Gravel crunches under her shoes as junior Catalina Husseman crosses the finish line at her race. The Girls’ Cross Country team captain has been running cross country for three years, since her freshman year, and says her inspiration is fueled by trying to improve and mentally and physically pushing herself.

Husseman also plays soccer and trains track during the off-season. She says the biggest accomplishment she’s most proud of is being on varsity since 9th grade. She also recently hit a new personal record of 19:15 running a 5k

“I love all the girls and the team environment and just how you have to push yourself mentally and physically, my team has always been very supportive,” Husseman said.

According to Paige Kirschbaum, Husseman has always been great at leading and influencing the younger members of the group to reach their full potential.     

” My motivation is my love for doing the sport and my teammates. I like seeing our team get better and looking back and seeing how much I’ve improved, Catalina has helped motivate me,” freshman teammate Kirschbaum said. She has played soccer for 10 years and does cross country as a hobby to stay in shape during the off-season. 

Kirschbaum loves the feeling the sport gives her, “Running is definitely hard, and it pushes you to your limits, but it’s also a good challenge. When I’m running I just try to stay strong mentally and in the end, it feels good to do better than I thought I could.”

Coach Harris says he coaches because cross country is his passion, and he loves that every team member has to do the same thing to improve the team as a whole,

“It’s my favorite sport. I ran it at every level, including in Team USA in the Junior World Cross Country Championships,” Harris said. Last week, at the Southern California Invitational, the team did great, especially the freshman girls. The winners were Ava Delaney and Madi Li for girls’ cross country, together, as a team, they got second place. Overall in meets, members of the team say that they are excelling.  

The usual practice involves workouts twice a week, two recovery runs, and a pre-meet, every Friday before the race. This helps runners slowly improve their skills while also keeping them healthy and not pushing their limits too much. The season starts in August and ends in the middle of November, they also host summer runs every week.