Cross-country girls: positive team culture leads to wins and joy

The girls’ cross country team is one of ARHS’s strongest teams, and a positive team culture is a key reason for its success. The girls are currently undefeated, and senior Lilly Pope says they have a shot at winning States this year, which wouldn’t be a first. The entire team is “strong together,” and many members have continued to run in college or plan to in the future.

The group is coached by Ron Jacobs-Townsley, Art teacher Elena Betke-Brunswick, and Vivian Jacobs-Townsley, a recent ARHS grad who ran during her time here. 

The team does not have captains, but instead is governed by a leadership committee. “Seniors do most of the captain things,” said Pope. “The leadership committee meets once a week and talks about team decisions and discusses the team culture and how it’s going. It’s basically just a chat.”

Her team members include Claire Kennedy, Caroline Carolla, Sylvie Walker, and Nina Holden. Nobody is cut from the team, and if you come to every practice, including the Friday workouts, you are on varsity; however, the people who race for varsity are the top ten, ranked by time and placement.

Practice is here at the high school, starting at 4 p.m. On Mondays, they do “easy runs,” and start with a circle to talk. Tuesdays are either a meet or a workout, Wednesday is a medium-to-long run, and Thursday is a medium run. Friday is a workout or a pre-race day, and they have weekends off, with the option to do a long run on Sunday and take Monday off.

There isn’t a set distance for each run; it depends on the athlete. “New runners have like three miles as their max distance for a run. Normal runners would have five to six, and older runners may do up to ten,” said Pope.

One of the things that makes such a healthy environment is the culture of “inclusivity and high performance.” This means that they don’t focus on times and numbers, but more on improvement. It helps the team, and it creates a positive space to be in after school, and people really enjoy being there.

Some of the team’s biggest meets are Western Mass., Divisionals, and States. “For league meets, Northampton is usually pretty important. Longmeadow, we usually work really hard at it, and all of the invitationals are pretty big. There’s one on Martha’s Vineyard, Baystate, and AI,” said Pope. One run that everyone gets excited about is Twilight, where they run at night.

On the way to these meets, a lot of the team bonding happens because everyone talks on the bus. Some other times that they bond outside of practice are during pasta dinners and during the warm-up runs. They even change the warm-up groups regularly so everyone ends up running with every single person on the team, getting to know everyone.