It was only two weeks before the MHSAA Cross Country Division 3 State Finals, when Gibson Shore, our number three runner for varsity on the team, had grown sick. It wasn’t seen as too big of a deal by our team at first, but we started to worry since he had been absent for four days in one week. He came back on Friday that week, and worked very hard to get as much reconditioning as possible. Regardless of him coming back to be able to run with us, he was still sick, however not contagious any longer. Poor Gibby was coughing and suffering sore throats, constantly. 

It was at this point when our team had started to worry more, so each of us took action by pitching in. Mrs. Shore started sending him to school with the supplies and medicine for breathing treatments at school. She had also put him on lots of other medications to try and get him better, as well as provide Gibby with plenty of Pedialyte to drink. Logan Hetherington, and I had started waking up earlier to make a large thermos of tea for him to drink throughout the day. Together, we got Gibby to stop coughing as much because of our serious concoction of tea. This was a big step at improving his running performance in this unwell state that he was in.

It was all coming to this, the end of the season literally being visible, as it was the finish line. Our team had made it, but more importantly, Gibby was still feeling a little under the weather. We had done as much as we could to get to this point. The gun went off, and we all ran our race as best we could. Once the race had finished, we all realized that the real win was being able to run together in the end, after all, we are still a team, you could even say family.