Getting Back to Our Roots

Ever notice how the big sports in this country (and, indeed, the world) are rather... convoluted?  Football, baseball, soccer, basketball, hockey... they may have begun as something simple and intuitive, way back when, but you wouldn't really know it by looking at all the rules and restrictions that players have to comply with today.  You can throw the ball, but only in this direction unless it's at this time.  You can hit the other guy, but not like that.  It can be quite a challenge, I've discovered to try to describe to a newbie just what exactly is meant by 2nd Down, Pass Interference, Illegal Block in the Back, False Start, Encroachment, Offsides... and that's just one sport!

Now, don't get me wrong, I like these sports and they can be a lot of fun.  No doubt in my mind that there are individuals that are born to play a particular sport.  My point is that most sports are rather contrived and counter-intuitive to the uninitiated.

Athletics (running, jumping, throwing), on the other hand, has been described as "pure" sport, and the running part even more so.  Our rules are rather simple: start at this point, go to that point, first one to do so is the winner (or, "the one that throws the farthest," etc.); along the way, don't interfere with the other guy and don't take shortcuts.

And that's about it.  Other rules that come along usually have to do with standardization of implements (a javelin is to weigh X kg) such that the sport has some basis of comparison whether you are competing in New York or in Mumbai.

(Swimming would also fall under this category, as would cross country skiing and speed skating.  However, these sports have shown that equipment and new technology can affect the sport to an extreme degree, so I tend to be a bit biased against them in the "purity" aspect.  If you don't believe me, just look at the crazy number of records that fell in swimming at the last Olympics, and then tell me it was just because people "got better" all of a sudden... or was it, perhaps, because they had new toys that made them slipperier in the water?  Conversely, track spikes keep getting lighter and lighter... but records aren't falling like dead leaves in October.)

When all is said and done, it really comes down to my ability vs. your ability.  Period.  Fouling in races happens so seldom, it practically creates an international scandal when it does, whereas in the NFL, I'm sure referees have retired early due to tendinitis from throwing too many penalty flags...

In fact, I think it goes even further than that: it comes down to my ability today vs. my ability yesterday.  True competition isn't against the guy running next to you: it's against yourself.  And I can think of few other sports where you can actually measure your progress without ever going head-to-head against another individual.

Now that is pure sport.

Or is it?  In our modern age, I think even the simplest of sports has been somewhat corrupted in the name of standardization.  The main adversaries to a runner are the quality of the running surface, the steepness of the terrain, and the weather.  So what do we do?  We run all of our events on nice, flat synthetic tracks inside big stadiums.  Great for spectating and you can produce some fast times.  Fast is exciting, right?  Maybe for the 100m, but see how many people stick around to watch all 12½ laps of the 5,000.  Even the marathon - the King of Distance Races - is only showcased for the last 300m or so when the athletes finally enter the stadium (and recently, the trend has been to host the entirety of the marathon outside the stadium... on a loop course such that spectators can see the athletes several times in the race without moving).  Even in the world of road racing, it's a rare thing to find a course that is truly challenging: the (official) world record for the marathon has been set several times consecutively in Berlin, where the course is flat as a pancake.

When faced with what the outside world sees when looking in at my sport, I can totally understand why is doesn't produce much interest.  Running has become - quite honestly - intensely boring and sterilized.

How did it get this way?  What happened to the races where the entire town turned up to cheer and watch with keen interest?  What happened to the excitement?

A full sociological discussion of the decline of running in the public eye would take far too long, and I'm not really qualified to analyze that anyway (eclectic, yes; sociologist, no).  I do, however, believe I have an idea about part of the cure.  We, as a society, should get back to what made the sport of running exciting to begin with.  We should get back to Cross Country.

Back in the day (1800's, and earlier, beginning in England), cross country running was the only running there really was.  Young men showed up at Point A, a gun was fired, they ran across a field - and fences and ditches and hedges and around buildings and through buildings - toward Point B.  Maybe it was multiple loops, or maybe there was no defined course at all.  Most of the time, there was no measurement of the course and there was no clock.  Whoever got to Point B first was the winner.

And interestingly enough, often the whole town turned out to watch!  Clubs were formed, teams trained together, and running mattered to the public.  Why all this excitement?  Personally, I think it comes down to one basic concept: pure sport.

Me running a race in 2007 in Boulder...
on 3" of fresh powder!

Cross country in its original form is truly "pure" sport.  Pure sport can be defined as "an athlete's struggle and persistence which is occurring amidst tough competition, course elements, and extreme physical pain, all within the natural setting and landscape of the existing environment" (Lancaster, Audrey B., "Enhanced Cross Country Running Course Design: A Study of Historic and Recent Courses, Other Landscape-Based Sports, Athlete Psychology, and Course Elements", Utah State University, 2011).  People identify with struggle, and the more you either remove elements of struggle or introduce artificial elements into said struggle, the less relatable the struggle becomes. I think people desire to see athletes navigating tough terrain and splashing through streams, and I think deep down athletes desire to tackle said obstacles.  You can get that in cross country; on the track, the only struggle is the distance itself, and the most you can get out of a road race is a few hills.  The original sport offered excitement to both the athlete and spectators.  Modern cross country has mostly done away with a lot of that, as well, being relegated to flat golf courses... track, just on the grass.

Cross country is really how the modern world was introduced to running as a sport.  Indeed, it is still the way that most modern runners get hooked on the sport.  I know it was that way for me, even though I had run 2 seasons of track before tackling the hills of Franklin Park.  Shoot, the 5k of high school cross country isn't even my best race - I'm really a miler and half-miler - but it's STILL my favorite sport!  (Most people know me as a steeplechase fanatic, and that's true; I see it as cross country on the track.  I'll still take cross country in general to steeplechase on the track, though.  Better yet... add barriers and water hazards to cross country races, and I'd be in hog heaven!)

So why is it, then – if it's so cool in high school and college – that cross country essentially disappears from the radar once you are an "adult" runner?  Those meets that do allow community runners never really attract much attention.  A Turkey Trot 5k or 10k, though, will attract thousands.

As with most things in this overly-commercialized country, I think it comes down to marketing.  Did you know, for instance, that cross country used to be an event at the Summer Olympics?  The last Olympic cross country race was held in Paris in 1924.  According to Lancaster, it “was held in the afternoon amidst blistering conditions with temperatures soaring into the high 90’s; it was one of the hottest days ever recorded in Paris during that time.  Thirty-eight runners toed the line at the start of the race, but with each passing mile one after another fell.  After battling the extreme weather and course conditions of the 10,650 meter race, only fifteen of the thirty-eight runners finished.  The remaining twenty-three runners were rushed to the hospital and tended to for heat exhaustion and various other conditions.”

Olympic cross country, 1924 (from urheilumuseo.org)

Sounds like a great plug for the sport, eh?  Lancaster continues: “It was not only the weather conditions that decimated the runners, but also the condition of the course.  The course was laid on an uneven stone path with weeds and thistles protruding from the stone crevasses; some of the plants rose to knee high on the runners.  Additionally, the site of the course was poorly selected; the location was adjacent to an energy plant that emitted toxic fumes.”

The result?  Bureaucrats freaked out and banned cross country from the Olympics, the largest public stage for athletics of any kind in the world.  The IAAF (International Athletics Associations Foundation) still holds a bi-annual World Cross Country Championships (previous to this year, it was held annually), but it receives almost no coverage here in the States.  The public is oblivious; cross country is just for kids.

So, the first step to reinvigorating cross country in the adult public's eye is simple: reintroduce cross country as a Summer Olympic sport.  Simple, but not easy, as the IOC is rather set in its ways.  There is currently a growing movement to get cross country added to the Winter Olympics, and this fits the standard cross country season (fall and winter, with the World Champs held in March).  For the sake of marketing and popularity, however, I personally think it should be part of the Summer Games.

The next part in marketing is the hosting of races open to the public.  A few high school and collegiate meets have a "community race" as part of the day's activities, sort of as a side-show.  These seem to be few and far between, though, as are the meets that are completely separate from school races: the Mayor's Cup in Boston's Franklin Park is one high-profile example.  That's just the problem, though: I can't think of any other high-profile events.  Some "trail" races exist, but they're not really the same as cross country; there's a different feel to them.

Partially, this is just due to awareness: the public knows about and is willing to accept the idea of road races, but no one thinks of cross country.  Getting the sport back into the Olympics will help change that.  The other part is the lack of venues for hosting races.  Sure, there are parks and open spaces all around that may be suitable, but planning out a cross country course isn't as easy as it sounds.  It is a lot easier for a race director to plot out a course on the roads, and I think that that's one of the reasons road races are so much more prevalent.

The best cross country races are all on land that has been specifically set aside for the sport, with courses specifically tailored to the land on which they sit.  Exclusive cross country courses are challenging yet safe and fair, with good footing and well-defined routes.  Often, they are also spectator-friendly, with spots where you can see all of or at least most of the course at once.  Most people haven't a clue that these exist, and even if they do they are seldom allow to run on them as they are generally used only for high school or college meets.  Exclusive courses include:

• LaVern-Gibson Championship XC Course, Terre Haute, IN (Indiana State U.)
• Rim Rock Farm, Lawrence, KS (University of Kansas)
• Big Cross Country Course, Pasco, WA
• Thetford Academy, Thetford, VT (Thetford Academy HS)
• Dannehl XC Course, Somers, WI (University of Wisconsin-Parkside)
• Apple Ridge Cross Country Facility, Yakima, WA (Central Washington University)
• Buff Ranch, Boulder, CO (University of Colorado)
• Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
• Crystal Springs, San Mateo, CA (College of San Mateo)

The LaVern-Gibson XC Course as seen in Google Earth.  The many interior loops make the course modular, allowing
distances from 4k to 10k.  The NCAA Div. I Champs are annually held on this course.

When you have a chance, look these up on the internet and see what an exclusive cross country course has to offer.  There are others, and most are hidden away on university campuses.  Start promoting the snot out of open-to-public races on these courses - including adding a community race to existing school meets - and you'll see cross country start to grow in the public's eye.  We still have enough open space in this country that each state - if not each large city - should have several well-known cross country courses.  They could be owned/donated by private individuals, but most likely they would be owned and operated through a partnership of universities, high schools, and city government.  A well-written agreement would be a win-win situation for all involved.

Finally, cross country is traditionally a team sport, and I think that the team element is something completely lost in modern running.  Teams score points by adding together the finishing position of each individual runner, and the lowest team score wins.  As is often the case, the individual winner's team does NOT win, because places 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10 are all from the same team: close groupings are often more effective.  The focus tends to shift away from the top runners and back to the 4th and 5th runners of a team: that's where the team race is really won!  This lends a sense of significance to every runner on the course, not just the race for the top spot.  Everyone likes to be part of a team, part of something greater than themselves, and offering this team element as a regular option in public cross country races will make it an experience runners can't find anywhere else.

Everyone likes an adventure, but modern running has become so controlled as to become boring and predictable.  Bring back cross country, and you bring back the adventure.