Senior Perspectives: Cross Country and Track & Field's Chas Gillespie

Senior captains and representatives of varsity teams at Harvard contributed viewpoints based on personal experience from both their senior seasons and full varsity careers at Harvard. Each year the Senior Perspectives are compiled into a book and handed out at the Senior Letterwinner’s Dinner.

Senior Perspectives thus forms a valuable portion of each team’s legacy to sport at Harvard and to the permanent record built here by our varsity athletes. Throughout the summer, these senior essays will be posted to GoCrimson.com for all to see.

I need energy, I need self-definition, I need a life of excitement and wild focus.  I am unlike the others!

I assure myself. I have dedicated myself to cross country and track in ways that few can relate to. What most would consider sacrifices—the necessity of going to bed early at the expense of sociality, rarely going to parties, avoiding classes between 3 and 6 p.m., devoting my summers to training, etc.—I consider acceptable trade-offs for a particular kind of success. The facts are these: my body is capable of feats that, up until 50 or so years ago, had never been achieved by species Homo sapiens and were thought by many, even doctors, to be impossible. 

In this sport, I do basically one thing, and I do it a lot.  I have run thousands of miles while at Harvard (no, not just on the river).  Running gives me time to think, time to talk with my teammates, time to, you know, go about the business of living.  

Running is a perfect microcosm for life, the sage tells us.  There are days (weeks, months) when you’re down and out.  Your shoes are filled with cement, and you know that the world owes you more than it has given…its Parsimony is an affront.  Your friends are what keep you going.  Then there are days (weeks, months) when the world bows down and places itself at your fingertips.  You can do no wrong; nothing is impossible.  In running, the dichotomy can be measured in minutes and seconds.  The crazy thing is, though, that there are dark days, but they are always followed by bright days and a brilliant harvest.  Always. 

Division I athletics at a high level is a strange activity by any measure.  There are the usual justifications, which are completely correct: the callisthenics bond formed with teammates by 16-milers in the windswept January bleakness is unbreakable,mens sana in corpore sana, balance, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, tradition, and the pursuit of greatness.  These are usually enough for me; but, when you’re in deep, when you’re in above your head, then you need something extra, something to give you breath and energy.  At those times I either think, “Dear God, just one more mile,” or I remember what the most basic reward is in this sport: pure joy.