My Cross Country Nationals Story
"You need to talk me out of this." I recall telling my friend Melissa over the phone as I verbalized seriously for the first time my idea of running in the Cross Nationals. She was privy to my love of the XC my desire to compete in it "one day", but this time I was more serious.
"Not a chance in hell", or something of that nature was her response to my request. What did I have to lose? After all, I had a year of solid training and was enjoying my best season in nearly a decade. Still, the idea of it thrilled and terrified me at the same time. And then after unanimous support from friends, family, and even some of my athletes- I decided to enter the race.
I always ask my runners to dig deep to find their 'Why'. I ask myself the same thing and on a regular basis. I will tell you that my why for running is a fluid one; it once was all about winning races and setting PRs, to trying to return to a level I once was at (not recommended, by the way), to finding joy in the simple pursuit of getting better to running just because I like it.
I still move from place to place over time on why I run and that is okay. For a lot of races, I tend to have a specific why or purpose as well. I'm a big believer in doing things purposefully, and surely toeing the line with America's best called for a sense of purpose; and two reasons take center stage here: the first was just pure curiosity-what can and will I do in this situation? I also saw this experience as an opportunity to understand and connect better with my athletes. The second was because this race scares me and I desired to get out of my comfort zone. In a nutshell, growth was what I was ultimately after. Yes, it sounds cliche, and no, I don't apologize for it!
Fast forward to this past weekend and I'm boarding a plane to Tallahassee, knowing in 24 hours I will be lining up with the deepest field in the history of the event-full or American Record Holders and Olympians (okay, that's pretty cool). This both increased my anxiety and calmed me at the same time. And no, I wasn't sure if that was possible before but there's a first time for everything. What I'm about to tell you all is as honest and unfiltered as I can get as I'm still trying to come up with a good adjective to describe my entire experience. But since I can't do that, I'll just tell you how it all went down.
PRE RACE
I'll spare you all on what I ate, what I wore, blah, blah because it and I am not that important and it is not that interesting. 12 years in this thing, I got my routine down. My plane landed at the cutest little airport in the country (two wings to the whole thing, no lie!) and I jetted over to Apalachee Regional Park where the course preview was going on until 5. I made it there with about 45 minutes to spare and headed out on an investigatory shakeout (far superior to the ordinary shakeout, I may add). It was when I got out of my rental car that the anxiety bomb went off.
Sure, I was apprehensive the week of, but taking in the course, the athletes around it, and the unspoken sense of sizing up took hold. I know what you're thinking right now and yes, I get nervous, and no, I don't think it's bad. It wasn't bad, but man, it was intense. Fighting thoughts of "you don't belong here" was the hardest part, because those thoughts were B.S. And I still feel that way looking back now.
Slipping on my trainers and steadying my breathing, I repeated to myself "It's okay to feel it, it will pass, focus on the task at hand." This became my mantra for the weekend and it pulled through big on race day. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, I trotted off on a gradual incline into the first turn and got a feel for ARP's course. The ground was soft-I mean it is Florida, after all-and the course gently rolled. Feeling my legs wanting to surge I let it loose on a downhill and found some pop in my legs. Perfect. I was liking what I was seeing. Then there was "the wall" after the 2k mark-but more on that later.
I checked out the start and felt my heart rate surge again. "Get it out now, A, you can do this tomorrow.", I told myself as I did my staple 6 strides off the line. This always seems to calm me down before race day when I have the opportunity to see the course beforehand. There was no way I was changing anything up for this event. Afterward it was spikes back off, on to the technical meeting (when it's your first Nats, always a good idea) and back to the hotel for an uneventful evening of visualizing, journaling, and bragging on social media (just a little). I still felt like I was going to jump out of an airplane the next day, but oh well, I was just gonna deal with it.
That's when after it taking much longer than usual to fall asleep, I was awakened by the distinctive sound of college students acting foolish in the hallway. "It's all good, we don't need to get worked up", I told myself but after about another half hour I walked out and found an unnamed college baseball team circled up outside and I think I literally told them to "simmer down". Wow... But hey, the old woman had a race the next day. Fortunately, they took me seriously and it wasn't an issue anymore and I decided not to throw a perceived lack of sleep into the anxiety pile. Smart move, I must say. I took control of what I could.
RACE DAY
While I raced in the Half Marathon Championships way back in 2010, I had mostly forgotten the vibe before an important race. With IAAF World XC spots on the line, you can say there was an air of tension in the air and nobody was saying much in the VIP tent. The volunteers there, however, were awesome. And I understood the collective mood and respected it. And there was a bunch of free stuff in that tent. "Take it all in, this is what you came for".
And I'm still friggin anxious. Good thing this is normal, especially for my first USA XC and it remained stable and was more uncomfortable than unbearable. I see this as a positive because it never really escalated, and its not actually not feeling any nerves that we really want to go with, but that we accept it as part of the experience. That being said, after warming up and heading toward the start boxes, I was ready to get going to burn this sensation off. .
10 mins to start.
Spikes on, breathing routine in place, I jogged to slightly uphill to the line. On the way there, I ran past the "who's who" of American Distance running: Bowerman Track Club, Northern Arizona, Elite, Shelby Houlihan (she deserves her own category) and endured one more surge of ambiguous emotion. Needing some connection before the race, I warmed up with another Nats first-timer and we bonded over not knowing what was going to happen and how good we looked in our Tracksmith singlets (and I said I wouldn't talk about what I wore!). We had the enclothed cognition thing down!
Another stride, and a smooth and powerful feeling one, it was time to line up. Oddly enough, I felt the most relaxed actually standing up there waiting to go. Instructions called out, flag raised, gun fired, and the pace went off Carolina Reaper hot. That's not an exaggeration, that was my experience. I mean, it was to be expected with the caliber of athletes competing. Given I'm more of a jalapeno pepper kinda girl, I quickly found myself....in the back. I may have even been last for a couple hundred meters. You see, I had this idea that I could just relax into my own thing and choreograph this 10,000 meters, but I was wrong. Fortunately, I recognized my roadie error and hit the gas some to get an edge on some of the ladies. This is Cross Country. Make no mistake about it.It's not gonna be easy.
I was comfortable for about 2k of the thing and then grind time hit earlier (reminder: this was never gonna be easy) than I would have liked. I had a choice to make: panic or roll with the sheer difficulty that was ahead of me. There wasn't a choice, I was gonna give it what I was capable of for the day.
Some moves were made and I went through 5k in the one of the chase packs in a PR for cross country. That itself shows that I was racing among greatness as I'm driving hard and coping with the humbling nature of where I stood in the race. Now, let's talk about "the wall". This was a 50 foot, multistage hill/turn that didn't seem like much at the preview, but presented a formidable challenge going all out and wasn't doing my forward momentum any favors. After my second climb up, My relative rhythm turned into a psychological rough patch. "Who do you think you are?", "I don't have it today", "you're outta your league", and other dark, intrusive thoughts hijacked my consciousness.
"It's okay to feel it, it will pass, focus on the task at hand."...
Heeding the alarm bells, I worked to regroup with some coping skills. I needed to accept the difficulty and intense discomfort as it is, and break the rest of the race up into chunks. "Process, A, it's a process." Using my inner coach, my preferred method of self talk in races, I reminded myself, to shake my hands out, loosen my jaw and shoulders, and handle the next incline. "Okay, good... now we get a little downhill..." Before I knew it, I was back up the wall and onto loop 3. I was doing it! I was ahead of some of the ladies and I was working through it. Pain be damned, I am going to do this!
#STILLHERE
Loop 4 came around, still riding the Tallahassee Pain Train, I committed to draining the tank, it wasn't pretty, but I pressed as much as I could. By the way, whatever happened to the artist T-Pain....ah, nevermind, back to what I was talking about.... Okay, so, this performance was not all what I had hoped for (new experiences are like that sometimes), but I was still a part of something special and I wasn't giving up or giving into my ego telling me to just let up and make excuses and I was committed to finishing with pride. Then I saw the finish chute and commanded my mind that nobody would pass me. My legs dead, like they're attached and all, but on like a delay but I still pulled out a kick and made it count.
Pride overtook any disappointment as the course and conditions were not as friendly as advertised. I finished 63rd in the Nation; given everything, that is not too bad! And I did it sharing the course with legends. And if any of you were wondering, yes, Shelby Houlihan lapped me and so did Molly Huddle; and it wasn't a bad experience. And both my feet were bleeding at the end just for extra dramatic effect. Or just poorly broken in spikes. *And, the mood livened up quickly after the race was done and I was able to cool down with some of the girls and share experiences. It's always interesting how going through a challenge with others brings people together when it's all said and done. That's what's so great about the running community.
TAKEAWAYS
So many.
First, Cross Country is no joke, and neither is American women's distance running. I am honored to say I raced in the same field as them. Results also have nothing on experiencing a race for what it is. My time and place really was not what doing this race was all about and I probably won't remember them in a few years anyway. It was about strength-when I wanted to get discouraged and fall apart I kept after it.
Its about feeling everything sometimes and still attending to the task at hand. That usually, is enough, and I am enough. Racing is also one of those things that doesn't always come easy but the ones you have to fight for every meter often have the most to offer us.
This was an exercise of dwelling in the uncertain. This experience was equal parts exciting and very scary. I tend to be someone who likes a little certainty in things and for Nationals, I had no template or anything to go on. I do, however, have a schema for it now, and should I decide to do this again in the future, I have a framework to follow. This is important, actually and something a lot of people miss: if we don't have a full template of what to expect and how to cope, you have to rely on the controllables.
I realized just how easy and comfortable it has been to run and race in my usual environment. This is where a confession comes in: it was made very apparent to me that I really, really like being up front-I feed off of it. I am comfortable and feel in control. While that's all fine and good, I got a lesson in dealing with the opposite. I may not have liked it in the short term, but it was good for me.
Now here's my top 3 lessons from this race (because I know you're getting sick of reading this by now;))
1. It's really important to change the way feel and lean into whatever it is. I cycled through pretty much every emotion at least once this trip. Instead of looking at it as a threat, change how you engage with it. Trust me, you will come out the other side stronger. Accept and adjust. That, to me is mental strength.
2. Feeling totally dead and feeling totally alive can happen at the same time. I left Tallahassee feeling accomplished and glad I decided to show up.
3. This experience will probably help me in areas outside of running. It moves me a little further from making excuses when things get difficult.
WHAT I'M GRATEFUL FOR
"Not a chance in hell", or something of that nature was her response to my request. What did I have to lose? After all, I had a year of solid training and was enjoying my best season in nearly a decade. Still, the idea of it thrilled and terrified me at the same time. And then after unanimous support from friends, family, and even some of my athletes- I decided to enter the race.
I always ask my runners to dig deep to find their 'Why'. I ask myself the same thing and on a regular basis. I will tell you that my why for running is a fluid one; it once was all about winning races and setting PRs, to trying to return to a level I once was at (not recommended, by the way), to finding joy in the simple pursuit of getting better to running just because I like it.
I still move from place to place over time on why I run and that is okay. For a lot of races, I tend to have a specific why or purpose as well. I'm a big believer in doing things purposefully, and surely toeing the line with America's best called for a sense of purpose; and two reasons take center stage here: the first was just pure curiosity-what can and will I do in this situation? I also saw this experience as an opportunity to understand and connect better with my athletes. The second was because this race scares me and I desired to get out of my comfort zone. In a nutshell, growth was what I was ultimately after. Yes, it sounds cliche, and no, I don't apologize for it!
Fast forward to this past weekend and I'm boarding a plane to Tallahassee, knowing in 24 hours I will be lining up with the deepest field in the history of the event-full or American Record Holders and Olympians (okay, that's pretty cool). This both increased my anxiety and calmed me at the same time. And no, I wasn't sure if that was possible before but there's a first time for everything. What I'm about to tell you all is as honest and unfiltered as I can get as I'm still trying to come up with a good adjective to describe my entire experience. But since I can't do that, I'll just tell you how it all went down.
PRE RACE
I'll spare you all on what I ate, what I wore, blah, blah because it and I am not that important and it is not that interesting. 12 years in this thing, I got my routine down. My plane landed at the cutest little airport in the country (two wings to the whole thing, no lie!) and I jetted over to Apalachee Regional Park where the course preview was going on until 5. I made it there with about 45 minutes to spare and headed out on an investigatory shakeout (far superior to the ordinary shakeout, I may add). It was when I got out of my rental car that the anxiety bomb went off.
Sure, I was apprehensive the week of, but taking in the course, the athletes around it, and the unspoken sense of sizing up took hold. I know what you're thinking right now and yes, I get nervous, and no, I don't think it's bad. It wasn't bad, but man, it was intense. Fighting thoughts of "you don't belong here" was the hardest part, because those thoughts were B.S. And I still feel that way looking back now.
Slipping on my trainers and steadying my breathing, I repeated to myself "It's okay to feel it, it will pass, focus on the task at hand." This became my mantra for the weekend and it pulled through big on race day. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, I trotted off on a gradual incline into the first turn and got a feel for ARP's course. The ground was soft-I mean it is Florida, after all-and the course gently rolled. Feeling my legs wanting to surge I let it loose on a downhill and found some pop in my legs. Perfect. I was liking what I was seeing. Then there was "the wall" after the 2k mark-but more on that later.
I checked out the start and felt my heart rate surge again. "Get it out now, A, you can do this tomorrow.", I told myself as I did my staple 6 strides off the line. This always seems to calm me down before race day when I have the opportunity to see the course beforehand. There was no way I was changing anything up for this event. Afterward it was spikes back off, on to the technical meeting (when it's your first Nats, always a good idea) and back to the hotel for an uneventful evening of visualizing, journaling, and bragging on social media (just a little). I still felt like I was going to jump out of an airplane the next day, but oh well, I was just gonna deal with it.
 |
| Taking it all in the day before. |
RACE DAY
While I raced in the Half Marathon Championships way back in 2010, I had mostly forgotten the vibe before an important race. With IAAF World XC spots on the line, you can say there was an air of tension in the air and nobody was saying much in the VIP tent. The volunteers there, however, were awesome. And I understood the collective mood and respected it. And there was a bunch of free stuff in that tent. "Take it all in, this is what you came for".
And I'm still friggin anxious. Good thing this is normal, especially for my first USA XC and it remained stable and was more uncomfortable than unbearable. I see this as a positive because it never really escalated, and its not actually not feeling any nerves that we really want to go with, but that we accept it as part of the experience. That being said, after warming up and heading toward the start boxes, I was ready to get going to burn this sensation off. .
10 mins to start.
Spikes on, breathing routine in place, I jogged to slightly uphill to the line. On the way there, I ran past the "who's who" of American Distance running: Bowerman Track Club, Northern Arizona, Elite, Shelby Houlihan (she deserves her own category) and endured one more surge of ambiguous emotion. Needing some connection before the race, I warmed up with another Nats first-timer and we bonded over not knowing what was going to happen and how good we looked in our Tracksmith singlets (and I said I wouldn't talk about what I wore!). We had the enclothed cognition thing down!
Another stride, and a smooth and powerful feeling one, it was time to line up. Oddly enough, I felt the most relaxed actually standing up there waiting to go. Instructions called out, flag raised, gun fired, and the pace went off Carolina Reaper hot. That's not an exaggeration, that was my experience. I mean, it was to be expected with the caliber of athletes competing. Given I'm more of a jalapeno pepper kinda girl, I quickly found myself....in the back. I may have even been last for a couple hundred meters. You see, I had this idea that I could just relax into my own thing and choreograph this 10,000 meters, but I was wrong. Fortunately, I recognized my roadie error and hit the gas some to get an edge on some of the ladies. This is Cross Country. Make no mistake about it.It's not gonna be easy.
I was comfortable for about 2k of the thing and then grind time hit earlier (reminder: this was never gonna be easy) than I would have liked. I had a choice to make: panic or roll with the sheer difficulty that was ahead of me. There wasn't a choice, I was gonna give it what I was capable of for the day.
Some moves were made and I went through 5k in the one of the chase packs in a PR for cross country. That itself shows that I was racing among greatness as I'm driving hard and coping with the humbling nature of where I stood in the race. Now, let's talk about "the wall". This was a 50 foot, multistage hill/turn that didn't seem like much at the preview, but presented a formidable challenge going all out and wasn't doing my forward momentum any favors. After my second climb up, My relative rhythm turned into a psychological rough patch. "Who do you think you are?", "I don't have it today", "you're outta your league", and other dark, intrusive thoughts hijacked my consciousness.
"It's okay to feel it, it will pass, focus on the task at hand."...
Heeding the alarm bells, I worked to regroup with some coping skills. I needed to accept the difficulty and intense discomfort as it is, and break the rest of the race up into chunks. "Process, A, it's a process." Using my inner coach, my preferred method of self talk in races, I reminded myself, to shake my hands out, loosen my jaw and shoulders, and handle the next incline. "Okay, good... now we get a little downhill..." Before I knew it, I was back up the wall and onto loop 3. I was doing it! I was ahead of some of the ladies and I was working through it. Pain be damned, I am going to do this!
#STILLHERE
Loop 4 came around, still riding the Tallahassee Pain Train, I committed to draining the tank, it wasn't pretty, but I pressed as much as I could. By the way, whatever happened to the artist T-Pain....ah, nevermind, back to what I was talking about.... Okay, so, this performance was not all what I had hoped for (new experiences are like that sometimes), but I was still a part of something special and I wasn't giving up or giving into my ego telling me to just let up and make excuses and I was committed to finishing with pride. Then I saw the finish chute and commanded my mind that nobody would pass me. My legs dead, like they're attached and all, but on like a delay but I still pulled out a kick and made it count.
Pride overtook any disappointment as the course and conditions were not as friendly as advertised. I finished 63rd in the Nation; given everything, that is not too bad! And I did it sharing the course with legends. And if any of you were wondering, yes, Shelby Houlihan lapped me and so did Molly Huddle; and it wasn't a bad experience. And both my feet were bleeding at the end just for extra dramatic effect. Or just poorly broken in spikes. *And, the mood livened up quickly after the race was done and I was able to cool down with some of the girls and share experiences. It's always interesting how going through a challenge with others brings people together when it's all said and done. That's what's so great about the running community.
TAKEAWAYS
So many.
First, Cross Country is no joke, and neither is American women's distance running. I am honored to say I raced in the same field as them. Results also have nothing on experiencing a race for what it is. My time and place really was not what doing this race was all about and I probably won't remember them in a few years anyway. It was about strength-when I wanted to get discouraged and fall apart I kept after it.
Its about feeling everything sometimes and still attending to the task at hand. That usually, is enough, and I am enough. Racing is also one of those things that doesn't always come easy but the ones you have to fight for every meter often have the most to offer us.
This was an exercise of dwelling in the uncertain. This experience was equal parts exciting and very scary. I tend to be someone who likes a little certainty in things and for Nationals, I had no template or anything to go on. I do, however, have a schema for it now, and should I decide to do this again in the future, I have a framework to follow. This is important, actually and something a lot of people miss: if we don't have a full template of what to expect and how to cope, you have to rely on the controllables.
I realized just how easy and comfortable it has been to run and race in my usual environment. This is where a confession comes in: it was made very apparent to me that I really, really like being up front-I feed off of it. I am comfortable and feel in control. While that's all fine and good, I got a lesson in dealing with the opposite. I may not have liked it in the short term, but it was good for me.
Now here's my top 3 lessons from this race (because I know you're getting sick of reading this by now;))
1. It's really important to change the way feel and lean into whatever it is. I cycled through pretty much every emotion at least once this trip. Instead of looking at it as a threat, change how you engage with it. Trust me, you will come out the other side stronger. Accept and adjust. That, to me is mental strength.
2. Feeling totally dead and feeling totally alive can happen at the same time. I left Tallahassee feeling accomplished and glad I decided to show up.
3. This experience will probably help me in areas outside of running. It moves me a little further from making excuses when things get difficult.
WHAT I'M GRATEFUL FOR
- My health. I walked away with nothing more than scraped feet and sore hamstrings.
- Having access to the Texas A&M Cross Country Course. On my College Station office days, this was a huge help in prepping me to run on grass.
- All the support I got from back home. Texts, calls, and social media messages were all really awesome.
- Knowing that running is just something I do, and not who I am. And it was pretty dang awesome to get to do it on a big stage.
- Meeting some awesome new people and sharing our passion together.
- The opportunity to take part in events like this-not everyone gets to.
- That being nice to loud people in the hotel hallway actually works. I kid, but just barely.
Thanks for letting me share this experience with you all. No matter what it is you're into, if you have a chance to get totally outta your box, I highly recommend it.
 |
| The aftermath. Also dramaticized, but you get the idea. |
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