The Woodberry Harrier 2013: Volume 4

Tales of Two Captains

Through the Wall

I was alone, staring into the distance with sweat pooling beneath the elliptical. The all-too familiar clicking of that awful contraption stiffened my stride, pushing my heart rate just a few beats higher, and with each breath the heart rate monitor around my chest tightened. Settling into a steadily fast pace, I glanced at the gauges and then back ahead. No matter how fast I pedaled, no matter how much I willed it, there was no way I could reach the opposing wall, but something deep inside wanted to try anyway.

Life as an injured runner can drive you a little crazy. The first few practices with Perry in the pool or on the machines seemed like a vacation from the dreaded hill runs and speed rep’s on the track. But after a week, all I wanted was to be back outside with the team.  After a month, I decided that no amount of pain would stop me.

The return was no easy task. First I did a quarter of each workout and eventually half, after which I would head back inside to face that dreaded wall that felt farther away with each return. Finally, I simply decided that I was done, and it was the point in the season where it was time to prove my injuries could not stop me. My first full practice back was humbling. The steady climb up to the old orchard at Moormont brought curses and heavy breaths as my legs fought the endless stretch of pavement. It was different than last year, however. More satisfying in a way.  I had touched that wall, and I had to knock it down.

In the final meet of my Woodberry Cross Country career, the wall appeared again. With two Trinity runners ahead of me, I cut around the sharp corner by Dick Gym. One thousand meters to go. Flying down the hill, I came upon the back of that first green singlet and stuck to it. I saw an opening, just enough room for me to fit between that runner and the next flag, and I blasted through. After rounding the pond on the gravel path, I took my usual route across the grass towards the next flag. Four hundred meters to go. Just before taking the last turn, I blew past the next green singlet and continued into the final stretch. Letting everything go, I saw the finish line ahead—just behind that wall. All other runners passed right through, but I prepared myself for impact. Leaning in, I crossed the finish line, no green in sight.

 It was over in an instant, with that dreadful wall laying in pieces at my feet and a flood of suppressed emotions and pain let loose in my mind. The journey was over, and we had emerged champions.

— Billy Osterman ‘14 

Quest for the Grail

Effort in sport is a matter of character rather than reward. It is an end in itself and not a means to an end.  — Mural in the Barbee Center

Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Black Diamond Equipment and Patagonia, has spent his life chasing adventures:  he claims first ascent of several mountain peaks, and he has paddled, surfed, and hiked his way around the world.   He once said that a journey is “kinda like the quest for the Holy Grail--well, who gives a [damn] what the Holy Grail is, it’s the quest that is important. The transformation is within yourself, that’s what’s important.”  This is what cross country is like:  it’s the search for the Holy Grail when the Holy Grail isn’t even what we are looking for. Getting to the finish line first doesn’t mean as much as how we got there. For us, the effort starts long before the race begins, when we first we commit ourselves to the quest.

The long trip to the finish line at the State Meet began in the summer, and on the way our heart rates rose and our legs got sore. Our backs ached and our lungs burned and our temples throbbed.  We looped Lake Merriweather, we sprinted up Clark’s Mountain, we ran the length of Old Rapidan Road.   We swung kettlebells, we squatted on one leg, we jumped rope. We mastered down dogand pigeon and salutation to the sun. And every day we filled ice bags and soaked in Epsom salt and rubbed the knots out of our calves. But we did not complain or question or quit. We did not give in, back down, or slow up.

Yet we might have been called a broken team, because there were very few practices when we were all running together. Every day some were running in the pool or pumping elliptical machines, and it seemed for a while that we were hopeless.  But feeling hopeless did not discourage us from putting in all of that work—and more.  Eventually the Barbee quotation became my mantra.  Before races it calmed my mind and during races it invigorated me, because I knew that we could at least try to do the impossible.

The trophies that we received at the end of the Prep League and State Championships only remind us of that effort.  Our work was our journey and the trophy was our Grail. But who gives a damn about the trophy?  In the long run, our win will only be a number added to the school’s record book. But our season—our journey — will always be much more. Mr. Hale will tell his future teams about us just as he tells us about his past teams. He will tell about the odds that we faced and the hopelessness that we felt and how our work and our effort and our commitment won us those trophies.  The exciting part of the story will not be that we won; it will be that a broken team worked and fought and didn’t quit.

— Hines Liles ‘14

VA Prep League Cross Country Championships
2 November 2013 @ Collegiate’s Goochland Campus
1st place out of 6 teams
	Place out of 66 runners	Time
Singleton	3rd	16:52	All Prep
Liles	5th	17:10	All Prep
Finley	9th	17:39	10-sec. All-Time PR;  All Prep
Hammond	11th	17:42	All Prep; tied All-Time PR
Flory	14th	17:54	All Prep;  27-sec. Season PR
Osterman	19th	18:13	Tied All-Time PR
Neath	39th	19:31
Engh	43rd	20:05	1:07 Season PR
Humphreys	55th	21:28
Dameron	DNR
Carrington	DNR

VISAA State Cross Country Championships (Division I)
8 November 2013 @ Woodberry
1st place out of 20 teams
	Place out of 207runners	Time
Singleton	4th	17:14	All State; 1-sec. WFS PR
Liles	7th	17:30	All State; 10-sec. WFS PR
Finley	15th	17:51	All State; 59-sec. All-Time WFS PR;
Hammond	16th	17:54	All State
Osterman	34th	18:24	24-sec. WFS PR;
Flory	46th	18:43
Neath	90th	19:41	11-sec. WFS PR
Humphreys	158th	21:20
Engh	DNR
Dameron	DNR
Carrington	DNR