Well, good ladies and fine gentlemen, it is that time of year again. It is cross country season and I feel it may be one of the best things I've gotten to be apart of and I mean the last part. I don't feel you control or even can control the cross country season; or for that matter any season of life. You do not know what will unfold or how it will end. It may be the season where your team crumbles into nothing. It may be the season where your glorious apparatus of a team dies into its own embers. It may be the season where your rag-tag team comes out of nowhere and finds the joy that is out there and brings back trophies to the school that doesn't remember it even has a cross country team.Or it may be none of those will occur and something you have never seen the likes of will unfold. The season is merely something you are allowed to be apart of, allowed to experience, allowed to be included in. It is bigger than you, your team, your experience and that is what draws us to it as all things bigger than us do.
I have been apart of the cross country season/family/experience/sport as a coach for the last seven years and I'm thankful for each moment. For me the season is much like Christmas or something that only happens for a short time each year. I can almost feel it coming and not by looking at the calendar. I can sense its presence almost as if it were something that my body has adapted to and now needs in order to exist. I know that seems odd, but you probably have something in your life that is similar or I hope that you could say that you do. You should. Cross country is as much part of me as I am apart of it.
I am not quite sure how I would feel if in the future, there comes a late July/early August where I am not running among a group of kids, sweating, laughing, breathing hard, tripping, getting dirty, smiling, and taking pride in making it through each daily practice. I am not quite sure how odd it would feel to wake up some Saturday in the early Fall and not meet a bus, ride a bus, sit in a van or car driving in the cool of the day with all the reservations, expectations, nerves that one feels on their way to a race. I am not quite sure how odd it would be to not stand in a tight little huddle of heads with morning sun on our backs kneeling in the middle with their little heads around me and begging them to reach deep inside themselves and be who they really are; the great giants they have inside themselves that will tackle the hills, rush the straights, fly over the mud puddles, and tell all their doubts and excuses to shut up because today they will be greatness in a physical form. I am not quite sure I would want to not get to watch them rush the finish line muddy, bloody, throwing up, exhausted ready to collapse. It is the Biblical metaphor of finishing the race that was set before us in the most real and tangible event I've ever been apart of.
And so the season is upon us and we are already in the thick of things. We held our pre-season XC camp at Fort Yargo State Park where we ran almost 25 miles in 3 days give or a take a few minutes. I rolled my ankle during a very heated match up between my team and another while racing in our annual relay race that we have the last morning of XC camp. My team won last year and we were two strides in the lead this year on the last leg and then the next thing I knew I was writhing in pain near a mud puddle while the other teams raced by. I hobbled back for a last place finish. Sorry, team. I tried.
We have participated in two road races and two meets and have meets scheduled from now till the end of October. My school is hosting its own meet for the second year in a row and the number of teams coming have doubled, almost tripled, and we're pretty excited about that. We are even participating in a few dual or small low key meets for the first time and I'm pretty excited about this. This is a great training tool and something my teams at the first school I coached at did all the time. And oddly, we will have our state meet in north Georgia for the first time in GISA history. So, this will be exciting to see. I hope. Our schedule is busy and I know we'll all be very happy and sort of sad come the end of the state meet on October 26th.
And so, it is the time for cross country. It is the time for sweaty clothes, muddy shoes, smelly kids and coaches, a lot of laughs, funny restaurant experiences, early morning bus rides, team dinners, cases of Gatorade, dehydration-driven headaches, rolled ankles, cut up knees, very intense ultimate frisbee games, chafing, sore vocal chords, weird words (i.e. a fartlek), running drills, loads of laundry, and about a hundred other items that I wouldn't want to live without. And this year, I have gotten to add my sweet boy FH to the equation. He has come to many practices and has started yelling go to the kids as we pass them or they pass us. He has sort of become a little mascot of sorts and we couldn't be happier.
Happy reading and happy running. See you at the starting line or in the woods,
DAVID
