Mile 310.6: Thoughts on Running

Here is my best advice to runners: run fast. Actually, my best advice is even simpler than that: run.

There is no one thing more important to your improvement as a runner than running itself.

Run long.

I would consider this as the next most important thing. This, of course, follows the assumption that when you run, you run distance. Running is distance running.

Then, run fast. The first things I mentioned, though they are the most fundamental, are those hardly worth lending words. They are essential–you should already be used to these two.

Now, run fast.

My third and final season of high-school cross country has just ended. It took me three years to learn to run fast, and by this time it is too late for me.

By running fast, I do not mean to run with great speed. To run in pain, is what I mean, for that is essential to progressing towards speed.

“If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right.”

Of course, this also carries the assumption that you care to improve as a runner. If you do not, feel free to stop reading now, because I write to those who want to run faster, to those who want to run faster longer.

“If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right.”

This is something I constantly tell myself, that I constantly tell my teammates, something that I have heard my coaches and older teammates telling me in years past.

I had accepted this, but I had not learned it. I had been waiting for a chance to finally push out of my pace, to finally get fast. I had been hoping for a breakthrough, when my team and I left for our Cross Country travel meet.

Friday morning.

We got out of class just after second hour, boarded a bus, and rode South to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to compete in the nationally recognized Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival.

The purpose of the travel meet we participate in each year, coach consistently reminds us, is to simulate the state meet. And as such, only the top 12 runners get to go on this excursion. This “business trip.”

And any additional seniors.

I grin broadly when I hear this–that’s me. I know I’m not fast, that’s fine. I’m working on it, that’s good. I’ve run for three years. Now I get to go.

I smell a breakthrough.

 

Fayetteville.

The bus pulls up to the course and lets us off to run before we go to the hotel. We get out, set up the tent for the next day, and jog. The course is as flat as the proverbial pancake, including, to stick with the simile, a single hill no larger than a pat of butter for us to run over.

That night, we talk over race strategy.

“It’s going to be crowded, so stick to the outside of the turns.”

“Be sure to use those straightaways to surge”

“You should be dead when you cross the finish line.”

As a senior, I am asked to give my input as well.

“I agree.”

 

We sleep.

Alarms go off the next day, we stuff ourselves with the free breakfast, and we’re off to the course.

The gun goes off.

We race.

The first hundred meters, I can feel the other runners pulling away, leaving me to breathe in the red Arkansas dust of their superiority. I push faster, I run my race.

I finish in 19 minutes and 14 seconds.

My coach is surprised; I feel as though I have finally learned what running is.

 

On the bus ride back, all I can think about is the next week’s meet. A few days later, I get a course map in my e-mail. There are three medium sized hills, all in the first half of the course, and the rest is mostly flat. I think “I can do this” and “I’m going to break twenty again.”

 

The starting line. I know this is going to be a tough course.

Coach tells me to have fun – “This is your last race,” he says. I think that if I have fun, he is definitely right.

As we take our places on the starting line, I notice the race is sparse—some teams only have four men running. I tell myself I have a shot at competing–if I don’t have fun. The gun goes off, and I run. I notice that I am starting among the main crowd of runners. I have never done this before, so I allow myself to slow down and fall to where I believe I should be in the pack.

My first mistake.

I tell myself that it will be my only.

I run my race.

Thinking on my race, I give myself an F in maneuvering.

I run hard, knowing this is my last chance to achieve something. My last chance to show my coach that I am no joker, that I honestly am a runner, dedicated to the program.

I finish the race in a heavy sprint, filled with euphoria. I have passed people, I have finished ahead of people I should not have finished ahead of. People I am sure should have made it onto the top 10 list for the team.

The awards ceremony.

The top seven spots contain our varsity runners. No question. They didn’t have to battle for a spot on the team.

They’re in.

The next three, and I am not among them. I am not close. I am happy for my teammates.

I am done.

We go to CiCi’s pizza after, but I cannot eat anything. I am in much pain. The pain lasts all day.

 

My season is over. My time, out.

I have run my race.

Not

good

enough.

 

“Run fast,” I say.

“Turn left.”

“Turn right.”

“Run up the hill.”

“Fly down the hill.”

“When you cross the finish line, you should be dead; but don’t stay that way.”

That is what I have to say about running.