SCIAC cross country—the 2k10 edition—has come and gone once again. One hundred and thirteen young men donned their respective schools’ singlets, toed the starting line at Prado Park at 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 30, and raced against one another for eight kilometers, giving everything they had, fighting the mud and thick, spongy grass as much as their brightly clad opponents.

The annual championship meet, despite its early start time and pre-dawn rain, drew many spectators from all eight SCIAC schools, including family members, close friends, current teammates (for those sadly injured runners), and those of the past.

The fact that fans, in order to see a significant portion of the race, must themselves run about to different parts of the course to cheer on the quickly passing runners, is both one of the reasons cross country is not typically seen as a good spectator sport and why the level of energy, intense excitement, and rush of adrenaline are apparent to all present.

Those not literally participating in the race are at once both voyeurs—watching a large group of men willfully push themselves into states of mind-altering pain and exhaustion (their faces deformed and their thoughts uncontrollable and even sadly submissive)—and participants: they, too, are invested in the outcome, are running over the wet and muddy grass in a regional park in Chino, are caught up in the inevitable undercurrent of energy inherent in a competition between people who care.

In many ways, the race played out as expected, but as runners from each team came into the competition with different hopes and goals and beliefs—legitimate or otherwise—the results felt unexpected, even shocking, all the same. For when one knows he likely will lose something yet holds on unremittingly to his ambitions of success, the loss, when it comes, feels all the more painful—all the more unlikely—despite the odds.

And so felt the members of PPXC as they heard the results—CMS 32, P-P 57 (lowest score wins), Occidental, La Verne, Cal Lutheran etc.—just minutes after running with everything they had. Coming into the meet, the PPXC harriers hoped to pull an upset and beat the strong CMS team that had prevailed at Multi-Duals. In order to do so, they knew they needed almost perfect races from their top five runners, and that victory, although possible, was unlikely.

By the time their first runner—Charlie Enscoe PO ’11—finished in fifth overall, it was already somewhat apparent that the Sagehens had little to no hope of winning the league. After leading almost the entirety of the race, Eric Kleinsasser Oxy ’12—the two-time defending champion—unleashed an impressive and unexpected finishing sprint to win the meet individually by five seconds in a time of 25:53. The two Stags who finished second and fourth—Brian Sutter CM ’13 and Kris Brown CM ’11—all but stifled PPXC’s chances.

Alex Johnson PZ ’13 finished strongly in sixth overall and second for the Hens, but as CMS runners streamed across the line in seventh, ninth, and tenth, it quickly became clear that the Stags would defend their team title. PPXC’s top-five was rounded out by Hale Shaw PZ ’12 in 11th, Paul Balmer PO ’12 in 12th, and Luke Willert PO ’13 in 29th, giving the team an easy victory over the remaining six SCIAC teams, but a still-distant second place finish. And thus ended their hopes of a league title—something no current P-P harrier has experienced or has earned for his teammates and himself.

As the entirety of the CMS cross country program—men’s and women’s teams, coaches, alumni—posed for pictures under the SCIAC banner dangling and fluttering slightly between the start and finish lines, the PPXC men walked, almost ambivalently but more so feeling the weight of inevitability, back to their team’s tent. Jogging along the weaving roads of the park to cool down, they were—what, relieved? Upset, certainly, but what was done was done.

Cameras flashed under the overcast sky as the top 20 men in the league kneeled and stood in line, honored for making the first and second all-league teams. The maroon-with-white athletic jackets of the highest-finishing Stags dominated the group in number, but the lime green t-shirts of the top four PPXC 2k10 runners gleamed brightly, standing out from the dull setting sun.

Next weekend the top seven runners from many, if not all, SCIAC schools will fly into Portland and drive down to Salem, Ore. to compete Nov. 13 in the Regional meet, hosted by Willamette University. CMS will arrive as a favorite to qualify for Nationals—held one week later at Wartburg College in Iowa—and a contender for the team title. The remaining members of PPXC will arrive with their hopes high, their convictions strong, their beliefs running deep.

On Sunday, Oct. 14, what will be done will be done; and if enough nameless men from whatever other teams in the West region fly home with that all-too-well-known feeling of inevitability and unfulfilled goals, perhaps—if it’s not too bold to say so—perhaps the harriers will be preparing for a longer flight, less than a week later, to the Midwest, to race once again.