Running Adventures

Dear Wal,

I've finally figured something out that I've always frustrated over. On my cross country team, none of the coaches ever give directions for where we're supposed to run once we get to the course. It's always just "Okay guys, go run four miles! Bye!" I sit there thinking Where?! D8 I'm not fast enough to keep up with all the older kids who know where they're going, and I'm the oldest of the younger kids. So they assume that I know where I'm going, when really half the time I don't have a clue. It's getting better, because this is now my second year so I'm starting to understand where all the courses go from all the bits and pieces of directions I managed to put together from frustrated coaches.
Anyway, I've never understood why they won't just tell us exactly what we're supposed to do. They just leave us and expect us to know. While riding in the activity bus yesterday and watching some middle school kids complain about getting lost, I finally understood why. It's an initiation ritual. You have to get lost the first four or five days of practice and then still stick with the team to prove your worth.
But it sucks.
I get confused too easily with directions, and when I have no clue what I'm supposed to do, then I get even more horribly confused. This sports business doesn't come naturally to me. Most of what we do makes no sense to me at all. Not giving the team directions, especially.
For the most part, there are two parts to the highschool team: the fast kids, and me and the slow kids. The fast people all hang out together, and the slow people all hang out together. Last year, it was just me in the slow group. Most of the time I had to run by myself, but now I actually have people to run with. The problem is, now I'm getting faster but I'm not fast enough to keep up with the fast people, and I'm too fast for the slow people. So, in effect, I'm running by myself again. I don't really mind. Running has become my quiet time.
However, yesterday was not quiet. First of all, I was guiding the slow people on the big loop around fence (which I thought I knew, after nearly becoming lost the first time) but it turned out that I wasn't going the right way. Then when we got halfway up the trail we were actually supposed to be on, we found a couple of the guys stopped on the trail. Turns out they found I giant hornet's nest. They were considering running through it, and so way I because I wasn't tired yet and I thought maybe I could make it. However, one of the girls I was running with was deathly allergic to bees, so I was a good teammate and went back with her (she didn't get stung: don't worry) and the other slow people to make sure they didn't get lost. On the way back down the trail, I tripped over a rock and went flying. Skinned everything up like crazy.
And guess what, I did this last year too, but at a different course. What happened then was that I turned my ankle off the side of a paved road and went down on my knee. I learned to run well to the right of the edge after that. Yesterday we were running on really rocky trails, which usually I don't have any problems with. I live practically in the middle of a forest, and our trails are all rocky and uneven. I've been seasoned to that kind of terrain, so for the most part I can trust my feet. Apparently not when preoccupied with a hornet's nest.
Anyway, it was a very exciting day.

/endrant

P.S. Thoughts I think when running:
Every time I pass a speed limit sign: Don't speed Kathryn!
When I'm almost finished with the course: Almost home E.T.!