I miss my running so much. I’m still adjusting to being a runner who can’t run, and this adjustment is hard (and may never end). Part of what I miss is my own running as an outlet for my personal goals and competitiveness; this is the part of me that loved earning a spot in the Boston Marathon year after year, or training to achieve a particular race goal, or simply the satisfaction of a really good workout with my friends before dawn on a track somewhere.
Another part of what I miss is running with the Monta Vista distance runners. When I launched the Saturday morning distance crew up the Up and Over + Garrods run, and I saw them all heading away from me down the RR tracks, my mind went back to 2015.
In 2015, I ran up Up and Over with a bunch of freshmen who were making this run for the first time. When a runner gets to the top of Up and Over, the runner is faced with the choice of turning right and heading down to Monta Vista, or turning left and continuing up to Garrods’ Gate. It is easy to justify going down. I remember grinding up Propect one day and getting in a small pack of freshman girls who had never turned left and climbed Garrods before, and they were unsure if they could make it. Three freshmen and a sophomore decided to go for Garrods, and we all pushed ourselves to the top together. And here they are at the top of Garrods for the first time:
The feeling of satisfaction of getting to the top of the Garrod Gates’ trail from Up and Over.
That’s Coach Sarah on the left; Sarah and her partner Claire ended up making the State cross country meet three times and winning a CCS team championship in 2018. Sarah just graduated from UC Berkeley, and Claire is about to graduate from McGill. Anushka’s family moved to Canada and last I heard she was in a pre-med program at the University of Waterloo, studying biomedical engineering. Mizuki transferred to Presentation and ran there, graduated from UCSD, and is now pursuing a passion in data science through a masters program in engineering at Carnegie-Mellon. I am not saying that all these great life outcomes started with that climb up Garrods in September, 2015! But these kids all showed the determination to challenge themselves with the tougher option when they were 14 years old, and they are still challenging themselves and developing their abilities eight years later.
I wish I could run up that hill with the team now, so I could continue to encourage more athletes to turn left at the top of Up and Over–and see the faces and the satisfaction when they get to the Gates. Maybe a few more athletes would challenge themselves if I were there to provide encouragement. But, but…if an athlete turns and makes the climb on their own, or with their teammates, maybe that says even more about the person and their determination. We can all make that choice to push a little harder, to climb for another ten minutes, to get a little more out of our workout and ourselves.
Keep making that choice to go up a little further, to push a little long! It’s not all about that one day, and that single choice. What matters in the long term is the choice, the determination, and the habit, to continue to make an effort a little longer. The repeated, habitual choice to push a little bit longer and a little bit harder will distinguish the high achievers.
And you all can make that choice. You don’t need me up there (though I wish I were!)