Remembered in the wind

There is nothing worse for a distance runner than running into a headwind — a thing that is all too common for a member of the University of Wyoming Cross Country team. Often, we will wake up and check the wind maps before even checking the temperature. “This wouldn’t even be that cold if not for the wind…” is a phrase repeated countless times by myself and my teammates, and certainly almost every member of this program since its conception. The shared experience of running in the wind unites all Wyoming runners regardless of when they were on the team. 

After more than four years on the team, you start to understand your current teammates very well. You spend countless hours day in and day out with the same people. You can tell who is running behind you by the sound of their breath, or the cadence of their feet. You can identify someone a mile away just by the particularities of their form. Their joys become your joys. From a good workout or race, to an engagement and wedding, you experience it all. 

You also share in their sufferings, and often, your struggles are the same. One thing that every distance runner understands is that to train or compete well, you must embrace the suffering that is at the heart of this sport. This shared experience of struggle creates a bond with your teammates unlike any other. That is what is so special about being a part of a team. Experiencing all the joys and sufferings of not just sport, but life, together. 

Whether you know it or not, when you join a team, you become teammates with everyone who is currently on the team and everyone who has come before you. You inherit their legacies and traditions. The team you are currently benefiting from is the culmination of every person who has been on your team. We remember their joys, and we remember their sufferings. We remember their NCAA performances and chase their school records. We are united across time through our shared sufferings on many of the same trails and races. In the case of Wyoming cross country, we are also united through the tragedy experienced 23 years ago this week.

Although this story might be familiar to many of us, it’s been largely overshadowed by the magnitude of bereavement caused by 9/11, and too few know this story in general. On Sept. 16, 2001, the Wyoming cross country team lost eight of its members — Justin Lambert-Belanger, Cody Brown, Kyle Johnson, Joshua Jones, Morgan McLeland, Kevin Salverson, Nicholas Schabron and Shane Shatto — in a tragic car accident on Highway 287 between Laramie and Fort Collins, Colorado.

Although I never met any of these boys personally, I know them. We run on the same roads and trails, we compete in the same races, struggle through the same workouts, and, however removed we might be, we have shared in the same suffering. Whether it be the suffering of a Tuesday afternoon workout, or the suffering of a great loss like this one, we all take part in it. 

You know them because in some way you live the same life. The life of a Wyoming cross-country runner. We might not have met these boys, but there is an unbroken chain that exists on any team of all those who came before you, that connects us through our experiences of being on this team. You know them in the hills on Jelm Mountain, and the mile repeats in the cemetery. You know them in the cold sweat only earned on a hard Wyoming winter day. You know them in the silence on a hard long run at Boulder Ridge, only broken by the sounds of breathing and the scrape of footsteps in the dirt. You know them in the way the breeze ripples through the aspens in Happy Jack, each leaf reflecting sunlight like the ocean floor. You know them in Laramie’s dirt roads scarred with washboard, and dusty singletracks winding through the prairie. You know them in the voice of your teammates and coaches. In their laughter and in their tears. 

But above all, here in Laramie, we know them in the wind. And if you are lucky enough to have a tailwind, you might feel their gentle hand in the wind upon your back, helping you along the road. 

Please join the community for The Silent Trails Memorial Race on Sunday, Oct. 5. More information: https://www.visitlaramie.org/event/silent-trails-memorial-race/31532/