“Everyone’s improving a lot, and everyone is on track to hit the PRs [personal records] that they set for themselves if they haven’t hit it already,“ Sedona Red Rock High School cross-country team coach Cody McKesson said on Thursday, Sept. 26. “The first half of the season is all based on getting them in shape, so now we can actually start training, and it’s going to be exponential growth from here on out.” 

Runners on the cross-country team have seen obvious improvement but one individual who stands out is senior Nic McAtee. 

This is McAtee’s first year on the cross-country team and he ran the distance with a time in the 22- to 23- minute range, according to McKesson, which is very impressive for someone who has not run long distance before. 

The Arizona Interscholastic Association’s standard course distance is 5 kilometers, or 3.1 miles. McAtee said he is having a lot of fun participating in the cross-country program. “It’s been a blast,” McAtee said. “We have lots of fun just going on the meets. And there’s even during practices, you know, we just, we got to see some cool stuff, and we just have a lot of fun.” 

However, McAtee said while enjoying his time on the cross-country team is fun, he added that being competitive and achieving his personal running goals are equally, if not more, important. Midway through the season, McAtee’s personal record is in the 21-minute range, which he hopes to improve even more. 

“I always just want to improve myself,” McAtee said. “Obviously the person that I’m fighting is not the person next to me — it’s just me.” 

However it has not all been smooth sailing for McAtee, as he said he is dealing with some right calf pain due to his shoes lacking enough support. Although this was a small setback, he said he still hopes to qualify for state finals and keep working hard to improve his times. 

Another individual succeeding this year on the Scorpions’ cross-country program is junior Chokyi Carstens, who started the year with his first race in the low 20-minute range. 

Carstens has since cut his time down to 19 minutes and 30 seconds. “I run because I enjoy it. I tried other things, and just running was just my favorite” Carstens said. 

While an amazing achievement, Carstens said that his naturally competitive nature is not yet satisfied. By the end of the year he wishes to run a sub-18- minute race. By the end of his senior year, he would like to run a race in less than 17 minutes. In order to do this, he said he will train hard during practice and run outside of practice as well. 

“I don’t really have anything else to do,” Carstens said. “I have work on the weekends, school on the weekdays, and cross country afterwards. I don’t really have very many hobbies, so running is the only thing I do and have and my family, they were also a lot of runners, so they kind of got me into it, and they kind of motivate me.” 

Although this year has been extremely solid for Carstens, it hasn’t come without its challenges. He said that hills are his biggest and toughest difficulty. At the team’s last meet, Carstens was leading the pack for the majority of the race, but once he was faced with a hill, he began to drop and he went from first place to 19th. 

Things are still looking good for Carstens, as he is rapidly improving due to his work ethic. He is also on pace to qualify for state finals this year, which was another one of his major goals. 

Unlike McAtee and Carstens, junior Aubrie Doyle had a rough start to the season, running in the 24-minute range in her first race. However with her hard work, dedication and help from McKesson, Doyle bounced back and has since run a course in 22 minutes, 52 seconds, which was only two seconds off her previous state finals personal record. 

“I’m at a pretty good place because I’m only two seconds away from my state PR, and we’re only about halfway through the season, so there’s a lot of room for more improvement too,” Doyle said. 

Doyle said she is working hard in and out of practice to stay in shape and keep improving to qualify for state, which is her biggest goal. However another important objective Doyle set for herself is to excel academically — she has straight A’s and considers herself an academic weapon. 

Although her season has been good, Doyle said her biggest challenge has been battling the fierce heat of Sedona and the Phoenix area, where many of the team’s meets take place. Now that temperatures are getting cooler, Doyle said that she is more excited to run as she finds it much more enjoyable. 

“Set clear obtainable goals,” McKesson said when asked about his strategy as a coach “It has to be something that they can go for, because if they set too-high goals — it’s good to have those — but then you lose the love, the dedication, the drive to get there is too much. It has to be in the balance of pushing them and being obtainable at the same time.”