Flashes of Panic

Today was the NESCAC cross-country championships at Wesleyan University, down the road a ways from us. The championship meet rotates on an eleven-year cycle between the conference members, and starting with Bowdoin a few years ago we’ve returned to the point where the cycle was around my time in college. Wesleyan hosted in my junior year. (A and I overlapped for some years, and disagree about whether this cycle’s order—Middlebury, Colby, Wesleyan—matches the last cycle; she says Wesleyan hosted before Colby last time, and I say Colby hosted before Wesleyan.)

I had, as I told a few people I met there, quite a few horses in the race. My current university runs in this conference, and A is helping with their women’s team. Also, the fifth runner on their men’s team, which won, is in one of my labs. So that’s two. Now add in…

• The “family college” attended by my brother, two aunts, and a cousin, where I attended cross-country camp in high school and have run a few times with the current coach. (The former coach, from my time at their camp, was also in attendance today.)

• A’s college.

• Various graduates of the Amherst high school cross-country program, scattered around the conference. (Three more teams that I can think of.)

The only thing I could really settle on was what team not to cheer for, which turned out to be pretty easy.

Since about the time of my senior year, they’ve run an “open” race for JV and such alumni who care to show up. I’ve run once or twice, and considered running this year, but A pointed out that I tend to have problems enforcing a moderate pace in such situations, and therefore I might be better off skipping that. (I should add that running in spikes would probably do me in for several months.) Instead, we took a forty-minute loop around Amherst this morning, which was enough for me for the day.