Category Archives: running

50 Years of Running: Accomplishing something real

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

Following each cross country season, Kaneland coach Rich Born put together a results booklet containing training advice, inspirational quotes and––after my freshman year––a cover comprised of newspaper stories about our success. I remember feeling a great sense of pride and … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: the anger factor

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

As fifteen-year-old kid during the summer of 1972, I was frustrated by the fact that I’d sustained a chipped bone in my elbow that erased the summer baseball season. Neither could I go out and run with the cast on. … Continue reading →

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50 years of running: winter track transitions

Posted on September 2, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

Following a freshman basketball season in which the team’s emphasis on court fitness tailed off toward the end, I took a weekend off before turning out for track that following Monday. Their was a ritual in receiving cotton sweats and … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Freshman results

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

The Kaneland Cross Country team competed in 21 meets in 1971, my freshman year in high school. That wasn’t just the number of teams we competed against during duals and triangulars.That’s the total number of races we ran. The weekly … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Fear and Loathing in Cross country

Posted on August 31, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

I was too young to have read anything by Hunter S. Thompson when I was a freshman in high school. But it would have been good for me to absorb some of the fearless antics of the Gonzo journalist that … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Competitive instincts

Posted on August 30, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

After the first few days of cross country practice as a freshman in high school, the team began to sort itself into shape. Every member of the Kaneland team had the goal of making the Top 7. After a week … Continue reading →

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50 Years of Running: Hilltop Encounters

Posted on August 26, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

Perhaps a couple weeks into that first cross country season in 1971 at Kaneland High School, our team piled into a yellow school bus and traveled east for ten miles to a park known as Johnson’s Mound Forest Preserve. That … Continue reading →

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50 years of running: The appeal of discipline

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

As a kid I wasn’t happy about being told what to do. My father was a bit authoritarian in his approach, and something in me always fought back. Classic father-son stuff, really. Nothing that millions of kids in the 60s … Continue reading →

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50 years of running: Finding joy in being tested

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

The first few weeks of freshman cross country season in 1971 were rife with tests of many kinds. Building endurance takes time. Yet the days keep coming despite sore legs and a growing sense of overall fatigue. Our coaches Rich … Continue reading →

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50 years of running: An introduction to pain

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Christopher Cudworth

This is the first in a series of articles chronicling fifty years of running since I went out for cross country as a freshman in high school. Some point in the middle of August 1971, my father drove me from … Continue reading →

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