You Run Like a Girl

"There are a lot of girls out there who chase after boys. But only a few can outrun them"


I take a look around me during cross country practice one day and realize that today I'm the only one wearing pink. Scratch that. I'm the only one in my pack wearing a shirt. I'm also falling behind the pack that I'm running with. And they're NOT going to wait for me.

The reason I'm the only one wearing a shirt, the only one with a ponytail, the only one without any facial hair is because I'm the only girl.  My training group is comprised of 8 guys that, over the past few years have each become like a brother to me.

It's hard to get used to at first. Boys, for instance, always smell on your long runs. There's no catching a whiff of someone's perfume or hairspray. You can't pretend you don't smell them. You do. And they're proud of it. You don't talk about relationships or feelings. Instead, there's video games and joking around and telling stories. Though I make no claims that girls are less of a competitor than boys, boys do tend to show it more. There's definite bumping and elbowing for position during speed workouts and an air of competition that is seldom found so intensely in a group of girls running together.

There's always the one who doesn't like that a girl is running with them and gets (if possible) more competitive because I am a girl (and well....no one wants to get beat by a girl of course). But as a general rule they're really good about the fact that I'm always tagging along on their runs. They've taught me how to play rock band and video games and to run faster.

They're all my training partners yes, but through that they've become my best friends as well. I know that they have my back, but I also know they aren't afraid to yell at me if I start pushing the pace too much in practice or not doing the workout correctly. We've worked together through the hardest workouts of my life. We've pushed each other through those tough runs that you don't think you're going to be able to finish. And we've worked together during practice to accomplish things we never thought we could.

While I wish our races were combined so that we could race together, like we do in practice it's nice when you get to hear an entire crowd of your training partners cheering for you. Or if you're lucky, painting their bodies green and running around NCAA nationals for you...