Photo Courtesy of Covenant Athletics
On the whole, my college cross country career has been a long, grueling liturgy of failure. I have few races that distinguish themselves from the quagmire of near disasters. Despite all my resolutions to fix it this time, to just do better, experience taught me that once my feet touched a grass course — especially a grass course with hills — my legs would fill with cement and my lungs would scream at paces I could cruise at during practice. I also knew I would lose myself in a mental wasteland.
My brain is addicted to control and predictable loops. Cross kills both of those things. You can’t really control your time, you can’t always control what your body is doing over uneven footing, and you can’t control the course. Race after race reinforced the idea that I simply could not manage those things like other people, that I was probably just a weaker person than the girl next to me. Of course, I had the reward of spiraling self-chastisement to look forward to at the finish line — always so helpful!
But I’ve kept doing it, and I’ve actually kept loving it, despite myself.
It’s not so hard when you’ve got a team like ours. As a freshman, while I was excited for my own personal development, I held the program’s heavy emphasis on team unity at a skeptical distance. My individualistic posture was gradually whittled away by the infectious excitement produced by an engaged, rigorous team environment. There’s nothing quite like being one of 30 runners toeing the line at a workout, or feeling the hot rush of adrenaline as your coach really starts yelling at you at the finish and you’ve got no option but to sprint off whatever life is left in your legs and lungs and heart.
This team is extraordinarily supportive. It’s also extraordinarily kind. My teammates have taught me how to look outside of myself and let go of the illusion of control. They have taught me how to endure my little failures. My coach puts it this way: This is a safe space to fail. I know this is true because I am still safe here. Regardless of my level of performance, I am loved and wanted, and I still love and want this team.
I’ve hit more of a stride this season with the help of Coach K, and for that I am incredibly grateful. But looking back, I don’t think I would change anything. Everything is perfect. Every team dinner, every bus ride home where I can still laugh with my friends even if the race sucked and I gave up again, every bleary-eyed 5:30 a.m. workout, every moment where I stare down the tunnel of my thoughts and the weakness of my body and think that I just can’t do it anymore. There is suffering in failure but transfiguration in self- forgetting and being held by love. In that way, cross country at Covenant has been a (playful) revelation of the transfiguring power of Christ’s love over suffering.
I’ve got one race left in my Covenant cross country career. As I crest the final hill and my body wails in lactic acid and the desire to give up, I hope part of me remembers the giving and receiving of divine love I have found here. This love drenches the most painful, vulnerable, and weak moments and makes them strong. In this way, my cross country career has been a deeply embodied liturgy of experiencing Christ. It’s always going to be one of my life’s most precious gifts.