What is so great about track and cross country compared to other sports?

depends on your definition of "better." It is better for me than other sports.

word. wrote:

I've been trying to think of reasons why running is better than any other sport.

What say you

Less variables. Just you and the clock. Other runners have a relatively small effect on your performance, unlike sports like basketball or soccer.

The appeal for running for me is the pure competition. It's you vs someone else (or a group of others). Other sports certainly have this, and I tend to enjoy them as well. I wrestled in high school and I think that was even more of a pure competition because it's literally one on one with no one else involved. You can only blame yourself if something goes wrong.

umm.... ever heard of Jordan Hasay?

No Way wrote:

The appeal for running for me is the pure competition. It's you vs someone else (or a group of others). Other sports certainly have this, and I tend to enjoy them as well. I wrestled in high school and I think that was even more of a pure competition because it's literally one on one with no one else involved. You can only blame yourself if something goes wrong.

I tend to think that running is the opposite of this. It's you against yourself. Certainly you're competing against other runners, but they have little to no effect on your performance. You really have no one to blame but yourself.

For me and apparently several other individuals its the fact that there isn't any bullsh*tting when it comes to it. You either run the time or you don't. It's not like other sports where people can pull stuff out of their rectum on why one team performs the way they do. When you're running a race, it's the person who is in better shape and willing to give it all that comes clear, simple as that.

You can be good at it without having any natural talent

cause most people never go out for the cross country team and if they do, quit because they're too weak.

Running isn't better, and that's why track is much better than cross country.

Track has people throwing spears and cannonballs and jumping over stuff.

Athletics has the two most ancient sports, the 800 meters and the spear. Ancient war was a combination of these two sports. Run 400 meters, throw your spear, retreat 400 meters to get another spear.

It's better because they let me on the team when I didn't make they high school football team.

But yeah... the whole only relying on yourself. You can only blame yourself if you don't run good, accountability.

Cheers wrote:

But yeah... the whole only relying on yourself. You can only blame yourself if you don't run good, accountability.

Tell that to Geb, dude blamed water temperature for cramping and why he lost a marathon.

At the huge relays, millions of girls compete in their underwear.

Dirty old guys with pro video equipment amass in the infield at major relays at U Kansas, U Texas, Mt Sac, Stanford U, U Florida, and Drake U. It's totally disgusting.

You don't have to be rich to succeed. Economic background is irrelevant. A kid can make it without his parents buying him pricey equipment or paying for expensive memberships. Much to the frustration of many here, East Africa's natural talent continues to trump the West's money and science.

I had the best compliment from a sprinter on my track team who also played soccer. He considered himself more of a soccer player and if asked, he would tell you soccer was his favorite sport.

Anyways, he said that he was so happy to be on the track team because of how supportive the team was. Many of the soccer teams he had been on (according to him) were very ego driven and the boys on the team were immature, arrogant jerks. On the track team he felt everyone was so supportive of being successful and basically the opposite of what he experienced in soccer.

I have felt this in my high school and college days as well. In team sports, there is so much arrogance and in-team fighting for playing time that it took all the fun out of it. In cross country and track everyone got to run his/her own race and the time was what it was. You also knew that you needed everyone to be his/her best to have a good team score, so you were supportive of others. I was just happy that the atmosphere that I tried diligently to create on my track team had happened, at least according to one athlete.