XC-Day 4

Today's precribed workout: 2 victories, 1 quad, 1 lap in the Smelly Woods. The entire team was running together at a decent clip for the first victory, but people started dropping like flies when we started the 2nd. Some of them actually stopped to take a break. I noticed recently that there is a group of girls who don't finish the workouts. They don't even try, it seems. They just.. stop. On my first day, there were a couple of girls my grade who I recognized as being some of my fellow Athletic Failures. When I saw that they were joining XC, I was surprised to say the least. In the words of one, "well, I'm not that good at running, so I want to start getting better." I fought the urge to say, "Now is not the time to start getting better. That time was 2 months ago." Some people don't seem to understand that XC is not something that you can take lightly. You're on the team, or you're not. You can't kind of be on the team. It's not like one day you can't even finish a mile and the next day you just decide, "Oh, I think I'll just run this 3 mile race. Shouldn't be much of a problem." Note, this is NOT that kind of sport. That sport is called football.
Needless to say, they've already quit.
To prove my point, we were ready to die by the end of today's workout. I was keeping up with the fastest group until about 200 meters into the 2nd victory. Then I decided to run with the 2nd fastest group, which was still pretty fast. They were very nice, though. They didn't mind my running with them, though they were an intimate group of 2. One is a 3000 runner usually. The other is a violinist. I don't know how the latter decided to join XC.
After a while, we became the 3rd fastest group, because the 1st fastest group split into 2 groups: those who are just naturally fast, and those who are harder workers holding on for dear life. Meanwhile, coach walked in the opposite direction to cheer us on. At least he wasn't running with us today. He runs too fast. (Think: sub-5 minute miles.)
I felt mildly nauseus by the end of the workout, but at least accomplished. Coach again seemed surprised to see me not at the back. At one point I was running directly behind Ms. 3000 and Ms. Violinist because there wasn't enough room on the sidewalk to be next to them. This was the point at which we passed our Coach. He yelled, "Come on, keep up! You can do it!" I couldn't tell whether he was telling us as a group to keep up with the group ahead of us, or if he was talking to me and saying, "Stay with that group!" I suspect the latter.