Running Around in Circles

Alissa Grosso

Ron and I have been enjoying watching the Olympics over the past week and half or so. It’s fun to see the sort of sports that you don’t usually get to see on television—field hockey, water polo, beach volleyball. Now, that the track and field events have started up, we’ve been watching a lot of those as well. I have a soft spot in my heart for track since I ran track for four years in high school and ran cross country for three years.

Here’s an old (and blurry) photo of me from a cross country race. I can assure you this photo is not blurry because I was running at such an incredibly fast pace:

I never had any intention to run track when I was in school, but my friend had joined the team, and she talked me into joining. As I recall she pretty much begged me to join because the girls’ team was so small they didn’t have enough members to even compete in all the events. So, I decided what the heck, I’ll join track. Then because she was a distance runner, I ended up being a distance runner.

For our school distance consisted of the 400 meters, the 800 meters, the 1600 meters and the 3200 meters. Though, the 400 meters was on the cusp of sprinting and distance and so sometimes runners who trained with the sprinters also ran this race. Since our squad was pretty inexperienced my coach had the idea to rotate us through the different races to see what was the best fit for us. So, during my four years of high school I ran in competition every running race at least once with the exception of the 100 meters. I think I only ran the 200 meters once. I am very much not a sprinter.

I say this like I was some star of the other races, but if I’m being honest I was just a mediocre runner at best. Sure I might have had the best 800 meter or 1600 meter time for our team in a given season, but that wasn’t saying a lot since in the distance races I don’t think we ever had a large enough team to have more than two runners competing in a race. This is also the reason I ended up running the 4 x 400 meter relay each of the four years I was on the team. I think my sophomore year I had the best 400 meter time of the team and my senior year I had the slowest time, but with not a whole lot of runners on our team we were always in need of someone to pitch in and run the relay.

Because of the small size of the team, all of us were expected to compete in at least two events during a meet. The only exception was if you were running the 3200 meter. That’s roughly 2 miles and 8 times around the track. So, if you were doing that you didn’t have to do any other events. I ran the 3200 a few times my freshman year and HATED it with a passion. It is the most boring race ever. Also because it was the second to last event and the hour was growing late a lot of times they would have the boys and girls run the 3200 at the same time. What this meant was that if you were a girl who was not an especially fast runner then you would actually get lapped by the boys while running this race. That was just like pouring salt in the wound that was the 3200 meters.

My favorite races to run were the 1600 meter and the 800 meter. I think probably the 800 was my favorite of all. In my opinion it is the perfect length for a race. It’s a nice pace, and twice around means there’s no risk of getting bored.

Because I ran track, I ended up running cross country, which was a fall sport. (Track was a spring sport.) Even though a cross country race is 5 kilometers or roughly 3.1 miles and longer than the dreaded 3200 it isn’t typically boring because instead of running around and around in a circle 8 times in a row you get to run on a sometimes chaotic course through woods or fields or whatever the case may be.

Our home cross country course happened to have a stream that you had to either leap across or run through (we generally ran through it, but could pick up time when the runners from opposing teams hesitated trying to find a path across the water.) Watching some of the women’s steeplechase event in the Olympics, I realized that it was a case having been born too late. If you haven’t watched this race it involves jumping or climbing over barricades and through water. It’s a track event, but I guess the hazards break up the monotony of running around in circles. Alas, women’s steeplechase wasn’t added as an Olympic event until 2008. Had it been added earlier maybe all that experience I had running through the stream on the Lenape Valley Cross Country course would have led to me finding the race I truly excelled at.

These days running is a little too hard on my knees and hips, so I mainly get my exercise riding a bicycle to nowhere in my basement. This may sound even more boring than running the 3200 meters, but I watch some television while doing my pedaling, and it ends up being pretty enjoyable. I certainly don’t find myself thinking in my head just 6 laps to go, just 5 laps to go, just 4 laps to, wait is it 4 or 5? I’ve lost count while some much faster boy runs past me.

— Alissa

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Weekly Inspiration

What I’m Reading: Bear by Julia Phillips

What I’m Watching: The Olympics

What I’m Listening to: “All Apologies” - Nirvana

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Find out more about my books at alissagrosso.com

Find out more about my digital art at alissacarin.com

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My apologies for the typos and such this post is almost certainly riddled with.