You Can’t Miss Something Until It’s Gone

For those who don't know, I was part of Wootton’s cross country team for four years. I can safely say that it was special. Now that it is over, I wanted to take some time to talk about being on the team and what it meant to me.

The story starts long before my first class at Wootton. During the summer before my freshman year, my parents told me I needed to do a fall sport. They pushed the idea of cross country to me, then “strongly encouraged” me to sign up. Plus my cousin was on the team already, so that made it a little less intimidating.

I did summer runs led by the team captains and while I was very bad at the actual running, I liked being part of the team. Everyone made me feel like I belonged. Even with that head start, during the first part of freshman year I didn’t think I could finish a race. And at first, I didn’t. In fairness the first meet I competed in was at Bull Run, which is the same course where the Maryland State meet is held at the end of the year, but I was clearly not ready. That would be a theme for me for the year. Even though I kept getting faster, I could never go as fast as I felt I should be able to.

The second meet was the day after Yom Kippur (what dumb person came up with that?). I didn’t do well in that one either, but I kept getting a little better every meet. The last meet I would ever run was counties in 2019. I ran my lifetime best time, even if I did pass out at the finish line. In hindsight, that should have been a warning sign. Little did I know that this would be the last competitive meet of my running career.

Regardless of my times, the best part of freshman year was just being part of the team. For example, I remember the seniors made all the freshmen signs at the first meet to encourage us. And then there were the spaghetti dinners where you always felt a special bond between everyone. The Spagdins, as they are called, may be the best parts of cross country. Those kept me on the team, because there were times where I felt like I was too slow for cross country but the spagdins kept me close to everyone on the team and I couldn’t imagine not being a part of it.

Unfortunately, the next year we had COVID, which forced cross country to adapt to the situation. There was only one non-virtual meet, which I wasn’t able to run in. It was disappointing because I lost a year of competition, but I did my training and logged my miles and I told myself that next year I would be in excellent shape to run.

But that’s not what ended up happening.

In the summer of 2021, I was diagnosed with a medical condition and was told that I would be unable to run cross country. In fact, the doctors said that was the one sport they were least comfortable with me participating in. They would have been more likely to let me play tackle football, which didn’t make much sense to me but they graduated medical school and I was just trying to get good grades in my high school classes. I was crushed!

I thought my time on the team would end, but that's not quite what happened. Coach Redmond let me be a manager for the team for my junior and senior years, and it was the best. I couldn't run but wanted to be part of the team in any way possible. If you were to ask me four years ago as my freshman year was just starting and I was struggling to finish the two-mile training runs if I would still be a part cross country as a senior, I would have said no. I would have said I would probably have quit because I was too slow. And if you had asked me if I would stick around and help out the team when I couldn’t even participate in the races, I never would have believed you. But I stayed, showing up to practice and waking up before dawn to take the bus to weekend meets even when I couldn’t run the races anymore.

One quote that I think explains this stands out from this season. It was always on captain Sebastian Lising's shirt and it said "Pain is only weakness leaving the body.” Whether it's physical or mental pain, this quote means something to everyone because it encourages you to dig deeper. In school or in sports it’s good to remember that you have to work hard to get results.

I called this post “You Can’t Miss Something Until It’s Gone” because I've realized how lucky I am to experience two different sides of cross country, as both a runner and a manager. While as a runner I may have taken cross country for granted, as a manager and a senior, realizing that it’s over is a hard thing to process. For me, it’s over for the second time, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

I will always be a part of the Wootton cross country team and I will always be a Patriot. Cross country has been the best part of high school. I’ve made so many friends and have so many wonderful memories from being in the team that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It’s hard to believe that I would love being on the cross country team this much, seeing that most people will say that cross country is their sport’s punishment when they don’t listen to the coach. But ask any of the other seniors on the team, and they’ll tell you the same thing. We’ll all miss it, even the Frost hill.

Well, maybe not that.