Category Archives: cross country

Add Chris Johnson to the prolific runner list

Posted on July 9, 2020 by

I’ve known the runner in that photo since approximately 1983. That’s when we both were racing consistently on the Chicago area runner’s circuit. On many a weekend in all sorts of seasons, we’d step to the line together and give … Continue reading →

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Scandal on the Great Western Trail

Posted on June 30, 2020 by

I did the unthinkable today. I wore shorts that exposed the white skin on my upper thighs. It didn’t used to work this way. As a young runner, back when running short fashions were high, my legs were tan from … Continue reading →

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No basket of regrets. Just buckets of fun.

Posted on June 29, 2020 by

The summer before my senior year in high school, I worked as a coach for the St. Charles Track Club, an organization originally managed by my coach cross country and track coach Trent Richards. When he stepped down a dedicated … Continue reading →

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There’s always someone faster than you, and often it’s a woman

Posted on June 19, 2020 by

Yesterday afternoon was hot. Ninety-plus degrees hot. But my planned run on the Great Western Trail promised shade for much of the way. So I parked the car and wandered over to the trailhead and stretched a bit. A mother … Continue reading →

Posted in 5K, aging, Christopher Cudworth, college, competition, cross country, healthy aging, running | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How much do you value your college experience?

Posted on May 28, 2020 by

I’m leading off today’s original thoughts on running, riding and swimming by asking readers to consider a question: How much do you value your college experience? And then I’ll follow up with a confession. Perhaps I’m one of those people … Continue reading →

Posted in aging, Christopher Cudworth, college, competition, cross country, healthy aging | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A snake on the path to reality

Posted on May 8, 2020 by

Yesterday while running in the forest preserve where our cross country team first held races more than forty years ago, I started out on a section of path where the sun was beating down on the earth. Most of us … Continue reading →

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You never know what a little cheerleading can do

Posted on May 4, 2020 by

A cross country meet is not the place where one normally expects to see cheerleaders. That tradition is more closely associated with football and basketball games where crowds fill the bleachers. Yet there were cheerleaders assigned to our cross country … Continue reading →

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I’ll only know on a Field of Dreams someday

Posted on April 22, 2020 by

I was twelve years old when our family moved from Pennsylvania to Illinois. That life back in Lancaster was left behind in more than one way. I’d grown up playing all kinds of sports with my brothers. One of the … Continue reading →

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A Burning Man of a different kind

Posted on April 6, 2020 by

My son Evan Cudworth was planning on attending The Burning Man event in August again this year. But it likely won’t happen. Even that brand of social distancing––rocking out in the Black Rock Desert–– is not enough social distance to … Continue reading →

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Hair today, gone tomorrow

Posted on March 19, 2020 by

While conversing with a teammate from long-ago times at Luther College, I opened up the binder of results from our freshman year in cross country. Those mimeographed sheets are fascinating relics of a different age. But the photograph at the … Continue reading →

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