songs of experience

Long time no write, I know. I have been swamped with life - running life! - to tell the truth. The quiz I wrote a while back, Are You a Lifetime Runner?, and question #12 is - once again - heavy on on my mind. Yesterday I took fifty or so wiggly CC Pacers (ranging in age from 6 to 13) over to watch the high school runners in their last home meet of the season. After we herded all the cats into the bleachers, I had to answer question after question about why “the other team” was so far behind Chapel Hill High. “Why do we have 50 runners and they only have 7?” “Did they have two separate starts?” (because the other team was so far back). “Why is Chapel Hill high so much faster?”

I wanted to sing out, “Tradition!” like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, but showed (I think) great restraint and instead said, “They’re fast because many of them were Pacers like you!” And its true. Lining up for both the girls and boys races were nearly a dozen Pacer or Pacer-affiliated runners, kids who started at 7 and 8 years-old … running in Chapel Hill’s woods every fall and on UNC’s track each spring. We might not run 5 miles to school and back each day like the famed Kenyans, but I’d say Chapel Hillians have a head start on most runners in this country. I’ve heard the football team can’t even field a full squad because XC is “too popular.”

Too popular!? Ha. In most communities, cross-country is the leftover sport for those who get cut from other teams. Or, its used as fall conditioning for winter or spring sports. I remember all the wrestlers on my high school team running XC to make weight. It was hardly ever anyone’s “main” sport … but in Chapel Hill kids choose running first!

And they want to run fast. They want to beat people. They want to win State championships and qualify for Nike Team Nationals. It was a thrill to see all the black-clad Tigers sprinting across the finish line - zoom, zoom, zooooom! - with all my little Pacers cheering, star-struck, in the bleachers … but what impressed me more than their dominance or their sheer numbers was what happened in the boys race.

Traditionally, the last home meet of the season is Senior Day. I noticed a box of gorgeous sunflowers being toted to the finish line and a host of teary-eyed moms and dads congregating for the ceremony after the race. I figured that was it: some flowers, a speech by the coach, proud parents’ applause. I didn’t think senior day would affect the actual race. But it did.

Chapel Hill high has a sophomore phenom named Taylor Gilland; he’s already run 15:25 for 5k cross and is crazy-hungry to run faster. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where this kid would run anything but 100% effort. I couldn’t imagine he would willingly lose a race to anyone, under any circumstance, that’s how fierce a competitor Taylor is. But lose he did … to his senior teammates. On the last stretch, I witnessed Taylor Gilland run respectfully, humbly, willingly behind his elders - several stride-lengths back, head down, seeking NO attention for himself. It was senior day. And, yes, I did cry.

So, now I’ll sing, “Tradition!”