First

Cross Country races occur at courses all over the state, some nearby and some further away.  I enjoy the road trips that get me to the courses and I’ve found plenty of pretty parks in the process.  Last week, JT’s team completed against a local school at Natirar Park, a lovely, hilly park that was a former estate.  JT has run here before and that’s an important thing in cross country because it’s hard to lead a race if you don’t know the path to run.  

Natirar has wide swathes of green grass, woods, and hills.  The race starts in the middle of a big field, and then sweeps through the woods and up the hill seen here.  From there, the course rolls up hills in and out of the woods.

JT started strong and as I glimpsed him running in and out of the woods, he moved into first place.  That’s where he finished the race.

He didn’t run a personal best time, but it’s his first race with a first place finish and he was best pleased by that development.

Cross Country fans are the best.  They cheer for everyone; it’s not a sport with contact or personal fouls and the fans reward effort as much as they cheer victory.  We stay until every runner crosses the finish line.  I’ve spent plenty of time cheering my son as he finished a race in the back half of the crowd and always I've been proud of his effort.  But I have to say the first was pretty damn sweet as well.

Muddy Man-Child

Yesterday, JT and some of his cross country teammates, including his coach and some assorted friends of the team, joined one another for a local mud run.  He’s never participated in an event like this, but for a boy who grew up logging countless hours at local parks and playing in puddles, it was a fitting start to his final high school cross country season.  The race was a 5k, punctuated by 21 muddy obstacles.  The team started off clean but ended rather muddy.  JT ran the race with his buddies L and E.

At the final obstacle, there was no avoiding the mess.

They got right in it and triumphed.

After a wash in the outdoor showers, the racers celebrated their finish.

I was a spectator to the muddy spectacle, marveling at how much my kid loves a messy challenge and reflecting on the places I will travel to watch him race.

Senior season, here we come.

Personal Best

One of the best parts of being a parent of a teenager is the pleasure of watching my child come into his own being.  JT loves physical activity, a trait that was apparent in him pretty much the moment he learned to walk.  For his whole life, he’s brought both confidence in his physical ability and an innate caution that is rather an unusual combination.  I remember when he was two years old and liked the slide at our local park.  He’d scramble up the ladder and then pause to situate himself before he slid down, hands up and ready to fly.  This combination of confidence and caution was empowering to us both.  I knew he wouldn’t climb to the top of the jungle gym if he didn’t feel confident he could come down safely.  He knew that I would let him take risks.  In sports, he’s found a place to express that combination of confidence and caution and be a team member who pulls his teammates forward.
I am proud of what he’s learned about himself.

This fall, he’s running in his fifth season on the Cross Country team.  He’s always liked running and for the last two years he’s treated the season as a chance to train with a team and enjoy himself.  But he’s grown up a lot in the last year and over the summer he made an effort to run and push himself so that he entered the cross country season in much better condition.  This year, he was ready to ratchet up the personal challenge.  He brought some friends to the team and at practice, he pushed them and himself.  His coaches were pleased; he was proud of his effort.  In early races, he ran well enough to score times that were his personal best.  He did this three races in a row and earned the last of seven Varsity running positions.  He began to speak with the coaches about how much faster he could finish a race.

JT has always been a good finisher; turning on the gas in the final 300 yards and regularly passing the runners in his path.  The trick for JT was to start stronger, holding the pace in the second mile and still having enough energy to finish strong.  For all his teenager boy traits, JT is cautious.  Running faster early in the race felt risky to him.  During a race, runners can’t use a watch so he needed to develop an internal sense of pacing.  So he tried it at practice where the task at hand was pacing and timing.  The varsity team ran up and down a stretch of road, checking their timing with each mile, and getting a sense of where they should be and how they could get there.

Last Wednesday, the team returned to a course they’d run earlier in the year.  JT was determined to see what he was made of.  He ran faster from the start and in the first half-mile, he was toward the front of the pack, a place I’ve not seen him run that early in the race.  He looked good.  As the race progressed, I could see him from across the field, holding the quicker pace he’d set from the start.  At the mid-point of the race, he was in the top 15.  He held that pace at the end and finished strong.  Two hundred yards out, the runner in front of him knew he was going to be passed.  JT finished the race with a personal best time that was 2 minutes faster then he had ever run before, 19:34 in a 5k race.  

My boy spent the next two days walking two feet off the ground, proud of his effort and enjoying the congratulations of his coaches and team members.  He’s not the best runner on the team, but he’s a good runner working steadily to get better.  His spot on the Varsity team is looking more secure each day. Meeting that challenge is a life lesson that will linger long after the season is complete.  

Baby’s First 5K

For the last two years, JT has run on the school’s cross country team.  He’d always loved running and it didn’t surprise me when he joined the team.  He keeps up with running in the off season and this spring he asked to run in a local 5K organized to raise funds for a group that funds cancer research.  On Sunday, he ran in his first 5K.  Middle School cross country runs are typically 2 miles.  At just a tad over 3.4 miles, the 5K is the longest race he’s ever run.

He enjoyed the run and learned some more about setting a good pace for himself.  He was reminded of the value of keeping hydrated and training in advance of the race.  And he supported a good cause.  The boy reports that I should expect that in the years ahead I’ll be spending a lot more time cheering on runners at the finish line.  Turns out I’m okay with that.

Pardon My Proud Mama Moment

It's no secret that I love my son.  I suspect many parents feel that way about their kids.  I'm not exactly a Mama Blogger but I am a Mama and this is my blog and so I do write about my boy with some regularity.

I try not to proclaim him awesome all the time because that is tiresome.  But I am about to indulge myself in a spot of bragging and those of you who don't enjoy this sort of thing are hereby advised to stop reading.  

Why are you still here?

JT's Middle School has a cross country team and last year he ran for the team.  To his surprise, he enjoyed the running far more than he expected.  In preparation for this fall's team, over the summer he made some half-assed efforts to prepare.  He especially likes to run short-distance sprints and although cross country is not at all about sprinting, that preparation is what he enjoyed.  He also rode his bike all over the place, often sprinting on the bike.  Knowing that one way or another, he'd have to make it through a two-mile run, I let him do what he wanted to do.  We're not exactly training for the Olympics here; the goal is to have fun.

The first race was last week and he lined up for the contest and last-minute instructions from the sainted Coach L with a somewhat nervous demeanor.  Before the race, he told me he would consider it a victory if he didn't hurl when the race was complete.  That is the sort of goal-oriented thinking that can be adapted to many a life experience.

The run was about 2 miles and there were more than 50 kids making the journey.  At the halfway point, JT was toward the front of the pack, looking like he would finish in the top 20.  As to the question of hurling…….the jury was still out on that matter.  The final 100 yards of the race feature an uphill run, which I would characterize as adding insult to injury.  JT approached that hill at full tilt.  He's the third kid back in this photo.

He passed both of the boys in front of him coming up that hill.  Cross country fans are the best kind of fans; they cheer for all the runners (even for the kid who walked the whole way.).  My boy was impressive coming up that hill and the crowd of fans knew it.  He placed 10th overall and was the third finisher on his team.  I was clapping and yelling so loudly that there was no time for a picture as he came up the hill and crossed the line, but here he is with his friends in a post-race confab, as they cheered on other finishers.

The best part of the race is that JT was so proud of himself and excited by his finish.  As for me, I just wanted to shout to the world, "that's MY boy!"