"all the girls were so nice and friendly and encouraging, we decided to stay"

So I had never been a runner, and I actually hated running in PE. But my freshman year one of my friends (we'll call her A) had a friend (we'll call her B) who convinced her to come out to xc. So A convinced me to go with her. A and I decided that we would just go one day to satisfy B and then we would quit. We went out one day, and we didn't even make it a half mile before we had to start walking. However, all the girls were so nice and friendly and encouraging that we decided to stay on the team despite how out of shape we were. I've now run xc and track for three years and I'll be starting my fourth year pretty soon. I've run one half marathon and I plan to run a few more this year. I'm so thankful that my friends convinced me to start running.

- @hutchsamantha ( Samantha Hutch )