Cross Country is hard. Yep, no getting around that solitary fact.
What we like about that fact is that competing in this sport will challenge each of us to wrestle with and to manage our fears (failure, pain, discomfort) in order to accomplish something greater.
It's interesting to watch kids learn to manage this "fight or flight" dilemma because they do it in many different ways.
Sometimes, we see bargaining - runners think perhaps there is an easier shortcut to success. "I know what is required is "A", but if I just do "B", is that OK?"
Others might look for a convenient excuse to avoid the task at hand - "it's too (hot/cold/dry/humid) today." "My legs are sore." "I stayed up too late last night studying." As coaches, we will rarely challenge these excuses directly, but sometimes we will say - "you've put a lot of thought into the reasons that you can't do the workout or race - have you given any thought to how you might be able to overcome those obstacles and give a good effort anyway?"
We find it gratifying when young people begin to make breakthroughs in this arena. Sometimes athletes gain confidence when they are successful overcoming small challenges – this makes them a little more confident at taking the next step. Others are encouraged by the example of others – “if they can do it, why can’t I?” When we see the internal conversation in the athlete’s head move from “I can’t” to “I’ll try” to “I can” to “I will,” we know something very significant and potentially transcendent has taken place for that young person.
Last week, we had two young runners achieve our “fitness standards" for the first time, and then they successfully completed their first competition this past weekend. These two both really struggled for the past eight weeks, and at times, we thought that perhaps they would not stick with it. But they did stick with it (despite plenty of setbacks and discouragement) and finally accomplished something really hard. We found it fascinating to see the immediate positive changes in their body language and relationships with their teammates that came from this new-found self confidence that grew out of accomplishing something difficult.
As coaches, we could not accomplish this for them – we could only provide encouragement and opportunities for them to complete the task only they could do. It was their journey to see through, and they did.
In a snapshot, that’s one thing we really like about cross country.
