To truly understand the depth of my love for running, I have to go way back to my childhood. To the pudgy, unathletic, insecure girl in elementary school. I did soccer in fifth and sixth grade, but that really only cemented my perception of myself as not being very good at anything athletic. In sixth grade in particular, it was the usual story- I was either the last one or one of the last ones picked for teams. Once a year there was a physical fitness test at school that ranged in abilities from a standing long jump, to pull ups (or hanging for girls), to the dreaded...mile. Ugh. It was humiliating. If I wasn't the last one to finish the mile that year, then I was pretty close to being the last. My time was somewhere in the 10 minute range, and I struggled and pushed for every second of that. At the end I was passed by a boy who was getting encouragement from his friends. They couldn't believe that he was going to be beat by me, that girl. Ouch. Obviously that has stuck with me. I think of those boys during many a race now, escpecially when I get to pass a person of the male gender towards the end of a race.
Moving on to seventh grade, we had PE every day, and every day we would run a lap as a warm up. Sometimes we would run more than that, but even just running one lap was a major leap in distance for me. Slowly I got stronger, and when it was time for the mile test I finished in 7:41. That was such an accomplishment for me, I was beaming the rest of the day! I was one of the first to finish for my class which also stuck out to me. That year I would get my time down to 7:35 (after tripping and falling over a cone that marked the final turn, of course). Running in class became the one thing in PE that I could do. I take that back, I could also climb the rope. But that was it. I was terrible at any sport involving technique, rules, and the dreaded...ball.
Our junior high school was seventh to ninth grade. In ninth grade you could do sports with the high school. At the end of eighth grade the school sends out information about teams to join the next fall when you are a ninth grader. I was interested in cross country- my older brothers had both done it, and I was pretty sure I could do it too. So I went to the meeting, met Mr. Noe and some of the other students. I was excited about ninth grade, and getting to be on a team!
The first day of Cross country practice was pretty intimidating! It was combined with the high schoolers, who were bigger, and obviously older. I knew a couple of them from being friends with my brothers, so I got the "little sister" treatment and was welcomed to the group. The head coach, Mr. Sheley, scared me to death. He was a man of few words, and I didn't hear him say anything really nice to anyone, so I thought he was a grouchy old man. Fortunately I got to know him better over the years and totally loved the man. His silence was just a way of making his words mean even more when he had something to say to you.
Practice was fun, hard work, and involved a weekly bus ride to a location for a more challenging run. We were fortunate that the school was located so near the fabulous Bidwell park. It was full of trails to run on and explore. Sometimes we took the bus to upper park where we would get to experience hill repeats. Or the bus would take us to old 32, where the entire run was uphill. It was so great! But boy oh boy, where those rides home stinky!
The dual meets (where it would just be our school's team and another school) would combine all the girls into varsity. The larger invitational meets would divide to JV and Varsity. Since we were in Jr. high we would always be JV. But our first meet was a dual meet at Hooker Oak Park, our home turf. The course was 2.4 miles. I had no idea what to expect, but I certainly had butterflys! We lined up on the starting line, and the gun went off. Off we went, thundering down the path towards the narrow gap that led to a levee. Then on through the park, over the footbridge, up the steep hill to the parking lot, across to the trail that would take us out by Horseshoe lake. Up and around we went, back to the trail that would take us through the park to the levee. From the levee it was a quick turn to the final half mile to the finish line. It was on that last part of the levee that I was passing girls. Up ahead I could see the two high school girls that everyone was expecting to finish first for the team. I felt great, so I passed them. Wait a minute, I just passed them! They were apparently as shocked as I was, as were most of the spectators. On I went to the finish line, finishing fourth overall, and as the newspaper would write, "the first local finisher"! Nobody was expecting me to do that. I was right there with them, I wasn't expecting it, either! That race changed everything, because now there would be expectation- from the coaches, from my teammates, from myself. I finally found something I was good at.
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| The first time ever I have been in the newspaper! I remember cutting it out and showing it to whoever would look at it. I must have highlighted it a couple of times, because it's both yellow and pink. I think I was excited. haha |
At the end of the season, I was awarded the Most Valuable Runner, receiving a beautiful, tall, blue and gold trophie. My first trophie ever! It had my name on it and everything. It was a treasure to me!
Besides not involving a ball or puck in the sport, Cross country differed from other sports in a very key way. The boys and girls would almost always practice together, travel together, and be there at every meet together. When the boys were racing, we girls would be out on the course cheering them on, and vice versa. We were a tight group of misfits, for the most part not fitting into any other sport but this one. Cross Country and Track were the same in college. I was able to have a dozen adopted "brothers" and very close girl friends.
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