I’m afraid I might be a crybaby.

Usually the name you like least to be called rings truest. Liars don’t like to be called liars, same story goes for buttheads. Based on my new law of social interaction, I’m afraid I might be a crybaby.

This worry probably stems from my father who loved to impersonate Tom Hanks in “A League of Their Own” when he was coaching 15 8-year-old girls how to play soccer. “There’s no crying in soccer,” he would say with a half-smile (because no one understood his joke and the little girl with grass-stained knees was invariably still crying). It turns out, there also is no crying in baseball, badminton, running, skiing, biking and many, many other sports.

But I’m a sucker. I cry when Old Yeller dies. I cry at the end of Little Women. I cry at more obscure and not necessarily sad movies – “A League of Their Own” for example. Sometimes I cry over spilt milk, and sometimes I spill it just so I can cry. And I can’t help but blink back tears when I watch the Olympic Games. (Although I don’t cry when a glitter-clad teen-ager says she has been working toward gold for a long time, nor when Lindsey Vonn blubbers beautifully for the camera about her hard work for a 2-minute race.  

My emotions get the better of me when I see the underdog athlete in a less glamorous sport (the kind that they only show highlights of because it’s too long to watch). The kind of sport that is closer to a battle; it requires a decade of commitment, hours a day, blood, sweat, vomit and, yes, tears – tears of joy or sorrow or simply exhaustion. These athletes don’t have to tell you how hard they worked (they usually can’t because they haven’t caught their breath yet) and you can see their own gratitude and humility, which only comes from pushing one’s self beyond one’s own limits.

It’s at this moment when I want that feeling – a feeling I’ve had on a much smaller scale only a handful of times in my life – the feeling that everything went well with my body and equipment and mind, the feeling of being invincible. I cry because I know the feeling of triumph, though I can’t imagine the depth of the accomplishment. I cry also because I miss that feeling, and I know its evil twin: despair.

For 10 years, most of my life revolved around Nordic ski racing – I even chose Montana State University for its ski team (hence my handy-dandy Bachelor’s Degree in English literature). I was dedicated, hopeful and stubborn. I didn’t understand the concept of “burnout,” but after three years with little success and a coach who didn’t believe in me, I succumbed to it.

 
In one month, I will revisit the gambit of emotions that accompany long distance athleticism. This June in a fit of inspiration born of running four days in a row, fear of a beer belly and watching the end of “Chariots of Fire,” I signed up for the Imogene Pass Run: 17.1 miles long and 13,000-plus feet at the summit makes this more than your mama’s 10k (incidentally the last race I have actually run was the Mother’s Day 10k two years ago).
Don’t let people fool you when they say running feels good – it feels good to finish. Running hurts. Lungs, legs and brain hurt, then when I’m done, my IT band is sore. My legs, my feet, my body and that is what feels good. My body remembers how training felt, the satisfaction of exhaustion, now I hope my mind remembers how to race. I am beginning to feel fit.

In a completely unintentional but entirely foreseeable test of mental endurance, I acquired a wicked hangover for a recent run. Were it not for my enduringly positive running buddy, I might not have had the will to tie my shoes, but I couldn’t let her down. While I’m sure it was a leisurely jog for her, I felt all the emotional and physical undulations that I associate with endurance races: swimming head, vomiting, thinking of quitting, the effort of one foot in front of the other, and the perseverance through it all. I can tell you in all honesty, the hill up from the Meadow Loop to Mike’s felt like Imogene Pass that day.

And on that day, I had the doubt, the doubt that comes with quitting and failure. It kept nagging at me: why?!? It’s not an easy question to answer, but the simplest way to express the desire to train and compete is because it feels right. My body feels right, my head feels right. My feet bring me to places that not many people, even Durangotangs, get to see. I’m not alone in this; many people must feel it too, which is why every television in town is tuned into the Olympic Games.

Whether it’s water polo or synchronized swimming, beach volleyball or crew or kayaking there is something fascinating about watching people who have dedicated their lives (or in the case of gymnasts, their puberty) for a sport they love because passion is always part of the equation. Tom Hanks and my father were wrong, it’s OK to cry in sport. Whether one achieves or falls short of a goal, the passion that is necessary for a life of dedication cannot be repressed. And to see someone, anyone, feel that exaltation of realizing a dream, brings tears to my eyes.

– Maggie Casey