Dedication and hard work, even when faced with adversities such as 13 mile long runs every Sunday, has defined the sport of Cross Country. In spite of becoming more civil and modernized in recent times for competitive events, distance running has been in the bloodline of humans since the very first man; the pursuit of tracking and running down game for miles at a time or relaying messages from battle to battle in times before electronic communication was created and used gives testament to the sport of Cross country and the people that were necessary and capable to become a part of this discourse community.
The people in this community separate themselves from other genres of running, like sprinting, in that the sport is far more about completing large volumes of miles, 80-100 miles a week for serious D1 college competitors, then simply refining short bursts of energy. In result, the community of distance runners has developed unique lexis and intercommunication on their distance runs. The runners within the community have developed prominent respect for other individuals within the community since they understand the dedication and hard work required to be able to maintain this high mileage.
A key center of authority that can be seen in all areas when referring to a cross country team is a head coach. Running may seem to be simple and that it only requires to go out and run yet in more competitive areas of the sport cross country has required the need for a coach that can give his athletes refined workouts formulated to meet the specific goals of each athlete. A coach sets the tone in each individual group of cross country teams yet in every team they are seen as a key source of knowledge and wisdom in the sport making cross country a discourse community.
Cross country runners have come together and created a solution in area known to be there expertise: long distance communication. They did this by being able to document and record there times on a central website that all runners can read and look at to see how other runners in the world are running, the website is milestat.com. Using this website created by this discourse community the viewer can look up any individual runner in the community to see how she or he has done in every race since the beginning of their career.
In result of the long distance and constant strain on the bodies of cross country runners the community has called for the need of trainers to treat their persisting acute injuries. From a sprain of the ankle to season ending stress fractures a trainer is used by all cross country runners to help maintain and prevent injuries from occurring. The trainer is a large center of authority for runners since they know the stress put upon runners bodies and can give insight on what is happening to prevent the runner from being able to train at peak performance. Without trainers the cross country community would become a much more damaged and broken place.
The long runs conducted by the cross country community have lead the community to develop a unique set of lexis and attitudes that separate the community from other similar communities. While many people would expect to think that individual words or phrases were developed, while some were, the community has developed a different kind of communication that is not traditional to the normal human verbal speech. Body language is the key lexis used in the cross country community. When performing at these high levels of aerobic strain speaking can sometimes be very challenging. Cross country runners can understand different signs from a runner such as flailing hands or hunched shoulders that tell a competitor that their opponent is tired and the movement of a teammate’s hand telling each other to move up or maintain their current pace. The runners also can hear the heavy breathing and grunts of a runner that is struggling, or the encouraging grunt of a teammate to move faster. Even though these forms of communication are not traditional to most communities of speech they still are te key factors of the lexis and communication of the cross country community.