Learning from the Freshmen

Four weeks into the season, the Concord Academy Chameleons continue to amaze me.

Every team has its own personality, and last year's CA team had a strong character determined by 8 seniors who were fine runners and forceful leaders. In our league meet last year, those seniors accounted for our top five places, a formidable pack that overcame the lack of a single great runner.

The 2008 Chameleons couldn't be more different, demographically speaking. We have three returning seniors, five juniors, eight sophomores, and a small army of freshmen -- ten in all. The personality of this group is a work in progress. The seniors have done a great job imposing order on this horde of relatively new runners, and our juniors and sophomore have all found themselves at one time or another being leaders. I have sense that they are all "growing up" as runners at an accelerated pace.

For example, in our last meet, four sophomores finished in our top eight, an outcome that would have been unthinkable last year.

But those freshmen! Every day is an adventure and a learning opportunity for them -- and for me, too. Often, the obstacles to be overcome are pretty basic: remembering to bring running shoes and shorts to practice, for example. But some days, there are much more profound insights -- no less profound for being simple.

For example, the other day I had one of my new runners relate to me his amazement that after running for 20 minutes, he still felt really good, not tired at all. This was a guy who four weeks ago couldn't run 20 minutes without stopping. All of them, in one way or another are having their first real experience of the miracle of steady training. After making it through the first week or so, when running every day seemed like a deadly grind, the benefits are beginning to emerge.

It's most dramatic in races, of course, where my freshmen are taking off a minute or more every time they race. Some of those gains are from improved fitness, but some (most) of the gains are from a growing understanding that they are capable of sustaining a higher level of effort without blowing up. Or, to put it another way, they discover that they can be tired and still keep running, even run a little faster.

After our last meet, I was talking with one of the ninth-graders and his father, blabbing on about how we organized our training. At some point, I started talking about this idea that the kids were learning how to handle progressive amounts of discomfort, and the boy interjected something about "ignoring the pain." I thought a moment and said, "not pain, discomfort." I went on to say that functioning with the discomfort of oxygen debt was quite different than "running through pain" and that was one of the lessons: learning that all those sensations associated with hard effort were useful information for a runner -- data to be processed, not alarm bells to be ignored.

Another thing that astounds the freshmen is how much easier it is to run fast in a group than on one's own. On the CA team we are constantly tinkering with groups, getting people to run in compatible bands. I say "compatible" meaning both running ability and emotional temperament. Good groups train better with less strife. of course, groups can become obstacles to progress, too, and I'm always on the lookout for the group that decides that walking for five (or ten) minutes is a good way to get the run done. Sometimes I wonder who is teaching whom.

Realistically, I have to expect that not all of my freshmen will stick with running for all the time they are at CA, but the goal is for each of them to discover some reasons to make this running thing a part of their life for the long haul. One thing I say a lot is that running affords an endless opportunity to learn -- about racing and training, yes -- but also about people, about oneself.

It's hard to believe that all these guys will be seniors some day, but they will. If we all manage to stick together through four years, it will be a very educational trip.