Health, Happiness & A Victory

We had our first race today, and I was not very excited, considering how well I did at this meet last year, combined with the fact that we were on our home course. Then again, it’s hard to be too excited about something that caused some of my best friends so much frustration, mental anguish, and physical pain. At this point last year, I was trying to assure myself that my hospitalized teammates and competitors would be okay, which took much of the luster off my first-ever top 10 finish in a cross-country race, and our team’s victory. After last year, a day with no hospitalization could be considered a victory.

As we pinned the numbers to our jerseys and began our warm-up, I couldn’t help noticing the absence of a few good men. We lost four runners to graduation, and three of them were definitely missed today. (It’s not that I’m mean, it’s that Colin Sanders has remained with us in a volunteer coaching/alumni running role, and it’s hard to miss someone when they’re at the start line pouring water on you.) That said, I’m still missing my running mentor/fellow hockey fan, the fine fellow who taught me the ins and outs of the Sports Information office, and the most southern, grammar-correcting clown you’ll ever meet. The character of our team changed so much when they moved on, and I think we’re still forging our new identity.

The character of our team changed so much when they moved on, and I think we’re still forging our new identity. As for the race, I’m actually quite happy with the way things unfolded. Just about everyone had at least an average day, and no one went to the hospital. We did more than enough to win the meet, and our freshmen performed especially well. The race went out excessively fast, which isn’t unexpected, considering that many of the teams were inexperienced and young. I like to run from the middle of the pack and pick people off as the race goes on, which is harder to do in shorter races with less competition, like today. That said, I kept in contact with a pack of my teammates for most of the race, and made a couple of passes in the last hundred meters.

While I finished 18th overall, as compared to last year’s 9th, I’m not upset at all about today. I know I have lots of room for improvement, and I didn’t go into today trying to perform in post-season form. Instead, I tried to run an intelligent race, and I finished exactly where I wanted among my teammates. This might sound strange to many, but I don’t go into cross-country races expecting to win or lead. If I were ever to lead a college cross-country race, it would probably be because I sprinted the first 400 meters, and was then ready to collapse by the first mile. In other words, I’m not Laura Coogan.

Laura is a senior on the women’s team, and she has won the Vassar Invitational the last three years. I really can’t compare what I do to what Laura does. When I race, I have someone to chase. Today, for over half of the race, Laura had no one to chase; everyone was chasing her. I can’t imagine someone like Laura goes into a race like this hoping to finish second. If someone passes me with authority, I can at least hope there’s someone else in front of me who has less gas left in the tank than I do. In the front, you don’t have that luxury, nor can you see how everyone else is moving, and if the people in second and third are gaining on you or fading back.

I asked Laura how she managed to handle leading a race, and she said “I think mostly about how I’m feeling and the gap I have on the girl behind me…I feel a little out of touch with the race…I just try to open up as much of a gap as I can.”

I have the utmost respect for what Laura does, not because she physically has what it takes to win, but because she’s developed a way to handle the nerves of knowing everyone is trying to beat you. I struggle with managing my mid-race nerves from the pack, where reining in someone trying to pass doesn’t decide the difference between success and defeat on a given day. I don’t expect to win at NYU in two weeks (just like I don’t expect to win the Pulitzer Prize for this blog) but after talking to Laura, I’m going to try to think like her, trying to make the gap to the guy behind me just a little bigger.