Once a year, the quiet trails around school erupt with energy, competition, and school spirit as runners take their mark for Ekiden. This is a unique, annual cross-country festival, blending tradition with friendly rivalry. The event puts high schoolers against middle schoolers in a spirited relay-style race that is as much about camaraderie as it is about speed. Junior and long time cross country runner Cora Fannin looks forward to the fun and festive event.
“Cross country is really peaceful for me at times. It’s so nice because you can only focus on running and nothing else that you might be worried about. It’s also really satisfying to get done with the run and feel accomplished. Ekiden is something we all look forward to; it’s a nice break from regular practice, and it’s fun. Also, everyone always enjoys the costumes,” Fannin said.
Carefully thought out teams, including two middle school students and two high school students, join together as a team to think of creative out-of-the-box costume themes and skilled running strategies. Each team competes against ten other teams on the Coyote trail to hopefully take home a top spot for the fastest team or win the best costume award.
“My team chose the theme Toy Story. We thought it was a good idea, being that we have two guys and two girls. We put our high schoolers first and last, and our middle schoolers second and third, so that our more experienced runners are competing in a more challenging area,” Fannin said.
Ekiden is a fun way to let loose from practice and the stress of training for a race. Senior Zach Kimani embraces the challenges of running and enjoys the friendship aspect of the event.
“I’ve been doing cross country since my freshman year. One thing I love about cross country is that I like pushing myself hard, and I also like the team aspect, having a group of friends that you can run with every day. What I most enjoy about Ekiden is that it’s an opportunity to do something fun, usually races are more serious, and we are all getting ready for competitions. But with Ekiden, you can really just have fun, and seeing everyone’s costumes is always interesting. We’re going to open and close with the fastest runners, so hopefully the 1st runner can start us off strong, and then the last runner should be the fastest, and they can catch people at the end,” Kimani said.
Each team has different strategies along with many crazy costume ideas, but in the end Ekiden is meant to be a fun easy relay uniting younger and older students together that hopefully many runners will look forward to in years to come. Freshman Wes Knight enjoys the competitive aspect of running and doing it with his peers.
“I enjoy cross country because it’s a very competitive sport and it’s not as easy a sport as some might think. I also think it’s really cool how, as a team, we all have the same goal, and we were able to have fun and let loose with Ekiden,” Knight said.