Cross Country

I am currently going to run in a decent cross country meet in a few hours after this post. I've always wanted to be the fastest runner in every race, but it seems like it's impossible. I run a 5:45 mile pace for three miles straight; that may sound impressive, but not good enough for those who could run a sub five minute pace for three miles straight. It makes me wonder how these people run so fast, there's always a tiny group that stays together, and the slower group is completely isolated, there is no such a thing as single file line in every cross country race. Every course is different, but the same people keep winning, so I wouldn't blame it on the steep hill for not being first. There are rainy days, where it's an obvious disadvantage to everyone, but the same runners win first place again! I just don't understand their work ethic during practices, because I don't go to their school. If only I knew how to progress as a faster runner, I ran a very good PR last year, rewarding me with an eighth place medal in a small meet. However, in bigger meets, where there are more than three hundred runners in a single race, there is always that one guy that is ahead of everyone by hundreds of meters. It just stuns me how they can do such thing.

 

My uncle was an example of one of those extreme and avid runners. He told me that his reason for being so fast was because you only get to run as a high school team once. Then once you graduate, you're done, so make the best of it. He is extremely competitive; he doesn't like it when a runner passes him during a race, so he would obviously push himself to run past him back, usually the other runner wouldn't bother passing him again. My uncle would run faster and faster, he wouldn't slow down, he likes the feeling of being way ahead of everyone and testing to see how far ahead he could be.

 

All I could ask for is to be like my uncle when it comes to the last meet of my last high school year. I will probably finally realize his passion during the middle of my last race. I hopefully will surpass my road block, where I could never break the seventeen minute 5k barrier. Not even on a really good day, I just want the barometer to be great, the air to be cool like the fall in a normal Iowa weather. The sad thing is Iowa weather is never normal; just like this day, I have to run in 90 degree weather, with dead wind, no trace of cool breeze. The weather will be different, but my ethic will be the same, that ethic I have perceived from my uncle as we discussed about the following meet.