Today I’m switching from recording on a mic to my iPad because my computer had a breakdown, which was not exactly the greatest. I mean, imagine your computer just suddenly deciding, “Nope, I’m done.” It didn’t completely break, but it basically gave up. Anyways, today I want to talk about cross country.
I haven’t really talked about this before, but every Friday, cross country basically turns into literal manhunt. Everyone is on their own. This is how our version works: we run into this big wooded area, and if you get caught, you have to join the tagger and help catch everyone else. And let’s just say nobody wants to get caught, because once you do, you have to run around even more with the coach trying to catch people. The coach is not exactly going easy on us either.
At the beginning, we get around five minutes to hide. The second the game starts, everyone just takes off. Once, I saw this kid who was usually pretty slow. I had basically never seen him run fast before. Then he looked behind him and saw the teacher coming after him. Suddenly, this kid turned into a cheetah. I’m not even joking. He was running so fast that I genuinely could not understand how someone I had never seen sprint before had suddenly become one of the fastest people there.
The area we play in is actually pretty big. There are fields, turf, grass, trees, hills, and a lot of places to hide. Most people hide in the more obvious areas, but I decided I needed something a little more extreme. So yes, I got a ghillie suit. I know. It is completely overkill.
My strategy is usually to go down into the lower hills and hide behind trees. A lot of people stay higher up because they want to see where everyone is coming from, but I think staying lower makes you harder to spot. And when you’re wearing a ghillie suit, it gets even better. If someone looks down from far away, ideally they don’t see a person. They just see a weird pile of leaves.
And apparently I’m not even the most ridiculous person there. Some of my friends have emergency routes, little warning systems, and phones set up so we can communicate with each other. We usually have around ten kids working together. If somebody spots the coach or whoever is chasing us, they scream. That sounds stupid, but it actually works, because everyone else can hear where the scream came from and run in the opposite direction.
We also split into smaller groups, usually two people together, and we always have a meeting point. If I lose my partner, we both know exactly where to go so we can find each other again. If your partner disappears and you have no plan, that is what I call GG.
Sometimes we also use phones to keep track of what is happening in different areas. It is basically our very low-budget surveillance system. If one group sees the coach getting closer, everyone else knows to move. Imagine one kid is running from the coach and doesn’t have time to warn everyone. If somebody else sees what is happening, we can still figure out which direction the danger is coming from.
Now let me explain the ghillie suit, because apparently I have become the ghillie suit guy. Mine is pretty simple. It is basically fabric with strips and fake leaf-like material sewn into it. It is not some super professional military thing. Every time you use it, some pieces get pulled off or damaged, and honestly that can make it look even more realistic. The main rule is that you cannot wear bright colors underneath. Brown, dark green, black, anything that blends in is much better.
One time, my whole group was sitting in what I call the Circle of Doom. We were all together, watching different directions, and we had people positioned farther away to look for movement. Suddenly, somebody spotted something. Since I was the only person wearing a full ghillie suit, everyone basically told me, “You go investigate.”
Great.
So I got up and started moving through the woods. Running in a ghillie suit is not exactly easy. You might be harder to see, but you are also covered in fabric and fake leaves that are moving everywhere. I went out, tried to figure out where the coach was, and the second I spotted him, I screamed, “HE’S COMING!” and ran.
Then I went down the hill and just dropped to the ground. And somehow, nobody saw me.
I was lying there thinking, there is absolutely no way this is working. I thought everyone was going to look straight at me. But nobody did. For a few seconds, I honestly felt invisible.
Then the coach caught me.
That is the problem. Our coach has been doing this for years, so it is not like we are going to outsmart him forever. Sometimes I think I have found the perfect escape route, I take a completely different path, and somehow he is already standing at the other end. He just appears there. I have no idea how.
But that is also why this game is so fun. Cross country is usually just running, running, and more running. On Fridays, it turns into hiding, chasing, teamwork, strategy, screaming, running through the woods, and apparently me dressing like a bush.
If you guys like this episode, maybe I’ll make a second one explaining exactly how our cross country manhunt works and all the strategies people use.
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