High School Cross Country Memories

Marathon is 3 days from today!

Gonna start Carbo-loading today!

• • •

Since the last time I took running this seriously was when I was running High School Cross Country, I've been thinking about those days more and more lately.

Cross Country, a Fall sport, was considered a distance event in high school, as it was three miles over unpredictable terrain while the longest Track race was the two mile. Until 2004 when I first ran the Bay to Breakers 12K (that race where people dress up in funny clothes and 60,000 run/walk across the City), I had never run a race longer than 5K. The following Fall I ran my first 10K in the Run to the Far Side (another race that features costumes – hmm...). I could tell my body remembered Cross Country races well, because my pacing in the 10K was absolutely horrible: 6:35/mile over the first two miles, 7:08 over the last 4.2.

(A Marathon is a completely different thing altogether. I guess there's something to going 8 and half times as far.... If I ran any mile under 7:15, it'd be suicide.)

One thing that has me thinking about it is that the two people I've been leaning on most for marathon advice (Mike and Thomas) were basically non-runners before they chose the insanity of marathons.

Things I remember from Cross Country in High School:

• Water – I never really drank (or ate) before or during a race. It was a short race!
  
• Machismo – Cross Country was in the same season as Football, so one had to consider toughness. "Oh yeah, today's run is nine miles, and features 3 miles uphill to Mulholland Drive..."
  
• Competition (amongst teammates, even) – If you were on the Varsity and you ran slower than a guy in the JV race, you were dropped to JV until you regained your spot.
  
• Youth and split times – In those days, young enough, fast enough, I ran below 6:00/mile in races all the time, with a PR around 5:40.
  
• Summer prep – My tactic for making the Varsity team was to get in shape early by running 20 to 30 miles a week during the summer, while my teammates didn't start running until just before the school year.
  
• My brother – The first year I ran all summer long, my brother ran with me, and it propelled him to make the Varsity for his senior year.
  
• My father – Always interested in sports and his sons, my dad attended just about every race (home and away), and typically helped with timing the 1 mile split.

• • •

With the race coming soon, one Cross Country race in particular comes to mind. My Junior Year, I had broken onto the Varsity, and projected to run 6th or 7th for our team. I had such a horrible race one time that I got bumped back to Junior Varsity. In this race, I knew I had to run faster than the last guy on the Varsity (who had yet to run their race). The biggest problem would be that I might not have anyone to guide my pace against, so I'd be running against the clock, while the guy I was hoping to beat could be dragged along by all the faster runners in the Varsity race.

At the start of my race, I was surprised to find one small kid who was really fast out of the gate. He seemed a bit too young, and our opponent was not known to have a fast team. I immediately assumed he was a rabbit (an unflattering term applied to someone who goes out too quickly, assumed to be a tactic to throw the pace off of unsuspecting opponents so his teammates can run a smarter race and win). But his pace didn't seem too fast for me, so I kept with him.

Sure enough, within a mile, he started to flag. We were significantly ahead of the rest of the runners at this point, and as I continued, the rabbit fell back. I was alone. Me against the clock.

I saw no one else for the rest of the race. I may have glanced back to see no one behind me, but since I was running against a clock, I just needed to keep my head down and move it.

I won the race by a lot, and never saw the rabbit finish. I also had a better time than the 7th place Varsity runner, so I earned back my spot with that race.

The picture here is actually from that race. It is one of the few pictures I have of me running back then, taken by a photographer for the school newspaper (which is why it is in black and white).