On Saturday August 16^th, the Cross Country team participated in an exhilarating challenge called the Amazing Race, set up by Mr. Liepe, the head coach, and a few of his volunteers. The runners began the scavenger hunt shoeless in the rotunda. Their first clue led them to where their shoes were hidden on the football field. From there, they were directed back into the school to the art room hallway where they found a picture for them to copy onto their partner’s face with paint. After they finished proving their impeccable art skills to one another, they were given another clue that led them to Bixler Lake beach, where their challenge was to dig up giant pickles buried in the sand. There was a catch though: if they dug off course, they unearthed raw eggs that made their sweaty, sandy hands even messier. From the beach they ran to South Side Elementary School, holding their colossal pickles, where they were given doughnuts! But unfortunately, there was a catch here too. The partners had to hold the doughnuts behind their backs while the blindfolded runners attempted to eat them. The race continued on to the middle school where the runners had to help their partners eat chocolate-covered fettuccini noodles without using their hands. After getting chocolate faced, they returned to the high school to finish with a water balloon drop off the football stadium bleachers, and then burst a surprise balloon full of glitter between them and their partner. “It was fun, I enjoyed it,” Senior Sean Bowers says. “My favorite part was the water balloon drop because my partner, Austin McCulloch, actually caught it.” The intended route was four miles in total, but one team ended up running seven miles because they didn’t figure out each clue right away. The slowest team took 75 minutes to finish, and the winning team, Nick Sibert and Noah Acker, took 57 minutes to complete the race.