Thoughts From Three: Let’s See What Happens

"There is nothing that I may decently hope for that I cannot reach by patience as well as by anxiety."

Wendell Berry, "A Native Hill"

They were into it now. Around our snaking half-mile Inner Loop trail, they charged in small groups under a sky that teased them with periodic sunshine through splintered clouds. We were tucked back in the school property, closer to the long silences of our woods than the faint shouts of soccer teams on playing fields hidden by trees. Once off their start-line, our runners moved invisibly along the trail now shrouded by field succession species. Coach G. and I stood a few meters up the serpentine route where we could watch them curve off the upper spine of the field, then barrel down at us and the finish.

All the girls, save one Covid casualty, were there. Three top boys team members, though, stood trailside with us, injured and relegated to helping time the runners' recoveries. I wasn't happy about that, but I was finished with references to non-stellar summer preparations that caused some of those injuries and resigned to a reconfigured training schedule for them. The browning grasses and drained tree leaves reminded us that time was running out on any plan, so our fingers were crossed. So far, we had been patching together boys meet efforts with limited success, and I had told them the week earlier, even as the casualties mounted, "Guys, I have to be honest; you're kind of a train wreck right now."  For the girls, though, with more hot-weather miles, late September seemed normal, enhanced only by the fitness and effort bonds that they were strengthening. A tale of two teams, all good individuals, differentiated by small and distant decisions.

By the third and fourth intervals, everyone had settled into their moods and decisions. The girls front group swarmed, tucked in tight by shared expectations. They must have decided early on they were-all of them--ready to go, because no one was letting anyone off the hook. It was group sweat, nothing more, nothing less. The others who were not expected to match that pace had been paired and given their expectations. Our boys, minus the MIA's, also found their partners and their strides, and everyone was by then working hard. Coach and I watched alongside our sad, sidelined company. We were, as always, noticing effort, but we were also gauging attitude-and the attitudes of those hammering the circuit were purposeful and proud.

Highly talented or not, that is what you work your teams toward-an athlete-infused synergy. You can't have that if the runners don't know and trust each other, or if runners are actually strangers to themselves. Fragmented teams are never teams; they are simply collections of athletes doing the same thing, held together by conventions rather than convictions. Creating a team direction starts by paying attention. If propelled by the principle of a rising tide, it should take a coach about a day--maybe two--to figure out how little he or she knows about the athletes that gather for attendance each afternoon. Ignorance should be the incentive to watch and learn, to note and shape connections with athletes even as the days proceed according to all the time-honored directives about "how to coach cross-country." You have to resist the temptation to simplify complex lives. Great teams or good, large teams or small, there is a lot to learn--and usually too little time.

The runners barreled through the fifth interval. Claire surged down the last hill, arms extended slightly for balance, expressionless, still relishing her responsibility as the lead girl. The others in her group, though, were close behind, and all of them soon bunched beyond the finish cone, saluting each other with tired high fives or fist bumps before sips of water and shuffling together to the start for their next-and final--circuit. Psychology professor Paul Bloom calls those instances "the Sweet Spot" of common suffering, and the writer Linda Flanagan, herself once a cross-country coach, describes that sweet spot as a place in the lives of runners "where chosen pain brings meaning to life and connection to others." With no Saturday invitational and a recovery day promised, it was the best of ways to end the work week, alone together, immersed in a chosen sport. The clouds opened and closed. The winds waved the field grasses. I was hoping the sidelined guys, as they watched their intent teammates queue together, were learning at least one thing: being injured is boring--and you miss out on some great days, some very special kind of fun. The runners surged out on their final circuit.

It is well to stop often enough to appreciate young athletes accomplishing their work with that synergy, drawing on native talents, their shared desire, and their earned trust in each other. That's where the real meaning of the season is created and amplified. Races, of course, are the final destinations, but united workouts are the road maps to those arrivals, critical directions without which seasons will be lost to some runners, despite wins or losses. And it is just as wise to value anyone who coaches toward those means and not just the publicized ends. Those are, after all, the people who will likely last longer--and be ultimately more consequential--at what they do.

We are hoping to get everyone back soon and regain training predictability, but there are no guarantees. Good things, inspiring moments, might happen. Disappointments and hard-luck lessons may also loom. Soon enough, each runner will reach that point in the season where, as poet John Ashbery warned, "Seconds will call upon you." Soon enough, potential will yield to reality.

Still, though doubt is always a driver, it also offers a subtle joy. So, we'll see what happens.