I Got My First Bee Sting! and Other XC Related News

By Cameron Rusin

Hi friends!

Apologies, as it’s been a good week since I last posted something, but this might end up containing more information than anyone would ever need so maybe it’ll make up for it… but anyways! I’ve been neglecting to talk too much about my experience so far on the cross country team, but it’s been a huge part of my life at Tufts so here’s an entire post about it. There’s a lot of information to be shared, so I think I’ll try to compartmentalize it.

Schedule/The Actual Running Part

So I have practice 7 days a week as follows:

Mon: 7:00 run and 8:00 arm lift, but I’m trying out taking every other monday run off. Most people take every monday run off. Arm lifts are very hard/emberassing for me...

Tues: Worst workout of the week at 3:00! Tuesdays are weird because we all get into vans and drive somewhere more interesting than Medford to do workouts. This makes tuesday workouts very time consuming, which is rough because tuesday is my most demanding day of classes, but I’ve really enjoyed all of the trail running we’ve been able to do.

Wed: 7:00 run and 8:00 leg/core lift. I actually enjoy leg/core lift, probably because it’s way easier for me than arm lift.

Thurs: 3:00 something? I actually am not sure how thursdays work. They’re supposed to be another workout, but a chiller one, but because we’re early in the season we’ve only done something like hill repeats a couple of times. I’m sure it’ll get harder as the season progresses.

Fri: 3:00 something. I’m also not sure how fridays work. So for they’ve been easy runs with strides afterwards to prepare for a race/time trial, but they might be another workout day if we don’t have a race.

Sat: Race day! We’ve only has one race so far, but we’ve also used this day for time trials and an alumni fun but not so fun tempo run.

Sun: 9:30 long run! I enjoy long run days. The beginning was a little rough because some people run their long runs very fast, but I’m starting to get used to it. And then there’s always brunch at Dewick (the downhill dining hall) afterwards :).

I’ve been enjoying everyday of practice so far. It definitely took a couple of days to get used to the type of running that this team does. I’m very used to pretty slow miles if they weren’t part of a workout, but here easy runs/warm ups/cool downs/long runs are all still fairly fast. I was worried at first, but it probably took less than a week to adjust. Running is also a huge time commitment, but I haven’t run into too many problems so far. Some days are definitely rough because I have class right after practice and don’t have time to eat or shower (Tuesdays will slowly kill me), but that’s okay.

The People

One huge plus of running on the team is having a pretty automatic friend group, especially among the freshmen. Because there are 13 of us (which is a lot!), you’re basically garunteed someone to eat with or study with or walk to practice with at all times just by sending something into the groupchat. The freshmen, as well as the team as a whole, are pretty diverse in terms of interests and personalities but everyone gets along which is nice. It’s also interesting because there are plenty of people on the cross team that I would have never been friends with in high school, but are who I spend the most time with now. I also really love all of the upperclassmen on the team. They’ve all been super supportive as mentors helping us all navigate our first year of school, but are also just fun to hang out with in general. However, I should note that the boys team has a different coach so I don’t know that side of the program very well yet.

The Social Scene?

Related to the diversity of interests and personalities on the team, I’ve been thrown into some social scenes that I was not planning on seeking out, at least not right of the bat as I have been. I’ve always associated all runners with the kind of runners we had on mostly the girls varsity team: went to bed early, spent saturday nights sleeping or doing homework, and staying away from the party side of high school. I’ve come to realize that this is very much not the case for runners from anywhere except for El Cerrito. I used to think that one couldn’t do as well in running and school if they spent their weekends drunk and then hungover, but the best freshman runner gets plastered on saturdays and obviously got into Tufts, so I’m having to do some adjusting of how I judge people and their activities. I went in to college unsure about where I stood on drinking, and still am a little unsure, but am leaning towards continuing to not drink, at least during the season.

Along these same lines, my first and second (and also only) college party experiences have been through the cross country team. These have been either hosted by a xc or track runner and have been exclusive to only members of the xc or track teams. There’s also a pregame before hand, usually with your class, which I didn’t know was a thing. Not going to lie, I really didn’t like my first party experience. It was very loud and crowded and overwhelming. The second one was slightly better, I think because I knew what to expect so could mentally prepare. The pregame was also only freshmen, which was much chiller and I got to know the boys team a little better.

So some people on the team do like to party, but a pretty good amount of people, especially the juniors and seniors, are more my speed, and they’ve been very good resources to me and the other freshmen who were not partiers in HS and don’t see it as super appealing. I’ve really enjoyed hanging out with these people especially.

I’m a Varsity Athlete???

It continues to be weird to me that I’m a collegiate athlete (although a pretty mediocre D3 one at that). Because of my varsity athlete status, I have access to medical trainers and all of their fun stuff, like personal appointments that I haven’t had to use yet and also ice and hot baths. I’ve started trying to use ice baths around once a week to try it out, but I don’t know how I feel about it. I just find all of this very weird.

My Race!

This is getting long and I’m getting tired of writing, so this will be short. I had my first race yesterday! It was pretty small, with only 4 teams running, and it was hosted by Bates, which means that I drove to Maine! This was very weird because not only was I casually racing in a different state, but I had to cross through NH to get there! I really liked the course. It was completely wide trails through the woods, but with some hills. I’m glad that my first collegiate race is over with. I went into it with no expectations and ran pretty well, so I am happy and excited for the rest of the season.

So sorry that was a lot. Basically running on the team is a huge time commitment, but I’ve been really enjoying it and have 35 automatic friends! Also as the title suggests, I got my first bee sting ever on my long run today…. :/

All of the freshmen!

At the race!