The Blue Angels loaded onto the bus for the ride north to Normal, Illinois and the Heartland Invite. This is the only regular season meet that is comprised of only 2 year community colleges. The field constited of several nationally ranked teams from Illinois and the power house program of Mineral Area College located in Missouri. The 3 hour bus trip was smooth except for the several rough state roads and a 15 minute plus delay due to road construction on interstate 55N. The bathroom break at the rest area on I55 was a record 8 minutes as timed by bus driver and tour quide Richard Ross. One more detour once we left I-55 to get to Maxwell Park, which was for once the correct detour. (Coach Hargis is famous for taking the wrong turns, but not this time!) Once we arrived at Maxwell, the ladies had a little less than an hour before race time. Some may think that is plenty of time, but those have probably never been to a cross country meet. The weather was great, the temperture was near perfect, there was very little wind. In cross country the wind is not your friend, so if you could choice between wind, rain, sun, heat, cold, and snow, leave the the wind fans off. I decided to get a bit more wordy with this post, knowing the readership is about 10, I will say, I wish this program had a spell check! So enough of the crazy typing, on to the meet recap. As noted before, this a tough field, but it is our peers pursay, our northern brothers and sisters of the cross country world (at least the world of Illinois and part of Missouri). Kyndall Sturgeon just went out and had a great race, she finished 14th, got one of those Heartland Invite T-shirts (except all they had was large and she is not a large for sure). Great job K, keep up the good work. Next in line was Ivy Donoho, Ivy had PR in the 5K in a time of 22:37, she solid and just keeps getting better! Ryann Becker had big improvement in her race, crossing the finish in 22:40 right behind Ivy "Green" D. The most important aspect of Becker's race, was she felt good about it and also knows she can and will get better. Raelyn Dearing was the 4th counter for the Blue Angels in a time of 23:20. Rae was not happy and is struggling a bit, but will bounce back, she works hard and cares. Then there was Simone Liefer, she crossed in 25:13 over 3 mintues better than her last race, Simone is sometimes racing on 1 good leg and sometimes runs with a lot of pain in both knees. She is gamer and will do whatever to help the team! To put this small novel to rest, these 5 young ladies (and 2 teammates that had classes they could not miss) are all as busy as can be, they all put school first. They all care about thier team and teamates and will continue to work to get better. We go foward, we look foward, and we will cross that finish line in November, as better people and a better team.