SA Times - “My sport is your sport’s punishment.”

That’s a slogan Central High School coach Keith Meek has seen on shirts worn by cross country runners at meets this year. It’s funny only because it’s so true. Running long distances is viewed by a vast portion of the population as either punishment or something reserved for the super-human.

Tons of high school kids in this area compete in the sports of cross country — and are really good at it.

Seven different area teams are currently ranked in the state’s Top 10 (see chart). Lake View has two of the area’s top runners in Shayla Vodron and Robert Hummingbird and Central’s boys and girls teams are the defending district champs. That success hasn’t come by accident.

I headed out to watch a Central practice this week warned by Meek that “it’ll make you tired just by watching.” I’m sure Central’s practices are similar to those done every day by cross country runners around West Texas and I came away with a new respect for them all.

Wednesday, the Central kids were running repeat 400-meter dashes with 90 seconds of rest in between. The boys were running a dozen of those (shooting for under 71 seconds each) and the girls were running 10 (shooting for under 81 seconds each). They do different variations of tough workouts like these Monday through Thursday twice a day, morning and afternoon. Meek said the Thursday afternoon workouts are “easy.”“Those are probably a 40-minute run, conversation pace,” Meek said. Conversation pace? While running for 40 minutes? “That’s an easy day for them,” Meek said. “Most of us have a hard time driving 40 minutes.”

Don’t misunderstand, these kids aren’t superhuman. It takes its toll. “(After practice) I go home, drink a lot of water, get under the covers and go to sleep,” said Central senior Brianna Rodriguez, who is running cross country for the first time ever this season. In the next breath, right after saying how hard everything is, Rodriguez is talking about how she wishes she had started competing in cross country sooner because she’s having so much fun. “They are self-motivated,” Meek said. “I feel lucky to be the one that gets to work with them. If they say they’re going to get the mileage at home, I never think twice about it....

“I’m to the point where I believe that some people have it and some people don’t. It takes a special person to do something like this. It’s amazing for me to watch them.” What’s making these kids tick? It’s easier to understand the motivation to work hard at being, say, a high school football player. Thousands of fans will come out to watch you play. But what makes a high school kid subject themselves to these brutal workouts to slave in the relative anonymity that is the life of the cross country runner?

Central’s top female runner, Alyssa Priest, said she got into the sport by accident. In middle school, everyone had to run a mile and she was one of the fastest. “I just stuck with it, and it turned out I really have a love for it,” Priest said. “It’s like a natural high I guess. I just really enjoy getting out there and running and letting out all the stress that you have.” For Central’s top male runner, Bobby Hawes, he just wanted to be a competitor and cross country was a last resort after failing at basketball and football.

“It is really a mental sport,” Hawes said. “You see the hill and you have to really, really want it. If you don’t want it, you’re already out of the picture. If you really want to do it, you can.” Hawes loves to run so much, he said he’s putting in about 75-80 miles per week. Sometimes he goes and runs on his own after practice. Most of the Central runners average at least 5 or 6 miles a day. It’s truly an accomplishment, though not something that’s easy to brag about especially to their friends who aren’t cross country runners.

“They are like, ‘How much did you run today?’ ” Central’s Bailee Sawyer said. “And I’ll say, ‘We did 6 miles,’ and they’ll say, ‘Shut up.’ ”