had the choice between doing 4 and 6 or a low and high number of sets, they always did more because they all collectively decided that it would be better in the long run.