Yesterday was the day.
There's a moment once a year when the sunlight shifts from hard direct brightness to a cool orange pastel. You have to know it when you see it. But from that instant forward the seasons begins turning from summer to fall. This year, the first sense of that shift came yesterday morning, down in Trabuco Canyon. My runners were making their way up Holy Jim Canyon on the fire road, a cluster of blue and white shorts and t-shirts.
Something in my senses detected a change in the landscape. I realized it was the way the sun hit the canyon walls, and with a start, a sense of happiness and anticipation came over me. That little bit of autumn light was gone in just a few seconds as the sun continued its rise — it's still August, after all — but the change has begun. My heart soared all the same, because now it's just a matter of days.
The turning light that marks the coming autumn means that cross country season is just a couple weeks off. I call cross country "Christmas in Autumn" for the daily dopamine hit. I like track but I love cross country. The season can break my heart while also delivering soaring moments of complete happiness.
The changing sunlight wasn't the first indicator. Big garden spiders have been weaving their enormous sticky webs in the orange groves and in the Japanese maples of my backyard. That web spinning doesn't take place until autumn. Don't ask me why. The start of the school year was another, less subtle, indicator. So is the change in our training — less aerobic and the first cautious tiptoe into VO2. Strength plus speed equals success. A runner can succeed on aerobic work and a daily hit of neuromuscular speed. But there's something about a good VO2 session that brings out next level competitive speed. I call it November speed, for championship season.
If you have a child who runs cross country or have ever attended a high school cross country meet, you have seen the emphatic cross country t-shirts: "Our Sport Is Your Sport's Punishment" and "No Substitutions, No Halftimes, No Time Outs." Those are a bit too on-the-nose for me. The taunt of a petulant child. For me, the sport is enough. It needs no justification. The purity of watching a swarm of highly-conditioned racers charge off the line at the crack of the gun is intoxicating. You see each of the four muscles of the quadriceps defined clearly in each lean runner. The focus on each face, all wearing a different mask of pain. I've been telling my runners since June that summer training is where autumn races are won. But we can't duplicate everything: They won't dip into the utter mental, physical and emotional commitment needed to be a great teammate until their first race in two weeks. For the returners, it's the jolt of a hard memory they've kept at bay since the end of last season. Even during track in the spring, the milers and two milers know that the challenge of three miles over hills and mud and thick grass is unlike any pain a measured oval can provide.
For the new runners, that first race will be a barrel of Arctic water splashed across their face. Whatever their reasons for joining the team, there will be a moment when they will decide whether or not this sport is for them. And if it is, then let's burrow deeper into the pain cave.
For me, cross country season is an inspiration. It's a return to my high school and college racing days, a time when I ran with a desperation no marathon or triathlon in my age-group days could ever provide. I get to relive my own successes and failures, helping my runners become better than I could ever be through the process of planning the daily workouts and roaring my encouragement on race day. I don't know a single coach who feels any different.
The bond with our runners is complete, a journey undertaken each time we grab hold of the stopwatch. Our pain is not their pain. Their success is not our success, for they earn each and every accolade all by themselves. But to witness their triumphs and failures is to experience the very best of life itself — the ideal of pushing beyond mediocrity to touch greatness, if only for a moment.
And that's an enormous gift. That's Christmas in Autumn.