The Woodberry Harrier 2010: Volume 3

The Woodberry Harrier 2010:  Volume 3

Dirty Faces and Proud Hearts

            After last Saturday's showing, we met under the tree Monday in high spirits, ready to keep that good momentum rolling.    The boys warmed up and took off across the fields and over Little Skyline to Jones Mill Road, a steep and shady gravel lane, perfect for one-mile hill repeats on a sweltering day.   And after some comical confusion (seven guys getting lost on a no-turns route) we finally arrived and started the workout, and it was going really well, despite the heat.  I was having such a blast biking back and forth watching the different groups attack the hill that I did not really think twice when I first saw Kevin by the side of the road rubbing the ankle which had bothered him some the week before.  Then I saw him try to stand on it and knew our perfect afternoon would not end so perfectly and the week we had planned would never unfold.   Despite my attempts to put a hopeful spin on it, his dad said what I knew in my gut:  "This ain't good."  And so we spent the remainder of the week in a kind of ill-humored limbo with Kevin traveling back and forth from medical appointments and the rest of us trying to carry on.  We managed some good work, but spirits sank and minds wandered.  Even the laughter seemed jangled and joyless.   No one said, "What's the use?" but the question hovered behind all other questions.  Our collective mood might well have summoned the weirdly hot winds that blew like a Santa Ana all week across the hard, bone-dry ground.

            And on Saturday morning, we turned north to Leesburg while Kevin and his parents turned south toward the UVa MRI Clinic, a fitting symbol of the disjointed week.   Still, some new hope was circling in my head.   The Oatlands meet was even bigger than we imagined, and as we drove in someone saw the rolling fields of multi-colored tents and remembered the Quidditch tournament in Harry Potter, and I thought the allusion apropos because I was just beginning to feel a little magic return.     I have not seen The Sound of Music in years, but I found a line from the film running through my head as we looked at the course:  "When God closes a door, he opens a window."   I am not sure how Maria intended it, but surely she did not mean it in the literal, simplistic way we so often hear it used.   Surely she, who so loved the mountains and streams, was noticing that it is writ in the order of things that closings cause openings.  If I remember her correctly, she'd have seen every opening as its own gift, and this was how we had to see the day ahead.    Thomas had for the first time made the Top 15 in the Charlottesville paper on Thursday, and I took that as a good omen.  He would lead the squad in Kevin's absence and have an even better day that he would have had otherwise.  And this excitement stayed alive well into the race---until I noticed that Thomas had dropped out, and then I knew that the stiffness I noticed as he warmed up had been another kind of omen altogether.   And so here we were in the middle of the biggest race of the season without our number one or our number two.  I suppose lightening does indeed strike the same team twice. 

              All coaches live in fear of injuries:  the baseball coach watches the pitcher wind up thinking of rotator cuffs, the football coach watches the quarterback pivot on knees of glass.    But a runner's injuries never actually "happen."  There are no pops or rips or tears.   The runner's injuries come in darkness and silence, like a thief in the night, whose mischief is finished before it is found.   And the signs of the intruder leave us shocked and insulted, as if we hadn't been expecting him all along.  Indeed, the care we took to latch every shutter and secure every lock just makes the robbery feel all the more personal.  This is foolish, of course.    Tissues tear.  Tendons pull.  Bones fracture.  It may feel like a planned robbery, but it's just the essential frailty of even the fittest of human bodies.  And the worst injury of all is the broken heart that comes with it.    And I don't think that phrase is too big to use here.   We begin in the nursery encouraging kids to dream, and when they get older we teach them to work for those dreams.  These are two of great truths that parenting and teaching and coaching rest upon.  One can't help but feel betrayed to learn that something as huge as a dream actually hangs on something as soft as tissue, as flimsy  as cartilage.   And yet the plain and simple biological truth of this grounds us.  We are made of dust, after all, and we forget that at our peril.  

             And it was impossible to forget dust on Saturday.  After the race, the boys were covered in it from head to toe.  Even their teeth were streaked with black.  So we sat in the brittle field and wiped off that dust and tended to Thomas and licked our wounds and finished the week the way we'd spent it, generally down and out.    But, we really should not have been.  When God closes a door he opens a window.  When he closes two doors, he opens two windows.  When Thomas dropped out, Addison pulled ahead of where he had planned to run and took the responsibility of the lead with real valor, beating people he has never before beaten.  It was his day to emerge as true and formidable runner.   And Josh closed the gap with Matt from twenty-five to four seconds.   The gap between the five runners behind Kevin and Thomas went from forty-nine seconds to thirty-three, so the guys had stayed tighter than they had before, and that was a significant breakthrough.  It's the main thing we work at in every meet.   A window had opened after all, and something more than dust had come through.   I think the guys knew this, too.  When we stopped for lunch, they bought tie-dye shirts and tapestries from a lady who recognized them from Rapidan, and I had forgotten how funky and bright and happy tie-dye can be.   Just like the stippled and mottled new hope which seemed to be forming around the edges of our little band.   After all, the things which come through windows are not like the things that walk through doors.  What comes through windows rides on light and floats on air.  Emily Dickinson said it this way: 

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all

            Here is the summary of the meet:

Oatlands Invitational
Oatlands, Plantation Leesburg VA
September 25th, 2010
30th place out of 41 teams; Top-five spread: 0:33 Top-seven spread: 1:17
Runner	Time	Place out of (A) 277 (B) 387
Winston	18:34	117th
Laws	18:51	142nd
Grantham	18:52	148th
Trudgeon	18:55	152nd
Flynn	19:07	172nd
Rafield	19:50	158th (Varsity B)
Shelton	19:51	164th (Varsity B)
Gimbert	20:24	224th (Varsity B)
Exum	21:24	312th (Varsity B)
Bennert	DNR	DNR
Garrison	DNF	DNF
Evans	DNR	DNR

            The next weeks will test us all in ways we did not expect.  Kevin will be called to a courage and fortitude far greater than what he would have shown simply working hard and racing well.  He faces a long stretch of rehab and hours of solitary and tedious work.  And he will have to keep alive the dream which has brought him this far.    The others will be called to a greater courage than simply backing Kevin.  They will have to move up and fill in and accept heavier duty and take greater risks and push themselves and each other harder.  
             I believe each one will rise up on eagles' wings.  Hope is the thing with feathers, after all.