Every October, my cross country coach would load up his camper shell backed truck with us gangly cross country runners and drive the short distance downhill from our campus to Golden Gate Park. Though it was good to spend time with other friendly runners, we also knew that this trip would be spent in serious discussion. Because after arriving at the Polo Grounds, we would begin to go over the San Francisco high school cross country course, step by step, transition by transition, pace by pace.
It would begin in the actual Polo Grounds - a half mile circle that we would traverse while our coach explained to us about how he wanted us to begin the race (Go out at your own pace. Do not try to be first, but try to be near first by the time you exit the Polo Grounds, etc...) Then we would pass under the outside horsetrack and into the park proper where we would start running the first outside stretch, tracing the curve of the polo grounds as we headed towards the first meadow. This stretch was always a little more difficult because Golden Gate Park is at a definite tilt, and so far we've been running flat. And when it got wet, especially, this was usually our first taste of a weathered course (i.e. Mud). As we ran along, our coach started to point out benchmarks, passing points, etc... And then down the short hill into the first meadow and across it (be sure to bypass any mud holes, he would say - a suggestion I would happily ignore for four years). Up the other side to the opposite side of the Polo Grounds, then a left turn to take us up the Park and east. This was the long uphill climb of the race.
We would run up the 3/4ths of a mile uphill spine of the course and then drop down another narrow hill to the backstop of a baseball diamond, around the baseball diamond, and up the second meadow to the big tree. Once around the big tree, we knew it was basically all down hill from there, and about 1.25 miles to go. Our coach would tell us that we had to start picking up the pace here. Down the other side of the meadow (some took the bike path, others the grass - either way was acceptable) and then back up a steep hill and then around a serious switchback and down another steephill right back on to the meadow. There was one last short hill after that, and then down through the first meadow again and back up and across the entrance to the Polo Grounds - opposite where we'd left it. After that, it was about 400 yards to the finish line. As we came off the steep hill, our coach would say that we really had to be going our fastest at that point, and that we should then save our final burst of speed until the finish line was less than 100 yards away and then sprint to the finish line.
Every year we went over this course and we knew it like the back of our hands. Then we would run the course about eight times a season, as well as practice on it another dozen or so times. By the time I was a senior, I had run the course close to 100 times and knew every intricate detail and nuance of its undulating path. I knew where to get an extra burst of speed. I knew how to run through the mud puddles without losing my shoes (thus bypassing all those slower runners who went around it). I knew where I could pass other runners and thoroughly demoralize them in the process. I knew all that, tucked away in my brain.
And yet, every single time out, I'd reach a point where I forgot all the strategy, all the plans, every skill I had, and every single bit of running I had ever known. I would toss it all to the wind and just run - feel the wind across my face, hear the pounding of my heart, feel the sting of sweat in my eyes, and push my legs forward like the drive wheels of a steam locomotive. At that moment, I stopped running and became a runner. I stopped thinking about running and just ran.
I reached that point with the novel. After four years and countless months of writing, notes, journals, plans, discussions, dialog, research, plotting, editing - I just reached down deep inside myself and stopped writing, and became a writer. It was pure guts, pure instinct, pure stamina that carried me to the end, and I crossed the finish line with nothing left inside me, having left it all behind somewhere in one of the endless meadows.
I have a tendency to plan things to death. At some point, I need to learn to let go and just be. All the strategy in the world won't help, if you don't go out there and run the race.
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