Every cross country runner faces that moment when comfort suddenly turns into a struggle to fight through the inevitable. It’s a conflict of “mind over matter,” the sheer exhaustion of the body being told to stay the course.

Cross country competitions officially entered history during the 19th century. The English schools in 1837 called it the “hare and hounds” game. Not long after, schools around the world adopted the English game and developed worldwide competitions.

Today, cross country races and their runners are shadowed by larger revenue-producing games such as football, basketball, and soccer. Cross country runners mainly go unnoticed in today’s highly-competitive world of athletics, purely for lack of support and publicity.

Perhaps, if people truly understood the great mental and physical toughness of cross country runners when compared to all other athletes, they may come to appreciate them more.

Cross country runners are trained to “run,” not walk or jog, through terrains and weather conditions that are so tough that very few people will ever call themselves cross country runners. Building that kind of mental toughness starts with running hundreds of miles as practice. As Catawba College’s Cross Country runner Drew Lake explains it, “you have to maintain the mindset where hurt doesn’t matter and you’re just going to keep pushing through it.”

During a race, the mental side is huge, more than any other athletic competition. The shortest race is the 5K, at 3.1 miles distance. The longest race is the 10K, at 6.2 miles distance. Cross country runners are putting in 110% of everything they have, in practices and races, both mentally and physically. Shouldn’t we be appreciating that more? Shouldn’t we be supporting and promoting cross country runners and their races at the level they deserve? The English understood the great skill required of a person back in 1837, and they even turned it into a global competition. Let’s bring that awareness back. Support and promote the cross country runner.