USATF Cross Country: Bringing up the Rear
Michelle
goal in every race I enter is to run the entire thing without walking. �I
don't always succeed, but I try.
-- Michelle
<http://www.womentalksports.com/items/read/46/81529>
Well, I have done it again. Last year on this very day, I swore that I
would not get talked into running another cross country race, but here I
am, sweaty and exhausted, sitting down at my computer to recap the 2009
Southern California USATF Cross Country Championships.
I began running in September of 2008. Truthfully, I always flirted with the
idea of being a runner. As a competitive swimmer, we used running as
cross-training on occasion, and on those cold early mornings with my toes
on the edge of a swimming pool that I was sure would be freezing enough to
make me scream, I just wanted to lace up a pair of shoes and run far, far
away. However, I always made that chilly plunge (typically once my coach
pushed me in), and my running shoes sat in my swim bag, collecting more
mold than mileage.
As I retired from swimming following my senior year of college at the
University of Nebraska back in 2003, I took five good years to be a
�normal� person who doesn�t attend six hours of practice per day and who
could sleep in past 4:45am. I felt like a lazy bum during those years, but
I think that my body truly needed rest and time off. I started competitive
athletics (gymnastics, then swimming) at the age of nine, and didn�t really
come up for a breath until my 22nd�birthday.
Things changed during the summer of 2008 after I returned to my hometown of
Eugene, Oregon to watch my college friends Ann Gaffigan (my roommate in the
dorms back in 2000) and Anne Shadle, compete in the Track and Field Olympic
Trials at Hayward Field. The intensely competitive atmosphere of that
incredible event made me realize that the desire to train for something�was
not dead inside of me. I have no delusions about my place in the sport of
distance running. I know that by beginning at the age of 27, I will never
be a factor in competitive events or set anything other than personal
records, but I get a strange satisfaction out of kicking my own butt into
shape on the track week after week.
This brings me to Track Club Los Angeles (TCLA), where I have been training
every Tuesday night with a group of adults who, like myself, aren�t willing
to hang up their shoes just because college is over. Through TCLA, my
coach, Eric Barron, encouraged me to run (notice that I did not use the
word �compete�) at the Southern California USATF Cross Country
Championships in both 2008 and 2009.
Last year, I was so new to the sport that I readily joined USATF and showed
up to the race expecting a field like any other road race where I could
blend into the masses. However, the field was made up of roughly 20 women
whom had nearly all competed in the sport of cross country for their
colleges, however long ago that may have been.
That day, it was 96 degrees at the start of the race and the air was filled
with smoke from the seemingly annual Los Angeles fires. Never having to
deal with overheating in a swimming race, the sun has become my kryptonite
as a runner. Regardless of the shape that I am in, when I get too hot, I am
simply�done. So as I turned various shades of red while running the 6K race
last November, the only thought that crossed my mind was, �I wonder if
anyone would notice if I hid behind that tree and just quit.� Needless to
say, my 2008 XC experience left me almost in tears as I crossed the finish
line dizzy, dehydrated, and dead last.
I came up with a million excuses as to why I would not be running this race
again in 2009. I had been injured over the spring and summer, the hills
weren�t good for my still recovering hip, the weather would probably be
scorching, blah, blah, blah. Truthfully, I just didn�t want to get last
place and realize, yet again, that I am still very much a novice in this
new sport that I have come to love.
Six days before this year�s race, I finally decided, with the encouragement
(a nice word for �pressure�) from my TCLA teammates and coach that I would
suck up my pride and represent my club again. After all, I would be the
5th�girl, and we needed five to score. I spent the days between my decision
to run and the race by obsessing over the weather forecast, pleading with
friends on Facebook to come and run as well, and contemplating a sudden and
fictitious bout of the dreaded swine flu.
Race day was upon me, and the weather, although sunny, was not unbearably
hot. As the much faster runners around me were lacing up their spikes in
preparation for the race, I readjusted the laces on my own regular running
shoes to look cool and legitimate and cracked jokes with my teammate, Ginna
Ladd, who was about as uncomfortable with the whole situation as I was (it
should be noted that she just ran 3:03 at the Chicago Marathon and had no
reason to feel out of place). I warned Ginna about the fast pace that the
women took out in last year�s race and we agreed to stay controlled despite
our nerves.
As I approached the starting line, I took a deep breath and told myself,
�Just forget about getting last, who cares? Close your eyes, let them run
away from you at the start, and concentrate on being tougher and faster
than you were last year.� As it turns out, running my own race works much
better for me than focusing on the widening gap between the lead pack and
myself. As I was running the three-loop course, I finally realized that
getting last place is not the worst thing in the world, but lacking the
courage to step up to the line or the determination not to finish what you
have started just might be.
I crossed the finish line of the hilly 6K four minutes faster than I did
last year, accepted my 17th place medal (there were only 18 runners, which
need not be mentioned in further retellings of this story), and put on my
flip-flops because my feet still think that running is torture and
consistently punish me with impressively large blisters. As my times begin
to drop and my weekly mileage continues to increase, I am reminded that
although this sport is difficult and requires amounts of stamina that I�ve
never tapped into before, I do love distance running, even if it is from
the back of the pack.
--
26.2 Because I can