The crack of a gun breaks through the crisp, late-September air. Ninety-six girls with the same destination dart off toward the first hill. Five runners quickly break away from the group. However, Hannah Richardson slides comfortably into the top 15 of the now 91-member pack. She knows that to finish in the top 10 of the field, she will have to conserve her energy.

“Before a race, I have to keep telling myself, ‘It’s just like practice. It’s just like practice’ because I do fine in practice, and I just have to transfer that to the race,” Richardson, junior and girls’ cross country team member, said. “And I can’t start out too fast, because I’ll burn out too quickly.”

Richardson joined the cross country team her freshman year in order to condition for soccer in the spring. However, something unexpected happened.

“I just fell in love with it,” Richardson said. “I love to run, and I love the people I get to run with.”

At the 2,000-meter mark of the 5,000-meter race. Hannah, along with 15 other runners, has broken away from the rest of the pack. Hannah is twelfth until she glides down a hill, seemingly effortless, and passes a runner from St. Joseph to move into eleventh. Her face is a mixture of pure determination and pure disgust.

“The middle of the race is like death,” Richardson said. “It’s so tough. At the beginning, you have all this adrenaline to go from. But you feel so alone in the middle when sometimes there isn’t anyone yelling or screaming, and you somehow have to keep yourself going.”

Richardson’s highlight of her sophomore year on the team was going with the team to state and placing 35th. She also reached a personal milestone of her own.

“It felt amazing when I beat my personal goal of [a 20-minute 5k],” Richardson said.

Hannah bolts around a tree for the last 300 meters of the race. She has made her way to ninth now, but she is rapidly gaining on another girl. However, she loses some distance on a downhill stretch right before the final uphill. But when she reaches that hill, something happens. All of a sudden, she starts to run at a dead sprint. With 100 meters left, both Hannah and the runner ahead of her from Parkway West are using every last speck of energy, sprinting toward the final destination.

The athlete from Parkway West has no chance as Hannah charges past the finish line in eighth place.

“At the end, you absolutely have to give everything,” Richardson said. “Don’t leave anything on the course. I pretty much sprint for the last 300 meters. My legs feel like a combination of ;’jello and lettuce, but no matter how heavy they get, I have to keep going.”

This year, she won her first two races and placed third in the conference. Richardson’s goal is to keep progressing and break 19 minutes for a 5k race and win a medal at the state meet.

Richardson has a look of distaste on her face. She did not run below 20 minutes, which she usually breaks. However, she wins a medal for her eighth place finish.

“I was just mad I didn’t break 20 minutes. When I saw the clock say 20:00, and I was still 100 meters away, I was just angry. So I sprinted and passed the girl ahead of me.”