I have often scoffed internally when people ask me the differences between cross country and track and field. It appears to me that many people think the two are interchangeable.
Exhibit A: My husband Matt.
As a basketball, football, baseball, golf, tennis and everything-except-running junkie, he had no clue what cross country was when we first met. When I invited him to tag along with me to a local meet during our early dating days, I’m sure he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
Ten minutes into the race, when I realized I’d completely lost him in my enthusiasm to run around and cheer for my teammates, I thought about how strange this sport must seem when the fans get just as much exercise as the participants. Yes, poor Matt. His first taste of cross country was his new girlfriend ditching him to run around screaming.
But here we see one of the subtle and wonderful differences between these two amazing sports. Cross country takes place on a course not a track. This leaves room for elements of varied terrain such as dirt, grass and hills, and as a result, requires fans to move around if they want to really see the race. Although in college, we typically end up on golf courses. Why they ever agreed to stampedes of skinny kids tearing up the perfectly manicured greens with spiked shoes remains a mystery to this day. But I digress.
Other differences include the fact that track incorporates many different events, and that the distance races transfer from following a defined course to running in circles.
Cross country is about team. You are one of seven fighting for a higher place to get the lowest combined score possible. Track is individual, each time you toe a start line you face off against your-ever elusive P.R. (personal record) and fight for a higher place to get the highest score possible.
Cross country carries with it a greater essence of guts and grit, while track breaks things down into technical facts and figures. The question of who can tough out the last mile of mud and wind changes to whom can run the right lap splits.
Cross country is burly. Track is finesse.
I found myself eating a piece of humble pie when as a proud California kid coming to BYU. I had to sheepishly ask the question, “So, what’s indoor track?” What indeed.
My favorite part of indoor track is you never have to worry about weather. No crippling wind, no blinding rain, no freezing snow and no stroke-inducing, dehydrating heat. Sign me up, please.
Indoor track is what keeps the year-round runner entertained. Beginning in January, it’s the perfect segue from cross country’s November conclusion to March when outdoor track arrives. Every year when the weather starts to turn foul in the fall, I begin dreaming of the indoor track. The sharper turns, the shorter laps, even the smell of that entire synthetic track packed in an enclosed space. It’s the only thing that gets me through a snowy Utah winter.
The events are a little bit different. I won’t pretend to know how all the sprinting, jumping and throwing works, but in distance, we get to run a real mile, all 1,609.344 meters of it, as opposed to outdoor’s 1500 meters. The indoor open 3,000-meter race becomes an outdoor 3,000-meter steeplechase, which involves jumping over barriers and into a water pit once every lap. Tempting, isn’t it?
Indoor track omits the 10,000-meter race that forces people like me to try other races like the 5,000-meter race (3.1 miles), or the “new mile,” as I like to call it. At the same time, 10k enthusiasts are grateful for indoor’s elimination of our beloved event so that we don’t have to keep count in a 50-lap race.
Indoor tracks are miniature. Often times somewhere around 200-300 meters instead of an outdoor track’s standard 400 meters. To make up for the extra turning, indoor tracks are sometimes “banked,” meaning the turns are raised and angled.
With all these differences, indoor and outdoor track become totally separate experiences. This makes a distance runner’s three seasons a year seem as unique as real tennis verses tennis on the Wii. Don’t think about that one for too long.
This weekend the Mountain West Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships are taking place in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico.
Now that you know what indoor track is, you can tune into the results and brag to your friends about your new sports savvy. And I know you’ll be dying to cheer on the Cougars, even if all three seasons of my hallowed sports aren’t included in the Deseret First Duel.
Matt, my true-blue running fan, can maneuver the toughest course or most crowded track with the best of them. And don't worry we both still diligently ate BYU football-flavored ice cream in the Dreyer’s popularity contest.
Cecily is a senior at Brigham Young University and is a two-time All American in cross country and track.