when you start your running career as a 7th grade girl, you care about how youâll look to your crush watching you from the sidelines. in high school, things change. you start to understand the importance of camaraderie among the team. you care about what it will take to calm the butterflies in your stomach as you toe the line of your first varsity race as a freshman. you start to wonder about the state meets, becoming familiar with the top girls, wondering, âcan i run with them,â & you learn that, you can, & that your ability to achieve lofty goals in running translates to your ability to achieve lofty goals in life. the words âcollege runningâ start to raise a lot of uncertainty, but you canât imagine your life without it. college comes, & that 7th grade girl has changed, but the passion remains the same. teammates not only get you through tough workouts & races, but they get you through the woes beyond the track & course; the break-ups, the academic stress, the injuries. your running watch becomes your favorite item of âjewelry,â the pavement takes the spot of a therapistâs office. times, personal bests, & splits have become of great importance, but what i have now seen, as a 23-year-old officially closing out her final xc season, is that the numbers are not the most important. running gives ârunning lessonsâ disguised as âlife lessons.â how to cultivate your own self-belief when you hit rock bottom, & then hit lower than that. how to get out of bed some mornings at 5AM in the dead of winter or lacing up at 10PM after your work day during summer. committing to what it takes to finish an 10x800m interval workout the day after receiving devastating news. running has introduced me to the idea that âyou can do hard things,â & the gratification of what it feels like to do the things you didnât think you could do. those emotions, the hugs from teammates, the long talks with coaches, the runs where you learn more about yourself alongside the sound of your footsteps than you ever did in a classroom. this is what i hope you remember from your running career; not the statistics, but the resiliency & gratitude that has grown from what it took to get there.
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