Checking in With the Chameleons

As a general rule, on Monday afternoons I don't like surprises.

As we head into each new week of cross country, I find myself hoping that last week's hard workouts have left no lingering soreness or impairment, and that the young minds and bodies in my care have been refreshed and recharged. I'm hoping that the faces I see will be ready and eager to plunge into another week of training and racing.

So I wasn't overjoyed when one my top runners showed up last Monday at practice in street clothes. Street clothes = trouble.

"You're going to be mad at me," he announced.

"I am?" I replied in a non-committal way, as I quickly ran through a mental checklist of the disasters that might befall a highly-trained H.S. distance runner: academic problems, illness (strep throat, flu, mono!), injury, new car, new job to pay for new car, use of drugs/alcohol, college stress, sleep deprivation, spiritual crisis, romance going badly, romance going too well...

He interrupted my train of thought. "I was playing hockey yesterday..." he said, and I nodded. I could see where this was going; no doubt, hockey is exactly the sport I want my runners playing on their day off. I sighed, and waited to see how bad this was going to be. Not so bad as the spiritual crisis, I thought...

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In fact, the hockey injury turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise. Yes, it kept one of my top guys from running last week, and sure, we could have used him in our meet Wednesday (we were racing against last year's league champions). But having one of our leaders on the sidelines cheering had a curiously potent affect on the rest of the team.

Knowing that every place counted and that they were undermanned, the rest of the Chameleons approached the mid-week meet with uncommon resolve. There was an edge to the pre-race preparations and a sense of purpose. Although slightly behind in the early going, as the race wore on, our top two edged ahead of their top guy, pulling away by 20 seconds in the final mile. Our nominal fourth best runner had the race of his life and caught their top guy in the final 100 meters. In all, six of our top seven runners set personal bests. In almost every man-to-man battle, we came out ahead, and what was an even race with a mile to go turned into a lopsided 20-35 victory. It wasn't that the other team ran poorly; their coach was very happy with the number of his runners who also set lifetime bests. Everything just seemed to come together for us.

Three days later, at our annual competition against Pingree School, we had another good day, taking the top six places against a decent team, and recording another spate of personal bests, especially from the middle of our pack.

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That hockey injury notwithstanding, it's been a fun season so far. This is my fourth year at Concord Academy, and this year's team is special in many ways. For one thing, the runners on my team seem to really LIKE to run. I confess, this surprises me, as I am used to having to be a cheerleader for running, selling its benefits to a skeptical audience that has other priorities. But this year feels different.

For example, there is this new enthusiasm for the long run. It started with a small group, as it usually does, and has spread through the 34-person team. When I asked them to write down their seasonal goals, many of my mid-packers listed running continuously for 10 miles (or 15 miles, or... ) rather than racing a particular time.

It remains to be seen how this will all translate to the championship season. We face tough competition in our league meet, and go into it as an underdog. We will have a tough challenge to try to reach the podium at the New England level.

But this year's team has already recorded the fastest five-man average time in CA history (at least so far as I can determine; some other CA team might have run faster in the dawn of time). And equally exciting, the success at the top has seemed to inspire success in the middle. For example, on Saturday, half a dozen runners ran faster than 7:00 pace over 5K for the first time in their lives. One of my freshmen cut 77 seconds off his best time, skipping the 21's entirely to run 20:54.

In retrospect, I think a turning point came in a team meeting four weeks ago. It was a chance to talk about individual goals and team goals, and how the two could be reconciled. There were a lot of things said about how we wanted to win the league championship, etc. But one kid, a sophomore who at that time had a best time of 23:26, spoke up and said, "I know that I'm not going to be in the top seven this year, but I also know that if I train hard this season and keep running after the season and next summer, I can be in the top seven next year." I'm probably not doing him justice, because he said it in direct words and very much from the heart. On Saturday, he ran 20:24, a new personal best by 53 seconds.

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As we head into the final three weeks of the season, there are no guarantees. Like every other team out there, we're trying to find the balance of training and recovery, we're trying to stay healthy, and we're trying not to get too distracted by things we can't control, like how fast other teams are running.

But we're in a good place right now. I'd like to think we've developed some resilience, too, so that if we experience a little hardship -- as I'm sure we will -- we'll see it as a challenge that can motivate us to accomplish more.

Good luck to all teams as we approach November and championship season!