- BC Cross Country 2009 Tony Austin Photo
This week I found myself flying through intervals on the cross country loop at Elk and Beaver. I was practicing running fast and rhythmically on the chopped up fields, skimming the mud puddles, taking corners through the trails, and making crisp transitions onto the uphill sections. I was working hard, determination was coursing through my mind, and I was totally immersed in the physical challenge of running well. My goals for the day were burned into brain by…what? Wait a sec here. How did I go from running the Victoria marathon for fun and charity to performing a lung busting, endorphin surging, cross country workout in the rain?
That’s the habit part. Just like you can be biting your nails and not even aware that you are doing it, I can suddenly find myself swithed on and focussed on a race without even trying. Thats’s not to say I blindly stumble my way from race to race, but sometimes I sincerely wonder to myself “who is in the lead here?”
A little early conditioning goes a long way. It’s hard for me to put into words sometimes, just how deep this racing habit goes and how intricate this web of running is woven into my very soul. I just go with it now. This is how deep it goes: when I was 18, I started my first year of University. While I know that over the next four years I took many great courses in Humanities and eagerly read my way through Nineteenth and Twentieth Century English and American Literature, Russian Literature, Shakespeare, and Canadian History, those terms at Dalhousie were very defined by the running. Running through the South end of Halifax, warming up to the Park for run practice. Hammering, absolutley hammering, out intervals like there was no tomorrow, like every one was my last, like every one was the world Championships itself. I used to see how close I could stay to the top guys and I ran with the guys on my easy days, which of course meant there were no easy days as all my easy days were tempo runs, sticking with the guys. I didn’t just try to win every race, I tried to see how far ahead I could get. I paid for it with a few injuries, but I know I gained more than I lost. It was a career founded on a passion for hard work and a willingness to hurt.
So, I guess that’s how I found myself on the start line of the BC Cross country championships last week and why I am about to toe the line of the Nationals in just under two weeks. While it’s easy for me to get excited about cross country races, the Nationals is also an interesting race for me. I have won the National Cross Country Championships 5 times. I won the University Champs 2 times, both of those times in the same year that I won National Seniors. I have attended five World Champs in Cross Country, but none were as significant as my first. Here is that story:
In 1989, at my first World Cross Country Championships in Norway-the first of 5 that I attended–the great Kenyan runner John Ngugi won his 4thconsecutive World Cross Country Championships. Running over a rain soaked golf course in ankle deep mud, John ran off the front and raced solo for most of the race. He appeared to skim the surface of the track, floating above it, running suspended in air, yet moving so fast. I have a vision to this day of John Ngugi racing over mud like it was smooth hard asphalt; such was his ability and his prowess. John Ngugi went on to win another World title in 1992, making for a total of 5, and then Paul Tergat, another great Kenyan, won 5 in a row from 1995-99. These are the memories of cross country embedded in my mind.
In 1989, I might have been the Canadian Cross Country Champion, but at 22 year of age, from a small town and inexperienced amongst this high performance atmosphere, I was overwhelmed by the level of competition, and the magnitude of the event itself. Endurance runners from the 1500, 3000m, 5000m, 10000m, and marathon all converged in this one mass start cross country event. The races were an elite smorgasbord of World, Olympic, and European distance champions. The World Cross Country Championships were so competitive that Phil Ligget, the popular sports commentator, called it the “fiercest foot race on earth”.
It rained all week leading up to the event, and the ground was sodden and soft. At the race site, all countries were assigned an outdoor ’room’ in the sprawling centre of green army tents that had been put up for the event. We Canadians arrived and silently, nervously, we found places for our gear off of the wet ground and out of the rain. Team members came and went from the tent, quietly performing their pre-race rituals. By the time the junior women and men had raced, the hilly course was deep mud. As I paced alone nervously through the warm up area of tents, I could hear singing and laughter coming from one of the rooms and as I walked past I could see it was the Kenyan team tent and a large group of runners (Juniors, senior, women, men) were in there. They were laughing and singing and some were even dancing together in a circle! I was amazed and intrigued by the sound of joy and the happiness that was coming from that tent, before such intense competition! Like children playing, the Kenyan athletes possessed a magic that was completely alluring. I was enchanted by the evident joy and the camaraderie that existed between then… there was something about the attitude that suggested a far greater importance than the races about to be run. I have never forgotten that laughter, those smiles on the faces of the relaxed runners, or the singing and I have witnessed it at many events since.
Although I was too young and far too nervous at the time to fully understand, I learned a lesson that day that became a huge part of my path as an athlete: that I need to be serious and dedicated to training, but light-hearted about my career. There is a passion, and that passion comes from softness, not hardness. That running for joy is a childlike freedom. I realize now that my whole athletic career has been a process of moving closer and closer to finding that place of joy and fun again. I am forever grateful for the way those Kenyan runners sang freely out loud in the rain before the World Cross Country Championships in 1989.
Lucy
