Newton North seniors Esty Dudnik, Maggie Abely, Adelle Dupere, Pearl Neafsey and Caroline Fahey all joined the Newton North girls cross-country team as freshmen. Since then, they have logged a ton of miles together, many of them at Cold Spring Park, where the team practices and holds meets.

On Wednesday—Senior Day, appropriately—the quintet laced up for one last lap around Cold Spring. It was the final home cross-country meet of their high school careers.

“We’re all really sad to leave,” said Fahey, one of three senior captains. “It’s already our last race [here], which is crazy.”

Running together for so long has brought them closer as runners and as people. While they push each other on the course, the seniors also celebrate their teammates’ successes as if they were their own. They laugh when asked to describe one another.

Dupere is “fun and entertaining.” Neafsey is “uplifting.” Abely is “supportive and confident.” Dudnik is “solid and consistent,” and Fahey is “dedicated and passionate.”

“Our team is really supportive on the course and every single race I look to my teammates to push myself while I’m running,” says Abely, who plans to run cross-country next year at Middlebury.

Dudnik, who has committed to Amherst, also feeds on the support that her teammates provide.

“I feel really confident that all the girls that I’m with right now, whenever I’m running with them, or whenever they are cheering for me, I know they want me to push myself,” she says.

The confidence and support has been building for years.

Each runner began her cross-country career in middle school. Fahey and Dupere raced at Bigelow, while Neafsey, Dudnik, and Abely were teammates at Day. Being a freshman on a varsity team was hard at first, says Dupere, and being able to lean on others in the same situation was incredibly valuable.

“Getting to know each other better has helped us get to know ourselves better,” she says. “I was very shy going into my freshman year, and they have all helped me get out of my shell. They are such a supportive group.”

Head coach Joanna Mantell has seen the girls develop as runners over the past four years. Now, as seniors, they have established a strong team culture that has helped newer runners find their place on the team and in the sport.

“Watching them emerge as the people on the team that our new freshmen are looking up to, it’s really fun to see,” she says.

Before each race, the senior captains gather the whole Tiger team for a gratitude circle, where runners say one thing they are grateful for. It’s an exercise that grounds them, builds community, and removes some pre-race jitters.

They have also organized a “secret buddy” tradition, where runners exchange affirming notes with each other before races. (The identity of the note-writers is kept secret.)

Theme days—like tie-dye brunch and barter day, where runners trade clothes—also help to build team spirit and togetherness.

Their leadership and culture-building has led to success on the course. Last season, the then-juniors helped North place third in the Massachusetts state championships, the school’s best finish in decades. The result also earned them a spot at Nike Cross Regionals in Poughkeepsie, New York, where they competed against some of the best runners in the country.

Neafsey described the extra race in New York—and the overnight trip that accompanied it—as “a dessert to the season.” And Dudnik remembers feeling elated because it meant one more weekend with her friends.

“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh I get another opportunity to race,’” she recalls. “It was, ‘I’m spending another week with these girls and training together.’ And I think that was really good to feel that way about the team.”

As seniors, they still feel that way.

The day of the final home race is a perfect day for cross-country in New England. It’s cool (but not cold), the leaves are beginning to turn various shades of yellow, and the sun’s low angle creates dramatic shadows and brilliant pockets of light. The Tigers stretch and warm-up—sometimes individually, sometimes together—and then gather in a large circle. One by one they tick off the things they are grateful for. Friends. Family. The team. This home course.

They break apart, and Mantell calmly speaks to some of the runners, giving them last minute encouragement and tips about how to run the course. Fahey stands alone for a bit, a rod of nervous energy, before taking some more warmup strides with Abely.

Runners hug each other. Occasionally those hugs turn into impromptu dances. They are called to the starting line. Runners from Needham and Framingham join them there, too. Everyone is still. The bang of the starting gun sends them into motion. They run over open field for the first 50 yards and then descend into the woods.

Fahey describes the home course as fast, really flat, and really hard. After one loop, Dudnik and Abely are in front, closely pursued by runners from Framingham and Needham. On their way out of the woods after their second loop, they are alone. Abely crosses the finish line first, closely followed by her friend and teammate. Exhausted, the pair eventually sit down together to watch the rest of the runners come through.

It’s a full circle moment for Abely, who won her first ever race on this course as a freshman. But this time—her last competitive race here—she set a personal record, too.

“I was really excited going into this race because I really love our home course and I wanted to have a really good way to end it,” she says. When she was tiring during the final part of the race, the emotions of the day helped carry her through.

Before long, Dupere, Neafsey and Fahey are past the finish line as well, accompanied by many of their younger teammates. And the four-year seniors are going through all the emotions: there are hugs, there are smiles, there are tears. Tigers crowd around Neafsey, who lay on the ground, her energy fully spent. Someone hands Dupere a bouquet of flowers. Friends and fans take photos with the runners. The race has turned into a celebration, albeit a bittersweet one. These seniors will have other races—a few more in the regular season, then the Bay State Championships, and then States—but this is the last time they will be cheered on here at Cold Spring.

“I’ve been thinking about this race for a couple weeks and thinking through how I wanted it to go,” says Abely. “And I think this was mostly perfect.”