Running My Mouth and XC Cross Country Racing Update 

by Ryan Craven
November 21, 2024

How big of an egomaniac do you have to be to feel the need to publish a disclaimer before attending a sporting event at your alma mater that’s open to the public? Well when the NCAA Cross Country Nationals is being held in Madison and you’ve run your mouth as much as I have, an open letter seems like a small drop in the bucket. 

In the likely case you’re not familiar, my name is Ryan Craven. As a high school prep, I had distinguished myself (Editor’s note- he was third at Foot Locker in 2005) enough on the Cross Country courses of Illinois to be invited to attend the University of Wisconsin, home of the single fastest training group in the country at the time. It was there that I would attempt to chase my destiny, contribute to a legendary program’s string of national trophies, and perhaps even fulfill my Olympic dreams. I knew exactly who I wanted to be and had a path to get there that was straight and clear if I could just…keep…up.

But as it can sometimes go with high school standouts, my collegiate career was lackluster, falling well short of my goals of Olympic or even Big Ten glory, leading me to leave my athletic career unfinished before graduating. Call it naïveté, but even after I was done competing, I still couldn’t let go of trying to make a place for myself in the world of distance running. Despite being fully aware of the staggering odds of competing professionally, I had never seen any other life for myself outside of that world. I bummed around Madison as a volunteer assistant for a while after graduation. After getting a taste of the lifestyle, I found the bureaucracy involved with collegiate coaching to be insufferable and longed for something more creative and free. I suppose a level headed young man would have adjusted his expectations for the future and shifted his sails toward some other shore, but I couldn’t imagine pursuing some boring 9-5 job when I was still so dearly passionate about long distance running.

Growing up, I had always dreamed of writing a great novel about our sport like one of the many that inspired me throughout my youth. Like any hopeful worth a damn, I wanted my legs to do the talking for me first and any thoughts of writing took a firm backseat to the task at hand. But when my career ended, I stumbled into a way to stay in the circus tent of Track and Field and out of the corporate “real” world I had tried all my life to run away from. Though I didn’t have the pedigree of say Kenny Moore or even John L. Parker Jr, I still felt I had rubbed enough fast elbows along the way to have an interesting perspective worth sharing. So I took to writing.

I got my start covering our sport writing summaries of track meets for Letsrun before eventually interning for Flotrack where I got to focus more on video production and creative writing. Somewhere along the way, the term journalism major appeared next to my name online. I graduated with a degree in Communication Arts (Radio, TV, Film) and should have corrected that error immediately, but I didn’t know quite how to describe what I was trying to do without calling myself a blogger (ew)…so I shrugged my shoulders and went with it. I saw myself more as a poor man’s Hunter Thompson, an Andrew WK of the track world, a try-hard-hanger-on turned party-animal-fan-boy writer. In the bold new age of the social internet, I thought I could tell a more compelling and real story by writing through a subjective lens. In doing so, I ignored any of the rules and integrity that actual journalism demands. With this quasi self-assigned, carefree license to focus on feelings instead of facts, I set about the reckless and occasionally regrettable act of publishing articles online.

Over time, I started to become more and more revealing and pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable to share. This was how I found myself at the center of a Letsrun controversy right as the Badgers were preparing to win the 2011 National Title. After graduating I wrote an article called Wisconsin: A Study in Pressure (Editor’s note, the article compares the coaching styles of Jerry Schmacher and Mick Byrne) and a few former (faster) teammates, including a 2-time NCAA xc champion took to social media to express their displeasure. The message boards clambered to the controversy and suddenly my work was “super hot” in all the wrong ways.

Granted, the article was not all my idea. There was some pressure from above in the form of Ryan Fenton at Flotrack to write something a bit more outside of the box than just another summary. That said, Fenton has never been anything but kind to me and I’m not trying to throw him under any bus. He didn’t have to twist my arm hard as I was looking to express myself more fully than race recaps and previews had ever allowed. I suppose I felt compelled to reveal my observations about Jerry Schumacher because they differed from the kingmaker reputation I saw online when I was exploring my options in high school. In no way did I think I was saying something truly negative about the man that wasn’t greatly outweighed by his accomplishments. I assumed his unprecedented ability to guide American athletes further into the unknown of what was physically possible and my accompanying respect was a given. 

But I committed the cardinal sin of saying that Jerry was perfectly capable of being human. That’s a hard thing to say after living in a culture of personality, especially when it’s a person from whom you learned a great deal. I’m sure it was even harder to hear for those who owed their incredible, world-beater success to him. Half of it was what I said and the other half was that I, with my mediocre PRs, had the nerve to say anything at all. It didn’t help that Jerry was notoriously media shy. Mostly though, I wondered who would ever even care what I had to say? After all, who the hell was I aside from another FootLocker burnout who couldn’t crack Wisconsin’s top squad? My contributions to that program were so non-existent that I easily forgot that I represented something bigger than myself, no matter how marginally. I wrote and rewrote that piece trying to cushion my critiques and keep any axes I may have been consciously or subconsciously grinding as dull as possible.

Nevertheless…

I quoted Jerry loosely and without permission. There’s a young man (and J201 student) inside of me that will never forgive myself for doing that as I’m sure many former teammates still won’t. In the process of sharing my experience, I name-dropped, I dabbled in hyperbole, and I wrote very cringe judgments about the wonderful cities that hosted our sport’s biggest events. Earning my actual living by working at a brewery certainly couldn’t have helped…but at the end of the day, I wrote what I wrote and I put my name next to it. 

I was feeling myself for the first time in a long time, and it was not always pretty.

When I was still running, the internet was not a place any Badger went to in search of valuable training advice. It was the team’s culture to avoid sites like Letsrun as it was reputedly full of anonymous slowpokes sharing unverified rumors. The faster you were, the less interest you had in the noise. Or was it the other way around? However, the site became of particular interest once Jerry had decided to leave collegiate coaching for the promised land of Nike. Suddenly the website that was sold to me as the antithesis of truth was telling it to me straight. Meanwhile in the real world, I wasn’t fast enough to be privileged to that information. As a fan of American distance running, I completely understood the need for discretion and appreciated how amazing the opportunity my teammates were pursuing was. As a confused, athletically frustrated college kid…it hurt like hell.

I felt a justified indifference to whatever unspoken code of silence was expected of me. And while I regret the clout chasing elements that came with writing my own headlines…(consider how intentionally un-inflammatory and un-sexy the title of that article was for a moment, please)…I rested easy thinking that at least I was being brave about it. I had been on the outside looking in long before I started writing and was happy to be done pretending that I was somehow still on the inside. I was a young, fresh out of college, know it all…and still very hurt by the instantaneous cut off once Jerry left town. I couldn’t fully appreciate the difficult task he had to move on from Madison. As an adult, it makes me laugh because I absolutely understand it now in a way I just couldn’t then. He had to leave the way he did. He had to sever contact completely. Had he not, he’d have been fielding texts and late night calls (if not tents in his front yard) from those of us still desperately in need of his approval of our fitness. 

So why did I ever write that article? To sum it up succinctly, I was a confused young person, terrified of entering the real world, and desperate to contribute something of meaning and value to a community that I felt I owed an unforgivable debt to by being slower than my potential.

So why write this article now? Because the occasion seemed appropriate to try to right a wrong, or at least provide some proper context for something that even now weighs strangely on me, especially as this weekend approaches. And damn is it easier than trying to awkwardly sum this all up in a few sentences out there on the course. I’m apologizing for what I said as much as I’m defending my right to have said it. And with that comes the completely fair understanding that my former teammates have a right to not be alright with it. It’s the same reason I detest reviews of my XC game…it’s far too easy to write a critique of something that takes years of blood, sweat and tears to build. I’d love to have a roundtable discussion over some beers, far away from public consumption about it…but if all I get is a mean mugging from across the bar, that’s cool too. 

Switching gears… Speaking Of The Game – XC Cross Country Racing

I wanted to give an update on XC: Cross Country Racing (get the New Update!!), which is not at all where I hoped it would be this year. 

XC Cross Country Racing Is An Actual Arcade Cabinet Which Will Be Given Away

Here’s a fun conundrum I’ve been chewing on (and why I feel it’s relevant to talk about this in the same breath)…would I have ever worked so intensely and diligently to bring XC Cross Country Racing to life had I not unwittingly provoked my former teammates to tell me to think better of my writing? 

I released this game last year with some mixed results. I knew when I was making XC that it wasn’t the next Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater or anything…but it begs the question…what should our sport’s video game be worth in actual dollars and cents? My aim with this game’s first release was to earn $10,000. I had gained a few thousand dollars releasing my music for competitive distance runners on Letsrun. I figured this was far more broadly appealing and entertaining than Run Run Run, so I thought 5 digits would be an ambitiously fair, if not just out of reach goal. I fell well short of what I had hoped for financially this first time around. Any money I did earn from the generous donations of players who purchased the custom character feature was quickly funneled back into contests and marketing for the game. 

It’s become clear that the only money to be made in the app store will depend on how many of my users will see it fit to pay $1.99 to play a second level (with multiplayer!) whenever I’m finally able to release it.

With nearly 15,000 downloads and leaderboards full of fantastic competition, this game’s existence is a success in and of itself. I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve been able to put out into the world with this. In the same way that a runner’s career is judged by their PR’s and not by the size of their endorsement contract, this game has value. And yet, the vanity metrics are not nearly enough to justify the absolutely insane effort involved in making this game a reality. It took five years altogether to make, including learning how to code and animate. Half of those years (on/off) were spent in a finals-week-like haze of obsession, a sort of every waking moment pursuit that was far beyond any effort I ever put forth in the classroom or even into running. Years of unpaid 8-12 hour days of self assigned physics homework and absurd attention to detail that few will likely ever even notice. I drank so much Mountain Dew it disturbs me to even think about it. 

After the game’s release, I was horribly burnt out and took a long time to ponder if development was worth pursuing further. In that time I took a new job, got laid off from said job, moved back to the Midwest, got a new job, moved into a new place. I took care of some real life things that desperately needed taking care of and had trouble finding any motivation to work on the game again. I found some inspiration after reading Shoe Dog in the late summer and slowly began exploring work on a follow up level. Unlike the first level, this course was to have hills and terrain as well as multiplayer. But the plugin I chose for the hills proved to be inadequate after months of wasted time trying to make it function. The programmer who was working with me to integrate networked multiplayer got overwhelmed managing his own business and disappeared. And for the first time in a long time, even for someone who quit the sport, I just kind of gave up on everything. As someone who is often accused of being happy go lucky and quick to rebound, shit got real dark for a minute there. I had never known myself to feel truly unmotivated and it scared the shit out of me.

When I was first deciding if I wanted to continue competing, Mick Byrne tried his best to inspire me. “You gotta get fired up! You gotta get mad and flip the switch!”. His words were lost on me then as I knew the athletic fire just wasn’t burning in me anymore. (Notice how despite being a loose quote with no permission sought, this isn’t some condemnation of his coaching but rather a personal reflection on my experience). Mick wasn’t able to reach me then, but he’s always been merciful and understanding of my rambling ways despite any headaches they may have caused him.

Anyway, a few weeks back, I saw a quote on the Letsrun homepage about eSports potentially being included in the Olympics and I felt that switch flip HARD. I got good and pissed off because despite my current lack of financial success with this game, I still believe in its potential with all my heart.

I still believe that while in app purchases are nothing more than a small way for enthusiasts to offer their support, racers might be more interested in something tangible like say a t shirt, swag, etc that can only be won but not purchased. Will eSports have a place in the Olympics? Time will tell…but for this game, I see hotels full of young runners gathered together with nothing better to do than lay low before a race. I see contests and prizes and a really fun experience that celebrates our beloved sport and the spirit of competition and might even make outsiders turn their heads. Digitally, I want to go beyond fantasy race courses and capture the legendary real world XC courses in order to share them with runners for generations to come. I want a runner to line up for their first national meet and think to themselves “No problem, I already know this course by heart.” I want to release a girls’ version for goodness sake! This is infinitely cooler than any book I could have ever written.

So I’ve been back to my obsessive tinkering ever since that headline in hopes of bringing Cross Country fans at least some small offering this year. I’m counting down the days until nationals for the first time since I was young and am both genuinely excited as well as shaking from my recent surge in caffeine intake. I’ve released an update to the original game that features a big correction to a request that I had ignored for too long. I’ve included a Freshman difficulty in which you no longer get bumped by the other runners. I was so obsessed with the Elite side of the competition that I couldn’t see ever ditching it. It was binary to me. For a supposedly smart person, a very obvious way to make this game more friendly to new users was staring me in the face and shouting at me across the internet. Sorry it took me so long to make good on it. 

And though I can’t offer networked multiplayer yet, I’m hoping you might get a chance to play the Arcade multiplayer version and experience the thrill of head to head competition against a friend. I had my old laptop that I had to replace to release this game just sitting around so I figured why not make good use of it. As I write this, the UI still needs some polishing and fine tuning, but at least it’s playable. As my way of saying thanks for your patience, I’m giving away the XC Arcade Cabinet to whoever holds the fastest Freshman time by Nationals next year (see discord for official details).

For now, I don’t know what else the future will hold, but I do know I’m determined to see this game through however far I can take it.

So say I’m delusional. Call me an attention whore. Tell me I use too many ellipses…but don’t say I never tried to contribute something positive to this sport. And if you see what I see with this game, please download the latest version here and join the discord to let me know how you might be able to support my goals. Trolls welcome.

Beyond my myopic endeavors, I hope for so much more out of this weekend. 

I hope to catch up and keep up with Landon Peacock after his recent health scare. I hope I can toss on some old Wisconsin gear, shave my beard into a goatee and see how many people confuse my bald head for Jim Stinzi’s. I want to howl at the moon with Craig Miller again. I want to buy Sean Carlson a beer for being an even more controversial Mid Suburban League alumnus than me. (I don’t know enough about his time at Tennessee to comment, but in his defense he selflessly didn’t ruin Nuguse just to better his own resume…give him time!) I hope I can buy Tom Peterson a beer if not a whole bar tab for having to endure the dying star of my intensely competitive mindset. I want to wander deep into the backside of the arboretum and ponder a time when such places were quickly accessible and passed by like the furious blur of youth. I want to see if a bunch of kids in the Motion W who I’ve never met before can pull off a surprise trophy on their home course. 

But whatever else happens, don’t say I don’t belong on the sidelines cheering on the Badgers. It’s the only thing I was ever good at in college!

More Ryan Craven From The Archives

2011: MB: Simon Bairu blasts Ryan Craven
2013: Ryan Craven releases a full album about running
2023: Ryan Craven release xc video game – XC Cross Country Racing Now Free To Play On Both Iphone & Android

LRC Update: We initially said the 2011 article that Craven wrote wasn’t available online. We found it online and linked to it.