Pike Lake was amazing!!

So today was Pike Lake with the cross country team. It was rather a gorgeous morning if I may say so myself. I was anxiously awaiting the journey out to Pike Lake so I got up early (6:45!!) and was ready by 7. so for the next 30 minutes I sat around reading the paper listening to the techno tunes. (hey techno rocks :) when I arrived at the school no one seemed to be there. I was thinking the entire team was going to miss Pike Lake; now no way on earth would that be cool. Pike Lake is a team building exercise, you can't go without the entire team. well with like 3 minutes to 8 there was a mad scramble of people showing up or walking out of the locker room (we put an N64 in there on top of our stolen TV and I'm assuming that is where the masses were located). It was quite funny actually, cause then mad dash for the bus so you can get a seat all by yourself. Then we sat there for 5 minutes waiting... waiting...waiting for those people who couldn't get themselves there on time *coughLaurenMoroder!!!!cough*. Finally everyone showed up and we headed out for Pike Lake. Ahh the bus was good times but no one cares about the bus anyways so back to the story at hand here. We arrive at Pike Lake to find a beautiful blue sky, lots of random seagulls awaiting us on the beach, the sun blinding any mortal who stared East, and Slingers Cross country team doing their 1 mile time trials. that was funny to witness, their girls team alone had more people then our entire team. It was hilarious when the entire gaggle of girls finished a warm up run and as a team walked into the ladies room. It looked like a never ending procession. And I'm willing to bet not even 1/2 of them had to use the bathroom, its just the "social" thing to do. Anywho, we warmed up, stretched, and then went off to the lovely map of Pike Lake park and there el coaches told us our routes for the day. And but of course I got stuck with Kriegel and Andy on the brown trail. There are 5 trails to run at Pike Lake. There is the red trail (.7 miles), the green trail (1.2miles), the orange trail (2.3 miles), the blue trail (3.8 miles) and the brown trail (4.2 miles). Now to anyone who hasn't been to Pike Lake before or who is a noob and doesn't know jack about running, this distance is incredibly short. This run is incredibly painful. :). The thing about Pike Lake is you go like this _-`-_-`-_. except its a bit more steep then that. and there is nothing but hill after hill after hill. the most depressing thing is that for every downhill you do there are 2 uuphills far worse right after that. And the downhills at Pike Lake are horrid, so steep that it seemed everyone was falling over from them. One hill is straight down for about 100 meters, then oh of course you have 2 50 meter hills connecting each other together immediatelly around the turn after that hill. but on the whole, it was an insanely fun run. I kept up with Andy and Kriegel the entire run, up until they added on the tiny red trail while Brogs took me into his group for the run to the tower. Which with his group turned into the walk, which I didn't walk because my time on the run was still going. So finally I arrive at the entrance to the path to the tower and stop and wait for literally every other member of our team, which takes a while but its a fun while since you get to see and encourage everyone up the last little hill and then congratulate them. then everyone returns and we do a new little thing we have never done before and walk down that hill and up to this little knoll and do 2 quick sprinting races up those hills back to where the tower thing is. I took 2nd in the first heat :( and I dominated the 2nd heat. Ahh damn you Ben Connard!!!! then we walked up the long and literally winding path to the tower, which produces the most gorgeous view this side of the Rockies. Oh my gosh it was to die for. you could see hundreds of miles, and the lake was so vibrantly blue, and everywhere you looked there were trees... it was spectacular (aww lauren its okay to be afraid). Then we had the option of walking back the 1.1 miles to our campsite or jogging it back. Guess what I did :). why I shagged back with Lucas pfaff. Once back the stretching and eating commenced, followed by the darn sun hiding behind clouds while we all donned swimming suits and ran into freezing cold water which just so happened to have pile on top of pile of rocks littering the bottom. It was the best when brogs and kriegs came out and brought the water footbal and threw it up in the hopes that people would dive to get it and hence go under freezing water. That was hilarious!!! People would get hit in the face, and then miss the ball. Or someone (ha hillary) would get the ball and then get dunked. It was a blast!!!! WHEEEEE!!! Finally to conclude my day at Pike Lake, we took a real football went up on the grassy part of the beach and commenced playing tag football. Andy, aman, Wiz and I were on a team against Kriegs, brad, Giese, and Dani fisher. The teams were a bit unfairly stacked since only Kriegs and brad were any good so we switched it up. I went to Kriegs team and they got Dani. Ha we pwned :). everyone else at this time however was being social butterflies and talking amongst their groups. Ahh you non-fun hippies!! football was where it was at. Brogs was our announcer, he was our "John Madden". so then we packed it up after that and headed back to Grafton where I am writing this joyous post to you. so all in all it was a blast!!! I can't wait to go back to not too soon because this season must go slowly so I can enjoy every minute with my teammates (aka my family), my friends, and my hero..Andy. Well I'm very sorry for how long this post was but I wanted to make sure that those of you who were not there, didn't feel like I left you clueless. Although you are clueless for not joining cross country to begin with :)

freffrey :>