I’ve been coaching a small school girls’ cross country team for going on eight seasons now. While we spend a bulk of our time running together, I have always seen the importance in building relationships through a variety of times spent together, not just at weekly practices or races. My biggest concern isn’t actually how well or how fast they race, it is how well they work together and support each other as teammates. Our cross country environment should be welcoming and challenging. Some of the ways we accomplish this is through group bonding activities and top down mentorship.
Activities
Our weekly training for a fall season starts around the middle of May and runs (literally) through the whole summer. While a big emphasis is conditioning and building endurance in order to race well when the season begins in mid to late August, another crucial facet is team bonding. Summer is the best time for a new runner to come check things out before they commit to the sport, but it is also the ideal time for them to find their place amongst the other girls on the team and get to know them in a less intense time. We intentionally plan a mix of workouts and just general non-running fun times. We have done beach days, swim parties, backyard campouts, trail exploration with dogs, canoeing, goat yoga, Christmas bake-offs, ultimate frisbee, water balloon wars, community races, and more. Each of these activities puts another piece in the puzzle that ultimately becomes a picture of relationships built.
“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
Lilo and Stitch
Top-down Mentorship
While I truly desire to get to know each of my girls personally in order to figure out what motivates them both on and off the racecourse, my time is limited. In recent years I have taken to spending one-on-one time more intentionally with my older girls and captains. Getting to know these individuals on a deeper level helps my coaching relationship with them, but more importantly gives me an opportunity to have input in their lives in other areas as well. Most teenagers benefit from having a couple of adults in their lives who are not mom or dad. An “other” adult can have insight that is more objective at times, and also be a safe person to go to if there are any struggles at home. I encourage the older girls to then pay it forward through mentoring their younger teammates. Often this begins as running a portion of a workout intentionally with a younger or slower girl in order to encourage her and get to know her better. Sometimes it stretches to giving training tips or race advice, or even offering to meet up outside of practice for company during a long run. When we have our non-running fun we do our best to make sure everyone is included and choose widely age or skill appropriate activities. The older girls never fail to incorporate their younger teammates and make them feel important as well.
“The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack”
Jungle Book
Finally, ours is an environment where is no room for stardom. Yes, we have faster and slower runners. Yes, we have had individuals move on in qualification with and without the rest of the team. Yes, I have referred to our fastest girl (or girls) as our “top runner” or our “number one or two.” Race times are not a secret. The expectation, though, is that each girl give her best effort the majority of the time. The girls leading the pack wouldn’t be there without the support of their teammates, and the team wouldn’t qualify for bigger meets without the speed of the fastest girls. Her sophomore year, my current top runner qualified for the state meet as an individual. When I told her she had placed high enough, her first question was “What about the team?” When I had to tell her that the team missed qualifying by one point, she cried because she cared more about her team than herself. The team responded by rallying behind her and traveling to the state meet together to support her. The next year they qualified as a whole team, largely because they had the experience of supporting the one.
Girl with Dog 