The XC Scene — September 5, 2024 – John Agliata

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Awhile🎶
Nugs🗞️
So.Much.Barf🗞️

THE DAILY UPDATE

Three Things I Am Grateful For Today:

Bosses who treat their employees like adults.
Bosses who don’t treat their employees like adults getting fired for being bad bosses.
Having a job I love.

Pursuit of Wordle Godhood: Today’s result: Five. Phat, yo.

Wordle 1,174 5/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Pursuit of Connections Godhood: Today’s result: The Perfecto Streak reaches three.

Connections
Puzzle #452
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨

The song in my head when I woke up today: It’s Been Awhile, by Staind

Sept. 4: So Far Away, by Staind
Sept. 3: Banana Boat, by Harry Belafonte
Sept. 2: One Love, by Bob Marley
Sept. 1: Welcome to the Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance

Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: it’s been awhile/But all that shit seems to disappear when I’m with you

XC Tunes: The drive home from Boy The Younger’s cross country tournament was done to songs from Staind, whom I am seeing in concert in less than a month and who apparently is all up in my brain meat these days.

Mudshovel
Full of Emptiness
For You
Right Here
Tangled Up In You
Here And Now
Warm Safe Place
Outside
Everything Changes
Outside
Falling
How About You
Better Days
King of All Excuses
Something to Remind You
Lowest In Me

Something I’m looking forward to today: Baseball practice with my team in preparation for this weekend’s tournament. We can’t play much worse than we did in our first tournament, so there’s that …

Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: My neck procedure a week from today. This neck pain is really grinding on my tolerance.

Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: Talking with the father of another XC runner before our boys’ race.

What I’m writing: Yesterday’s Two Crappy Pages involved polishing up a Q&A on a study done from UK Biobank data.

What I’ve written: What is the worst line of fiction written this year? You’ll find out if you read today’s News-B-Nuts. You’ll also learn about an interesting post-hurricane find, some really dumb investment decisions, high-flying startups that have come crashing back to earth, and a rogue dolphin with questionable motives. News Nuggies are served best with your morning coffee. Bon appetit!

Cross country people are not my people. I first learned this four years ago when Boy The Younger participated in his first cross country meet in Forest Park here in St. Louis, Missourah. I re-learned this yesterday at his first meet of the new season.

BTY is built like a cross country runner, which is to say that if you turn him sideways he’s hard to see and that a stiff wind could swoop him into the next ZIP code. All that said, he sees cross country — or XC as the cool kids call it — as something to do that helps him stay in shape for baseball and basketball. He probably could be really, really good at it, but his dedication to training as those who actually are really, really good at it doesn’t quite match those really, really good runners. That said, he does train and does push himself in these meets.

But everything about an XC meet makes me feel like I’ve landed on another planet.

First, there’s the perspective on distance that is obviously very different from mine. BTY was geared up for yesterday’s race because it was “only” two miles. Only?!? Sure, that’s less than the typical 5K he runs at meets as a JV XC dude (so many initials!) But it’s still two freaking miles.

Second, there’s all that running. I’m not just talking about the races themselves. I get that if you’re in XC, when that gun goes off, it’s time to go. Nah-nah. That’s not it. It’s all the before-running and after-running that I don’t understand. If I had a race to run — be it two miles or a hundred miles — the last thing I’m doing before the race is running. Yet leading up to an XC meet’s start, all you see are people running. Packs of teenage boys and teenage girls (rarely do they mix) run here, run there, run everywhere.

And it’s not just for warming up. I guess one of the benefits to, ya know, being in running shape is that if you have to get from Point A to Point B, you’re equipped with a fast means to do so that doesn’t require a key or an engine. So these kids run everywhere. Gotta go pee? Run to the bathroom. Want a pre-race snack? Run to the food area. Forgot something in the car? Well, the parking lot is “only” a mile away. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

You’d think the running would stop at the finish line. After all, in no other sport that I have ever seen are its competitors seemingly so close to death immediately after the competition. I have witnessed parents essentially carrying their child back to their team tent, kids crying uncontrollably because of the exhaustion, and oh-so-much barfing. That doesn’t happen in baseball. No one finishes a baseball game in need of IV fluid or an ambulance.

But still the running doesn’t stop. After running your race — be that “only” two miles or a full 5K or whatever — next comes the cool-down. For me, that would be sticking my head in a bucket of ice water or lying comfortably in the grass praying for the sweet release of death. Nah-nah. For XC people, the cool-down is … another run. And we’re not just talking about a light 50-yard stroll. We’re talking another mile.

What. The. Frick.

Some other fun things about XC meets, for those who haven’t been to one.

Side-by-sides rule. XC courses are marked by cones and spray paint, but if you’re in the midst of a self-inflicted Bataan Death March, you probably aren’t as focused on finding the route markers as you are not dying. So a dude in a side-by-side with a whistle in his mouth leads the way. What’s the whistle for? XC courses are long, and sometimes spectators just sort of amble across. That’s fine most of the time. It’s not fine when the competitors are nearing, so the dude in the side-by-side blows the whistle as an alternative to just running people down. I’d prefer the latter.
Not only does a side-by-side lead the pack, one also brings up the rear. It might serve as better motivation if the back-of-the-back side-by-side had some sort of spear or cattle prod on the front, but they didn’t ask me, so I stay quiet.
It’s not just the runners who run. Coaches run, too. BTY’s coach was full-on sprinting during just about every race. Why? Because as the course winds its way through whatever countryside it does, the crowd moves like a golf event gallery on meth. You wait for your kid or kids to pass, then you quickly zoom on over to the next spot in the course where you might see your runner. Did he move up? Did he fall back? Then you zoom on to the next spot before finally you haul ass to the finish line to see if your kid is going to be one of those who barfs or needs last rites. Coaches are doing the fastest zooming, getting to important mile markers so they can read off times to their runners.
Cowbells are part of the fun. Because who doesn’t want to be in the middle of a long-distance torture session and have spectators ding bells loudly as they pass?
The cheers are kinda lame. It’s easy to come up with cheers for baseball games and football games. But for XC? It feels mean to be all like, “Run faster!” but what else are you going to say? In baseball, we talk about keeping your eye on the ball or how a walk is as good as a hit, all of which are equally stupid but actually can be seen as useful input or helpful reminders. In XC? All you’ve really gone by way of useful input is something like “First the left foot! Now the right!” Much of XC cheering revolves around trying to inspire your kid or kids on your kids’ team to “Go!” or to hunt down the runners in front of them like a cheetah on a wounded gazelle. “Go get him! Reel him in! Don’t let him beat you!” This is especially fun when the gazelle’s parents are right next to you. “Don’t let that kid catch you! He obviously was raised wrong by idiot parents, so stay in front of him!”
There’s cookies! (But not for the parents.) XCers who finish without dying are treated like that kid who sat in the mud puddle behind Sally Struthers in the “Won’t you please help?” African-starvation commercials. There is water. Gatorade. Snacks. But if you’re, oh, say, an XC dad who is at this meet past when his tummy is telling him dinner is, well, let me just tell you — don’t reach for a cookie without an excuse of, “It’s for my kid, who is too dead after his race to come get it for himself” at the ready.
It is an incredibly, incredibly supportive environment. There are some kids made for XC. Then there are others who aren’t built for the front of the pack. I find these folks the bravest. They cram their differently shaped bodies into these XC outfits not made for them and then go out to run the same course as all the skinny folks but often don’t finish until well after the barfing is done by the leaders. In fact, sometimes those back markers aren’t finishing until after the next race has started and new barfing is being ginned up. Yet the fans and the fellow XCers from their school will be there at different points along the course cheering them onward. That’s very nice.

So like I said, XC people are not my people. But they are fun, even funnier to watch, and I am constantly amazed by those able to do it well. The boy who won the varsity race finished the two miles in less than 10 minutes. If I did my math correctly — and no one should ever trust me on that — the dude ran a pace better than a 5-minute mile. That’s insane to me.

Which is why I am not an XC person and calmly wait at the end of every meet for my spaceship to take me back to my home planet of sloth and laziness.

Would you please help a brutha out? I’ve created a weekly eNewsletter called News-B-Nuts in which I’ll be sending out news nuggets and witty commentary to subscribers. If you can, would you support this endeavor for just $5 a month via Patreon?

The XC Scene — September 5, 2024

THE DAILY UPDATE

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