Team Bonding

"I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion."

-Mia Hamm

There are a lot of things that I miss about running. But  what I miss the most is my team. I feel left out when it comes to all of their stories, their running adventures. Don't get me wrong, I am at practice every day. I crutch around. I stretch with them. I eat with them. I hang out with them. But I miss running with them.  I miss dreading workouts with them. I miss dying during those workouts with them. My heart drops every time they discuss a workout together, and I know that I just can't be there. 


I have always thought that running builds one of the strongest bonds that people can have. I'm not completely sure how or what it is, but somehow running creates some sort of special bond. 


Maybe it's something about sharing something that you both love so much. Or, I have often thought that coming through the hardships that running provides ties people together for life. I've always depended on my training partners in a way that I've never depended upon any other people. It's true that I do prefer to train alone. But still, that can only get you so far. There's always going to be that one run, that one workout, that no matter how good of an athlete you are, you just wouldn't have been able to finish alone. I guess that's something else that I miss a lot. I miss them depending on me in that way. I miss being the one that can carry my teammates through a workout. But for now all I can do it watch. 


When I was in high school my coach literally fashioned a piece of rope which would tie our top 7 girls together and he would send us out on runs like that. At first it was frustrating, the first couple of us would be straining, and the last couple would be pulled along despite wanting to go slower. We fought. We complained. We tried slowing down and speeding up. But eventually, we found that the only thing that worked to make these runs easier was learning to run together as a team. Drastic? you may be thinking. Yes, yes it was. It was a literal way of making us "bond" as a team. That said, our team went on to win the state cross country title that year. When the newspaper articles came out in the sports sections the following week what they praised most about our team and credited our success to was our strong pack running. My coach made his point.  


In college I bonded with my team over long bus bus rides, and heartbreaking races, and dinners together and inside jokes and campfire stories. We go camping together, we have movie nights, dinner parties, ice baths and of course running too. They're the only ones that have seen my at my best and the ones who have seen me at the lowest too. And they're still there no matter what. 


I miss running. But more than anything I miss running with my teammates. No matter how successful I ever was, no matter how well I ran, what we accomplished together as a team was always greater.