Accidental Lessons

It is still a mystery why I sign up for it every year. Somehow, sprinting through freezing ran and dashing around in hot temperatures is not at the top of my to-do list. The nauseous feeling at the end of meets and hard practices alone is enough to make me want to quit and join a speed-walking team instead. But for some terrible, beautiful reason, I find myself I filling out the registration forms each year, pulling on our groovy, psychedelic tie-dye running t-shirts, and joining the race. Although some of the most helpful lessons from cross-country have been to keep your arms down when running and breathe deeply to combat side-aches, I have also gained some more insightful wisdom from the mysteriously appealing sport. Here are five accidental lessons that I have learned from my experiences in cross-country running:

1. Once you actually talk to somebody, you’ll find that they’re not as bad as you thought they were. When I joined cross-country, I became part of a team. Many of the girls who I ran with were girls who I thought I would never connect with. I situated myself comfortably in my ignorant little junior-high bubble of similar friends. I truly believed that I would never communicate with these quiet, shy girls who feebly played their violas in Orchestra and sat in the corner during gym. But during cross-country season, a strange thing happened. I actually sat down with them and talked with them. And during this time I realized that perhaps they were not the quiet, shy girls who I initially pegged them for. I realized that I had mistaken their quiet ways for thoughtful insight, and their shyness for hidden intellect. Because of cross-country, I would have never given myself the opportunity to get to know them, and as a result, become good friends with them.
2. Your family will always be there for you. During my first year at cross-country, I never let my parents come watch my meets. I was irrationally afraid that they would be ashamed of me if I didn’t win, or that they would be disappointed if I got twentieth instead of first. But during my second year, I decided to do things differently. As much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t like seeing the parents of my friends embrace their daughters after they raced while I kept my mother and father locked up at home. So I took a chance and invited them. When I completed my race and walked off the finish line, the pure expression of pride and raw enthusiasm that marked my parents faces were the best possible thing to see. Their hugs and encouragement made the race ten times better, and being able to walk into my mom’s arms after a particularly straining 5k was the best thing in the world.
3. Eat dessert first. During my first few cross-country potlucks I made the mistake of beelining towards the breads, pastas, and salads the moment I arrived. After sitting down and practically swallowing the delicious carbohydrates whole, I would walk over to the dessert table only to find a single measly, hard, oatmeal-raisin cookie left. Over the course of many potlucks and cross-country dinners, I have learned to head over to the dessert table first thing. This way, I get my choice of chewy brownies, moist cupcakes, and soft, doughy cookies. I stock up on pastas and salads and breads of course, but why not let yourself enjoy the even more delicious things in life too?
4. Encourage as much as possible. There is nothing like hearing your teammates cheer you up the hill as you race your last mile. Their shouts of encouragement somehow propel my legs to move faster and my arms to pump harder. They know what I’m going through, and they know how much I need their support. One time I was running a race for JV, and my friend on varsity jogged beside me for 200 meters, telling me random facts to keep my mind off of the pain of racing. Those 200 meters increased my confidence and energized me to run harder. Success is so much easier to achieve when you have someone cheering you on.
5. It’s never too early to prepare. On the days of our meets, we leave from school early so as to have time to prepare and jog through the course. We get to know it’s twists and turns, it’s bumps and divots, it’s hills and ditches. We memorize each tough spot, and we store the easier parts in our brains for comfort during a race. This type of preparation helps me greatly at each meet. Being aware that a hill is coming up helps me mentally prepare for the suffering to come. It wills my body be stronger and forces my arms to pump harder. During our last meet, it seemed as if the whole course was one big hike up Everest. But my awareness of the tricky terrain helped me make better decisions and pace myself more reasonably. The knowledge of what is to come makes success more easy to grasp.