It is a chilly afternoon. Community High School junior Calvin Shaw was preparing to go for a run with his team, when his coach ran up to make an important announcement. He informed everyone that some people were going to miss practice next week due to Rosh Hashanah. “Rasha who?” says one of Calvin’s fellow runners, and all of a sudden the entire team starts cracking up.

Shaw has been running and swimming since 5th grade. For running, his specialty is cross country, a long distance running sport that requires more stamina than speed. This means that for longer distances, he prepares to keep a steady pace rather than a burst of energy, like what is needed for other running sports.

However, what really got him more into running is when he ran his first 5k. “It (running) just relaxes me me a lot after its over and I have a lot of friends that do it with me so it’s fun. I guess I just like racing people sometimes,” Shaw says. He does running and swimming for the, running in the warmer months and swimming during the colder ones.

For Shaw, stamina has always been his strong suit in running.That’s why he runs cross country instead of track. “For cross country, you need to kind of stay alive, for the 20 minutes that the race lasts.”

With his swimming team, Calvin competes and trains against other cross country teams in the area, as well as with his peers.  “A lot of the time we have workouts that we do in the water, just to like make us stronger—and we work on our technique and stuff,” Shaw says. The team also works out in the weight room of huron high, a small room dedicated to personal fitness and health improvement.