Well folks, it’s that time of year again—the time when I usually start making frequent withdrawals from the excuse bank to make sure I never have to do that torturous uphill mile repeat workout. Yep—it’s cross country season.
Thankfully, my days of pounding the dirt for several long, unpleasant intervals are over—but that doesn’t mean I’m out of the woods (literally and figuratively).
When I heard that the local high school runners would start practicing this week, I experienced an unsettling emotional reaction that can only be described as a cross country veteran’s version of post traumatic stress disorder.
Suddenly, I was back at the trailhead where that miserable, hot, dusty workout began. Everything was so vivid, so real—I could feel my lungs burning as my legs struggled to carry my sweaty, exhausted body up the rocky incline. I could taste the turkey-bagel vomit spewing from my mouth as I bent over the edge of the trail, gasping for breath in between regurgitations. I could smell the men’s team as they grunted past me, leaving in their wake a hot, wet cloud of unwashed-running-shorts stink.
When I finally snapped back to reality, my forehead was dotted with beads of cold sweat, and my stomach was a knot of imaginary ill-digested turkey bagel.
How did I ever survive that sport?
Then it hit me—I not only survived cross country, I reveled in its status as a sport reserved for ultra-tough renegade badasses.
There is a reason sixty kids go out for soccer while only six go out for cross country. When it comes down to it, any semi-athletic high-schooler could kick a ball, but not very many have the guts and determination necessary to power through three miles of continuous pain and suffering.
So yeah, being on the cross country team made me feel special, even if the other kids didn’t exactly feel that way about it. I think I even remember one of my high school teachers asking me when I was going to try a real sport.
For the record, *Mr. Daniels, cross country is pretty much as real as it gets. I left a pile of bagel barf on the side of a hiking trail, for eff’s sake. And to the stupid football jocks who made fun of the awkward, skinny cross country athletes: I don’t really care anymore because you’re probably fat now.
* Name has been changed
There's a t-shirt that I like that I saw at a race expo but was too cheap to pony up for: "My sport is your sport's punishment."
ReplyDeleteIn high school (1 rather awkward year on the JV hoops bench is my only athletic achievement) I remember that after dying through a mile for presidential physical fitness testing, I asked one of the track guys in my gym class what event he ran. He said the two mile. I was just dumbfounded that anyone would want to run that far.