3 Things I Learned from Running
This summer I made the strange decision to sign-up for cross-country. Cross country is a pretty popular sport but what made my decision so strange was that it was decidedly out of character. I am actually a Lacrosse player and I HATED running as a sport, but I really wanted to stay in shape before Lacrosse in Spring so I decided to try it out. While I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, it was way more difficult than I expected.
I went into cross country with only the intention of getting in shape for lacrosse season. The conditioning was the easy part, the hard part was staying mentally strong. Before my first race, my coaches told me about the third mile of the course. It was a pretty secluded stretch of land and because of the coronavirus, there would be no spectators. They said that this part of the race would be the hardest since
- It’s the third mile of the race so you are going to be tired but you have to keep pushing it to win!
- There would be no spectators motivating you and cheering you on (never underestimate how much this helps)
I didn’t really understand how difficult it would actually be until my first race. By the third mile, I was in so much pain physically and with every step, my brain was telling me I want to walk, and I had to continuously remind myself “no I don’t want to walk, I won’t walk”. There was no pressure from anyone around me to keep going. There was absolutely nothing stopping me from taking a break and walking. My coaches weren’t there, my parents weren’t watching, and I remember thinking “why don’t you walk, no one’s going to know”. I had to find a way to stay motivated through all the pain with no help from my environment. Running gets a lot harder when you are by yourself.
Next, while cross country is technically a team sport, it definitely felt “every man for himself”. During practice you train with your team and your times and ranks as a team ultimately determine whether you make it to higher levels such regionals and state but during races, you normally run alone. Our coaches advised us to run in groups to stay motivated and in theory that sounds good, but it’s a little harder in a competitive racing environment. You might be close to another person’s level but it would be extremely difficult to find someone who runs the exact same pace as you and if your partner slows down, you are not going to slow down and jeopardize your time in order to stay with them. Everyone was timed individually, and your rank determined how well you did compared to other people. Therefore, you wanted to get your best time and during a race, that meant looking out for and focusing on only yourself. It was weird being in a situation where there was pressure to perform better than people you were on a team with.
The last thing I learned during my cross-country season is that it never gets easier. Once you are able to easily run the entire race without walking, you have to move on to your new goal: running faster and constantly beating your personal time. You are never done improving and if you really want to do well, every race is a test of how much you can push yourself both physically and mentally. I recognized this after my third race. I had beaten my time by over a minute and as I remembered how much of a struggle it was to keep my pace up and not slow down, I realized that it was always going to be difficult.
As I look back at the season, everything came down to mindset. No matter what situation you’re in, there are always going to be times where you don’t have encouragement and motivation, times when you feel alone, and constantly trying to one up yourself is difficult. In these situations, your mindset is really what makes or breaks you. If you decide that “it’s too difficult “or “I can’t do it”, you won’t do it… it’s that simple. The way to accomplish more and persistently improve is to make a conscious effort to tell yourself to keep going.
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Talk to you soon :)
