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2019 PA USATF Cross Country Regional Championship Race Recap – SF, CA

2019 PA USATF Cross Country Regional Championship Race Recap – SF, CA

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In the weeks since regular season cross-country ended, “life stuff” picked up substantially. I ran the Clarksburg half to help field a full women’s team, but otherwise, somewhat remarkably, I went for a couple weeks without any weekend racing on my calendar. By the time the PA USATF regional cross country championship race rolled around last weekend, it felt like I hadn’t raced cross country in FOREVER! Funny how time messes with us. 

Sunday’s championship race was on the same course as the regular season GGP event, which is awesome because it’s so storied. Everything I’ve said before about the course held true this time around as well, with the only exception being that it was significantly muddier and wetter (and thus, more slippery) in the first/third miles than it was earlier in the season. 

The masters men race began at 9am (5 miles), with the women at 10 (~4), and the open men at 11 (~6). Race order was slightly different for this race than for the earlier season events, and as you’ve probably noticed, race distances changed, too, specifically for the fellas. At the GGP course, that meant that the masters men started parallel to the normal finish line but ran in the opposite direction (picking up distance on the polo field, I think) before going on to the standard course. The open men, on the other hand, ran 3 loops of the ~2 (or ~2.25mi) course. We women got to run the exact same course that we ran a month or so ago. 

Let me tell you: Sunday morning in Lindley Meadow was the place to be. There were *so* many more teams and individuals out there than at any other time during the XC season, and even some of the local college teams showed up to play. Apparently, Sunday’s race was the most-attended champs in recent history. It made for awesome competition and made the already fantastic environment that is a cross country race even *more* lovely. Swarms of people everywhere, a beautiful and perfect-weather morning in SF… it was hard not to be amped.

I hitched a ride north with Sam and Heather, and we arrived in time to see the masters men’s race. (Fun facts: I’ve spent more time with Sam in the past three weeks than I probably have in the past few years combined, just by virtue of going to these PA races. The same goes for Heather. I’m loving the quality time with these fantastic humans). It wasn’t too much later that Janet and other teammates arrived, and we began our easy-paced warm-up before the fun really began. We had so many women show up that we (almost) could have fielded two women’s teams, which for us, is highly unusual. Everyone was down to come out and play and revel in the fun atmosphere.

our ladies team at PA champs (PC: WRC)

Though I hadn’t raced XC since the final, regular season XC race at Excelsior, I’ve been trying to spend a lot of time on trails each week to build my fitness and endurance. I haven’t done any speedwork or any “fast” running all season long (save for the weekly XC races), which admittedly has been pretty liberating. Hell if I know what paces I could do right now (particularly on roads), but simply relying on feeling and effort to dictate things has been more than enough. I had no idea how I’d perform at champs, and honestly, my one and only goal was to show up and work. Provided I did that, I’d be happy. 

True to form, I was slow off the starting line in the grassy meadow, and as I predicted during my warm-up, I felt pretty pokey in the first mile, mostly because I felt boxed in and because I didn’t want to slip on all the aforementioned wet and muddy sections. I began passing women around the first mile, in the singletrack portion of the race, and continued to advance in place throughout the end of the race. Because of its championship status, this race is weighted 1.5x more than normal season XC races — as far as I understand, anyway — so masters runners wear a bib on their backs that indicate their ages (40-49, 50-59, etc.). The idea is that if you’re a high-level runner, competing for top honors, you’ll have a better understanding of your competitors and can be more strategic.

Just like during regular season races, for most of Sunday’s race, I was surrounded by some seriously badass 50+ year-old women, and while some runners self-depricate if someone 10, 20, 30+ their senior beats them, I say bring it on! It is an honor to have my ass kicked by these PA women week after week. (and seriously, I’d love to do whatever it is they’re doing to be able to race like that when I’m their age)   

close to the polo fields, somewhere between miles 1-2 (or 3-4) (PC: Isaac)

Aside showing up and working hard, my other goal for this race was to take things in a controlled fashion for the second lap. At the end of lap one, beginning mile 3, I remember feeling pretty good and somewhat relieved that things were opening up a bit. I never looked at my watch, even when it beeped, but “felt” like I was pacing myself pretty consistently. Hearing my teammates’ cheers and seeing them throughout the course was a fantastic pick-me-up when I needed it (thanks, gang!), and once we got to the final mile, I tried to pick things up even more and finish the race — and the entire 2019 season — with a bang. 

end of loop 1 and on to loop 2 (PC: my teammates)

It was never an initial goal of mine to race the entire 2019 XC season and champs, but as the season unfolded and it worked out that way, I was happy to chip away each week at it (complain as I did about the crazy amount of driving we did each week). I tried not to think about that stuff during the champs race — keep your head in the game and all that — but it was hard not to. I have nothing but overwhelmingly positive memories from this year’s season, and perhaps not coincidentally, I have no real concrete memories of my times from any of the races. If pressed, I could probably give you a general pace average or range, but it’s so unlike me to not have the time recall down to the very second. It’s as though I underwent some sort of mental shift this season, with my positive memories from each week’s race stemming from the feelings of running hard, not the exact times I posted. For someone who has typically defined running success on values more numerical and less emotive, this is huge.

kicking it in at the finish, right after getting gapped, dang! (PC: WRC)

In the throes of competition at champs, as I was finishing my last mile of my last race of the season, I wanted to go out with a bang — to finish feeling satisfied with my work, with how I showed up for my team and for myself — and remind (or teach) myself how enormously satisfying running can be when I’m happy with simply the feeling of working hard. Time on a clock can’t tell me how hard I worked or how deeply I dug; only my body can. 

And like that, the race was over, I got outkicked by another runner in the final ~5 meters of the race (but I got down to a 4:47 pace for a hot second, so that’s cool), and it was done. I was the final Wolfpack woman across the line (often, but not always, per usual) and was honestly just amped about the experience and happy because I did what I set out to do: show up and work hard. The time’s irrelevant compared to the feeling. 

For what seems like the first time in my life, I didn’t train for a fall marathon this year, and that’s ok. Instead, I got completely outside my comfort zone week after week, had my butt kicked each time by PA racers who could easily lap me if they wanted to, and came out the other side a stronger and more savvy racer. 

I’d be disingenuous if I said that toeing the line at the PA races didn’t (or doesn’t) sometimes intimidate me, but in a weird, the-universe-always-makes-sense type of way, my mind hearkens back to the millions of conversations my eldest and I have had about her swimming and about how practicing and racing alongside her faster peers will only help her improve. Comparison is a shitty game to play, I tell her (slightly more eloquently), so turn it all inward, and focus on yourself and your effort. I think she’s finally coming around to understanding WTF her old mom is talking about here, and I feel like I see it in how she comports herself at training and in competition. I don’t think my running exactly mirrors her swimming, but eleven-plus weeks of cross country later, I’m realizing that the sports’ (and athletes’ experiences) are more shared than they are distinct. Perhaps I should consider listening to myself more than I do.

Family logistics this quarter kinda precluded my ability to do what I would usually do at this time of year (or at any other time of year, really). More importantly, though, they forced me to do something different, something differently-challenging, and for that, my running deepened. Each mile we run becomes part of us, of our story, and while we can never know where they’ll take us, it’s a lot of fun to surmise. It’s even more fun when they’re miles in races and environments that we never saw coming.  

It has been a fun ride this season, and while it likely made for some less-than-entertaining, kinda formulaic blog content (I ran at this place that was 234987 miles away, and it was hilly, and I almost ate shit but didn’t, but I had so much fun, and you should come join me next time!), I’m deeply appreciative for the opportunity (and TBH am impressed that I followed through with my weekly recapping). Thanks for the ongoing encouragement, and I’m looking forward to racing alongside you next year; the open invitation begins now. xo

that’s a whole lotta Wolfpack love! xoxoxo join the party, friends. (PC: WRC)
Book Report – Carrie Jackson Cheadle and Cindy Kuzma’s Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries

Book Report – Carrie Jackson Cheadle and Cindy Kuzma’s Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries

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I’m not a betting woman, but I bet that if you took 10 runners — any gender, any distance preference, any speed — and asked them whether they’ve been injured during the time that they’ve been running, easily 9, if not all 10, would admit that they’ve suffered from the I-word at some point. It’s an unfortunate reality for the overwhelming majority in our running community, and let us not mince any words on the subject: injury sucks. It. just. sucks. 

The reasons for runners’ injuries are as diverse as the ocean is deep, so I can’t go into that level of detail here. Instead, I can wager that the unifying thread that connects runners of all different backgrounds, speeds, abilities, distance preferences, whatever is that when they are injured, the mental side of the house suffers just as much (or maybe even more than) the physical. And for most of us, we don’t realize how much we mentally suffer when we’re recovering from an injury until we find ourselves in the thick of it and completely consumed by all manner of seemingly-conflicting feelings.

what type of pictures complement all this not-fun injury talk? no idea. hopefully this one will at least make you laugh. to this day, I still call this section in ARP “nosebleed alley.”

How to repair the physical part of the equation during an injury is oftentimes (but not always) a straightforward process and one that eager athletes will often hurl themselves headfirst into. On the flip side, we don’t often talk about the mental components of dealing with injuries, and it’s obviously to our detriment because of that whole mind-body connection that modern medicine swears by. 

Enter: Carrie Jackson Cheadle and Cindy Kuzma’s newest book, Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries. 

I have the joy of knowing Cindy from the Chicago running community (and I am an avid reader of many of her vast running-related publications), so when I found out that she had a book coming out in the thick of the fall marathon season that was all about dealing with the mental challenges associated with sports injuries, I wanted to get my hands on a copy as soon as possible (thanks, gf). Fortunately, I’m not currently sidelined from my sport of choice, but at any given time, I know plenty of people who are and who would benefit from this type of invaluable resource. 

I regularly read a lot of running-related or exercise science-related work, and I can’t recall the last time I’ve come upon something whose focus was on mental training during injury and recovery. Mental training and sports psych seems to be all the rage right now, but it’s all based in the throes of training and race day performance. No one’s talking about how in the world you’re supposed to take care of yourself and your mental health when you’re injured, regardless if your sport allows you to pay your mortgage or if you’re one of the masses. I had a feeling these ladies were onto something good. 

Perhaps the most succinct way of describing Rebound is to call it the friend you wished you didn’t have to have. Namely: no one likes being injured or even temporarily sidelined. When we hear our practitioners utter those dreadful words that put us in (running, or riding, or lifting, or swimming, or whatever) time-out for an extended period, we freak out. You’re telling me I can’t do _____?! How will I ______?! Rarely is it ever *just* about the game. The fact that we lose it when we’re told that we cannot (or should not) pursue our sport of choice, even temporarily, speaks to the impressive level of importance all of us bestow upon our activity. 

In the event that you find yourself sidelined, remember that Rebound is a resource that will ultimately (and hopefully) help you freak out less and (dare I say) come out the other side better and stronger for it, as impossible and improbable as that may seem when you’re in the thick of it. 

As you read Rebound, you’ll notice that Cheadle (a leading mental skills coach) and Kuzma (a contributing writer for Runner’s World, among others) punctuate their chapters with personal narratives from athletes of all sorts of different backgrounds and sports, recent research, and the authors’ own clinical expertise. You’re not reading a straight-up textbook, nor are you reading a throw-away listicle online that could have been written by a twelve year-old who’s adept in Googling. 

Everything you read in this book is accessible — no Ph.D. in kinesiology or psychology required — and actionable. Everything. In fact, Cheadle and Kuzma make their work’s findings so accessible and attentive to the (potentially) injured athlete-reader at hand that they equip them with “just the facts” at the conclusion of each chapter before going into “mental skills and drills.” After all, for some injured athlete-readers, merely reading about injury can be traumatizing and triggering. The authors get that and partition their chapters accordingly.  

Rebound gives readers more than 45 skills and drills that they can employ at various stages of their injury recovery process. That in and of itself is pretty impressive, but the authors also delineate the skills in such a way that allows athlete-readers to decide how to best proceed based on their specific circumstances, given where they currently are (“level 1: rookie”; “level 2: all-star”; “level 3: hall of fame”). Honestly, I think this is brilliant. No two athletes are going to proceed through their (mental) recovery at the same rate, so it makes a lot of sense to have the corresponding drills and skills be appropriately graduated, too. No need to feel bad about yourself for being at the “rookie” level right now; remember, it’s a process. This stuff takes time.  

a quick break for your eyes and for your mental health

Cheadle and Kuzma maintain that there are fifteen essential mental skills for injury recovery, ranging from confidence to resilience, and portraying the recovery process in this way intuitively makes a lot of sense. So often, I’ve seen science writers liken the injury recovery process to the grieving process, and while I think there’s some semblance of truth there — and the authors here, too, talk about this in detail in chapter one — I don’t think that this is the recovery process’s starting (denial) and ending (acceptance) point. A lot happens (or has to happen, rather) in between. These authors acknowledge that the recovery process is on-going and multifaceted, and Rebound reflects that accordingly.  

Perhaps what is most compelling about Rebound stems from the book’s very title. Throughout the book, Cheadle and Kuzma share vignettes from real-world athletes, many whose stories you may already know, who suffered from some type of setback. In sharing the athletes’ stories, the authors show that these athletes who are at the top of their game are in many ways just like the rest of us weekend warriors and hobby joggers. Pros hurt themselves just like we do! They’re just like us!

What differentiates those at the top, however, is very often how they actually rebound from their injury-related setbacks. We may be quick to think that these athletes’ recoveries all stem from their privilege and access to cutting-edge therapies and resources, and while that all surely may play a part, more often than not, it’s due to the athletes’ abilities to manage their setbacks in ways that allow them to recover more fully and emerge from them better (healthier, with a more positive attitude, with greater life-sport balance, and more) than they ever were before. 

In other words, Rebound takes these athletes’ real-world experiences with rebounding and changing course after injury, supports their processes with evidence, and packages it to athlete-readers in ways that will allow us to emulate the pros.  

It’s important to note that Cheadle and Kuzma aren’t so naive to claim that all athletes, everywhere, regardless of magnitude of injury, will be able to return to their sport eventually, provided they work hard enough at PT and give themselves enough affirmations each morning. Rebound acknowledges that for some athletes, they’ll have to decide whether they want to return to their sport at all, while also admitting that for some, their choices were made for them as a result of an accident or other extenuating circumstances. Cheadle and Kuzma spend a fair bit of the book’s final chapters on the subject of moving on from sport and what post-sport life can look like and how athletes can still find meaning and joy in life in their sport’s void. No athlete wants to envision what life could be like without her favorite sport, but it’s an important consideration that some of us have to take. I’m so glad the authors included this section because while it’s not pleasant to talk about, it’s worth considering. 

Rebound is the friend you wished you didn’t need to have because while you may never get injured from your sport (you lucky dog, you!), the skills and traits that you can learn from this book are easily and readily transferable.

If you’re currently injured, I’m rrrrrrrrrrreally sorry you’re dealing with it, but I encourage you to check out this book because you may find it really helpful as you navigate everything that’s happening (and that has happened) between your ears since your injury or diagnosis. All my love.

If you’re not currently injured, that’s awesome — yeah, you! — but this book is still important for you, too. In the event that you ever do become injured, you’ll already have some really helpful tools in your toolkit to use to hack away at your recovery. 

Rebound is timely, evidence-based, accessible, and highly actionable, and if you’re an athlete at all — regardless of sport, ability, anything — it deserves a place on your shelf.  

Many thanks to Cindy/Bloomsbury Sport for sending along a copy of Rebound for me to review. Even if Cindy weren’t a friend, I’d highly recommend this excellent resource to any athlete.