On Aug. 16 the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams went on a training and team bonding retreat to Big Bear both to get ready for the regular season and the Nike Victory Relay.

Aaron Escalante ’26 said the Big Bear retreat heightened the team’s morale for the coming season.

“Since four of our seven varsity guys were seniors, confidence was a bit low,” Escalante said. “However, after Big Bear, the team is looking super strong and I think we have a good shot at making (California Interscholastic Federation) State again this year.”

At the retreat, the team trained at altitude to prepare for future courses . Charles Abemayor ’26 said the retreat helped to build stamina and strength as well as create a stronger bond between members of the team.

“Up there we train for a little less than a week with lots of hard runs to get faster,” Abemayor said. “I think it’s less of a training retreat and more of an opportunity to meet everyone else on the team and get closer.”

The girls’ cross country team used the retreat to begin preparing for a the Nike Victory Relay. The Victory Relay is an event meant to celebrate women’s progress in sports. The last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics was in 1984. This also happened to be the first time the Olympics hosted a women’s marathon. In a callback to that race, Nike hosted The Victory Relay at USC on Saturday Aug. 24, and to show their support, members of the girls’ cross country team decided to run.

Participants ran around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a distance of about 1.3 miles. While times and scores didn’t matter, the goal was to run it in the same time it took the winner of the 1984 Olympics . In 2028, Los Angeles will host the Olympics for the third time in history and the girls planned to celebrate with a run in the relay.

Oona Silis ’26 said the event’s purpose was to celebrate the progress women have made in sports, with a special emphasis on the landmark women’s marathon in Los Angeles.

“The goal of the team is just to have fun,” Silis said. “It’s a metaphorical passing of the torch from Paris to LA.”

Elle Kirman ’27 said she was excited about the opportunity to participate in the event.

“It’s nice to have a low-stakes run,” Kirman said. “It’s a nice chance to celebrate how far women have come in sports.”