Middle School boys running at a recent meet in Penasco, New Mexico. One of the author's runners, in blue, is in the far left. This fall, after a two year hiatus, I have returned to coaching a middle school cross country team. It is an interesting job, to say the least. Middle schoolers, who are in 6th-8th grade, come in all sizes and shapes, and have varying temperaments, from upbeat, silly and optimistic to gothic and depressed. Some middle schoolers run that emotional gamut in a single day. They are raging bundles of adolescent hormones and angst, teetering on the brink of adulthood, then falling backwards into toddler tantrums when they least expect it. If anyone needs the physical release of a good, long run, it's a middle schooler.
My first experience with middle school cross country was in 2007. That was the fall when I returned to teaching after a 22 year stint as a stay-at-home mom. The only job I could find was as a substitute, and I thought that volunteering to help with afterschool activities would help my job prospects. I didn't know that I would find the experience so satisfying that I would continue to coach long after I'd secured a full time teaching position.
When I first began coaching, I was a competent runner who participated in road races of 5K to marathon length, and I could run in the middle of the middle school pack. By the end of that first season, however, I was running in the back. My middle schoolers improved in the course of the season, and I didn't. Each season after that I began a little farther back in the pack and finished a little slower. Students who I'd encouraged to "finish strong" were now doing the same for me.
I'm now in my third year teaching in a rural school east of Albuquerque, and for the first time, I've rejoined the team. I am slower than ever, which qualifies me to run sweep. I run at the back, helping those who have side stitches, have had encounters with cacti, or just forgot to eat anything but Doritos for lunch and have nothing left to fuel their bodies. Some students only run with me once before they find their mojo and return to the middle and front of the pack. Others run in the back with me every day. They are the little dogs, and the whiners and wheezers.
While the whiners run in the back with me every day, their excuses seem to be new each run. They can be highly entertaining. A couple of weeks ago, one runner couldn't run, he said, because he had a mosquito bite. I asked him where it was. He searched both arms, his legs, and then the back of his neck before admitting that he couldn't remember. Another day, he claimed he had a lung cramp. On a hot afternoon, he asked me to tell his mother than he loved her if he didn't live to see the end of the two mile course.
He is not my only frequent companion. One girl stops to pick wildflowers. Another stops to gawk every time a hawk appears in the sky. Some days I do more walking - and nagging - than running.
