Off and running!

If there was a surprise last Thursday night for the Nashua-Plainfield cross country team, it was provided by Mother Nature.“It was actually nice out,” coach Jennifer Kalainoff said with a laugh, “and it’s always like 100 degrees there or we don’t have it because of the heat.”All in all, it was a heck of a start to the 2016 season for the Huskies, who picked up four medals and ran some excellent times at the Charles City Invitational.Team scores weren’t kept at the meet, which is run under a different format than most cross country events. Instead of having junior varsity and varsity races, Charles City groups runners by grades and runs a fresh-soph race and a junior-senior race.But it didn’t really matter what format was used last Thursday, Nashua-Plainfield needed a meet.“We just needed someone else to run against besides ourselves,” Kalainoff said. “As a coach, it’s nice to be able to put up some times and see what pace we need to push for in practice, and for the kids, they needed something besides practice.”And after more than three weeks of practice, the Huskies showed they were ready for a meet.Brock Dietz, who didn’t go out for cross country a year ago, took fifth in the junior-senior boys race while Caleb Lines was 17th.For all the N-P results, please see the Sept. 8 Reporter.