One fall race worth endorsing

Not everybody running this fall has made me cringe, sigh or reach for the remote.

My daughter Tess, a seventh-grader, tried cross country for the first time. Today she's scheduled to be striding around Noelridge Park for her last meet of the season. We'll be along the course, searching for her bouncing ponytail.

Early on, it was no sure bet that she would make it this far. Her long-distance running experience was scant. It turns out playing something called 'MovieStarPlanet” on our computer for hours on end had not helped her build endurance. Her cross country learning curve was decidedly uphill.

'I don't want to do this,” she said, back in August, tumbling breathlessly into the van after one of her first few practices. 'I'm going to die.”

'Give it a couple of weeks,” I said.

Believe it or not, 1,000 or so pizzas ago, I ran cross country in high school. So, clearly, I could sympathize with her fears of death by running. More than once, practicing on some rural, sunbaked gravel road, I likely felt as though I, too, were running toward the light. Wait, are those buzzards?

But I figured with the help of all the sage wisdom I accumulated during my glory days, Tess would get through it. After all, my high school team qualified for the state meet during my senior year. OK, it's true the fire trucks that were supposed to escort us back into town mistakenly brought in a befuddled volleyball team that had just won a second-round regional match. And, yes, at state, we finished 16th out of 16 teams. Trouble is, we got absolutely no credit for sage wisdom.

So time passed. And Tess did not die. She did stick with it.

On a fateful Saturday morning at Cedar Rapids Prairie, she took off with the galloping throng for the very first time. We walked to another point on the course and waited. And waited. Many, many other Linn-Mar runners passed our position. Is that her? No. Maybe? Nope. Does everyone have the same ponytail?

Then, in the distance, I saw a walking figure cresting a hill. There she is. 'Walking?” I thought. 'Take it easy, dad,” I thought, more rationally.

A moment later she started running again. She had not given up, even though the look on her face did not say, 'Thanks, dad, for all the sage wisdom!”

Truth is, it takes considerable time to develop the sort of self-motivation and determination needed to push yourself forward despite the fact every cell, nerve and fiber in your being is screaming, 'Stop, oh please stop!” Enduring this kind of tough stuff, even when the rewards aren't exactly glorious or glamorous, is a handy life skill. Just because you're far back in the pack doesn't mean there are no victories worth winning.

At her second meet, Tess ran the whole course without walking. With each race since, she's gotten a little better, a little stronger, a little more confident. She even survived the dreaded meet at Cascade, where the steep, long, nasty hills brought more than one runner to tears.

Far from simply surviving, I get a sense Tess actually enjoys running. She even says she wants to go out for cross country again next year. Wise.

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