XC

Anybody ever say to you “So you’re a runner, huh? How much do you run?”

            You say, “Oh, I’m at about 70-80miles a week right now”.

And their incredulous response comes back. “Whoa, I get tired driving my car that far.”

Your answer, if you had the balls, would be a punch in the face.

Well, that doesn’t bother me. However, my conversation that gets me so pissed off I’d like to punch some high ranking official of the IOC in the face goes like this:

            “So you’re a runner huh? Are you going to the Olympics?”

I invariably have to respond with “Well, I’m running the Trials in the Steeplechase because they don’t have Cross Country, the one event that would give me the best chance at being an Olympian. SO PROBABLY NOT NOW!!!” Then I would punch Jacque Rogge in the face if he were standing there. 

Do I sound bitter? I hope so, because I am. How do you not have the one event that is so primitive, so natural and pure, that humans need only their natural beautiful body and a swath of Earth to crown a victor. Cross Country running has been contested for thousands of years prior to the advent of any modern Olympic sporting event. It is so ingrained in what the human race is that we evolved in order to be the best endurance runners on the planet. Peoples from every culture around the world have running, long distance endurance running, cross country, written into their histories whether for competition or, more likely, out of necessity, to carry news, to hunt, to gather, etc.

Yeah, that type of running relates more to ultra-running as a sport than cross country but don’t you think that we should have one of those disciplines in the modern Olympics?  Sure, I have a personal agenda but doesn’t it just make sense on so many levels? We’ve been doing it for thousands of years, it’s a sport that equates man to man, taking out all other factors like equipment, and something the IOC might be interested in, it’s cheap. No stadium, find a field, draw a starting line, draw a finish line, throw the gun up and say GO! Seems pretty simple.

Ok off on a tangent, have you ever thought about how inferior we are to other animals, especially in track and field events? I get that we aren’t competing against the rest of the animal kingdom, so you can save the comments. But even so, isn’t cool to compare, I mean after all, we are athletes and that’s why we train, to compete against others.  The others are usually people, but why not expand our horizons.  What’s the one thing we can do really well, I’m sure by the blog you’ve figured it out but humor me. Dude, Usain Bolt is soooo fast, did you see that? It was like a lightning…Bolt. Ha. How fast did he run? Like 27-28mph. Not bad but a bear, yeah a bear, can run 30mph, a giraffe 32mph, a pronghorn antelope 61mph, and a cheetah 70mph. Umm, an elephant can run almost as fast as a human, a fast human. See the list below. Jumping, same story (although it’s a bit more complicated with some physics in there). As far as animals go, we’re really pretty fragile creatures. One thing we are built for though is running, and doing it for a long time. It’s pretty intriguing to think that we can out last most other land animals in a cross country run. I, for one, plan to test that theory. I’ll let you know how that goes. If you want an interesting book to read, check this out: Why We Run: A Natural History by Bernd Heinrich.