One of the weird things about running is that unlike many sports, there’s often a clear advantage to gain by not putting your best team together every week. After our race this weekend was moved from a flat course at Connecticut College, to a hilly course at Williams, we elected to sit a few runners (including myself) who could’ve raced, but were nursing colds or minor injuries, and didn’t want to risk the strain.
While placing high in the team score is obviously a goal, it wasn’t the sole point of this race for us, or for many of the other teams there. In most sports, the best way to practice is to recreate game situations, usually in smaller pieces by practicing certain plays or techniques. In “skill sports,” practice makes perfect.
The same can’t be said for runners. If I tried to train for an 8K by running an 8K as fast as I could every day, I’d be destroyed and frustrated halfway through the year. We spend just as much effort practicing as other athletes, but we’re doing so with a bunch of scientific charts telling us to run for certain distances at certain paces on certain days. Thus, the coach becomes less of an instructor, and more valued for analysis.
Coach McCowan has these charts at his disposal to gain a solid idea of what anyone on our team should run in a workout on any given day. While I’m not a coach, I’d imagine the real skill in being a good coach comes from monitoring his athletes, looking for inconsistency in form or time, and trying to emphasize that the season is long, and that any course of action should keep this in mind. In my case this weekend, I needed that reminder, and while it was difficult to watch my teammates race when I knew that, if necessary, I probably could have gotten through the race, I needed the reminder that there are bigger battles to fight down the road.
Next week, we’re going to have a much clearer sense of where we stand as a team, but right now, we haven’t raced together as a team at our championship distance, the 8K. There may be a little trial-by-fire next weekend, with the Liberty League Championships our first major test. With Hamilton no longer a league member in cross country, only two teams that beat us last year will be racing: RPI and St. Lawrence.
Hamilton’s departure especially changes the landscape at the front of the race, since their top runner, Peter Kosgei, happened to finish 2nd at the Division III National Championships last year, and is putting himself in position to contend for the title once again. The second and third place finishers from last year, both from St. Lawrence, also ran well at Nationals last year, but neither are on this year’s roster. Thus, the front of this year’s race will be wide open, and very exciting to watch.
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