Camillus NY - After the success of Jim Vermeulen's XC Journal in the many falls of Cross Country, we've asked again for him to provide some news and notes once a month this summer. Think of these as the thoughts that cross the mind of your average coach. Up from Section 3, we present you with "Thoughts From Three."
First, we must deal with the two issues of the day. The teams lounge on the grass in the building shade beneath our middle school sky-bridges. Summer has scheduled this one last warm stretch before an irregular retreat into winter, so the troops are sipping from water bottles and waiting. Some of the guys, I've been informed, are feeling "stress" because of the pressure to perform every meet due to the "fluidity" among our top runners. I remind them the great teams around the state thrive on fluidity and consider it a strength, not a weakness. "Someone's always got your back," is my point. In that regard, they are luckier than our small girls team this season, who don't enjoy the luxury of numbers.
The second issue is more troubling but requires much less explanation. "I think you know when you've stopped being complimentary or gone beyond good-natured ribbing," I explain about some recent social media contacts brought to my attention. "When you cross that line, it's disrespectful, destructive to the team and possibly violates district policy on bullying. It simply needs to stop folks." Enough heads nod, so we turn to the business of the day.
Their business this day is miles under the feet. In the countryside nearby, they'll file out along the rolls of Ike Dixon Road, veer their way westerly through elevated farmland and descend Bennetts Corners Road to the tiny hamlet of Memphis. There they'll turn back east, pace astride the stagnant, overgrown remnants of the Erie Canal and into the deep shade of Canal Road where summer sometimes hides beyond it's time. At a fork, they'll arc right and gradually climb along Gilly Brook Road to close the country block, their final tired miles home retracing Ike Dixon Road. 8.22 miles, give or take. And they're completing this Thursday long run in addition to their self-selected Sunday long run because, quite frankly, I'm concerned about the quality of those Sunday miles--and so I want to watch this one, and time it, and calculate per mile averages. Trust but verify.
It's imperative, a lot of the running pundits claim, to stick to the soft surfaces of trails and grass during the cross-country season because surfaces change how the feet react and roads do, in fact, increase the amount of stress the lower body must absorb. Some of those experts, however, forget that the athletes have been training on the roads all summer, so the occasional road-run will not do much more than remind their bodies how to accommodate those kinds of miles. And for a good percentage of the team, those occasional runs will also make the eventual transition to the roads and hallways of indoor track safer. Also, after weeks of hammering the training trails of the middle school, a changed venue of rolling miles will be feet-candy for our stimulus-driven young runners. More than a few of them, I suspect, will eventually argue that those measured long runs with teammates through the late summer sunlight of farm and woodlands were some of what they're expecting in their particular versions of heaven. Not all of them, but enough.
At the end of Ike Dixon, I stand at station, and as the outgoing runners lean down and around onto Bitters Road I ask how they're feeling. Their answers echo the day and are nearly universal: great! That will change, of course, but this is a good sign. They staggered their starts to create better compression in the late miles so I can monitor more effectively. David left last, but only several miles out he has already worked his way up to the middle groups. My wait for all the runners to pass won't be that long. A small cadre has remained behind at school with Coach Gangemi to train proper pacing, so I'm soon in my car, passing groups and rising on Bennetts Corner Road to the height of land and my next checkpoint.
There, late-summer is lapping the nearby farm fields with a light breeze and warm sunshine. The border tree lots have hardened their colors, draining toward autumn. Continuing his surge, David machines past first, quickly dropping out of sight on the steepening descent through woods toward Memphis below. Others soon follow, the faster groups slowly overtaking the slower until the entire start order will have, as expected, neatly flipped itself. Down the long hill they pace, still conversational, still full of confidence, to the sharp right turn onto Canal Road where I've again jumped ahead to set up a water stop because of the unseasonable heat.
"Can I just keep going?" David asks as he approaches.
"Sure, if you don't need water," I tell him. Locked into a pace and a fixed stare, he motors by. Other groups glide in. "This is a water stop, not a rest stop!" I shout, "Get your drink and get going." Most treat it like a Formula 1 race, grabbing a quick hit, corralling their group-mates and taking off again. A few linger, thinking respite, not rehydration. Carly, unfortunately, is among those, and in the process of trying to squeeze a few more seconds out of the momentary break she loses her two travel-mates who have gulped and gone. Up to that moment, she's been wholly impressive, clicking off fast miles with metronomic precision. But her partners have fled, leaving her to chase them alone at the beginning of the tougher miles. "Try to close the distance!" I shout as she heads out. I have my doubts.
Beyond the water stop, the runners dive into the deep shade of Canal Road. This is a flat stretch, but one with long sight lines along gradual curves that yield no surprises. Working mileage. As I pass groups in route to my next checkpoint, they now appear more dutiful than energized, sobered by the distance and the notion of starting the long way back instead of heading out. Carly, alone now, has no one with whom to share the mental load. She's still moving strongly, but the face has tensed and sends the message that, at least for now, she's not having a whole lot of fun. "You're closing that distance," I encourage her, hoping.
At a Y-intersection, they lean right onto Gilly Brook Road and begin the gradual but constant mile and half rise back up toward Ike Dixon Road. I've arrived there too late to catch David. He's long gone. The groups though, by design, have compressed, so I'm able to skip a stop near Gilly Lake Park and drive back to the intersection of Ike Dixon where the homestretch really begins. The hill they zoomed down while outward bound, they'll now labor back up, arms driving, faces stretched, eyes either locked down on the feet or starring up ahead to the top of their last major ascent, that macadam summit ahead. As they pass, I issue the standard exhortations: Last hill. You're moving well. You're going to finish strong. With only a few exceptions, it's as true as the sky is blue above.
My last drive ends at the school and their finish. David is already there, leaning on a driveway post. And he stays there, clapping in or high-fiving every single runner until they're all back. Carly has retreated to our meeting place for water, then walks back out to tell me her time. It's a good one, her best long run pacing of the year, with a valuable lesson to boot. Others will wind up with similar results when my Excel sheet spits out the numbers later that evening. With no meeting or drills scheduled this day, they stretch, chat a little and head home satisfied.
"If you don't know where you are," wrote the naturalist Wendell Berry, "you don't know who you are." Distance runners, whether on trails or toiling roads, whether consciously or by happenstance, eventually create their own unique and elongated sense of place. Familiar runs become more than miles on a map, more than just training in pursuit of other goals. They become--those accustomed places--more like old friends. These runners don't really appreciate that yet, but eventually, if they stick with the sport, most will.
A few miles, a few hours, a little weather good or bad--it won't take much to find those places.