Cross Country Club Reflection

There is a unique kind of satisfaction that comes exclusively from winning a fight against
yourself; from being able to declare yourself the winner of a battle in which you are your own
enemy. In this sort of battle, there is no one but you to draw the limits. You decide how far you
want to go.
This is the satisfaction that I came to discover throughout the duration of my trainings
with the Cross Country Team, and more so during the 2014 AASCA competition in Panama.
Although we do, in fact, train to compete against others, there is no greater competition than that
which I hold against myself; the fight of improving and redefining my capabilities.
When I first signed up for the team, I must admit that I expected something easier, or at
least something that I could do leisurely and recreationally. Since the very first day, however, it
became clear to me that being an active part of the team entitles much more than that.
Ultimately, if I had wanted to take it easy, I could have. But the determination and
dedication of my teammates inspired me every day to push myself to do as best as was possible
and to push even further than that. If I was going to dedicate three hours weekly to training,
why not do it right? Why not make the best out of this concrete opportunity of challenging
myself?
Something that I learned to value greatly is the simple gift that is youth, and the
opportunities and vitality that this entitles. When I run, even though I do suffer, I am free. How
many people out there are prisoners to a virtual inability of moving their legs? How many people
out there are, somehow more regrettably, prisoners to utter laziness? The mere ability of moving
ones legs is a blessing that most often overlook and take for granted, and I am truly grateful of
being able to constantly make use of it.
During the AASCA opening ceremony, a Panamanian guest speaker named Javier
Gonzlez told us of a time in which a little girl had asked him, upon seeing how tired and beatup he was after finishing a marathon, why he ran. Do you like suffering? she had said. He told
us what he answered: that he runs for those who cant. He runs for the people whose battles are
infinitely more difficult than those we face in the relatively short periods of time in which we
run. He runs to honor them, and to make sure he doesn't waste a blessing that those people so
desperately long. This was something that I did my best to keep in mind during my races at the
competition. Whenever I felt like I wouldn't be able to go any further, whenever I felt like I
needed to stop I remembered the words of that amazing man, and pushed myself even harder
towards the finish line.
Another thing that I came to appreciate further through Cross Country experience is the
value of the present, the delicate meaning that every single moment entitles. When I am running,
especially during sprints, I enjoy closing my eyes because it allows me to appreciate the nowness
of the moment. There is a limited amount of everyday things that can allow the exploration of
this idea, and running (or any kind of immediate sport) is one of them. Somehow, although your
body is moving at a greater velocity, time seems to slow down. Its as if it were beginning to
move in slow-motion; stretching and exposing itself to complete scrutiny. I can focus on my
body and its movements as opposed to the mundane things that surround me. I can feel my lungs
contracting as my heart beats fast inside my chest, I can feel the heat in my muscles as they
stretch at a steady rhythm, I can feel my legs propelling me forward mechanically as if they were

part of a wind-up toy. And to me its simply beautiful. If I focus on this rather than on the pain,
the dizziness, and the exhaustion, running is simply lovely and enjoyable.
Undoubtedly, the most simultaneously demanding and gratifying part of my experience
as part of the Cross Country Team was at the AASCA competition in Panama. When I was told
that I had been selected as part of the team, I was at the same time honored, confused, and
scared. I was honored to be among the seven selected from a team of more than ten girls,
especially because of the great talent and dedication of nearly every single one of them. I was
confused because I believed that any of them could do a similar or better job than myself.
And I was scared because among the selected team, I was indisputably the slowest one, and I still
wanted to make an important contribution in representing my team well.
During the competitions, however, my fear in this prospect was replaced with my
determination of doing my best to honor my team and help it secure a position in the first places.
Something I learned was that despite the fact that Cross Country is an individual sport that is,
you run by yourself to secure a certain position for yourself a large portion of overcoming
hardship is due to the support that comes from being in a team. The night before every event, we
would meet with our coaches in a hotel room for a meeting that consisted on outlining goals for
the next day and motivating each other to do our best in our respective races. During the races
themselves, the boys cheered for the girls while we ran, and we did the same for them. Though
some of my teammates said that they barely heard the cheers and voices of the team, I was
vividly aware of them. Hearing my name followed by motivational words such as great pace!
and you can do it! greatly helped me put everything into perspective and calm down.
Sometimes, they would remind me of my goals when my mind was too much of a chaos for me
to recall them for myself: pass them one at a time, you can do better, push harder, look at
your bracelet! (since I was wearing a Costa Rican bracelet as a reminder of everything I run for.)
And it was the same for all of us: we all had our moments for running and our moments for
cheering and motivating. In this way, we were a team in an event that was made to be faced
individually, and it felt amazing and reassuring to know that you had 13 other people who were
rooting for you as much as you were rooting for them. I never felt closer to them than during the
actual races, and the moments immediately before and those immediately after, as we came
together in a circle and put our hands together for a cry of LINCOLN! the first one in
determination of giving the best of us, and the final one in utter satisfaction and contentment. All
of the sacrifice and endurance was worth it in that final moment, because we knew we had done
our best and we knew what that meant for our team.
The most challenging event for me was, in fact, the team relay race. I wasnt initially
meant to run it, because the plan was that the girls with the five best positions in the individual
race would run, and I was the seventh. The fifth and the sixth girls, however, vomited and fainted
respectively. I myself was in no perfect state after the race, but the coaches had decided that it
was best to allow them to rest and to have me run instead. I was surprised and honored when I
was told, but I was also scared because after the race some rather bloody blisters had formed on
my feet because of running in such a muddy terrain, and they hurt a lot when I as much as
walked. During the warm-up, it felt as if needles were being poked through my feet, and I knew
that I wouldn't be able to run as well as the other girls could in those conditions. Tears began to
form in my eyes in panic as I feared that the team would do badly because of me, but the coaches
helped me calm down and dim the pain a bit by wrapping gauze and band aids around my feet. I

was the fourth to run, and luckily during the time in which the first three girls ran I was able to
put my mind back together and hold on to the determination of giving my absolute best. As my
teammate handed me the baton, I told myself: matese.
Thankfully, they had changed the course of the race so that it wouldnt be through the
same muddy and uneven terrain that had treated us so horribly the day before. Somehow, my
awareness of my teams dependence on my performance overrode the constant pain in my feet. I
managed to forget completely about it and focus on the task at hand: running that one kilometer
as fast as I could. Near the last 200 meters I was completely exhausted and I didnt think I would
be able to do a final sprint. However, once again, the cries of my teammates edged me along and
I managed to overcome my previous record in any one kilometer event: 4 minutes, 6 seconds.
Our team got the second place out of nine, and so did the boys team!
Overall, during these events, I learned three main things. First of all, I learned that most
obstacles are mental. The mud and the unevenness of the path, the pressure of the other runners,
injuries and sore muscles all of these are physical obstacles. But overcoming these obstacles is
something mental, something that you can achieve if you manage to harness the chaos going on
in your mind as a result of the effort, nerves, and exhaustion. During such intense moments,
being able to calm down and focus is key to truly pushing yourself to your full potential its
when you think of all of the training youve done, of all of those people who cant run, of your
team waiting at the finish line that you can unleash your true best. This is something that I now
hope to apply in my day to day life, because I now know the power of my mind in anything
physical and emotional.
I also learned that a key to exploring your full potential is setting clear goals. The night
before the relay race, for example, the coaches had set a goal for the team: to get one of the first
three places. In this way, when we got to the starting line, our minds were set in pushing
ourselves to remain among the top three at all times and indeed we achieved it. Similarly, if I set
clear goals as to what I want to achieve in my daily and personal life, then I have a greater
chance of achieving them because I know how I must act in order to do so.
Finally, the most important thing I learned was about how enriching and profitable it can
be when you take risks. Joining the club was a big enough risk for me given how much it scared
me, especially since I knew that everyone else was as good as my sister, and my sister has a
much better level than I do. But deciding to go to AASCA was a risk that the me of one year ago
wouldnt have believed possible. In fact, I had rejected two previous invitations for other
AASCAs because of my fear of both the competitive part and the social part. I decided to take
the risk this year in my greater goal of doing things that are out of my comfort zone and to
experiment, and throughout the entire experience I was able to confirm that it was incredibly
worth it. Not only did I make friendships that I wouldn't have made otherwise, but I also
experienced the bittersweetness of nerves and anticipation and pain and perseverance. And in the
moments after I finished a race, I had the chance of living the beautifully satisfying feeling of
finishing a race and knowing that everything the hours of training, the pain during the races,
the fear and nerves before was worth it, and all because I gave it all I had. And this success
can be measured in my improvement in my times for the three kilometers, starting at 17:06
minutes and finally being able to reach a five minute improvement at 11:51.