Runners of the Nish: A Season in the Sun, Rain, Hail and Hell

by Alex Cyr, Eric Gillis (Contributor)

In the late summer of 2016, the X-Men gather at St. Francis Xavier University. From talented but inexperienced seventeen-year-olds, to elite fourth and fifth- year medal holders, revered Coach Bernie Chisholm has assembled a team of cross country runners determined to become the first in St. FX history to win a national championship. But college is college, and there are also parties to survive, video games to triumph in, and running jokes that will cost more than one X-Man a chunk or two of an eyebrow. Over the next three months, focus intensifies and the X-Men punish their bodies in the pursuit of precious fitness gains, redeemable only on the Plains of Abraham on judgment day, the Canadian Nationals: November 12th. As challenges continue to mount, the runners of St. FX endure grueling practices, time trials, and cuts to determine which seven men will represent the team at nationals. Competition creates a power struggle between the runners - and best friends - that threatens to undermine the strength of the team. Meanwhile, other obstacles inherent to intense, college-level distance running continue to mount; injury, burnout, and the perhaps impossible balancing of athletics, social life, and academics. From the vivid perspective of someone who lived it in all its exhausting, exhilarating, and sometimes crushing ups and downs, Runners of the Nish explores how a group of disparate young men learn to use a common goal to become the most powerful versions of themselves on the cross-country course and beyond. And through it all, the question looms larger and larger, will any of it be enough for the St. FX Blue and White to find glory on the Plains of Abraham?...

294 pages, Paperback

Published July 26, 2018

About the author

A writer and runner from Prince Edward Island, Canada, Alex created a running blog for the website www.trackie.com and has written for Canadian Running Magazine. He currently writes with new endurance sports media company WELLE Stories. At present, he lives in an apartment low in area but high in character located at the heart of Windsor, Ontario – with two other running nerds – where used shoes, posters of Steve Prefontaine, and boxes of Shreddies are ubiquitous. This is his first book.

Reviews

[Vincent Leclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un livre qui parle de la saison où Moncton a terminé au 3e rang du SUA derrière une très forte équipe de St Fx.

[Alex Abboud · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the concept, and was particularly interested in this as a runner myself, but the execution fell flat. A story about a season of St. FX University’s cross country team ends up being a basic relaying of events, and doesn’t get below the surface or go in depth. We learn what happened but not much beyond biographical information about the characters. If the author has observations - good or bad - about his peers, they’re not shared here. What do the author and his teammates love about running? What motivates them and their coaches to keep doing this? What’s the reason one teammate never really applies himself? What did the author have to do to go from a self-described marginal recruit to one of the best runners on the team? The potential for a great book is there in this story, but this version didn’t deliver.

[Josh Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love cross country running so I might be slightly biased if I say I loved this book.
Alex perfectly describes the excitement, anxiety, and determination one experiences racing xc. You never know how the season and races are going to go, but you know you'll make some damn good memories along the way.

[Lawrence Xie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially ignorantly skeptical before reading Runners of the Nish. I have a high interest interest in the Canadian athletics scene having run varsity middle distance at UW during my undergrad years. However the running community is filled with blogs that are weakly written with superficial cliches describing the art of running around in a circle. In my opinion, even the famous "Once a Runner" by John L. Parker fall short by measure of writing quality in this regard (the sequel is significantly improved).

I was surprised immediately upon reading this book.

Alex Cyr writes with extreme genuity and builds emotional gravitas surrounding the St FX cross-country season. Many of the descriptions and events trigger intense nostalgia over remembering universal milestones of the collegiate athlete experience. Still, what I find most impressive is how Cyr avoids a novice mistake of telling rather than showing.

Where appropriate, Cyr includes the personal bests of his teammates and competitors. After all for true runners, those are the only stats that matter. But Cyr does not provide needless diction of the characters' thoughts and past events. Instead, the author builds rich characters from careful description of seemingly minute actions. These serve to thoroughly paint multidimensional men, which readers can relate to. All runners can sympathize with the stubborn reluctance to refrain from training or racing when encountering pain. Alex Cyr writes so that everyone can relive this experience and glimpse the motivations behind why these young men push their bodies to such extreme fatigue.

The conclusion is especially poignant and one can tell that the author likely started his writing here. It draws upon four years of running with the St FX singlet and in typical coming-of-age story fashion, readers reflect on their own growth. The running community in Canada is small and so I personally may have crossed paths with the author at some track race or another. As runners we live our own individual storylines as we approach races with what we feel are unique joys and hardships. It is worth appreciating that many sentiments are shared by others that toe the start line. This books serves as an excellent reminder of that camaraderie.