Well, I survived! Cross Country is over, and although I never would have been able to believe it even six months ago, I can officially run long distances.
Maybe I’m not elite.
Maybe I’m not even above average…
But. I. FINISHED!!! And I am so very glad I did.
It was slow going at first, as I am a sprinter at heart and couldn’t fathom the idea that running miles on end might be fun or relaxing (not that sprinting is that relaxing either, but I considered it the lesser of the two evils.)
The first practices were excruciatingly hot, and I guzzled water like it was the life source which kept me putting one foot in front of the other–and I guess it was.
I found a list of several points which follow the statement, “You know you are an XC runner if…” and decided to use these to better explain the “sport” of running.
1. You roll your eyes when people say, “You run three miles…at once?” *Rolls eyes*…yes, I’m guilty.
2. You get irritated when more than half the people you know don’t know the difference between cross-country and track. Let’s start with my own family here! Mom, even up until my last meet, was still calling cross-country “track”. I don’t even have to try to explain the differences…it should be obvious!
3. You come up with weird answers to questions like “Why do you run so much?” For example, “I don’t know…I guess I’m just wired differently.” 😉
4. The most enjoyable time you’ve had all month is a day off from practice. Actually, I enjoyed practicing, whether with the team or by myself. My legs start to itch if I let them remain immobile for too long.
5. All your socks are either stained or torn. Haha…YES! This is so true. Cross Country wreaked major havoc on all my running socks.
6. You can spit while running. A lovely talent I have acquired. 🙂
7. You finish the race looking like you wrestled a bear and you don’t care. True that. You can’t care too much how you look while running because I usually look like I’ve wrestled a bear and lost when I cross the finish line.
8. You spend more on training clothes than school clothes. Being homeschooled, of course, I don’t have school clothes, but actually I was always dressed for a run in case I could sneak an extra one in. Often I would spend the entire day in my running shoes so that between subjects I could do a few laps around the block.
9. You have running withdrawal if you don’t run everyday. Like I said earlier…a day without running meant legs itching to get outside.
10. You wake up every morning in pain. And different kinds of pain, too. Some days it would be in the calves, some days hamstrings, others quads, and even abdominal muscles hurt!
11. Gatorade is your drug of choice. I couldn’t get enough of it.
12. Your Saturdays for the entire season are ruined. Seriously, every time I was invited to go somewhere on a Saturday I couldn’t because of cross-country meets…but that’s okay 😀
13. You enjoy running hills. Well, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed running them… 😉
14. Your favorite food group is carbohydrates. Bring on the pasta!
15. You are always hungry. Seriously, during the season I was a bottomless pit. I was raiding the fridge night and day.
16. Track is the other “sport”. Yup.
17. You think sprinting is for wussies. Actually, I have to disagree with this one, being a sprinter myself 🙂 Sprinting is just a different sort of hard.
18. You don’t know what an “off-season” means. If you are training year-round, then this is definitely the case.
19. You have shin splints. The third week of cross country I got my first official shin splints. Somehow I had managed to avoid them in track 😦
20. You find yourself saying, “it’s not really a hill…” This is so true. My friends and I rated hills by their steepness and length. Some were “molehills” and others were “half-mountains”.
21. Your feet are comparable to rawhide. Ick…yes 😦
22. Watching the New York Marathon on T.V. made you get up and go for a run. Who has time to watch TV when you could be running…just kidding 🙂
23. You can say “I like to run” in four languages. I like to run. Ich mag zu laufen. J’aime bien courir . Më pëlqen për të kandiduar.
24. Your calves are bigger than your biceps. Pshh. Way bigger. 😀
25. Your toe nails are falling off. Give me more time…one of them is well on its way.
26. You’re proud that another team has quadrupled you’re score. Because diehard XC fans know that the team with the lowest score wins. 🙂
27. You have a strong desire to save used popsicle sticks. Only a race runner would understand. 🙂 (Alright, for any non-xc’ers–the popsicle stick is given when you cross the finish line with your “place” on it.)
28. You run through puddles instead of around them. Ah, yes, such excellent training.
29. You know at least 3 different ways to tie a shoelace. Only three? I know at least seven. 😛
30. You know exactly what a difference .14 miles can make. Oh, yes! Every little bit hurts.
31. Water is everywhere. I will rephrase this…water is LIFE!
32. Your team is like family. Perhaps a dysfunctional family…just kidding 🙂
33. You have more inside jokes than a stand up comedian does. *Laughs*
34. You have almost or have gotten hit by a car. Almost, not quite 😉
35. You can add up miles and meters in your head, any other math you need a calculator. Very true
36. You go through cases of water/Gatorade in a week. More like truckloads
37. You know what sweat taste like. And blood. And vomit. And all three mixed together. 
38. You’ve become a professional at popping blisters. Blister-popper extraordinaire right here!
39. You have some cool looking tan lines. Let’s see…how ’bout substituting the word “mortifying” for the word “cool”??
40. You and everyone on your team have some corny ritual before a race. I wouldn’t consider praying a “corny” ritual…
41. You know the location and state of decomposition of all roadkill in a 5 mile radius of your school. Change that to my house, and yes, I do.
42. You measure a distance in time. Actaully, I first I found this difficult but eventually I was able to pick this up, too!
43. You tell how old your shoes are by how many miles are on them. Mine need replacing, but I want to see if they’ll stay together through track season. (Running shoes are so crazy expensive, it is not even funny!)
44. You can run 6 miles while singing the entire way. Correction: I sing the first two miles, I whistle through the third, I can generally keep something like a conversation through the fourth and fifth, and if I dare run a sixth you can bet I won’t be making much noise. 😉
45. You’ve been ever so thankful to find a disgusting, stinking, hasn’t-been-emptied-in-months porta-john at just the right time. As disgusting as it is, that thing is glimmering diamonds when you really need it.
Well, I hope through the above forty-five statements I have been better able to explain cross-country. Will I do it next year? Of course! As strenuos and awful as it was at the beginning, it really paid off at the end. And, as #18 correctly states, there is no “off-season” for a runner…you just got to keep plugging away at those miles, BUT…now I am varying my long distance runs with shorter, faster sprinting work-outs. YAY!! I can’t wait for track!!
Also, one might wonder why there are no pictures of me for cross-country posted. Let’s just say I look like a dying platypus when I run and don’t really want to post them!
"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all." --Helen Keller 