Becoming a team.

On almost every team, there’s some sort of competition between members. Maybe the 8th runner wants desperately to make it onto the team to run at sectionals, or the 3rd runner feels they are shunned as “average” and wants the spotlight. But, in the end, cross country is a team sport. The attitude we’ve tried hard to create on my team is if you and your teammates take the first, second, and third spots, it doesn’t matter which place you were of the three. You all won.

It isn’t always easy to eliminate competition between teammates. For a while, two other girls on my team and I would place 1-2-3 at most smaller meets and some invitationals. One of these girls was fine with whatever place she got, and we usually wound up trading first and second place finishes without caring who was in what position. We didn’t want to compete with our teammates. The other girl, though, cared much more about her individual place. To some degree, I understand that. She came in more consistently in 3rd on the team, sometimes 2nd, although often first in shorter track races. In cross country, though, she may have felt pushed to the side, out of the spotlight, despite the fact she had worked equally hard and run basically equally well.

At some point, though, the competition started tearing the team down the middle. There was resentment, talking behind backs, and taking sides. By the end of cross country, everyone was sick of the drama. We had one meet left: sectionals, the winner of which goes to the state meet as a team.

We weren’t able to resolve all the issues permanently. But at least for that day, everything was put aside. We were falling apart, with two girls fighting injuries, two with asthma, and one recovering from magnesium deficiency, but for the first time we didn’t feel like a group of seven individuals. We were a team.

We ran the race of our lives that day. Several of us got PRs despite the difficult course. One of my teammates, seeded 12th, came in 3rd. Another, with an inflamed nerve that acted up midway through the race so badly she was practically running sideways, somehow managed to still get 5th. A girl who had just come back from a stress fracture worked to get as much fitness back as possible in the weeks leading up to the race, and rounded out our top five. Because we weren’t running for ourselves. There was so much more at stake. We were running for each other.

We entered that race seeded to place a distant second, losing by 35 points. By halfway through the race, though, coaches, spectators, and reporters were buzzing with predictions of a possible upset. Team scores were too close to call.

After the race, we waited nervously in the finish tent as officials added up each place. Then a huge cheer arose– from the other team. We hadn’t won it. But we had placed second by only 7 points, and finished with a score of 34 points lower than we had been seeded.

It was tough losing that meet, especially since it seemed like our last chance because two of our top three were graduating. But I have never felt more proud of our team. We came together. We raced our hearts out for each other. And when we look back on that race ten, twenty years from now, we won’t remember the scores. We won’t remember who was first, who was fifth, who was seventh on the team. It won’t even seem as important that we lost. We will remember our huddle on the start line, promising each other to give everything in that race. We will remember what it felt like to be seven girls with one goal, bound together by some mutual and inexplicable pact into one team.

- Anonymous