November 8, 2019. The Section XI State Qualifier meet. The Suffolk County championship race. My last cross country race wearing a Miller Place uniform. The team arrives at Sunken Meadow State Park, ready for the race. This could be our last one together, ever. Me and my teammates, my friends, my second family. Our thoughts fixate on the championship. The usual, tensely effervescent atmosphere before any important battle draws us all into the present while permitting just enough collective anxiety for us to remember our purpose for the day, the hour, and now the nineteen minutes ahead of us. As I approach the starting line one last time, nervous and determined, I take everything in. One last breath. I cling to the instant like a splinter on a sweater. I love this team and I love this sport, but most importantly, I love this place. Sunken Meadow has always been there, constant every fall, through changing teammates and girlfriends and PRs and weight and life lessons. This is the place that has raised me for the past four years, the past four seasons, and there I stand in athletic stance; nostalgic, reminiscing, and ready to traverse its winding, awesome, beautiful path one last time. Without the path ahead of me, without the park surrounding me, I would not be the person I am today. However, many of the moments during cross country that were most crucial in forging my identity did not happen during the few minutes of a race, but rather in the time I spent growing up in the surrounding environment of Sunken Meadow.

Sunken Meadow is a moment in time, flash frozen in ethereal autumnal pulchritude. I have never seen it during any other season, and I hope I never have to. The chilly, 38 degree breezy weather accentuates the perpetual rustling and crunching of frosty, russet oak leaves on the way to the “secret bathrooms”. Rosy noses and fluttering stomachs make their way through all the usual motions, all the pre-race rituals and pertinent routines. Our team strolls in stride past the flat areas as runners from Smithtown and Harborfields begin their warm-ups, crossing paths with a bit of mostly passive yet intensely curious side-eye. Everything is in constant motion at Sunken Meadow, and as pebbles roll a few paces ahead of my team across the asphalt parking lot, the surrounding coliseum of red-tinted woodland is swayed by the breeze. Even the wind is itching to put on a performance, swirling baby leaf tornadoes at our feet. Chain-link fence surrounds the area, the torn holes a tunnel to another world entirely. Through them we can see buses arriving, traversing a journey of their own over the river, racing to escort hopeful runners to a race of their own. As my team exits the parking lot and follows the still-asphalt path up the hill ahead of us, our world widens. Expansive meadows stretch for about a mile in each direction, peppered with trees stripped bare. The beaten, sandy 5k course we all know so well lay in front of us in a rare semicircle, concealing the true nature of the course. Unruly, eccentric twists and turns taunt us behind our backs, yet we remain unfazed on our path towards the building, our “secret bathroom”, on the hill. As we draw closer, memories flash by in my head. That tree to the left takes me back to Division Championships freshman year when I took a hilarious picture of my favorite seniors failing to climb it. Despite the best attempts of me and Riverhead’s entire JV team my sophomore year, that log on the right hasn’t been moved since the day I first saw it. Lessons of triumph and failure and friendship follow so many of those memories closely behind, pacific waves succeeding each other before crashing onto the shore of my mind and receding to that which they came from. These evocations, all so lucid and overwhelming, surround and encapsulate the building like an aura, a powerful aura of nostalgia and emotion intertwined with my soul. 

On our way back, the path is crowded now. Amongst a fall festival of vibrant jerseys, our warmup begins. We trek across the old timber bridge, over the river, and to the starting area. The 800 meter long, 200 runner wide zone to the left stands in stark contrast to the bus lot to the right. However, we see past both, and pass by to the boardwalk. Sunken Meadow holds such strong importance in the world of cross country that it is hard to believe it is actually a state park/beach sometimes, but on the boardwalk the two worlds collide. Elderly couples trudging at a painfully slow tempo bundled in scarves fluttering rapidly in rhythm with the howling, freezing wind juxtapose the young athletes in sleeveless tank uniforms racing down the mile long stretch. Beyond them lay rocky north shore sand spilling into the cool blue expanse of the Sound. We march in unison towards the little pocket on the edge of the boardwalk with an oak-carved map of the seemingly endless body of water. It is about halfway down, covered by a roof and has little benches. This spot is our spot. We finish the first half of our warmup there and begin to stretch. It dawns on me that without realizing it, I have stretched here for every single race I have ever competed in. Other teams may have had faster runners than us, but we had a special way of making things our own, finding little ways to etch our niche into the park and sport as a whole. Ways that brought us closer to the nature around us, to becoming one with it. You forget that your race is in 40 minutes, and the sparsely dusted leaves around you, the foamy shore in front of you, the Ipe wood beneath your feet, and the naked trees, battered by the breeze behind your back, become your home. Instead of heading back to the bus, we stride towards the far end of the parking lot, where we leave the world of man behind and make our way up the creek, nearing the edge of state territory and almost to the edge of the sound. There, we say a prayer to “Neil Rickenbacker”. I like to think of Neil as the essence of Sunken Meadow, incarnate, personified. It is a silly tradition implemented my freshman year, nonetheless a tradition I have grown to love. I still remember visiting back then with the upperclassmen that have served as my role models, showed me my favorite songs, helped me through my darkest times, and won my first meets with. While I say my final words in the “prayer”, I thank Sunken Meadow for an incredible career and final season alongside my brother and a team I love. All the moments in between runs spent traversing its vast terrain and having philosophical conversations with friends, cracking jokes, and listening to all the annual aux playlists I have made, playlists that have reflected my personality at those times so well. I thank Sunken Meadow, the perennial background that has taught me quite a bit about running, but far, far more about myself.

As the race begins, I feel the best I have ever felt. I am presently aware and feel myself become the picturesque course around me, an unspeakable feeling, an emotion, a sixth sense. As I pass the familiar landmarks of the course, Snake Hill, the moat along the creek, the open meadow past the secret bathrooms, nationally-dreaded, and ever-sandy Cardiac Hill, I recall so many of the memories so key to my identity and development made at those exact spots. They fuel me to the fastest I have ever run, and as I approach the final open stretch one last time, I leave just enough of them behind so that the Meadow remembers me just as I remember it. I feel as much a part of Sunken Meadow as it is of me. I pass the finishing line to the pleasure of one last PR on the LCD display and give my coach a big hug. I look around and feel content in the moment of my final farewell to Sunken Meadow. It has raised me well, and now it is sending me off into the next chapter of my life.

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