Congrats to the Powell High School girls’ cross country team, 3A state champions after knocking off the four-time reigning champs in Cody.

As someone who formerly covered the Cody girls and has seen the success of the program over the years, what the Panthers have done is even more astounding.

But for me personally, what is most astounding is we have a group of athletes at the high school (and at the middle school) who are willing to simply run long distances, virtually every day. For that, I am eternally in awe.

I was an athlete growing up, first mostly in soccer, then in lacrosse, two sports where running is a big part. So I ran, but boy did I hate it. I still remembered the dust-choked dirt roads we ran through in a small ag town in northern Colorado — now just another suburb of Fort Collins, itself almost a suburb of Denver — and the pain in my chest and in my legs. Luckily, as a stocky, short kid, no one expected me to lead the pack, but I at least worked hard to stay up with my pack, mostly my fellow defenseman.

Still, it hurt with each footfall. Gosh, did I despise running.

At least in the rest of practice or in games, I was running simply to hit an attacker trying to score a goal, or running to throw a ball to my offense before retreating back to my side of the field. In those circumstances, my mind gave me a purpose for the running, the determination to continue.

Now a parent of a middle school athlete, I appreciate more that mental side to sports. A few years ago, when my oldest son was still in elementary school, he thrived not at the sprints, but at the long distance runs. He did this despite lacking the long legs many of his peers had. Instead, he had his mind set on completing the run.

He wound up choosing to wrestle and not to run distances so far at least in middle school, but even know it’s his determination that impresses me most, the determination to go on the mat and compete even after being thrown to the ground.

I see in him the determination I lacked in running, as I see the determination that our Panthers have in running hard over more than 3 miles, of putting in the work before and throughout the season to knock off the reigning champs, the cross-county rivals, and carve a place in school history.