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Coaching DC States

November 3, 2018 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
After a rather goofy bus ride showing the seniors photos from my high school yearbook, we arrived at the meet and set about warming up, giving pep-talks, and abandoning the kids to go catch leaves. The latter I blame fully on Anthony, who as soon as the warm-up started pointed toward the course and exclaimed "Matt, look that way!" before dashing off toward the trees in the opposite direction. I whirled and dashed after him. I caught 2, bringing my total to 39 for the season and earning me the title of LEAF-CATCHING CHAMPION for the first time in my 19-year leaf-catching career.

Dashing around the course, I began to wonder why I'd ever bothered to bring my bike last year (which we then had to illegally smuggled onto the white bus with the seniors to get it and me home after the meet). I found that I actually had no trouble getting around the course quickly enough to see most the kids 5 times and all of them at least 4, which is pretty exceptional for a cross country course. This week, I took a different approach to cheering. Like Anthony, I have a hard time leaving a point on the course before the last runner has gone by (which I think says a lot about Anthony's coaching style which has rubbed off on me). But of course, if you do that, you miss the top runners at the next point in the course because you can't get over there in time to see them. So this time, I forced myself to strike a compromise whenever time was tight, leaving after most but not all the runners had gone through. In the end, I think I ended up seeing faster runners more than ever, and the slower runners I saw just as many times as the fast ones because once the fast ones had finished the race I could double back and give the slower ones additional visits. Hence how I was able to cheer on the Talia 3 times in her final half mile, even though I'd missed seeing her for probably the entire mile 2. Feels like a reasonable balance that I should strive to abide by in future seasons.

Nathaniel Rosenberg appears to be a Matt Simonson in training. Not only did he keep up with me sprinting from point-to-point on the course during the varsity races after his was finished and cheer at least as loudly and enthusiastically as I did, but he was the student winner of the leaf-catching competition. He and Abby Murphy and I went for one last leaf-catching cool down run right before the awards ceremony, during which he caught still 2 more leaves, putting him solidly in the lead, helped, no doubt by the cookies, brownie crumbs and sandwich that interfered with Abby's leaf-catching prowess (Murphy 2018). Now we just gotta get him onto running-log...

The team was a joy to watch as always, and I'm so happy to have come home for this. If you'd told me in high school I'd be flying halfway around the world for 2 weeks during my Ph.D. dissertation in Bosnia to support this team that I love, I might not have predicted it but I sure would have been proud of future me. Looking through all those photos last night at 1 in the morning to pick out some decent ones to show the team brought back so many great memories of my high school runs. I'm so glad that I've gotten a chance to pass on those memories, memories of the kids I've coached, and my love for this program to a new generation of runners. You all make me so proud.