On Saturday the cross country team travelled to Fortress Obetz, outside of Columbus, for the OHSAA Early Season Invitational. This is the only cross country meet that takes place this weekend, and therefore is quite large and well attended as teams start their season with a preview of what will be the state championship course on the first Saturday in November. The conditions were brutal with temperatures in the low 90's and a heat index of 96 during the girls race, not to mention a cloudless sky and a course that is fully in the open. the girls gave literally everything they had competing with a couple of our runners passing out due to the heat. It was not a great start to the season, but given the conditions we were happy to gut out the race and just finish, especially since during the girls race officials determined the conditions to be too dangerous to continue the meet and so cancelled the rest of the races for the day, which also included our boys race. We did still get the opportunity for some team bonding after the meet with lunch and some games. Next weekend we are hoping for much better conditions, and the runners are looking forward to one of their favorite courses that is mostly shaded and run in the woods. We will be travelling to the Bob Schul Invitational (Bob Schul is still the only American to ever win gold in the men's 5,000 meter race) at Milton Union High School. The boys will be racing first with an early, and hopefully cool start, at 8:10am followed by the girls at 9:30. Lets go Cats!