The True Brutality of Cross Country

Have you ever been sitting on your front porch, or walking in the park,  and see a giant group of kids running by? Those kids are most likely cross country runners, and they are tougher than they look. Cross country is running, that’s it. Unlike most sports like soccer, where running is involved, in cross country there is no scoring to win, and no fancy strategies to pull off.

In a cross country race, up to seven runners from each team line up on a start line, a gun is shot, and they are off to the races. A high-school and higher traditional race is five kilometers, or 3.11 miles. The way to win is to have the lowest score, as whatever place you finish in a race is given to the top seven runners, and whichever team’s number is the smallest will win.

If you find yourself thinking that it couldn’t be too difficult to run three miles, then you should think again. What separates cross country from every other sport, excluding track, is the mental aspect. The true way to win is by your mind. If you go into a race thinking you will do poorly, then you will do poorly. If you go in too confident and try to go too hard, you will burn yourself out and ruin your race. The hardest part is to get your head right, go in with honest expectations, and feel the race out.

Now while mental is the most important aspect of cross country, the physical toll is no joke as well. You need to keep a nice, consistent pace per mile, and not burn yourself out during the race. You will feel completely empty at multiple different points, but you have to keep pushing if you want to win in cross country. It is a truly taxing feeling unlike no other, and you will have to endure it, if you truly want to be great.

Now, how do the runners at Gateway feel about the sport that they love?

“The hardest part about cross country is winning mentally than winning physically,” shared cross country runner, David Houck.

What makes cross country so hard? It’s the consistent aspect of it. You have to come out every day and never miss one to be truly great.

The intensity of cross country is truly something you need to experience for yourself. While I can say everything that you will feel and what you should do, there is no better way to understand it than to do it. I am our current second fastest cross country runner as of writing this, and can tell you that the true pain I feel during a race cannot be done justice in an article. And if you still believe that cross country is an easy sport and that you can do it, come down to the track after school and find out just how easy you think it is.