Soccer cleats. Football fields. And baseball bats. Nothing else has ever felt so natural, so inviting, so wanting, or even so close to as generous as the feeling I got when I first stepped onto the track. What originally was a seasonal promise turned into a year round activity, to a high school achievement, and is now a lifelong commitment. The great, and certainly underrated, sport of running has done so much for me and I feel inclined to give and give and give back to it, unceasingly. The debt I owe to running may never be repaid as I owe to it my own personal development and growth, something I am very much content with as long as I can continue chasing a dream.
Cross country. Indoor. Then outdoor track. Different names, all pseudonyms for running. The 2010-2011 indoor track season marked the start of my career at Middletown High School South. “Brutal” does not do the barrage of snowstorms justice. Neighborhoods encased in snow drifts cut the indoor season short. But the few races I was able to compete in stirred something within me. Despite the commanding chill of the winter, this dormant, undefined ambition burned the hottest.
I was always shy, full of anxiety and nervousness brought on secondhand by my older siblings. I started playing football in 6th grade, the local Pop Warner team. It brought confidence to my table as I gained a sense of athleticism, perseverance, and a dedication to something. The euphoria was short-lived; my second year I was moved up to the bigger team (Pop Warner youth teams are broken up into divisions by weight for football). Higher skill levels became necessary to play more, as did better understanding of the sport: both things I did not have. The feeling that I could never do anything right returned. I was just pretending to play their game while wearing their uniform.
Freshman football, I thought, I would try out and see if I enjoyed it. Summer workouts, play formations, all day practices. Issues of experience and ability racked my conscience. I wanted to quit. I was too small, not strong enough, surprisingly fast enough when we did sprints at the end of practice. Unrealistically, I was 5’8” and 140 lbs. trying to start at the fun position of defensive end for the freshman team. A sport characterized by the imposition of will through sheer size and brute force. I did not start that year; the only time I ever started after 7th grade was for the kick return team in 8th grade, and I actually did stop some onside kicks by diving on them. But how could a sport that built me up so much, now make me feel as insignificant riding the bench, no matter how much heart I shoved into it? No, I needed something else. Just as positive, but exponentially more rewarding.
That first winter and spring season on the track, I was a sprinter- I knew no difference between sprinting and distance events yet. I fell under the jurisdiction of one of the varsity football coaches, who was the then head track coach and in charge of the sprinters. Runs becoming too short for myself, hot days on the track, fast workouts, almost destroying my pelvis on a hurdle. Without satisfying changes in my performance as a sprinter, left me wanting more out of my time on the track. That was when my slow twitch muscle fibers found themselves running for a different faction on the team, the distance crew.
Summer, fall, winter, spring, year round running I willingly signed up for. The act of a downright crazy man cycled into an even more insane prospect as I grew to tolerate, like, love my new calendar. Runs became just right for me, stretching to outrageous that I could push myself for that long for some distances/pace. Basketball shorts were tailored for funky short shorts with Mexican flag and cheetah skin patterns (soark.com). Everything was new and exciting to me. I may have been a new visitor looking into a world I did not understand, of fartleks (hard effort for X minutes, X minutes of recovery) and long summer mornings spent charging up the hills of Jersey. But at least in this instance I was an invited guest, later to be accepted, currently a resident of a lifestyle that continues to be misunderstood.
A key facet of running is the individuality it allows within a team construct. The varsity group is the team’s top 7 best runners, with the remainder being a part of the junior varsity and freshman squads. In a proper cross country race, the first 5 finishers for each group score towards the team’s standing based on their place. Essentially, those top 5 hold a more immediate importance to the team, as the 6 and 7 spots are recorded but only added to the team’s score in case of a tie.
Aside from constantly striving to qualify to run varsity, the sport allows self-introspection to occur. Personal development, clear mappings of where one started to where their effort brought them to, is the more beautiful sight to behold as running is not so much a trial of stamina and speed, but of confidence and will. The glory of the first place finish hales in comparison to the story of the runner that worked for everything he got, building himself up mentally, not just physically, from almost nothing. The focus is more on how well someone did for themselves, reaching a new PR (personal record), than it is on the team as a whole.
That was me. More physical, contact-driven sports encourage strength building exercises like intense weight lifting, consumption of mass and muscle building proteins, and anaerobic activities- short bursts of speed, i.e. sprints. All other terms for magnificent manipulation of the body to become bigger than one’s own self. As more traditional sports come with a sort of body shaming for not being big or strong enough, running is the complete opposite. Runners come in all shapes and sizes. Reassuring for me, not that I was ever bullied for my appearance; flat out way of saying it, I was chubby growing up until my junior year, oddly enough most runners were too. The pride I finally felt for something, my race performances, was exemplified by how far I came from the start and how by sticking to a basic routine of running, track workouts, and pushups and sit-ups, could drive me so much farther. Plus, everyone raced, and no one “sat the bench”.
Hills. Track workouts. Tempo runs. Long runs, short runs. Race pace. Race days. Probably half the stories I can tell about shenanigous friends stem from my time spent running with the team. Teammates, a social classing separate from other friend groups. Bonds can only be strengthened for enduring the Trial(s) of Miles together. Outside of team activities, most of us were not solid friends, another thing most athletes can attest to. We might not have hung out or had personalities that resonated with each other, but there was something about the want to leave everything out there when we ran, that brought out the absolute best in all of us. And I never could quite understand the phenomenon nor as of late have I been able to replicate it. All I know is that when you are tuned in and hauling it down the home stretch, a familiar face wearing the same uniform is just what you need for setting up a photo finish.
Getting down to business, as we live, experience, and feel through our lives, we tend to plug somethings up inside us. And that is bad, and I found running to be the perfect emotional outlet to let all my worries flow free. Whether it was the possibility of overwhelming feelings, or the more probable lack of initial feeling at all, I let it all go when purposely coordinating my body’s movements, with the intention of propelling it across the finish line. I had overcome any bodily insecurities by unhesitantly adopting short shorts into my life, forgoing the malicious catcalls. Pride in one’s physical appearance is a positive enough reinforcement but that does not put a halt to the blues of depression many people are prone to hints of. Nerves would come back. Doubt would flourish. Strides would slow as air would escape my lungs as the thought of being slow, small and insignificant returned. Like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, I could either keep fighting to get to that higher level, or be weighed down by what I harbor inside, self-destructing in failure.
Of course that is all overdramatized to an extent. But sunny days were spent inside, annoyed nerves on edge because of myself or other’s actions. My junior year of high school, I had learned to stop letting things get to me so easily. Not caring can be so easy at times especially when you realize how it bolsters your own confidence to new heights. That was when I was at my physically best, sticking to a healthy diet and workout regimen. But that only lasted so long, as the impending stress of senior year and college decisions leaked into my conscience. Running was always what brought me outside, putting me at ease, as I rushed past everything that I once thought to cause me harm. Running, a perfect analogy for life, I never could tell if I was trying to run from something or force myself to run through it.
After horrendous performances, mainly during my senior year, I wanted to be away from other people, frustrated that I was “in shape” but letting my mind, the other half of the running equation, get to me. After finally finding something I am good at, I am thinking through it and letting it all slip away. The angst was not just about the running, but that’s a whole other metaphysical discussion. My coaches would have to give me pep talks, hoping their sparks to ignite something in me. They did. I can remember how in 2 separate races, while fighting to stay afloat on the varsity team, I used my emotions to my advantage. Once to keep that varsity spot at the Shore Conference Championships, to run my PR in the 5K. And the second at the proceeding Sectional Championships race, days after a girlfriend broke up with me, scoring as the 5th man to qualify us for Groups (think the second round of playoffs).
Head coach Vic Bayers I can accredit as the man that brought me out of my shell, not just athletically. Aside from my family, I can say that he is one of the few people to have believed in me, instilling confidence as he guided me through a successful and utterly memorable high school running career. His influence surely aided in forming the person I am today. On the starting line moments before the Sectional race, after a manic season of emotional confusion, he lightly punched me in the chest, saying “Remember, you worked to be here right now. Do work.” I ran my fastest time on that course, beating my old time by over 20 seconds. Probably the reason why I got so upset after botched races was because I so badly wanted to yield fast times/results for him, only right after he put so much of his own time into getting us to where we wanted to be. In turn, breaking a cardinal rule of running that you should only run for yourself. I am sure he can imagine how grateful we all are for having him as a coach. I do not think I could ever thank him and properly articulate what he has done for me in person. So, thank you.
Running was the ideal vent that saved me from myself. Imagination is wasted on what would have become of me if my stress reached a boiling point without running. After adopting the culture, bettering myself only became instinct. That is to say runners are never satisfied, conditioned to chase after the very best. Giving into the philosophy behind running allows beings to transcend past what they ever thought they were capable of. I am eternally thankful for coming out of the haze of blood, sweat, and tears better than before. But now I have to return to finding the best version of me possible.
