PreWrites

__PreWrite 1__ Whenever I need to get away from things, or flat out need a workout, I lace up my running shoes and run. It doesn’t particularly matter where I go; it’s just the going that’s important. One of my favorite places to run, however, is DeKovend Park.

I remember the first race that I ran there, the Morris Vogel Invite (Woot MoVo!). Before the race is a time of smells: Icy-Hot, B.O., and unwashed short-shorts. At the start, all I can visualize is the road ahead. The empty ground in front of the runners is high noon in a ghost town, a post-apocalyptic wasteland. A no-man’s-land of some far away battlefield -- so empty yet so full of tension, the kind that shivers down your spine.

BANG! The gun goes off and suddenly that space is filled with what seems like thousands of bodies, twisting and elbowing for the slightest lead. It’s hot and still for the first mile. The light trickles through the cottonwoods, making everything golden. Things go like this until I hit the first water jump. Suddenly I am cool and refreshed -- for about three seconds that is. At this moment I realize my mouth which was like cotton, longing for water of any kind, now tastes like some absolutely awful combination of mud and fish, and my feet that were so hot now are cool, but spurt water with every step and weigh roughly 100 lbs. Running in DeKovend Park has a lot to do with overcoming (pain, weakness, frustration, and overcoming is the key to life. The second mile then spurs questions like “why on earth do hundreds of kids sign up to spend their Friday afternoons doing this?” Otherwise, the second mile goes eerily similar to the first, complete with water jump and ridiculously large hill. The next thing I remember then is the finish line, the big shebang, the climax. Everything I’ve been doing for the past approximately 24 minutes is about to come to fruition. All I can see is the guy in front of me -- tunnel vision at its best. The screaming of fans and friends dies away until all I can hear is my breathing and thundering footsteps. A rush of endorphins covers the pain. Time moves fast yet so slow, until I’m in the chute, and it hits me I did it! And then of course comes the “aghhh! Legs on fire” and the occasional “I’m gonna puke!” After the race these things all seem to fade. But reflecting on it, all this leads me to remember an entirely different time in the park. It’s toward the end of the season now, and its gotten cold. Those golden leaves are gone, replaced by snowflakes and icy wind. Just a workout, a simple practice, but the ghosts of those emotions still hang on the place and on me like tinsel on a Christmas tree, weeks after Christmas is come and gone. And that’s the rub. Running for me is a passion. And it’s that passion, that drive that everyone needs to make their life worth living. Despite complaints, and pain, and doubt, there is always the shot at victory, at doing better than I did last week and better than I ever have before. There is always going to be room from improvement, goals to set, and anything and everything to overcome. But as long as there’s passion, and as long as there is the will to overcome struggle, then life is worth living and life will be lived to the fullest. Carpe Diem!

__PreWrite 2__

The history of Dekovened Park goes something like this: the Dekovened family settled in Denver, homesteading in current-day Centennial, growing their ranch far and wide. Eventually, as houses closed in around and Denver expanded, the family sold their land, leaving this open space for a park. However my history of Dekovened Park is somewhat different. I vaguely remember picnicking amongst the cottonwoods, dipping my feet in the clear cold creek, and an occasional church luncheon. But more clearly I remember the Cross Country races and practices. It either burns hot, baking me like some kind of oven, between the hard clay path and the open sky, or freezes cold, icing over that same path, now roughly the consistency of a chocolate milkshake. I’ve gone fast and slow and everywhere in between, for business and pleasure. This place is where I learned practice is more about just getting stronger. Coach Berthold, the so-called ‘tyrant’ coach of my freshmen year required of us one of the most difficult workouts of the season -- he tells us with his normal attention span to the JV team “well, I want…. A mile out to Dekovened, and….um… six or eight 800’s on the canal” -- combining not only a hard speed workout but on the canal, which at this month of the year leans toward the oven description, baked and wide-open. Trekking out to Dekovened, the majority of the team is already dog-tired, but we press on. After the first four legs of our journey, we follow the first mile or two of the race course. By this time, the team dissipates, with lacking momentum and drive to continue. Despite this, Coach Lutz continues challenging, timing, and running the team towards the goal. And this is where it hit me -- I shouldn’t be running cross country just because of friends or just because it is a great workout. If I was going to run cross country right, I had to have an attitude like Coach Lutz. No matter how hot it got, how tired the team got, or any other factors, Coach Lutz was like the Little Engine That Could. He kept pushing us, making us better even if we didn’t acknowledge him. He cared about everyone on the team, if they were fast or slow, hard workers or complainers, and wanted them to get better and enjoy that very fact. It is this same attitude that would make Lutz such a great head coach the next year, turning a program from Varsity First, to all for one and one for all- the 3 musketeers, Varsity, JV, and Fresh/Soph. Despite complaints, and pain, and doubt, there is always the shot at victory, at doing better than I did last week and better than I ever have before -- despite you’re skill level, talent, or team. And its this fact that not only makes Coach Lutz the coach he is, but is the reason to run, to dedicate time and energy to a sport that most often draws jokes about short shorts and questions about sanity. But as long as this remains true, the ability to improve and to do well, then there is motivation and method, at least for me personally, to run and call myself a Runner.

__PreWrite 3 __ In Dekovened Park by myself, dedication, despite struggle and towards victory, is the heart of it all. Decidedly, this is neither learned quickly nor is it always enjoyable. Some of the hardest practices and moments of my overall Cross Country experience have occurred there -- these experiences being the intra-squad meets. These ‘meets’ are some of the most difficult for Arapahoe Cross Country. The first difficulty is the course; Dekovened Park provides a dreaded mix of water jumps, hills, and long stretches of open, blazing areas. The second difficulty is that intra-squad means run against your team, and running against your team means there is no decent competition. Finally, and perhaps the most challenging, intra-squad occurs during the very beginning of training. These three elements form an intoxicating cocktail, that lead freshman me to run the worst race time of his life (a number so embarrassing that it does not deserve to be recorded). But this sad story has a happy ending, occurring with the very last race of that season. It was League Championships, and the climax of the season for those of us who would not go on to run in the State meet. Entirely by chance, this meet was held, of all places, good old Dekovened Park. As I ran, I felt better than I ever had before. The first difficulty that I had experienced, the course itself, was overcome. I had learned, through grueling practice and experience, how to run the course, where to put in the effort, and exactly how to work through the same parts that stopped me dead in my tracks. In the same way, lack of competition was dissolved away. Instead of running against my teammates, I was running with them, towards the same goal -- all of us against the teams of our league. Finally, the greatest detractor of my race in the past, that of weakness had been annihilated through weeks upon weeks of practices, speed workouts, and races. I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes; failure in the past could not keep up with me now. This is when I realized that Cross Country, and running in general, was the place where I would always find a home. As long as I am willing to put forward the effort, in anything I do, I will find success. Though it may take a few tries, and victory is not always in sight, I know that it is out there. It is my duty and my goal to run towards it, and with all haste. As long as this remains true, the ability to improve and to do well, then there is motivation and method, at least for me, to not only run and call myself a runner, but to have success in whatever I attempt -- be it schoolwork, a career, a relationship, anything. The importance is placed on the effort put forward and on the end goal; if both these things are worthwhile, then there “aint no mountain high enough, aint no valley low enough,” that I cannot cross or overcome.

__PreWrite 4 __ There they go! Off again, thundering and shaking everything; it makes me ache all down my trunk, right down to my roots. I don’t understand where they all come from. Normally I can just stand here in peace, always keeping guard over this place, but just before I’m about to go take my winter nap they arrive. With their mad pounding, their shrieks of hurt and joy, they all are fit to drive me mad. But my patience will get me through this -- it has in the past and will until the day I’m gone. From growing up here, getting taller and stronger, I am enormous now. And that sure didn’t happen overnight. I can see the whole park, the long fields of green, my brothers around me, the sunbaked path that has leads to lands I can only see from afar. From constantly guarding this place, night and day, watching it more intensely than the birds that roost with me, I’ve gained this patience. I hear all these runners saying that they know about endurance. They know nothing! I have been here, standing, holding out my arms for all, for years upon years, endlessly. They say they know thirst! I have gone days, months, even entire seasons without a drop! The only thing that they can match me in is consistency, and even this is fleeting. In the winter, while my garments are gone, they are there, wearing more clothing than imaginable. In the spring, while I am just waking up, there they are, running in the muck and the mire, same every year. In summer, while I am baked and my leaves droop, they are there. And then we return to fall, when we both bask in the golden splendor of the sun through me. This makes them all ok. In fact, we aren’t too different at all. We both know about physical challenges and excitements, like thirst and the wind through our hair. We both strive for endurance, and for strength. We both know how the world that surrounds us may be hard, and it may put us in pain, but in the end, “this too shall pass”. As long as there is willingness to move on, to do what is required of us and what is right, then these hard times will not last. Seasons will come and pass; this is nature and this is life. I, like my father before me, will carry on, until the day is done. They should remember me, one of the great cottonwoods. I may not speak, may not yell my message to the heavens, but in the way I live and in the way I act, you may hear my voice. My lesson for them is clear, and goes beyond these runners who come and go. If you learn anything from me, let it be that hard times come and go just like the good, and as long as you continue on, as long as you endure through all, you will grow. You can become as big as me, as strong as me, as patient as me. This will come in time; “therefore I tell you do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” And remember, in hard times and good times, the cottonwood tree, me, who will be here despite your doubts and troubles. Watching. Waiting.