He wants the hurt. That's what Noah Stevenson craves the most during the second half of his run. It's what the "Super Senior" will look to achieve as the Kansas State cross country season begins with the men's 8K at 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the 2021 Cowboy Jamboree on the campus of Oklahoma State University.
A year ago, Stevenson lamented that he "blew up," which in cross country terms can equate to starting at around a 4 minute, 50 second pace and decreasing to at around 5:20 pace. That's what the native of Merriam, Kansas, and former member of Shawnee Mission North's 2016 state championship team, remembers most about the Cowboy Jamboree this time last year. Since his redshirt season at K-State in 2016, he's learned to have a short memory. But some things you just can't totally shake.
K-State finished fifth at the Big 12 Conference meet in 2020. He plans for the Cowboy Jamboree to serve as a solid launching pad for a squad that could finish even higher than fifth in 2021.
And so comes the oxymoron to a sport in which only the most mentally and physically strong can succeed: The hurt, man, the hurt means growth.
"If you're not hurting, you're not going hard enough," Stevenson said. "The first half of the race, you can feel good, but if you're not hurting the second half of the race you're not pushing yourself. It means that you're not running to your potential.
"Yeah, it'd be nice if we blew the roof off of the place and qualify for nationals in this race, but if we can run well as a team and finish well, we can build off this momentum for the rest of the season. I blew up in this race last year. I'm motivated because I cannot allow this early race to end up hurting my momentum."
Stevenson remains amazed by the culture that head coach Ryun Godfrey has built over the course of his career. The trajectory has only continued to blossom to the cadence of feet pounding upon the terrain year after year. This year, Stevenson is particularly impressed with incoming freshman Thomas Hazen and Matthew Hauser, who could "easily" be among the top five runners on the team.
Hazen earned seven top-five finishes at St. Thomas Aquinas High School and placed third at the KSHSAA Class 5A/6A State Championship with a time of 15:57.6 last October. That same month, Hauser, a native of Columbia, Missouri, recorded four first-place finishes and won the MSHSAA Class 5A state title with a season-best time of 15:34.5.
Their story is just beginning.
Stevenson is embarking upon his final chapter to a career that hopes younger runners will embrace due to his consistent improvement — decreasing his time from 28:00 to 24:00 over a span of five years and 17 races. He attributes his success to hard work and the virtues of strength, discipline and goal setting under Godfrey's tutelage, which he understands will benefit him in all areas of his life.
An aspiring mechanical engineer, Stevenson decided after the 2020 season that he would return for a sixth season — a possibility by virtue of the pandemic — after talking with his parents, former athletes, and Godfrey. All of their urging made sense.
"They told me I wouldn't have a chance to compete in this setting, at this level, or in this environment ever again," Stevenson said. "I didn't want to look back on my time here and think that I cut it short when I had a chance to keep it going."
For all of the dire aspects of the pandemic, Stevenson kept in mind the positives that helped him to record a personal best 8K time at the Big 12 Championships with a 26th-place finish while helping the Wildcats to their best finish at the conference meet since 2017.
"I found out that I really enjoyed routine, so I was able to adjust and find routine," Stevenson said. "It stunk having to wear masks and that places were shut down and we weren't able to have as much access as we normally do, but once I found a routine I began thriving again. I realized I could still grow in a lot of ways."
The day typically begins at around 4:40 a.m. Currently, practice starts at 6 a.m. When Manhattan becomes dark and colder, K-State will run in the afternoons. The process begins with 40 miles the first week, then steadily bumping up the mileage to 60 or 70 miles. Stevenson and the other top runners typically go above and beyond to between 90 and 100 miles each week — a tribute to the culture and success that Godfrey has fostered within his program.
Stevenson and Travis Hodge of DeSoto, Kansas, are the only sixth-year seniors remaining in a 2016 recruiting class of four runners.
"We're the oldest in hierarchy and offer a lot of advice to our younger runners," Stevenson said. "I took the initiative for us to seek that higher mileage in training. We had a great group of six fifth-year seniors when I came here, guys who all about the process. There was no messing around. They were good role models. Now Thomas and Matthew, they were among the best in the nation in high school, and it's almost sick how good they can be. They'll be at their best. The trajectory of our program continues to elevate year after year.
"Everyone has bought into the culture. Ryun always repeats to us, 'do right,' which means in and out of practice we must do what is appropriate for training. We dive in and we're committed 100% to trying to be the best we can be. We draw strength from each other."
And Stevenson figures such a team-wide commitment should pay dividends during his final year on the team.
"We're aiming for third or fourth in the Big 12," he said. "We're one of the deeper teams in the league. We're looking to take a collective step. Oklahoma State and Iowa State are the top two, then Texas, and we're probably fourth, and KU or Texas Tech are fifth, but we can reach third if we have a really good day and some other teams have a bad day at the conference meet."
While Stevenson is quick to put most underperforming meets behind him, he holds onto the feeling promoted by his 26th-place finish at the Big 12 Championship last year, which was a positive step for his individual development.
"I was proud of it because I had blown up at the end of the previous race, so it was kind of scary going out hard with some of my teammates who were better-built cross country runners," he said. "Coach Ryun commented on my bravery. I wasn't certain I could finish the race at that pace, but I was really proud of that finish and with how the team ran. We take pride in being a deep team. We don't have the top runner in the nation, but we all run pretty well."
On Saturday, Stevenson heads into the first race of his final season seeking that familiar hurt again — and not blowing out.
"I'm really excited because it's been a while since I've hurt in this kind of way," he said. "You know it's going to hurt and it's going to hurt for a while. This will be a good rust-buster and I'm excited."
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