It’s something for them to bond over. They can talk about it on the way to school. They can relate to each other. They can celebrate good days together, and complain about bad ones. Junior Hannah Arnspiger and freshman John Arnspiger are natural-born runners. And through this, they have grown closer as siblings.
“We both kind of have a mutual respect for each other,” Hannah said. “It’s like ‘hey you know what my pain is like’. And it’s fun, we have more to talk about. Plus we get to see each other at practice everyday.”
Hannah joined cross country for the social opportunity during freshman year; she didn’t play a fall sport and cross country is the biggest team at East, so she decided to go for it.
“I got to know a lot of the varsity girls, so I just ran with them,” Hannah said. “I kind of stuck with them, and then at time trials I ended up getting third.”
When John got to East, he joined cross country because his older sister did it. Just like Hannah, he quickly found his niche.
The two siblings agree that there is no competition between the two of them. This is mostly because cross country is separated by gender. At meets, girls run a 4k while boys run a 5k. Despite this, Hannah claims that John is faster, and keeping up with him is a challenge. Their mile times are only 23 seconds apart- John runs a 5:14 mile and Hannah runs a 5:37.
Not only are their mile times close, but the Arnspigers have had similar times throughout their cross country careers. On Sept, 14, they both placed second in the Topeka meet. When Hannah was a freshman, she placed third in time trials; this year, John placed third.
“It’s weird,” John said. “So far, we have similar track records.”
Their mom, Susan, attends every meet. Watching her children run makes her nervous; she gets butterflies in her stomach at meets, because she knows Hannah and John want to do well.
“I just love to watch them run,” Susan said. “I’m so happy for them to be working so hard that it just makes me cry happy, excited tears.”
When Susan watches her kids run she cheers loudly and jumps up and down, even if her kids are nowhere near where she’s watching.
“I’ll stand there with my phone ready to take pictures as I wait for them to come out of the woods,” Susan said. “I jump up and down and say ‘come on John, come on Hannah, come on.’ And then all of a sudden I see them coming and I start to scream.”
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