in Practice by coach mike on 19 Aug 2007

We, the cross country teams, just got back from our 2 nights and almost 2 days of running and fun.This has been an annual trip for Wildcats cross country for probably 20 plus years now. Started by the prior coach as a camping trip at the end of summers practices, it involved into staying at a church lodge in Southern Illinois. The lodge is located on Little Grassy Lake, hence the name the name Little Grassy. We stay in nice building with separate rooms at each end, with a big meeting place in the middle. There is also a eating area cross from the lodge, that we don’t eat at anymore. We have now started to go at the end of the first week of official practice, due to scheduling conflicts and a change in the IHSA rules. We left Friday at 3 pm and got down there around 4:30, got moved in, and headed out for our first run. The weather was ok, not too hot. Makanda run is our first little run. we run thru the small town of Makanda. This is part of the Giant City Park. The park is full of timber, creek beds, boulders and cliffs. The first run is a loop of about 4 1/2 miles of roads with one BIG hill that we run down hill into the town of Makanda. the loop is very hilly and very hot with very little shade. The top boys ran the loop then turned around to run back to Makanda, making the run almost 7.5 miles. The girls and the younger boys ran the 4.5 mile loop. As I mentioned the run is all road, we start by a park adm. building, running north down the curving road. We past a old historic church, almost straight down the hill into Makanda. Now Makanda has two or three old stores, a post office, and i don’t know what else. i think Illinois’ famous US Senator Paul Simon was from there, seems to me maybe he was. the stores are old wooden buildings, mostly full of antiques and knick nacks. Out front of one is a picnic table with what looks like car parts. the runners then hang a left and head west along the road that winds a long the edge of the park. at about the 3 mile mark, the loop heads south into the park. the trick is to make all lefts, if you don’t you could end up, well lets just say a group of boys did that once and was found about 2 hours later almost to Cobden, Il. or somewhere several miles down the road. after two lefts we finish back at the start. so thats the first days run, the same one the Wildcats have done for years. Ask any Salem Wildcat cross country runner, and they will know the Makanda run. Next how did the run go? Who did what?

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