FARMINGTON -- The colloquial term "cruising for a bruising" carries negative connotations, but for Farmington 2022 graduate Mason Gansz, "cruising with Grusing," his close friend Micah Grusing, propelled each athlete.
Both distance runners attained the collegiate level, signing national letters of intent on April 13 in a ceremony held at Cardinal Arena honoring them and four other Farmington athletes.
Grusing signed a national letter of intent to compete in distance running for Northwest Arkansas Community College, of Bentonville, accompanied by his parents, Brent and Mindy Grusing, and brothers, Caleb Grusing, 19, and Asher Grusing, 10, a rising fifth grader.
He excelled in both cross country in the fall as well as track and field in the spring at Farmington, achieving All-State status in the 3200 meter run despite finishing six-and-a-half laps of the eight lap race with only one shoe.
Grusing wants to major in marine biology. He plans to attend NWACC for a couple of years and transfer to a school in Florida or Alabama and try to find a running school there where he can continue competing.
NWACC's program, coached by former Razorback world class runner Josphat Boit, is open to men and women at all skill levels with training on its Bentonville campus. Meets occur biweekly for a season that runs from August through November with scholarships available to qualifying student athletes. NWACC's 2021 inaugural cross country team won the NJCAA Region 2 championship. The team finished in eleventh place at the Division II Nationals at Richmond, Virg.
It's obvious the guys feed off each other and, while he didn't mention any particular incident where one needed a boost and the other one picked him up with encouragement, Grusing said that's been a formula utilized.
"[At] a lot of races and even in practice it helps when we're racing together and I just have him right there beside me to give me that push because if he wasn't in a lot of those races I wouldn't have pushed as hard as I did because we love each other, but it's also competitive and we want to beat each other," Grusing said.
They made each other better by maintaining that competitive aspect of their friendship. Gansz doesn't think either would be where they are right now if it weren't for the other.
"Sometimes it's hard to find motivation in yourself so you got to find it in external things like your teammates and friends and having a training partner there. Over the summers we run, over the winters we try to run, weekends even. It's harder to put the work in on your own so it's been good to have Micah here to help me," Gansz said.
Besides Gansz, his training partner, Grusing wanted to thank coach [Breanna] Jones and teammate Inertia Mugethi.
"He helped push us this year," Grusing said.
A trio of Pea Ridge distance runners, Grandon Grant, Tian Grant and Troy Ferguson, helped hone the Cardinals by forging a common bond as distance runners that transformed into a mutually beneficial friendship.
"Now, that we're all friends, we did the Hogeye Marathon Relay with them and any chance we get to do long runs with them we go and train with them if we can. So, it's helped to fuel our competitive drive," Grusing said.
The Farmington athletes were able to shape the way that they looked at the Pea Ridge guys, instead of just seeing a different person in a different colored jersey, they appreciate fellow athletes also competing against the clock and the elements.
"It's fun to compete against your friends and it's nice to know your competition," Grusing said.
Grusing qualified for state in the 3200 meter and placed seventh with a time of 10:20.45, one second off his personal best despite losing a shoe on the second lap of the race and finishing without it while Mugethi placed eighth in 10:30.31.