Six Days a Week — What Cross Country Taught Me
The gun goes off and everything you practiced either shows up or it doesn't.
That's cross country. No retries. No checkpoints. Just you, the course, and however much you put in during the six days before.
I ran cross country at Alameda High School through 9th and 10th grade. Six days a week of training — hills, intervals, long runs on tired legs. Some days felt strong. Most days felt like work. The schedule didn't care how I felt. We showed up anyway.
The Sweat Was Real
Training is unglamorous. There's no highlight reel for the Tuesday afternoon interval session when your lungs are on fire and you still have two reps left. No one cheers for the long run on a Saturday morning when you're already sore from Friday.
But that's exactly where the work happens.
I learned that progress hides in the days that feel like nothing. A hill that wrecked me in September felt manageable by November. I didn't notice it changing — until one day I was at the top and my legs still had something left. That small thing felt enormous.
Race Day Was the Easy Part
By the time a race came, I had already done the hard thing six times that week. The gun going off was almost a relief — finally, something to run toward instead of just running.
I raced hard every time. I didn't always place where I wanted. But I never stopped. Not once, in any race, did I let myself walk when I could still run. That became the thing I was most proud of — not my times, but that I never gave up mid-race no matter how much I wanted to.
That's a habit you build in practice, not on race day. Practice is where you find out what you're actually made of.
What I Carried Forward
The confidence I built through cross country isn't the kind that comes from winning. It's quieter than that — and more durable.
It's the knowledge that I can keep going when everything says stop. That exhaustion isn't the end, it's just part of the process. That showing up every single day, even on the days I least wanted to, is exactly how you become someone who doesn't quit.
I bring that into everything now. When a build breaks at midnight. When a system I've designed for a week suddenly doesn't work. When I've been debugging for hours and still can't find it. I've been more exhausted than this, and I kept going. Cross country taught me that first.
Two seasons. Hundreds of miles. A lot of sweat and some memories I'll keep forever.
Yisi Liu — builder, runner, still not stopping.