The Woodberry Harrier 2011: Volume 1

Spires in the Distance...

On a bleary day this past July, I found myself in a van full of students circling Salisbury, England.  The detour had seemed a good idea when we left Winchester, but I'd forgotten what a big city Salisbury is, with its warren of suburbs and clogged traffic circles. I was straining to read signs with one eye and keep to the left with the other and feeling my blood pressure rise by the second. Then I saw the cathedral spire in the distance and all was well, as quick as that.  It did exactly what its 13^th Century builders hoped it would do:  it beckoned me and guided me and made sudden order of the chaos.  

We parked and followed it, and I hoped the boys would be as thrilled as I knew I would be when we emerged from the passageway.   Unlike other cathedrals hemmed in by streets and buildings, Salisbury's sits in the center of a wide green lawn, a good distance even from the cathedral close.  You round a corner and suddenly behold all its tattered glory.   You should hope no one is walking close behind because you will surely stop.

And you will stop again when the west door closes on the picnickers and Frisbee throwers and playing children.  Despite the muffled, milling tourists, silence reverberates from the flagstone floor up the black marble vaulting, as if you can hear the painted light falling from the stained glass.   But soon the choir began rehearsing, and we were carried by song from sculpture to carving to tapestry.  Eventually, I found a seat against a pillar before the great east window and stayed still for a long while.

I would do the same thing a month later in the back end of Augusta Country, Virginia, on a dirt road in the woods.  Biking back to meet the runners, I stopped to adjust a lever (I have forgotten which one) when I heard a sound I hadn't heard in years:  the loud drumming of a rising grouse, and then the same again.  I had jumped a pair.  If you have ever jumped a grouse (with or without a gun) you will know the sudden feeling of loss for something you didn’t know you had---a chance to glimpse one of the most elusive of birds.  And then I looked up and saw one of them sitting on the lowest limb of a white oak staring back at me.  Behind her, the woods darkened from green to black behind a sheer of sunlight hanging from the tops of the high hemlocks.  The nearby creek was dry.  The only sound came from the breathing of my puzzled dog, who watched me while I watched the grouse.  I stood in utter beatitude in yet another place transformed by rare light and undeserved beauty, for yet another time transformed by quiet and stillness.  When the bird flew, so did we, now eagerly listening for the laughter and chatter I knew we would soon hear up ahead.

I could not have anticipated this particular moment, but as summer wanes each year I anticipate moments like it, little spaces of time when I can pause and know I have crossed the threshold into a new cross country season.   I have been able to glimpse it in the distance for weeks above the din and motion of the hectic, busy summer, and I have moved toward it with confidence, knowing that once I got inside it, the jangled noise would cease and the music would begin and everywhere I looked I could contemplate the grace of yet another fall of coaching.           

We are well inside the rarified space of that season now, and it's long past time to get in touch with our friends and supporters.   So far I could not be more pleased with how things are going.  We had a high time in Bath County running the roads of the G.W. National Forest and cooking big meals in the camp kitchen, and we have settled into a smooth, efficient routine here at school.  We have strong captains in Addison and Logan.  We have had no injuries to speak of--and we have logged in some intense workouts and many high-quality miles.  We have raced three times, and each race has been more promising.   We have enjoyed much of every day so far.  What more could we possibly ask?

After last year's big graduation, we were facing what some coaches euphemistically call a "rebuilding year,"  but the first weeks of the season have me eschewing that phrase (and the thinking that goes with it).  Every team is its own, facing its own challenges with its own wherewithal, and I have no doubt that this group will face what lies ahead with a courage of their own making---perhaps a kind that none of them thought possible a year ago--and I am excited about witnessing that. 

           

We began the season as we have for so many years by joining the Charlottesville area teams for the Ragged Mountain Cup at Panorama Farms in Charlottesville.  This is the only relay and the only 2-mile race we will run all season, and it's great fun.   

Ragged Mountain Cup (a 2-mile Relay)
Panorama Farms, Earlysville
1 September, 2011
Place:  10th out of 25 teams 1-5  spread:  50 sec.
Runner	Time	Place out of 100 runners
Grantham	11:25	(22nd )	15 seconds under last year
Evans	11:32	26th
Rafield	12:04	55th	1 minute under last year
Shelton	12:10	61st	1 second under last year
Liles	12:18	67th
Winston	12:22	72nd
Flory	12:38	79th

On the Saturday before school started we left before breakfast for Fredericksburg to open our season officially. 

Chancellor Invitational
Loriella Park, Fredericksburg
3 September, 2011
Place:  8th out of 17 teams 1-5  spread:  1:31
Runner	Time	Place out of 155 runners
Evans	18:18	28th
Winston	18:21	31st	47-seconds under last year's time
Shelton	18:30	35th	45-seconds under last year's time
Rafield	18:38	41st
Liles	19:49	75th
Flory	20:39	98th
Kuhnel	21:08	109th

And last Saturday we went down to the FUMA Invitational, where we raced in a very competitive and crowded field on a sloppy course which had been soaked by the recent hurricane.   We finished just ahead of Collegiate, St. Christopher's, and Fork Union (but I shan't mention Trinity).

Fork Union Invitational
Hardy 3-Mile Course, Fork Union
10 September, 2011
Place:  16th out of 22 teams 1-5  spread:  9:50
Colonial Division	Time	Place out of 143 runners
Winston	17:30	61st
Evans	17:31	62nd
Shelton	17:31	63rd
Rafield	18:05	95th
Liles	18:31	110th
Patriot Division		Place out of 207 runners
Flory	19:37	114th
Kuhnel	20:12	146th
Gimbert	20:39	170th
Sabre Division (2 mile)		Place out of
Ways	11:51	2nd

This weekend we host the Woodberry Forest Invitational, and we are very eager to race on our home course.  Wish us luck.

Please share this with whomever you wish.  I am proud of these boys and shall delight in having others share in that pride.