The Woodberry Harrier 2011: Volume 5

Clear Blue Weather…

The other day on the Perimeter Trail, I spotted something shiny in the dirt and stopped, even though I needed to hurry back to the Barbee.   I can't resist this sometimes.  You see, atop the cabinet in the kitchen of the Old School House is a collection oddments:  a Lea n' Perrins bottle with raised lettering, another with a faded Tru-Ade logo, a tiny, thin juice glass.  I have these things and many more in the old trash dumps which lie under the Perimeter Trail in a couple of places.  After a thaw or a wet time, the ground will shift and settle, and the feet of a passing runner will break loose an item thrown away and forgotten years ago.  Often, I get teased:  I will see the handle of a tea cup, only to discover that the handle is all that's left.  But occasionally I find things whole, little treasures which were once trash, which survived being shoveled out, survived the clanging and jostling of other discarded things, survived decades under the earth on a riverbank.  Did Violet Walker set her cup on this saucer?  Did A. Baker Duncan eat his eggs from this plate when he was a freshman?  Did the bleach from this once-stoppered bottle go into the Sunday shirt of a boy who never came home from the Great War?  

I thought of these buried treasures the other day on the phone with my mother.  We were sharing frustrations over such a grey and damp October when my grandmother, who'd been listening, suddenly said, "My mother said in October you get the clear blue weather."   And there was that wonderful phrase which had survived whole in the debris of dementia, once lost , now found.  Back in the family.  A little piece of my long-dead great-grandmother's sensibility and playfulness and aesthetic. 

"Clear blue weather," I have been saying to myself over and over, like a mantra, every day  It is cross country weather-- no matter what the prevailing atmospheric conditions.  It is a time when the infinite space of possibility opens overhead, when the steep mountains in the distance beckon those who would test their mettle, when you can see both far and near---when you can notice what each stride unearths.

Today is such a day.  The wet and cold weekend which brought sleet has ended in a day that seems nothing less than a miracle.  The leaves which were dark and soggy on Friday are fluttering and flickering in yellows and reds and oranges, and the sky is a spectrum, from the translucent horizon to the Carribbean blue overhead, and the air is a mountain spring.  Clear Blue Weather.  A time to look back and see every shade of greatness (yes, that's the word) and every hue of pleasure we experienced on Friday when we ran so well over soggy ground under cold, iron-grey skies. 

The weather seemed to be an omen at the half-mile.  We had our hands full.  FUMA was better than they had been in the early season, especially up front, and Vertias Christian (odds-on favorites for the Division II State Championship) were packed together.  By Mile #1 I was already thinking over the reasons we were probably doomed to a mediocre race:  a tough week of practice, an overly ambitious Thursday workout, the first bad colds.   But, as is often the case, I was wrong.  We gained ground through the fields, and we came out of the woods in charge.  We had some amazing times, and the highlight of the day was Winston Brown's earnest praise for how dramatically we had improved since the FUMA Invitational.  

Their confident strides had kicked loose a fine little vessel of pride and hope which had, for some guys, gotten buried under the debris of worries over low numbers and eligibility and inexperience and re-building and injuries.  What's so easy  to see on this day of high visibility is one very tough little team which has already become so much better than it dared to hope back in August.  

Here are the results:

FUMA-Veritas WFS Lower Course
@ WFS
28 October,  2011
Place:  1st out of 3 teams 1-5  spread:  40 sec
	Time	Place out of 21 runners
Evans	17:01	2	a 32-sec. season and all-time PR
Winston	17:12	3	a 14-sec. season PR
Shelton	17:35	7	a 45-sec. season PR
Liles	17:39	8	a 24-sec. season PR
Flory	17:41	11	a 59-sec. season PR
Ways	17:42	12	a 1:07 season PR
Grantham	17:54	15	a 1-sec. season and lifetime PR
Rafield	18:11	16
Gimbert	18:41	17	a 1:22-sec season PR and a 20 sec. lifetime PR!!!

Let's hope the clear blue weather holds for these next two weeks as we sharpen for the championship meets.  This Friday we host the Prep League on the lower course, and next Friday we host the Independent Schools Championship on the golf course, and I know in both meets we will uncover more beautiful pieces of courage and character.   There is so very much there yet to find.  

                                                                                         

                                                                                      --BCH