21IterationAka Failing Upward
When I was in high school, I ran on the cross-country team. I’m convinced that cross-country is just a funny name for a 3.2-mile race that takes place on natural terrain instead of on a circular track. I am pretty sure the sport originated on the East Coast at preppy schools where students jogged in the woods for their daily constitutional. By contrast, at my public high school in the center of Los Angeles, we would train by running atop an uneven sidewalk that paralleled an abandoned train track. Instead of prancing over felled logs, we would jump over broken bottles and severed railroad ties. Instead of the forest understory, our only shade came from the power lines that towered above, providing the occasional sliver of relief from the beating desert sun. We were interrupted every half mile by stoplights, so it was hard to get an accurate read of our time, or to get into a rhythm due to the frequent pauses for oncoming traffic. The great part about training in such subpar conditions is that the dusty, anemic trail we competed on 45 minutes away felt like a verdant rainforest by comparison.
When I think back to the most challenging parts of those training runs, though, it wasn’t the punishing distances we would run after a long day, or the sweltering heat beating off the concrete, or even dodging tetanus with my footfalls. It was the catcalls.
The train tracks were a ...
Get The Mac & Cheese Millionaire now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
