Brittany Davis

Aside from the wise words of my coaches and teammates, disappointment and failed-expectations have been my greatest teachers at Vassar. In fact, I've learned more about success from failure than I have learned about metabolic pathways from biochem (sorry, Professor Jemiolo).

Entering as a freshman runner, I could only expect that I would continue to improve in cross country and track as I had throughout high school. Freshman year of cross country, I ran slower in the 5k than I had in high school. Sophomore year, I trained my butt off over the summer and came back strong, only to burnout mid-season. Junior year, I entered with calf problems and too little sleep, and ran like I needed a leg amputation the entire season. In track, I began up running the steeplechase, my favorite race, a 3,000 meter race over metal barriers and a water pit, but found myself hopelessly hitting the same 12:30ish time over and over again, getting slower as the season progressed. Needless to say, I felt frustrated that despite the past four years of running 55-70 miles a week, lifting weights three times a week, and spending 30 hours in practice and competition a week, I had only gotten slower.

Then my coach, James McCowan, decided that what I needed was to back off the training. I was put on the "Running Restriction Plan," which centered on the idea that less was more. Fewer miles, less lifting, lower intensity. To any runner with the typical Type-A personality, the RRP plan is a pretty offensive idea. How can you possibly get better if you aren't trying hard? I followed this new plan, restricting my distance and effort, and totally forwent pumping iron. The first race back, I ran the same time as always. The second race I ran 20 seconds faster than my previous personal best, and by the fourth race, I was two seconds from qualifying for ECACs, the big athletic conference championship that I had only fantasized about before.

While I wish I could say I returned this year and continued my streak, I can't. As I entered my fourth and final cross country season, I found myself absolutely incapable of completing a workout on pace. As it turns out, I had Lyme disease and couldn't run for two months because of the way my body responded to antibiotics. No matter how badly I wanted to break 12:00 in the steeplechase, I kept hitting 12:30ish again and again. The antibiotics were still in my system. Half of me berated the hopeless optimism that had fooled me into believing I would come back stronger, while other half of me kept thinking of my entire college running career as a failure.

Interrupting my self-deprecation, my teammate Arial asked me to accompany her to get a cortisone shot in her foot. She's deathly afraid of needles and nearly broke my metacarpals by squeezing my hand so fiercely during the shot. Afterwards, over bubble tea, Arial told me she was proud of me for having run while feeling so crappy, that I inspired her, and the team wouldn't be the team without me on it. Another teammate, Hannah, told me that I hadn't failed by not reaching my college running goals—I just needed to revise my timeline because I have the rest of my life to run below 12:00 in the steeple. And she is right: I haven't failed, I just haven't succeeded yet.

Leaving my team after this year is difficult because I love my teammates for who they are and what they've made me realize in what at first glance seem to be failure. They've left me with the major life lessons derived from successive failures and defeats, which I now pass on to you. The first is that sometimes, to succeed, you really just need to stop trying so hard. Many of us never realize that, particularly at this level of academics, success will come when you try to relax. I don't mean give up, but tone down the intensity (If any underclassmen are reading, take note that you really don't need to do all the readings. Go to sleep.). The second lesson is that success isn't measured by what you do in a given amount of time; it's measured by what you can do that you previously couldn't, and by the people you change through your perseverance. If I've learned anything from running, it's that failure can't exist if you don't believe in it.

—Brittany Davis is co-Captain of the Vassar College Cross Country team.