Michael Rath, senior, can’t imagine his life without running. Involved in both cross country and track at KHS he always needs to keep in shape.

“We run seven days a week,” Rath said. “So I probably run anywhere from 35-45 miles per week.”

While Rath enjoys both sports, he admits that his favorite is cross country.

“Cross country just has a big team environment,” Rath said. “We always do a bunch of silly stuff, it’s like a mixture of competing and messing around.”

According to Rath, track is more of a tool he uses to stay in shape during cross country’s off-season. He usually competes for the track team in the 4×800, 1600 and 800 yard runs.

Unfortunately for Rath, he rolled his ankle in gym class last week trying to tackle a friend, Tucker Overman, senior, during an intense game of Frisbee so he has been unable to run for the past week.

Since he has been going to physical therapy for the past week and been taking good care of himself, he intends to go back to practice by Monday.

Rath explains the hardest part of doing both track and cross country is balancing them with his six AP classes.

“I don’t sleep very much,” Rath said. “Except in class sometimes.”

He admits it is a little disappointing not being able to hang out and socialize as much as a regular teenager should be able to.

“It’s not really horrible, you just have to not have friends,” Rath said.

As much as Rath loves running, he doesn’t intend on continuing his passion for cross country in college.

“Most of the schools I’m looking at are really good, so I probably wouldn’t even make the team,” Rath said.

He does, however, plan on continuing to run on his own, either in charity races or just for the fun of it. Rath looks forward to his college experience, even without cross-country.

“I’m looking at the environment, whether I’ll have a good time, and if I learn a lot,” Rath said. “I just really want to remember my experiences wherever I end up going.”

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