Cross country is frequently ranked low in terms of difficulty at the surface levels of sports, however, this is simply ignorance shining through. Cross Country is regarded as one of the most difficult sports for a high school athlete to compete in; it consists of 15 to 30 minutes of running as fast as possible through gravel and grass, uphill and downhill, rainy and sunny conditions, and a tremendous mental and physical battle. All of this while dealing with the stress of your team ranking, schoolwork and homework, peer pressure, and the athlete’s personal life. With all of these factors layered on top of one another, it is clear that this sport is far more difficult than it appears on the surface.
Cross country’s mental battles may look very different from those of other sports, because you may feel very confident until the gunshot goes off, at which point everything can change in a flash. The runner is unaware of the abilities of the runners surrounding them. Unlike in sports like football, basketball, and soccer, where you can make assumptions about the players surrounding you based on how they perform, this is not the case. You truly can’t do that in cross country because of the number of people racing and the fact that you don’t even know your own performance until the end of the race. All of this makes it impossible to guess your timing and how well you are performing throughout the event. The opportunity to see how well you did is decided at the end, where you can check the timing. There is no way to assess how well you did before this clock unless you have something on you to track the timer, in which case checking may damage your morale.
Even once you become an expert at your mental game, there is one more major obstacle left: the course. Though all 3.1 miles in length, there are a few courses with more hills than the average. Since every meet is held at a different course, the runner usually finds out about this ahead of time and may be able to prepare in time for the race. However, occasionally the runner is completely taken by surprise. Certain courses can be quite taxing on the feet and result in pains that go beyond what is typical during the race. Along with the mental ones, all of these bodily problems can alter the entire trajectory of your day.
Carson McIntire, a senior runner on our cross country team, says, “The hardest part of cross country is when you want to walk so badly at the two-mile mark but you can’t because you have one more mile to go.” With all of these internal and external challenges, cross country is one of the most mentally tough sports available.