Cross country is a completely different sport from any other. It is both a team and an individual sport at the same time. When you're running in a cross country race, you're not only racing against yourself and your previous times, you're also competing to contribute to your team's overall score to beat the opposing team. It is a sport that demands every ounce of energy from its competitors. As a popular CC t-shirt saying goes, there are no timeouts, no substitutions, and no half time. It's just 3.1 miles of pure toughness, heart, and guts.
When I came into the first day of practice, I didn't know what I was getting into. At this point in my life I was very unconfident, didn't have many friends, and wasn't really sure what I was good at I was a 14 your old teenager at the time. In middle school I did the "cool" thing and played football. I was not the best football player by any means. At the time I had very little athletic skill, I was only about 5'4" and was a pretty slow runner. I only had two or three friends on the team and most of the rest of the team acted as if they were on some kind of plateau in comparison to people like me. I knew I wasn't the greatest player but they liked to let me know on a daily basis just in case I forgot. It was this and the fact that I saw myself as a better runner than a football player that made me decide that I would try a change and run cross country in high school.
As I walked into the cafeteria, I first met a sophomore named Bo Waggoner, who would go to state the next 3 years and become the top runner at Duke University. It amazed me to know him because he was probably the best athlete I could ever call my friend and he never acted like it. It seemed weird because all through my sports playing years I had known middle school football players who weren't good and acted as if they were NFL caliber. Eventually the rest of the team showed up; five seniors, a junior, and three sophomores. Coach Dugai finally arrived and talked for a short time about the season ahead. Afterwards, we did a short jog to the track and warmed up.
Our first run would be four and a half miles. The first day loop was what it was called, due to the fact that it had almost always been Dugai's first workout for his team. We started right outside the football stadium and started at what would eventually become an easy pace for the run. For my first year, though, I was always running at almost my fastest pace, which was still pretty slow in comparison to the rest of the team.
The first day loop is basically a square; it starts off going to a main street and turns left at every main street until your back where you started. When I started off this run, the route had been explained to me but I still wasn't overly sure what it was. The team pulled very far ahead of me by the time I had gotten down the first street. By the time I got to the third street, the mid-August heat was getting to me and I was also just plain tired and couldn't quite remember what the route was. I ended up turning into the Toledo recreation center, which I knew as the route for the Maumee 5K and tried to figure out if the team had gone this way. I now know that this wasn't the correct way and I actually cut off about a mile of the course.
After wandering around I decided just to go back to the high school through the 5K route. As I came down the last street, the team had been there for a good ten minutes waiting for me to come in. Feeling very disappointed with how bad of shape I was in I was already contemplating quitting the team and coming back next year. As I ran towards the end of the loop the team was lined up next to the end and started clapping me in. It made me feel accepted by a team for the first time and I quickly changed my mind about quitting and finished the run.
I left the first practice thinking maybe I finally found a good sport for me. I woke up the next morning for practice and basically fell over from the muscle pain. I got up and rode my bike to practice, wondering what kind of workout I was in store for today. When I got there we did a quick warm up; around the track three times, stretch then two 200s. Then coach explained today's run. It was an out n' back to Sidecut Metropark. The run there was an easy one then we'd run back at race pace. Overall it was about a six mile run.
The run there the team decided to run at a pace that I could do. It ended up being the first time I'd really meet everyone.
Of the seniors, there was Brandon Theaker, a decent runner whose brother I'd run with the next two years. He cared a lot about running in general, and was never a fan of cars while we were running. In one of my better memories of him, while running he had the right of way but was almost hit by a car. Without missing a beat he moved around the car and slammed his hand onto the car hood, alerting the driver, busy on his cell phone, of his mistake. He was one of the captains and made sure I met everyone on the team. Next was Alex Washburn, a fast runner who had a hernia problem. He was a pretty nice and helpful guy. He would run with me on some of the faster workouts when his repeats were done to help me get faster. Ryan Ritter was another senior, as described by Brandon, "he's one of the craziest people you'll ever meet." He was definitely right by that measure. Ryan was the loud one on the team, in a good way of course. He was always cheering on his teammates when he wasn't running. The next one I met was Ben Gibson. He would later be compared to me because he wasn't the greatest runner when he started either and ended up being varsity. Finally, the last senior, David Ziss, was a personable guy, cool to talk to, and was one of the slower runners on the team. I ended up running with him a lot due to him being on an off of varsity. The only junior that year was Corey Gallagher. We figured out that his house was on the way to mine so he ended up giving me rides to and from practice to save me the bike ride every day. Finally there were three sophomores. I had already met Bo, who at this point was leading the group of us, there was Sam Ziss, David's brother, he was also around my level later on in the season when I got faster, and last was Jeff Fifer, I was never the best of friends with him but we got along decently well. He lived right next to the school but would still have trouble getting to practice on time and sometimes it became part of our run to go get him.
By the time I learned who everyone was, we got to the halfway point and it was time to run back. The group tried to get me to run at a faster pace with them for about the first mile before breaking away to run their own pace.
We finally got back and again I was being clapped in to the finish. Every time I came in that always gave me a little bit of confidence that I could actually get better at this sport.
On the second Thursday of practice, we ran a workout known as 800s. They are basically a speed workout made to make you faster but not without a good amount of pain first. The idea is to run at race pace around the track for two laps. Then, after a couple minutes of a break you do it again and try to match that time. It's not so much about having the fastest time on one of your 800s, but about keeping a consistent time.
Realizing how hard every other workout hard been so far and how much the team had warned me about them, I knew this was going to be a very difficult run. We all lined up on the track, we were going to do four today, we were told. Coach Dugai gets us set and says go as he starts his watch. I raced around the track twice coming in at a time of around 4:30. 'Wow that was pretty hard,' I thought to myself. After getting a drink we did another, followed by another. The next two I came in around the 4:40s. At this point I was so tired I didn't think I could do another one as fast as I was supposed to. When the last one came up I prepared to give it one last go. Coach started us off and I began my last two laps of the workout. The pain was intense and I felt like I couldn't keep going anymore, but I knew I had to push myself. After I came around the first time two of the runners were already done and one of them, Washburn, joined me and started pushing my pace. He ran slightly in front of me constantly pushing and saying things like "Come on Phil," or "Push it, just stay ahead of me." I started running with everything I had to stay in front of him and with the rest of the team cheering me on I finished the two laps in a time of 4:16. I couldn't believe it. I had run so much faster on my last one and all it took was having Alex run with me.
During every long, slow run, the team would run at my pace and help me get better by giving me advice. Finally the day of the first race came.
It's late on a Tuesday afternoon; I'm stepping up to a thin white line spray painted into the grass. For the past two weeks I've been running more than I ever have in my entire life. I've quickly been forced into the closest thing I could call "in shape" that I've ever been in. My nine teammates surround me giving me tips about what to do when the gun goes off. Being the only freshman, I'm the only one who is finding everything around me new.
Our home course was an old fort from the war of 1812 named Fort Meigs. The course ran around the outside of the fort so there were a number of hills making the course very difficult. As we stood at the line waiting for the gun to go off, I was filled with nerves. I had no idea how to strategize my race, what the course was like, or how I was going to do.
This race was always the first of the year and is known as the Maumee Lid Lifter. Our team would invite three or four schools to run but only two would normally show up since they were small schools.
Since it was a home race, Coach Dugai was the starter. He gave the simple rules that I would hear dozens of times over the next four years. The white lines mark the course, the mile and two mile are marked, 2 laps around the fort and finish by the picnic tables. Then, "I'm going to put the gun and my other hand up, I'll say runners set. You step to the line. Then when everyone is still, I'll fire the starting gun and drop both arms. Good luck."
When he finishes his speech, we are all quiet waiting for the first instructions. "Runners set!" We step to the line. BANG! The gun fires and twenty-some high school runners are sprinting to the first turn. I quickly fall into the back of the pack and let the flow of adrenaline carry me through the first half a mile. As I come around to the end of the first lap, I get ready to go up the biggest hill on the course, Agony hill. Named mainly for how long and steep it is, making it sheer agony for most runners who have to climb it during the race.
As I make my way to the top of the hill, most of the people watching the race are at that spot to cheer us all on. The cheering gives me all the motivation I need to get to the top and I cruise through the last part of the hill. The rest of the race flies by as I battle with another team's last runner. As we scale agony hill for the last time we are neck and neck. We come into the last turn where I learn that, while I had been giving all my energy over the entire race, the other runner had not and he quickly sprinted away from me to the finish line. I ended up coming in last place with a time of 29:47. To cross country standards, that's a very slow time. But to my own standards, that was the fastest I'd ever run. The team congratulated me on my first race and we gathered together to talk to the coach about the race.
He congratulated us or winning the meet and told us to get ready for the warm down. At our home races this meant a three mile run home.
We got home and the next day began preparing for our race on Saturday. Now that the season started and we were kind of in the full swing of things, training was a lot easier. Instead of doing difficult runs almost daily, we changed to having a long run on Wednesday, 800s on Thursday, and a short easy run on Friday to prepare us for our Saturday Invitationals. When Saturday finally arrived, we left the high school at around 8 A.M. to ride the bus an hour away to the Fremont Ross Invitational. An Invitational is very different from a dual/tri-meet in that instead of two or three teams, there are around twenty and the races are all broken up. There are two divisions and varsity is separated from junior varsity.
When the JV race was approaching the other two JV runners and I did our warm-up and got ready to run. "Don't worry," David told me, "this race you won't come in last. Just go out and run as hard as you can."
We got up to the starting line and got ready to run. We heard basically the same instructions and got set to go. As the starter got ready to fire the gun, I was filled with nerves again but this time I was a little relieved to know what I was about to do. As he fired the gun I was once again off to a sprint to start the race. The beginning of this one starts on a downhill so I felt like I was going way faster to start.
As I came close to the first mile, everyone's parents were there to cheer me and the other two on. Where this sport lacks in actual fans, it makes up for in parental support. They care so much about the sport and they are always volunteering to help out with anything the team needs over the season. Their support gets me through the first mile and through a lot of the next part of the race. I spend a lot of the next mile passing as many people as I can. By the time I get to the second mile the parents and team are yelling times and telling me to just keep going and that I'm only a mile away.
I get through the next mile almost as easily as I the first mile and turn into the middle of the course for the last .1. As I round the corner I start an all out sprint to the finish and realize that the clock says 26:00. When I finish it's around 26:30ish and I realize that I just ran three minutes faster than I did four days ago. I was pumped. Ryan came up and asked my time so he could write it down for the coach. As I told him he asked if it was a PR. I had no idea what the meant, though I now know it means personal record. I said yes and he congratulated me so I assumed it had something to do with my time.
Th next week of practice went by pretty smoothly. Our next race came up against Swanton. They aren't in our division so the meet wasn't really overly necessary but it we normally ran it as somewhat of a workout since the meet didn't count for anything. I naturally ran it as a race and ended up somewhere in the 25:00s. Again I improved by a minute and I couldn't believe I was improving so fast.
Throughout these races as I got faster I began to realize something; the body can handle a lot more pain than the mind lets it realize. Every time I came through the finish line with a faster time, I would think to myself, 'If I can run that much faster than my last time, why can't I go faster at the next race?" I would constantly use this thought to keep myself motivated to get better every week.
The next day while talking about the race before practice, coach handed out awards. They came in the form of stickers and went on our locker shields. They were basically a construction paper cutout but they showed your accomplishments over the season. He only gave these out after dual meets since it was easier to run in invitationals with more people.
He first handed out scorer awards. They pretty much went to the same people every time who were the top five. The next two went to the displacers, which was the sixth and seventh men if they beat the other team's fifth. Finally there was the most improved time. He announced that I had improved by more than a minute and over four minutes in a week so far and gave me the sticker for it. I was proud that I was already starting to do well in this sport.
It was around this time that school finally started. My first year of high school. I was scared like most freshmen but I had a little bit more confidence than others did because I knew that I already had friends here. A lot of my football teammates from the previous years saw me during school days and in their infinite wisdom would ask me why I'd want to be in such a stupid sport like cross country, and why I would want to quit football. From the practice field, the football team could tell I wasn't good at running, so why would I keep doing it? At this point I was already a month into running and I felt like more a part of that team than I ever did in the two years I played football. Some of my lesser favorite people from football would tell me that I had no reason to be in cross country because I wasn't doing the team any good, and they'd also mention how embarrassing it should've been that a lot of the girls were even faster than me. Most of them weren't the fastest runners themselves so I would normally just tell them to go run against the girls themselves and see how well they'd fare.
The next Wednesday we got ready and headed out for our long run. The long runs were at a slow conversational pace. Not only did they give the team an easy day while still running a decent mileage, they gave the team time to talk and become better friends. We would talk about a lot of things, from races even to music we enjoy. A few times we actually sang out a few songs during our run. One of which being basically our theme song, (still not overly sure why) "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty. It started off in the first quarter mile of the run. Bo is next to me talking when all of a sudden he reaches over his back and says "Whoa, what's this guys? It's uh, uh, an air guitar!" and starts strumming his fake guitar while humming the chords that coincide with "Free Fallin'". One of the seniors starts singing the first few lines of the song "She's a gooood girl, loves her mama, loves Jeeesus, and America too..." He keeps going as the other seniors and evetually the rest of us start to sing along. By the time we reach the chorus, the entire team is belting out, "And I'm Freeeeee, Free Fallin'!" As small as Maumee is about half the city could've probably heard us singing Tom Petty out of tune. During our run we even passed some people walking the opposite way. They heard us singing and most of the time would give us a "wooo!" as we went past or a "good song!". We laughed and kept on going. As we continued singing I barely noticed we were even running anymore and as we finished out the final words to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," we were already back from our run. Instead of my normal thoughts of, 'wow this is a really long run, I'm tired.' I wasn't even really thinking about the distance anymore, I was thinking about what a great time I was having.
After our run the team invited me to go to Pizza Hut for the buffet. I didn't want to decline so Brandon gave me a ride home so I could change and then to Pizza Hut. It was a small thing but I felt like they were accepting me as a friend so I wanted to take the opportunity.
The next few weeks went by the same way. Practices were different but it was the same types of runs. I kept improving but not at as huge of a rate. By the time I got to the Clay Eagle Invitational I was down around the 23:00s. I was told that this race was very flat so everyone was going to PR. I was excited because since there were no hills at this course, I could find out just how fast I was at this point.
I got through the race very fast and finished with a time of 21:19. The only thing really different was that I started to feel a small twinge in my shin. I didn't know what it was and so I didn't think much of it. The next Monday at practice as we were running it started getting worse. By the next invitational race it was hurting even more when I ran. I still got ready for the race knowing that it was going to hurt a lot but hopefully I could pull through.
As I started off the race it wasn't bothering me too much but I was definitely running slower because of it. As we went into the back part of the course it got worse and worse until I could barely keep running. We came out of the back part and the girl's coach noticed that I hadn't come by anywhere near where I was supposed too and how much pain I was obviously in.
She told me that there was no way I should finish the race because I could get injured even worse then I was so I ended up dropping out of the race. I was so disappointed in myself and in so much pain that I was basically crying on my way back to the team's tent.
This injury became a huge disappointment for me. I was getting faster and within a few weeks I might've been able to break into the varsity lineup. I didn't know what was wrong but I felt like I had let not only myself but the whole team down. It hurt to think that I had let down the best friends I had in high school.
The doctor I went to and the school's trainer had no idea what it was and their only advice was to not run on it. I wasn't given a time for how long it would take to get better and I didn't want my season to be over yet so I did a little bit of research for myself. After searching around websites on running injuries and even asking a few people in running forums I decided that I had shin splints. Shin splints are defined as "injuries to the front of the outer leg. While the exact injury is not known, shin splints seem to result from inflammation from injury to the tendon (posterior peroneal tendon) and adjacent tissues in the front of the outer leg." (Medicinenet) The only thing that could really be done for it was to rest it and ice it constantly.
I did this all the while trying to run a few laps occasionally. I was never able to run without limping so I couldn't actually race on it. When the last race came up I decided that I had to run for it. I wasn't going to let the injury stop me.
Before our last race, one of my teammate's parent's hosted a team dinner to celebrate the season and just to have a get together before the possible last race of the year. I arrived with the small snack that had been required of the men's team to bring. We all ate a delicious, carb-friendly spaghetti dinner and talked about the season so far. Afterwards, all of us went into the living room to watch the movie that I would see repeatedly for the next four years. Prefontaine. It was the story of Steve Prefontaine, the cocky but amazing American runner from Coos Bay, Oregon. At some point in time he is every Maumee runner's idol, including mine. During all of my runs after I learned about this man's life, I was motivated by either one of his quotes or just his sheer will to be the absolute best he could be. After the movie ended, the team departed and we got ready for the district race in the next few days.
When the day came up I spent the early part of the day cheering on the team that had supported me throughout the season. When it came time for my race, my leg wasn't feeling anywhere near as good as I was hoping it would.
When the gun went off, I started off at a decent speed but started falling behind fast. It was frustrating because other than my leg I was in shape to run a lot faster. Unfortunately, the pain was so intense that I could barely concentrate on moving my legs let alone doing it at a decent speed. As I came around to the first mile I was in a lot of pain but I still came through in around 9 minutes. This was a huge surprise since earlier in the year I had struggled to hit that time without the searing pain in my leg. I was still losing speed though and by the time I came to the second mile, I was in so much pain I could barely run. When I passed the timer he and some parents asked if I was alright and if I wanted to keep going. I just got out a "yeah" before continuing through the last mile.
As I was getting ready to head into the last half of a mile Ryan came up and asked if I wanted to keep going. I told him, "Yeah, I wanna finish."
"Atta boy!" he says smiling and heads over to talk to coach. Coach came up and asked if I was sure I wanted to finish. I said yeah and he let the finish line know that another runner was still coming in.
As I came in I was getting applause that I really don't like. The pity applause. It's the clap that says, congrats for putting in the effort. It's a common courtesy type of thing but being faster than this I knew that I should have finished a long time ago if healthy. I couldn't even really sprint to the finish line and when I finished I had to get off of my leg as soon as possible.
That ended up being the end of the season for the whole team. The varsity team didn't get any farther than districts. I got faster over the years but the more important thing was that I found a group of people that I could relate to who would be there for me. Not only would they support me even through injury, they were some of my first real friends. I had lacked that in middle school when I played football but the people on the cross country team accepted me as one of their own almost right away an gave me a chance to be part of their group. That meant the world to me and it gave me a sport that would become a huge part of my life in high school.
"You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement." --Steve Prefontaine (Pre)
Works Cited
STEVEPRE.COM : Steve Prefontaine dedication. 17 Mar. 2009
"Shin Splints Causes, Symptoms, Treatment and Diagnosis on MedicineNet.com." 17 Mar. 2009
