By Mark Walters

The Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America, also known as the IC4A, used to be the national championship for men’s cross country. That was years ago, before the National Collegiate Athletic Association decided to take over things. It’s a classic race that for whatever reason is still run every year, the weekend before Thanksgiving at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

It’s an 8K, and it’s really one of those meets that’s, well, hard to get up for. It’s the last race, and while it’s a championship, it doesn’t carry much weight. It’s essentially the NIT basketball tournament of collegiate cross country.

A lot of good teams run it every year. Some teams like Georgetown and William & Mary send their B-teams – their A-teams are at nationals – and still beat everyone. It goes to show how good and deep some teams are.

We had a solid showing their last year, finishing 6th in the University race, which is less competitive than the Championship race, but still has a bunch of legit teams. Bucknell, New Hampshire, Army, Manhattan, Albany, Fordham among others. They’re not Georgetown, LaSalle, or Duke, but it’s better for us to finish 6th out of 25 teams than to get mopped up by much stronger teams in the Championship race.

This year, I really don’t know to be honest. I ran like ass last season at this race, 27:58. I knew my best race was the week before at Boston’s Franklin Park in the Northeast Regional Championship. It was like a switch went off after that race, and no matter how hard I tried or what I did, I was going to run poorly at IC4A’s. While my dedicated readers already know that my best time at Van Cortlandt is 27:07, I ran 27:11 at the IC4A race as a sophomore. For whatever reason, that season I felt unfulfilled after regionals, which were held at Van Cortlandt.

This season, maybe it will be the same scenario. Regionals at Van Cortlandt, unfulfilled afterwards, one more chance at an historic park and a great cross country course… maybe I’ll put together a solid performance for my last cross country race. Who knows? I can honestly say that while I don’t feel apathetic towards the end of my cross country career, I’m really not sure how I feel. I’ve thought about it a lot, what I’ll do with running when I’m done here at Hofstra, and I really don’t know.

Part of me – the slacker – wants to take forever off and get fat, never go back to the sport that has defined me for the past seven years, and just let my career rest in peace. Another part of me wants to take as much time off as I need before I really start to itch to do it, before I really miss it, and then come back and see what I can do with it. Another part of me, perhaps the smallest of the three, wants to keep this going, use this shape I’ve gotten myself into as a springboard for better running. As a distance runner, your best years don’t come until your late twenties and early-to-mid thirties. I’ve been told by Mike McCristall that because of my body’s resilience, I’d make a great marathoner. He’s probably right, and the marathon is definitely something I’d like to explore, but holy hell, how do you train for a 26.2-mile race?

Going into IC4A’s, I can honestly say that unlike last year after regionals, the switch has not been shut off. It’s been cold out, a lot colder than it was at this point the past two years, but for some reason I’ve been running with a vengeance. At practice Monday, despite being exhausted from not getting enough sleep on a consistent basis, I ran myself to my limits in a six-mile tempo after doing a hard 2-mile on the track. The tempo was followed by six 200-meter sprints, all done at 29-31 seconds with a 100-meter jog in between each. My head was pounding, and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest as I stood at the finish line of the Mitchell Athletic Complex track with my coaches and teammates, but I felt pretty good about pushing myself so hard.

If I can run Saturday the way I ran Monday at practice, I could get All-IC4A-a top-25 performance. Last year I was 92nd, but as a sophomore I was 29th. I don’t want to talk about last year.

One thing that I know for sure is that this career of mine is not over. I have this IC4A race, the 100th running of the IC4A championship. How’s that for tradition? After that, I have some local business to take care of on Thanksgiving morning. After coming so close the last few years, I’m finally going to win the York YMCA Turkey Trot. After that, there will be some down time for mental preparation and re-focusing. I’ll blow some steam, then get back to it in December, putting in the miles with a frozen dick because before this Hofstra jersey of mine gets hung up, I need to qualify for the Penn Relays in April.

One way or another, it has been a hell of a ride. It started off as a way to stay in shape for basketball, back in the summer of good old 2002. From there, it was about improving every time out, and eventually a state-berth. In autumn it was about cross, in spring it was about track. The winter and summer were all about preparation. I can remember crying on runs, wearing socks as gloves. I’ve been up hills, down valleys, through streams. It’s given me a passport in college, taking me to Boston, Florida, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and parts of New York that’d I’d otherwise never know.

It has given me something to strive for, and a sense of accomplishment. It’s been my life for so long, and it has introduced me to some of my best friends. It’s given me stories to tell, like last week at regionals when it poured all morning before the race, making an absolute war-ground of a course. I realized why I run this past weekend. It’s funny, after everything I’ve been through it took me my senior regional race to figure out exactly why I run.

I run for the experience. I run for the camaraderie. I run to be the best I can be, but at the end of the day, I don’t seek titles or medals. I run for the self-satisfaction I get out of pushing myself to my physical limits. I got into the ocean last week to simulate an ice bath, it was stupid but something about it made me feel so alive. I run because I’m not good at other sports. I run so my girlfriend’s mom can be surprised that when she told her my race was 6.2 miles, she asked if I ran the entire time. I run so my dad can come to a meet with a West York track & field jacket over a Hofstra cross country t-shirt. I run…

Mark Walters is a senior staff writer for The Chronicle. He is the senior captain of the Hofstra men’s cross country team. This is his memoir of his final season wearing the blue, white, and yellow.