Among others, today is a date members of the Adrian High School cross country program have had circled on the calendars for a long time.Adrian will serve as the host school for the Section 3A Cross Country Championships at the Adrian Area Country Club this afternoon. The varsity boys run at 4 p.m. with the girls’ race to follow at 4:45.As AHS Doug Petersen recalls, this is one of four dates the Dragons have been awaiting for nearly one year."I remember telling the kids during last year’s cross country banquet that there were so many days before practice begins in August, so many days before the Red Rock Conference meet, so many days before the section meet, and so many days before the state meet," he said. "This is a big day for us because one of the goals these kids have had all along is to make it to state."If the Dragons get the job and send both teams to state, which could very well happen, it will be the perfect reward for a group of athletes and a coaching staff that worked hard and made a number of sacrifices to reach a common goal.Petersen started to feel good about his 2005 teams late last season when both squads placed fourth at the 2004 section meet. When a number of the program members approached him for advice on what it would take to get better, his response was swift."I told them if they want to take it to the next level, they will have to put in a lot of miles during the summer," he said.At the time, Petersen was asking the kids to make a commitment to the program. The coach wanted his athletes to sacrifice some of their free time in the summer to become better runners.As a sign of good faith, Petersen sacrificed his membership at the AACC to implement a summer running program that has helped lift the AHS girls to the No. 1-ranking and the AHS boys to the No. 3-ranking in the state’s coaches’ poll."I hung up the golf clubs for one year," he said. "I think I took them out twice this season. I told the kids this commitment I was going to make. Then I asked them, "What are you going to give me?"From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the Dragons gave their coach sweat equity.In the summer program Petersen laid out, the kids had a choice of reaching one of three mileage levels. The first level was to run 300 miles, the second 400 miles and the third 500 miles. To add incentive to the runners, Petersen said he would take any of them on a trip to Custer, S.D., for a five-day retreat from July 20-24, if the kids had reached half of their mileage levels they had set for themselves for the summer.The retreat featured the opportunity for the runners to compete in a 5K run which was a part of Custer’s Gold Discovery Days celebration, and the carrot dangled in front of the athletes was big enough to capture their attention."We took 22 kids to Custer, where we did some camping, running, swimming and sight-seeing and had team meetings for five days," Petersen said. "We needed the kids to have a good running base before taking them to workout in the high altitudes (of Western South Dakota), so we needed them to be at or near their preset mileage goals for the summer."The commitment the kids made to Petersen persisted throughout the summer, as two runners reached the 500-mile mark, nine reached the 400-mile mark and the rest of them ran near 300 miles or more.Their hard work paid off during a successful regular season, which was highlighted by both teams winning RRC titles during the same year for the first time in school history.It was after the RRC meet that Petersen witnessed the ultimate act of personal sacrifice.Petersen wanted to reward junior Dustin Lonneman, a five-year member of the program, with a spot on the varsity team for today’s section race. Lonneman had been a fixture in the varsity lineup early in the season, but sophomore Jack Albertson passed him on the team’s depth chart as the season progressed.The day after watching Albertson help the boys win the RRC title, Lonneman approached Albertson in practice and told the younger athlete that he should run with the varsity team at the section meet."For a kid to do that… That’s a pretty big thing," Petersen said. "After seeing that, I know it will be something I’ll remember when I’m 85 and telling old cross country stories. In essence, that’s what our team has been all about this year."