Sometimes I hate running. Wait, that's a lie. Sometimes I hate racing, not that it makes me nervous, or I'm scared of competition or anything like that. I picked up the sport of cross-country because of two things.
1. The classic: Not good at other sports.
2. Wanted to see more of the world.
Me running has never been solely about winning a certain race, or running a certain time. That is just the bonus. I run because I like to explore, I like to push my body to its limits going farther and farther eventually breaking through stronger on the other side. Back in grade 8, our XC program was simple, go out and run said loop. if you get back before practise is over, do another loop. Not that I was a child protege in grade 8, but I was running 5 or 6km faster than most of the team could run 1.5km. I just figured if I was faster, I could go further and explore more.
Four years later, my love for exploration continued, but I was never a good runner in High School, I made one OFSAA XC and that was in grade 12. That only occurred because during that summer my girlfriend broke up with me and to get back at her I thought I would just run really fast. But to do that I had to run more and explore more.
I really have no idea where this is going, and lawlz if ex-girlfriend reads this. I think what I'm getting at is, I need to take a step back and start loving the sport again, forget about competition.
That's where the title Cross-Country 365 comes into play, there is about a year till the next CIS XC championship, and the last three years I have put a lot of pressure on myself to preform a certain way. So next year it is going to be simple. I have one plan: enjoy it.
Have a nice day.
rj.
