Notes
What a Freshman XC season it's been. Despite my poor result today, I actually say that without any negative undertone whatsoever. Since I usually make an attempt at a poorly written end-of-season reflection after my championship races, I'm going to avoid talking about my performance today and talk about my progress as a runner, which I find to be far more important and interesting than one bad race. Also, the conditions for the JV race made the course a good minute plus slower than on a good day, which should mean at least a little, especially given how I perform in extremely terrible footing.
Throughout my Senior year of HS, it was pretty clear that running had lost a bit of it's meaning to me. While I still cared about my performances immensely and also did everything I thought it took to make me a better runner, I definitely wasn't enjoying the sport in the way that I did the year and a half prior, during which I discovered a passion for running that surpasses what even most collegiate runners would consider a healthy obsession and certainly transcends the arbitrary time goals I always seemed to stress about my Senior year. This summer, however, I started regaining that spark and getting back to my old ways; training with the purpose of becoming wiser and better all around runner for myself, instead of as a means of impressing coaches, teammates, and girls (what a joke, obviously :)). Anyways, hitting big mileage over the summer was fulfilling, if nothing else.
Coming into Hopkins, I was convinced that after my summer and a track season of 4:22, 9:43 in my first 3200m in over a year, and some solid 4x800 splits, I would be one of the top runners here, or at least be on the verge of making an impact. It was overwhelming to see how wrong I was, and how difficult the transition to college cross country running is, especially at a school as academically intense as Johns Hopkins. Having trouble with that is something that I can cope with, but I'm at a point in my running career where I really could have used some encouraging results, especially given the amount of mental and emotional energy I put into this sport. However, the thing that I've realized, and what my teammates have been emphasizing to me, is that patience is the key here. It took me almost an entire year of consistent high mileage before I started seeing success on the high school level, but once it came, it really came (from soph to junior yr: 2:11->1:58, 4:37->4:21, and 16:09->14:41 on the same course!) After losing some belief in high mileage and running the same times or even slower the next year, it makes sense that I need to have some patience before I finally start to see improvement again. So go on, judge me for being the kid that ran high mileage all summer and then bombed all season, but you might be very surprised down the road.
Anyways, this season has been amazing for so many reasons, and getting down on myself really isn't going to help at all. Once I arrived on campus, the passion for the sport I started redeveloping over the summer immediately went back to peak levels. I trained hard and consistently, and started doing workouts that I feel will help me in the long term, instead of trying to force myself into 4:20 shape like my past two track seasons. Much, much, more importantly, I really bonded with some amazing and smart people in the past few months, and I really feel like what I'm doing now is going to make me great in the long term. I've learned so much from the guys, and it's really been awesome to feel like I'm an important part of the team, even though that definitely hasn't been true results-wise. A guy like Billy, for example, has really shown me that you don't necessarily have to be the fastest or most talented runner on the team to contribute the most to the team dynamic, something which I never really thought about as captain in high school. I always thought that if I started doing poorly, people would lose respect for me as a leader, which I realize now couldn't be further from the truth.
I'm really grateful to Ceruzzi, Billy, Schwartz, Schaffer, and even Austin for creating this kind of atmosphere for me and doing what I consider to be a great job of promoting what HOPXC is all about. It's also been awesome being around guys like Arvind, Tyler, Louis, and Julian, who all have a contagious passion for the sport in some way or another.
Most importantly, Dan Bier, Andrew Carey, and of course Akshay have helped me through this season in ways that I didn't even realize at the time. These guys are truly gurus of running, as well as life in general, and are more importantly great friends and people. (Carey, if you're reading this, have I told you you're the man??). They've really helped me confirm my vision of who I want to be as a runner and as a person.
Bottom line: I couldn't be more excited for the rest of my college career. Fuck the critics; my passion for running isn't going away anytime soon, so I plan to keep on doing everything it takes to make me the runner I always picture myself as, and best believe I'm going to have a ton of fun along the way.
HOWEVER: it's important to keep perspective on what really matters. As the prominent philosopher of our time once said:
"Talent wins races, but biceps win championships"