The WMS girls cross country team is preparing for the Meet of Champions at Merrill Park on June 3rd 2025 during practices outside WMS.
To practice, the girls run 1.5 miles around school. “One time around the block is an 800 lap, and our goal is to run that as fast as we can, take a 2-4 minute break, reset, and then run it again as fast as we can and stack those over the season to then decrease our mile and a half times,” said their coach, Mr. Olvesen.
Alexa Dachowicz, a 7th grade runner at WMS, explained that in order to be a better runner, students need to practice outside of school, “Practice. Running a mile and a half can be a lot if you haven’t ran before, so you need to practice a lot. Don’t just practice at school.“I go for walks a lot with my mom and sometimes I run with her too.”
Running can also help with other sports, It can condition athletes, “I would prefer it as well if some of our other athletes join cross country, because it helps prepare them for high school, so the hope is to attract more and more athletes that are basketball players, baseball players, or soccer players, to cross country, we can establish a stronger foundation for the team,” Mr. Olvesen explained.
Allison Zuber, another runner, swims. She said that cross country has given her leg strength as well as endurance for swimming.
For the upcoming Meet of Champions, Mr. Olvesen has a process to get the girl’s times as fast as possible. He compares WMS runners to runners from other schools with similar times. He then helps each runner improve enough to beat the runners from other schools who have similar times to them.
As the Meet of Champions approaches, runners on the team have many emotions going through their minds.
“I am feeling great and kind of nervous because I’m scared,” explained Hannah Amusa, a 7th grade runner.
With similar feelings to Amusa, Zuber said, “I’m scared! But I’m also really excited, because I feel like it’s going to be fun, because it’s fun with my friends.”
Mr. Olvesen explained his feelings about the Meet of Champions based on recent practices and past meets,“I think it’s going great. Two and two for the boys, one and three for the girls. We’re in a position right now to make a run at first place, we’ve got our times, across the board have been improving, I think we will be in a prime spot for next week.”
The WMS cross country team has been working very hard, good luck at the Meet of Champions!
