In most team sports, team members are valued for a certain skill that they possess and contribute to the team. For example, in basketball, the point guard may be the ball handler, the center may be the rebounder, and the guard may be the three point shooter. The success of the team depends on each individual’s execution of their unique role within the team.
Obviously, cross country is much simpler than most sports because running is the only required athletic skill and each runner shares the same role on the team. All runners know that raw running ability often takes a backseat to mental skills such as toughness and desire. Running requires mental skills and character traits, which can’t be tallied like points on a scoreboard, but they can be developed during practice. In practice, we don’t necessarily practice running. Rather we train our minds to endure pain and combat negative thoughts. Hard workouts improve fitness, but more importantly, they try to duplicate the pain you will experience during a race, but in a smaller dose. Gradually our running improves as we increase our fitness, callus our pain sensors, and acquire the skill of staying positive in the midst of adversity.
The success of a cross country team is dependent upon the degree to which each team member is willing to suffer through pain, which is a shared pain that each runner will inevitably encounter. As Coach Anderson likes to say, “You must out-suffer your competition.”
My question for current and past team members is: Why do/did you run cross country? What’s the lure? Most people avoid pain and suffering, but you seem to enjoy testing your will and raising your pain tolerance! Why do you do this crazy sport?
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Hey watsup, Kade here. I first came into cross country not really knowing what to expect. I guess you could say that i like to try new things, and i was at a time where i needed something new in my life, something that would challenge me. so i chose cross country, and i haven't regreted it yet. I don't truly know what it is, but even after the hardest runs of my life, i feel the best that i have ever felt in my life, i feel.. alive! I love that feeling and wouldn't trade it for the world. Cross brings me close to this feeling as i think i'll ever be, and for that, i am grateful to "suffer" each and every day for the rest of my life.
hey all, Michael here... So when I started cross country in JH, I didn't really know what to expect. But as the season went on, i found myself growing to like it more and more everyday. Now in high school, after 3 years of grueling pain and suffering I still think of cross country the same. It's a sport that teaches you to reach inside yourself and find the person that you really are. I've had many times that i think to myself "I’m so stupid for doing this", wondering why I would ever put myself through this much pain; i guess it's because it's a sport that I like and know that everyone else out there is probably thinking the same thing. Cross country lets you find your true friends and you get to know them not only as friends but as family. That you can talk to them about anything. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love the feeling of being out there, just running, finding my true potential and never surrendering. Having one more year of Cross is going to be the best year yet, with more experences to come.
when i joined cross country i really didin't know what to respect. i learned what it was all about when i hit my sophmore and junior years i notice the runs got harder but i kept going because it was fun and addicting. i love the pain it tells me that i am working harder than the others. but i also know that my team mates are running and suffering just as much as i am. i agree with Kade i am grateful to "suffer" each and every day for the rest of my life.
Well, I decided to try cross-country in 7th grade. That first year was tough, I remember running out in Ranch Community and I thought I was going to die. I wanted to quit but decided to stick with it a few more weeks. After doing it a little longer, I started to like it. Am I ever glad that I stuck with it because now I love it! Every season, I would get even more determination to run. It's addicting. I've learned so much doing cross-country. Yeah, those hard days and races are painful but I want to push my body beyond what I think I can do. Running is such an awesome sport because I love the feeling after you go for a run. It's also great running with teammates that also feel the pain. Over the last few years, I've gotten more determination and motivation to improve my running. During the summer and off season, I'll run throughout the week just because I love it -fresh air, trails, just running! The thing is- are you willing to push your body, work hard, and experience pain to achieve your goals? I am! When I don't do as well as I want to, I get a drive to push even more and experience even more pain to reach my goals. One of the things I look forward to in running is finding my true potential and see what I can really do.
Well my journey started 6 years ago. In 7th grade i joined a 4 person XC team. Back then i didn't think about why i ran. A tall. bald man with a quirky but ingenious sense of humor and a penchant for referring to his athletes as "turkeys" told me what to run, and i did it. But this wasn't why i ran. 6 years later not much has changed. The coaches have more hair, and call me by my name but running is still running, and its only gotten harder.
I run because it can give you a challenge. Over the years i have grown to live for the challenge. This is thanks not only to my coaches, but also my best friend Kyle Brookens. I know see life as a challenge. I run because I feel I have touched something most "normal people" cannot using running as a tool. The ability to go improve is the most satisfying aspect of my life, and not only in running. Its the challenge that make sit worth it. A lyric in one of my favorite songs is "Mediocrity is the killer." If through hardship i can shed mediocrity and feel alive, if only for a second, it is worth it.
The second reason is to have something worth remembering. Moments of suffering and hardship stick with you, thus a minute spent running at redline is truly a thousand times more valuable than an hour or even two spent watching tv,reading, sitting in a class room or playing video games because it will stick with you and not melt away with the years.
Lastly even if i hated suffering, it would be worth it for the team. This team has included most of my close friendships and good memories. From the nerdy metal head days of freshmen year to sand dunes sophomore year,Leadville and state junior year being elected team captain(i still have no idea why) and the rest of what senior year brings, the comradeship alone was worth it!
Cross country has started me on a path i will continue my whole life. No matter where i end up i will owe this team my success. The fact that i WILL complete my goals of becoming a good wrestler in one season, running in college, skiing in the himalayas andes and alps, and staying fit and active for the rest of my days all stem from running in high school. When im 50 you will still see me jamming Lamb of God and setting out on a hard run, doing pushups til my shoulders give in and having a great time with life! And to think this is called suffering.....
Cross Country Rocks
Jackson
KB: Well I can say that in my younger years, (3rd and 6th grade) I never even thought of doing cross country. To be honest, I really did not enjoy anything but soccer. I was asked by a good friend in 7th grade to try running cross country. I quickly responded sure, I'll try it out. Not knowing what I got myself into, I began running all the practices in skate shoes. I soon found out, that running shoes are helpful to prevent injury. While doing cross Cross in 7th grade, I also participated in the recreational soccer team. The next year, in eighth grade, I decided to play soccer only. So I did not have 2 practices and or games every day. As I entered high School, I made the decision to go back to cross and run. I did this, for I had somehow become addicted to the sport--enduring agony. Pushing yourself beyond your normal perception of true pain. Pumping your arms, weight forward, quick, light steps, striving for an efficient turn over. Maybe its the overall sense of gratification and accomplishment that running provides when I give it my all. Or, when I permit myself to suffer that makes me enjoy running so much. I became so attached to running that I made the sacrifice of not playing soccer. It was a tough choice, but I am glad with the choice that I made. Cross country helped build my character, it allowed me to not only push myself in running, but It allowed me to push myself in every other physical activity I partake in. The sport will forever be a large part of my life. I plan on to continue my running career throughout my life, and constantly alter my own perception of true pain. Thank you Dylan Caves for the encouragement of joining the team.
In my younger days, I can honestly say there are not many memories I have that do not involve a certain other little blonde girl named Kelsea Anderson. From the very beginning we were friends and though we had our ups and downs she meant a lot to me in my childhood, and so did her family. Growing up with someone like Scott Anderson as a second dad did not come without his influence; I went to many cross country meets with Kelsea in the intermediate school days and I remember just dying to be in junior high so I could race against all those other kids. From the very beginning I have always loved the pain of physical exertion- driven by a dad who dragged me up peaks starting at the age of 5 years old, and out on long runs even when my adolescent self would much rather have been doing other things. I learned to appreciate that he was trying to make me stronger and eventually, slowly I embraced it.
Junior high cross country started out painfully- beginning with racing in ranch community knee deep in mud, to mr.schur driving past us on snowball road in his big, white, suburban banging on the side and yelling for us turkeys to run faster, to jacie and betsy writing me a ‘secret love note’ from Dylan but spelling his name wrong so instantly giving it away, to emmi and I hiding Jefferson walshs shoes and him having to run in mr.schurs shoes at Aztec. But the importance to me in the junior high days was the discovery of genuine comradeship, and not much has changed up to the present.
Cross country is about team. It is about loving your team and being able to love them enough to the point of tears and blood, and want to sacrifice your personal comfort in order to help them out in any way you can- for the greater good. Its not just about running, but about life. We are family and we can get thought anything, and that’s what I will always remember about this sport. Though I have made many mistakes along the way, many that I may not ever be completely forgiven for, cross country is the single most important thing that has shaped me to be who I am. Cross country this year has been the biggest breaking point in my life thus far. It took a year plus worth of idiocy and immaturity, and a ridiculously painful chain of events in my personal live, to realize the stupidity of the way I was living my life. If everything truly happens for a reason, then we all must learn from our mistakes and move on. But without this sport, the people in this sport, and the true love and comradeship we build and discover from cross country, I would not have been able to move on in life. For this I just want to say thank you. Thank you Scott, for everything you have ever taught me, for all the support throughout my childhood I was given, and for helping me mature and become so much of a better person. Thank you JD and Hope, and little beautiful baby Asher, for reinforcing the notion that true love really does exist. Thank you Jackson, Ashley, Jacie, Kat, Dylan, Nate, EVERYONE on the team for making this sport so important in my life and for the love that we all share.
CROSS COUNTRY ROCKS!!!!!!!!!
Hey! It's Mele and I guess it's time to add my little story here. I guess it all started because of my attitude. Not that I was made to join, but because my brother said that I wouldn't be able to do it. From the beginning I was out to prove him wrong, though I never started running until my freshman year of high school. I'm not going to go through every little detail of the past two and a half years, but I must say that through xc I found myself and what I love. I've become more confident in myself and others, knowing what to expect of my racing but also not to beat myself up too much. Through the Pirate Cross Country, I have not just made friends, but family. Older friends became even closer and new friends just as close. Also, I feel that running shows me that I CAN do something. There are lots of kids who ride skateboards, play basketball, volleyball, or get good grades, but few who have the willpower to get out and run. I think that everybody on this team knows others can run; they just choose not to or think about the bad aspects of running. How about the good? You become stronger, more patient, better students, positive. Pretty much, cross country rounds out your life and gives you everything you put into it. I love this team, the coaches, and of course, cross. Keep running! =D
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