Finding Their Stride: A Team of Young Runners and Their Season of Triumph

Pont teaches English at a small, co-ed private school in Pennsylvania, where she also coaches the co-ed cross-country team. It's a quirky squad--Moravian Academy's strength is its brains, not its brawn--and the eclectic group that Pont takes on would just as soon burn the midnight oil, paint a picture, or perform on stage as cover a distance of ground. Naturally, they're the league doormats, wandering egos in search of cohesion. Over the course of one magnificent season, Pont finds ways to wake within them a dormant love of sport and competition, and they bloom, racing as a unit toward a Hollywood ending. After the season is over, after the accolades and prizes have been dispensed, after a long run of her own, Pont manages to supply an almost mystical meaning to what she--and they--have done: "I stop in front of my door, bend over, hands on knees, and breathe deep. My run over, I wonder, what does the Hindu desire after she has plunged into the Ganges? Hope to do it again." In the end, it's that simple. The humor, beauty, and depth that Pont puts into her stirring chronicle make the journey as rousing as its conclusion and its inevitability more renewing than trite. --Jeff Silverman

Product Description

Sally Pont truly captures the pain and glory of running in this elegant portrait of the Moravian Academy co-ed cross-country team. If you've confronted and embraced the daunting task of running at any time in your life--especially on a competetive level--you will love Sally Pont. As an extremely involved coach and teacher, Pont takes us on a journey through the fall cross-country season, showing us the changes in the leaves and the obstacles her athletes encounter as they continually ask themselves: Why run?

Surprisingly, this book is not just about or for the runners. Reaching into her bag of literary treats, the English teacher in Pont emerges as she looks lovingly at her athletes and compares them to Shakespearean characters or analyses the team in terms of Greek mythology. Her writing is lyrical and beautiful; even for those who have never run a mile, this book is inspirational in the pure feeling that Pont puts into her prose.

In glorious detail, she describes the ins and outs of training for a 5 kilometer race (3.1 miles), the struggle for improving a personal time, and the team effort that is its own ultimate reward at the end of the day. Through Pont, the reader shares in this experience as we find ourselves cheering through each winning race and empathizing with the disappointment of defeat.

An inspiring read for both runner and non-runner alike--I highly recommend Sally Pont's book for all readers!