The Woodberry Harrier 2014: Volume 3

The thrill is gone…

A couple of weeks ago I was waxing about all the “living” we would be doing this season, imagining the noble struggles which would summon courage and derring-do.  Even within the small confines of high school sports, this is still the stuff of epics.   But I am always reminded, sooner or later, that a season is more “stuff” than epic—a fact I manage always to forget in August when I am inspired by visions of grand gestures.  There will be those moments, I know, but they are few and far apart.  In between is the relentless routine: warm up, workout, cool down, stretch, warm up, workout, cool-down, stretch….  In between we forget instructions and lose equipment and sleep through alarms.  We get bored and irked and anxious and numb.  We feel sore and flat and tired.  (I can’t help but think of the WWII veterans who joked that a battle was welcome relief from “hurrying up to wait” and the Civil War veterans who joked that the lice were worse than the lead.)

Sometimes I think that the great show of bravery in the big meet is easy compared to the patience it took to get there.  This is, perhaps, the kind of fortitude that matters most in the end. It’s what gets the work done.  Certainly there is no great ending without it.  It isn't grand or epic or particularly inspiring, but it forms the blood and marrow of a season (indeed of life itself).  It’s made of patience and humor and hope and friendship and duty and imagination and  tiny gestures and subtle turns of heart and mind.

It was obvious on the tired ride home from Oatlands that the cool morning of our season was over. 

The sun was high and hot, a long weedy row stretched ahead, and the hoe handle was already rubbing blisters.   If I’d had the energy, I might have bellowed BB King’s line:  “The thrill is gone away.”  

Of course this was precisely the time to remember (or re-learn) that the thrill isn’t what keeps you hoeing to the end of the row in the first place.  That requires something a lot quieter — and a whole lot stronger, and I wondered on Monday (as I always wonder on a Monday in late September) if we had it.

But my anxiety started to wane on Wednesday when we executed a complicated workout with focus and discipline, and by Friday, it had turned into something like confidence as I watched them clip through brisk Indian Files with  rhythm and teamwork. 

And by Saturday, the thrill had come back:

	Maymont Cross Country Festival
	Richmond, VA
	27 September, 2014
	Place:  5th out of 24 teams 1-5  spread:  2:05
			Place out of 161 runners
	Singleton	17:03	4th	a 19-sec. season PR
	Finley	17:12	7th	a 26 sec. season PR and a 25-sec lifetime PR
	Rich	18:33	43rd	a 20-sec season PR
	Flory	19:07	64th	a 9-sec season and lifetime PR
	Hernandez	19:08	67th	a 7-sec lifetime PR
	Gussler	19:43	97th	a 16-sec season PR
	Tydings	20:06	108th
			Place out of 122 runners
	Jacobs	20:03	18th
Vieth		20:13	20th	an 8-sec season PR
	Prater	22:11	49th
	Dameron	22:33	55th
Wall		DNF
Carrington		DNR

Of course, the thrill of Saturday wouldn't have happened without Monday’s resolve and Tuesday's patience and Wednesday’s discipline.  And I hope we remember that tomorrow when we look down another long row.  I believe we will.