For many of you reading this, you’ve still got years. Maybe those are high school years or maybe you’re competing in college next year. If that’s any of you, then this isn’t for you. Sorry, but your path is different.
But for those of you who just got done, whether it was competing at State a couple of weekends ago or not, or maybe you’ve got one last hurrah in the next couple of weeks at Nike Heartland or Brooks Midwest, what’s next for you?
You’ve put in the early mornings, the long runs, the hard workouts, the doubles, the strength training, the missed Friday night football games, did not miss the cold, and I can go on and on about how your Fall the past 4 years was dominated by cross country. So now what? Well, here are a few options to consider:
- Keep running. I know many of you are doing track & field and that puts everything into 8 seasons of accumulated commitment rather than just 4. Either way, stay fit. Yes, you’re probably never going to run a 5K as fast as you did in high school, but chances are you ran about 40+ of them in the past 4 years. You're probably sick of them. So train for a fall 10K or half-marathon next year. For those of you going off to college, pretty much every college anywhere has some type of running club with people just like you who you can make friends with right away. And many of them stay pretty fit or maybe even get faster. Go do that. You’ve trained not just your body, but you’ve also acquired a unique trait: perseverance. You don’t go through this sport without getting that. Put that to good use and find a new goal that aligns with running. Ultramarathon phenom Michael Wardian once said, “I just have a really incredible interest in establishing what’s possible for me and then shattering that.” Brilliant. Go shatter a new goal. Sign up for a half. A full. Or even, yep you guessed it, an ultra. Imagine that. Someone who’s been focusing on early Saturday morning 5Ks for the past 4 years doing a 50K or a 50-miler or even a 100-miler next fall. What? You don’t think you can do that? Why? Go find something out about yourself that you’ve slowly, methodically, and persistently trained yourself for. There’s not enough bandwidth on this website to share with you the unlimited amount of stories of what former high school cross country runners have accomplished after they’re done. Go be a part of those countless stories.
- Find another passion. Maybe you’ve had enough of running for a moment and you want to channel that perseverance into something else. Take up weightlifting. Take up pickleball. Take up disc golf. Jump into something else with the same gusto that you jumped into XC a few years ago. Maybe you didn’t quite reach your goals in XC that you set out for. Then go re-establish those into something else. The hard moments you had in XC are more than applicable to other areas of your life. Be thankful for those hard times, for those are what may have made you. Yes, I know. You put so much time and effort into high school XC that now you may feel that something else isn’t worthy of your passion for it. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “If a man is called a streetsweeper then he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or as Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of Heaven and Earth paused to say, “Here lived a great streetsweeper and he did his job well.” Go find your streetsweeping. Nothing you channeled your previous 4-year efforts into is a waste.
- Coach. Be a great coach. And that’s not because you know exactly what it takes to be a great high school runner, but more so because you know the experience. Not just the things that you did right, but also the things you wish you had back to do differently. Go pass those onto to someone else. There are thousands of high school kids waiting to hear that conversation who never will. Don’t not share your experiences with people younger than you. It may be the most powerful feeling you ever have.
All in all, you’re done. You’ve played the game well. Happy with the results or not, there’s a lot left in you. Do something with it. Make your high school XC experiences count for something more than just a PR or a placing. There’s more to it than just that. There’s some other outlet that you can apply it to. Someone wants to hear your story. Good or bad. And if your high school cross country career didn’t result in a happy ending, then go find it. Everyone deserves a happy ending. If you’re not happy, then it’s not the end.
Keep running, Kansas, and see you on the track.
For many of you reading this, you’ve still got years. Maybe those are high school years or maybe you’re competing in college next year. If that’s any of you, then this isn’t for you. Sorry, but your path is different.
But for those of you who just got done, whether it was competing at State a couple of weekends ago or not, or maybe you’ve got one last hurrah in the next couple of weeks at Nike Heartland or Brooks Midwest, what’s next for you?
You’ve put in the early mornings, the long runs, the hard workouts, the doubles, the strength training, the missed Friday night football games, did not miss the cold, and I can go on and on about how your Fall the past 4 years was dominated by cross country. So now what? Well, here are a few options to consider:
