Personal Narrative: Why Run Cross Country

Heart pounding, sweat dripping, heavy breathing, legs moving. We run, run, and then run some more until Coach says we’re done. We dare not ask why as we know what we’ll get: more running. We pound the pavement, grass, mud, trails-virtually anything that we can. Flat, steep, slippery, gravelly, you name it: we run it. Why do it? Why run Cross Country? Why go through the brutal exercises, ab exercises, workouts, and races? For me it’s simple: to survive.

Practically everyday Coach says something along the lines of, “ We’re Cross Country runners, not cupcakes! We run to live, we live to run!” And fortunately, this is exactly how he trains us. Even though we start from a rag-tag group of out-of-shape boys at the beginning of the season, we