TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — New era, familiar scenery.
 
Megan Churchill couldn't have asked for a better start to her collegiate career. On Friday morning, the freshman will be racing on her hometown course at Apalachee Regional Park, while exchanging her Chiles' jersey for a Flagler College singlet in Tallahassee, Florida.
 
"I'm really excited to be there because I've been racing and training there since seventh grade," Churchill said. "It's a really good course. It's really wide the whole way, which is helpful, and I think it's definitely helpful knowing it and having some experience there.
 
"I'm just really excited to be doing my first college meet with the team."
 
Not only will Churchill be on the course where she and her prep team won the 2018 Class 4A State Championship and was runner-ups a season ago, one of her former teammates will be there: her twin sister, Alyson. The Churchill sisters have been racing together as long as Megan can remember, but when the duo decided to part ways to compete at the next level, it took the right schools to make it possible.
 
That's when Flagler College caught Megan's eye and Florida State University pulled Alyson in. Even 200 miles away up I-10 W, the duo will be reunited where it all started on the Apalachee Regional Park course Friday morning.       
 
"We've always been really close so going to different schools was a big decision," Megan said. "When I came on my visit a year ago, I just really liked the team, Coach (Brian) Beil and assistant coach K-Rod (Kaitlin Rodriguez), so that was a huge thing for me. I also like the small campus. It's so cool. It has worked out, really."
 
Complete Field
 
It'll be the first time the Flagler College cross country teams have competed on the Appalachee Regional course since 2015, but like for Churchill, it isn't the first time for a handful of runners.
 
Floridan's like Madison Peele, Sam Gayton and Evan Fuller — among others on the teams — have ran through the Tallahassee Park. Even if they have sprinted through the park or not before Thursday's course preview run, the six women and 14 men who traveled are stoked to be back to running with a reason.
 
"We are fired up to have the chance to race, really," Flagler head cross country coach Brian Beil said. "We haven't done anything but train since March when we got shutdown just at the end of the indoor season. If you talk to any runner, that is kind of a mind-numbing experience to just try and train when you don't have an end in sight and don't have a goal.
 
"It's really impossible to do your periodization when you don't know what you're getting ready for. We are just thankful Florida State was able to pull this off. The ACC and SEC worked together to get this thing to go down, particularly Florida State."

Live Scoring
 
Racing for the men in the 8K, beginning at 8:30 a.m., includes Fuller, Marcus Graham, Connor Norton, Michael Hayeck, Joel Nesi, Matt Lyons, Anthony Whelan, Gavyn Fox, Logan Seifert, A'Jani Stokes, Luke Scheid, Gavin Ross, Justin Greene, and Asad Bashir. They will race with the University of South Alabama, Florida International University, Mercer University, Seminole State College of Florida, Valdosta State University, University of Mobile, Daytona State College, Tallahassee Community College, and Point University.
 
The women will be represented by Malia Cryan, Allison Horwitch, Jessica Mescal, Peele, Gayton, and Churchill in the 5K. The six women will be racing with the likes of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, FIU, Florida State University (B Team), Louisiana State University, Mercer, South Alabama, University of South Carolina, University of Southern Mississippi and Valdosta State University, beginning at 9:05 a.m.
 
"It should be exciting tomorrow," Beil said. "The weather is going to be perfect. We have good competition, fast course, so we will really see where we at and that's all we can ask for.
 
"We've trained, trained, trained, and we finally get to see where we are at."
 
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