The Woodberry Harrier 2014: Volume 1

What We Resolve to Be

On the Sunday at camp, I rose before the boys, brewed myself a cup of mud, and sat on the porch to watch the woods wake up.  It had been a cool night and the air was still damp.  I looked up to see how long we had before the predicted rain set in, but there was no sign of it.  A sunbeam had found a path through the leaves and branches and landed on the braided bark on a nearby hickory.  

These are my favorite morning hours of the year.   Sometimes I read a little and make some notes for the day, but mostly I just sit and watch. This is not substantially different from the way I start all my days in the country, but I treasure these mornings at camp more than all the others.  In fact, I look forward to them as the summer draws down.  I joke to the boys that I enjoy them because it is so quiet, the calm before the storm and all that, but I know that’s not really it because I enjoy the storm too.  

I think I love those hours so much because I am sitting in contemplation---or at least

peaceful awareness---of the undeserved blessing of a new season with a new team, a fresh adventure, another chance to try to get it right and to try to get myself right in the process  helping these boys get it right.  And I am not talking about just the running.  I am talking about all the living we will be doing in the process.  There will be tough truths we will want to flee, moments when frustration or pride or self-pity will work their dark spells, entire afternoons when excuses will bloom around us like fields of poppies.   We will have to pass through all this before we arrive at the Oz of knowing that they have grown together, that they feel a new strength in their limbs and in their hearts and a greater shared strength in each other. That place is a long way away and the most important fact about it now is that we will never see it if we don’t pay attention a road that is narrow and curvy and dark in places.

I look in the distance at the silent cabin, still in shade, where the boys are sleeping, where all that potential lies dormant a few more minutes, where all the striving to come is delayed a little longer, where all that willingness and joy and courage are gathering strength, where pain and doubt and disappointment--which will soon show up uninvited and unwelcome like ill-mannered cousins at Christmas--are still far away and it is easy to hope that they may not show up this year or that they will show up with better manners.   I stir myself to ring the bell.

And each morning bell, however unwelcome down in that sleeping cabin, began a fine, fine day.  We had some intense and rich conversations about how we can be fully present in each run, in each day, in the season.  We talked about seeing setbacks and challenges as openings to be seized and about the power and glory of this oldest (and perhaps most profound) of sports.  We practiced Yoga and Qi-gong and even meditated a little.  We scrambled up rugged trails which opened into bright hollows and climbed steep ridges.  We chopped and sliced and stirred up a few very satisfying meals, and in the process of all this, a wide assortment of personalities and backgrounds and motives and talents blended and warmed and began to rise into a team. 

One afternoon we stopped in the archway of VMI and read Stonewall Jackson’s words, which have been for years an unofficial motto of this little tradition:  You may be whatever you resolve to be.   And we talked about what why Jackson stressed beingover mere doing—about the integrity and substance which gives deeds their real significance and meaning.  We talked about why he stressed resolve, which we talked about as a kind of “deep and best intention,” the kind which is unmoved by passing doubts, the kind which is merely amused by those rude cousins who, it knows, are necessary to complete the feast.

We stopped in Charlottesville on the way home from camp and raced in the Ragged Mountain Cup, a 2-mile relay at Panorama Farms, and we had a very promising finish.  

Here are the results:

	Ragged Mountain Cup (Two-Mile Relay)
	Panorama Farms, Earlysville, Va
	2 September, 2014
	Place (of our top 4-man team):  10th out of  25 teams
			Place out of 156 runners
	Singleton	10:51	8th	10-sec. PR
	Finley	11:34	22nd	31-sec. PR
	Carrington	12:13	45th
	Tydings	12:41	71st
	Flory	12:46	74th
	Hernandez	13:01	84th
	Gussler	13:02	85th
	Vieth	13:06	89th
	Jacobs	13:30	107th	A 2:05 PR
Wall		13:39	112th
	Dameron	13:55	125th
	Prater	14:11	132nd
			Place out of 271 runners
Rich		12:35	12th

And the Saturday before school started we made the trip down to Fork Union:

	Fork Union Invitational (3-Mile course)
	Fork Union, Va
	6 September, 2014
	Place:  11th out of  19 teams 1-5  spread:  2:32
			Place out of 131 runners
	Singleton	16:27	14th
	Finley	16:56	24th	a 1:27 FUMA PR
	Carrington	17:41	48th
	Flory	18:29	76th
	Gussler	18:59	95th
	Hernandez	18:59	96th
	Tydings	19:17	107th
			Place out of 206 runners
	Rich	18:29	15th
Jacobs		20:04	79th
	Wall	21:40	129th
	Prater	DNR
Dameron		DNR
Vieth		DNR

And today we hosted a big crowd on our home course:

	Woodberry Forest Invitational
	Woodberry Forest, Va
	13 September, 2014
	Place:  4th out of  10 teams 1-5  spread:  2:12
			Place out of 170 runners
	Singleton	17:22	6th
	Finley	17:38	13th	a 1:12 drop from the ’13 Invitational; a 13-sec. all-time course PR
	Rich	18:47	33rd	breaking 19:00 the first time on the course as a 9th grader!!
	Carrington	18:51	25th	a 1:33 drop from the ’13 Invitational
	Tydings	19:34	59th	a 3:18 drop from the ’13 Invitational!!
	Hernandez	19:39	62nd	a 4:12 drop from the ’13 Invitational!!
	Gussler	19:59	71st	first time on the course
	Vieth	20:21	94th	first time on the course
	Jacobs	21:14	124th	a 2:03 drop from the ’13 Invitational!!
Wall		21:18	127th	first time on the course
	Prater	22:00	141st	a 1:18 drop from the ’13 Invitational!
	Flory	DNR
Dameron		DNR

So here at the end of the first week of school, we are well into our season.  We have had the first wave of injuries, though so far nothing serious, and I am hoping we will have everyone practicing this week and racing next Saturday in the big meet at Oatlands in Leesburg.  This is a very nice and very fun group with some real potential, so I am very excited about the weeks ahead.  I hope you will enjoy following their adventures.