When a message in the inbox of my email alerted me that Nathan had posted his pre-race motivational speech (H.E.A.R.T.), I quickly hearkened to read it with great joy and anticipation. (As I'm sure all of you did as well). As I read, I couldn't help but feel motivation and desire welling up inside me, even though I wasn't the one doing the racing tomorrow. I'm excited for you guys, I'm motivated for you guys, and I can't wait to follow your running careers as you reach for the stars and follow your dreams.
I'm Ben Getz, the fourth and final creator to post on this cite. Many of you know me and many of you probably don't. I'm Dan's older brother (who I hope all of you know, him being your teammate and all). I'm also a brother to Dave (who most of you know, but some of you may not), who is another one of the creators. I'm also a brother to Amy, Sara, Leah, Josiah and Joel, but that's an entirely different matter all together.
I, like the three other creators, am an avid runner and closely follow the sport of cross country and track. However, I am unique in the regard that I never experienced high school running for myself. This is my story:
I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1988. Jumping ahead several years so as to not bore you with the details, my running career probably started in late grade school or junior high when my brothers (Dave and Dan) and myself started running the Libby's 2 mile walk/run on Pumpkin Festival weekend. We used to train by running 2 miles a couple days a week (which I thought was REALLY hard at the time). When I entered high school, the thought of running cross country or track wasn't even in the back of my mind. I played football, basketball, and baseball my freshman year, and football and baseball the year after that. When I gave up football the fall of my junior year I still didn't consider running cross country. At that time I thought of running as something you did to train for "real" sports, not as a sport in itself. The summer in between my junior and senior year of high school my cousin, Grant Zimmerman, decided that he was going to run cross country that fall. I thought that it might be fun to run my senior year and be on the team with Grant as well as my friends Tim Owdom and Scott Sheller (former Morton greats). My mind was made up, I was going to experience my first taste of high school cross country. But then, something terrible happened; as I was playing soccer, barefoot in a hall way at an end of summer church retreat, I completely severed one of the tendons in my right foot. I was on crutches for six weeks and wasn't able to walk normally for about eight. My senior year cross country dreams had all gone up in smoke.
You may think this story is somewhat depressing right now, but this is the part where it starts to pick up and get better. Coming off of my injury I was determined to get back into shape and gain back the fitness and muscle that I had lost in my leg. I decided to challenge myself with some hard physical challenge. What I came up with was registering for an olympic distance triathlon the following summer. I started training right away. I ran after school everyday, I started biking on the weekends, and I got a membership with my dad at the Riverplex in Peoria in order to use their pool. Although the whole triathlon thing was a lot of fun and I've done 4 since, I found my real joy in running. I started entering different road races and gauging my improvement as I progressed as a runner. Today, I'm a sophomore at the University of Illinois and run for the U of I cross country club team (along with Nathan). I will be running my first marathon (along with Steve) in Chicago this October.
So that's a little bit about me, what my connection is to your team and to this great sport of cross country. I like to think that I'm living vicariously through Dan, as through him I can run the high school cross country season I never had. I've gotten to know and run with many of you and it's obvious to me that you can accomplish great things as a team if you stick together and continue to feed off each other and make each other better. As Nathan so eloquently put it, "It's not the strength of the wolf in the pack, but the strength of the pack in the wolf".
I would like nothing more than for you all to give me an excuse to come home the first two weekends of November.
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