The Woodberry Harrier 2011: Volume 6
Seeing the Music
I see a lot when I'm running. To be amongst us, you have to. You can tell each harrier does, because when you ask us why we run or what’s so special about it, no one can put a finger on it. And none of us will attempt to give you some all-encompassing statement you’d hear from the average teenage runner who lives vicariously through his coach's mottos. Our reverence for the sport--our team, our rituals and traditions--is far too complex for that. As so many have done before, I often think about that reverence and try to put into words what it's like to be a WFS harrier in November.
Let me start on the logical route and say simply that few things produce as many stimuli as running. Never have I FELT so many things at once as I have felt in a State Meet at Woodberry. The experience is very much like intense music. My favorite songs are the ones I keep coming back to. With each listen I discover a new facet of the song I didn’t hear before--a light backbeat, a touch of percussion, the blending of horn and string. A good song is not just the lead melody, and racing is not just the pain. Look hard, and with a second glance you will see much more. Each stride triggers a new feeling. Each step moves you forward, as they say, but also forward into new awareness.
At the first mile mark, I feel the sweat dripping into my eyes and my calves pinching, straining, and burning as if on a rotisserie. A gnat vibrates in the back corner of my mouth, and the rapid breaths of cold air scratch my lungs. A string of spit dries on my chin, and invisible hands wring my intestines like a wet rag. But the beauty of the November Blue Ridge calms my panic and quiets my fears as the dry leaves and dying grass cushion my heels. The wind becomes my puppeteer, lifting me lightly across the undulating hills. As I make the final descent down Parrot's hill, I see two tall trees rising upwards into one large top like two sides of a neck supporting a head of bright leaves. I lengthen my stride and fly down the hill, and as I come near, the trees separate into golden-topped gateposts, the entry to the final 500 meters, the truth-telling stretch. And I pass through, the spectrum of comfort and discomfort blurs into a single intensity, a myriad of sensation that becomes one sensation. I close my eyes and float like a manatee past the nameless, faceless automatons running beside me.
Friday we seniors ran this race for the final time. Unlike a song that we can repeat over and over, that race will be the final listen for some of us, but we will remember our rhythmic strides and melodic chase. Before the race, I reminded myself that I'd done it before, but I couldn't help but fear the imminent pain like a young child on his way to a flu shot. And of course the race was even more painful than I expected, but that pain passed as quickly as we passed over the course. What happened to our character did not pass, however. That will be part of us forever. I’ve always liked saying "While we all make choices, it’s our choices that make us." I think it's true. What we did Friday showed not only what we have made of ourselves tthis season, but also what we plan to make of our lives.
--Logan Rafield '12
If the boys make of their lives what they made of this season, they will have much to celebrate over the years. We began the fall with such thin hope that we never even mentioned the championship meets in our conversations at camp. Of course we had runners whose mettle was well proven, and we had some new ones whose potential was exciting--but it was hard to see beyond a series of bad omens: two runners deciding at the last minute not to show up and one who almost didn't, a looming eligibility battle, no depth, low summer mileage. We didn't talk about these things either, but we were aware of them like grey clouds in the offing. We seem to have agreed silently just to take the season one week at a time and make of each week whatever there was be made of it.
And in the end we made much--and learned much. As Hamlet says, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." These omens were "bad" only because we imagined so (or rather because we failed to imagine otherwise). As Cassius reminds us, "the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves." What seemed to be forbidding obstructions were rather openings---like Logan's trees that became gateposts. I am glad we had our eyes open as we approached.
We hosted the Prep League here on our Lower Course in 4 November, and we fought hard to earn 2nd that day against a Collegiate team that had its best race of the year. We had a couple of people who were sick and a couple who had probably thought too hard about the race. We ran respectably, but we all knew we had a greater day in us. That day came a week later in the State Meet on the Upper Course when we ran with the kind of focus and courage runners dream of mustering. As Addison Winston said at the end, "This was that race." We knew exactly what he meant. Any runner would.
Here are the results of the last two meets:
2011 Prep League | |||
@ WFS Lower Course | |||
4 November, 2011 | |||
Place: 2nd out of 6 teams 1-5 spread: 40 sec | |||
Time | Place out of 64 runners | ||
Evans | 17:14 | 7 | All Prep |
Winston | 17:15 | 8 | All Prep |
Shelton | 17:38 | 14 | All Prep |
Flory | 17:55 | 19 | |
Ways | 18:01 | 21 | |
Liles | 18:11 | 24 | |
Rafield | 18:44 | 29 | |
Gimbert | 19:11 | 37 | |
2011 State Meet | |||
@ WFS Lower Course | |||
11 November, 2011 | |||
Place: 2nd out of 20 in Division I 1-5 spread: 1:43 sec | |||
Time | Place out of 210 runners | ||
Winston | 17:03 | 5 | All State with a 40-sec. lifetime WFS PR |
Evans | 17:27 | 13 | All State with a 48-sec lifetime WFS PR |
Shelton | 17:52 | 19 | All State with a 17-sec. lifetime WFS PR |
Liles | 18:25 | 37 | a 41-sec. PR WFS season PR |
Flory | 18:45 | 52 | a 54-sec. WFS season PR |
Rafield | 18:59 | 61 | |
Ways | 19:16 | 70 | a 46-sec. WFS season PR |
Gimbert | 19:30 | 82 | |
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