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 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) |
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)
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| 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. |
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.
