Oooops ... I mean the track team has an eating obsession.  

That’s right, I said it. However, you wouldn’t be able to tell by just looking at the Cornell track team or our record times. Unless you are a sports junkie, most people don’t know much about us. Not only are we one of the hottest teams on campus but we are also one of the hardest working teams as well. Come to the outdoor track or Barton, depending on the weather, at 4:30 p.m. every day and you will find us drilling, running, throwing, hurdling and jumping. For the past eight –– yes, count them –– eight years in a row the men’s track team has been the best outdoor track team in the Ivy League. The women have been the best outdoor track team the past eight out of nine years. Not many other teams can say that! But yes, we do have a problem. We love to eat.  

The men’s and women’s track teams are very close. In order to bond even more, we eat. A lot. I think of it like a giant family. What does every family do to catch up after a busy day? They share a meal. Well, my giant family is a little unconventional. Instead of sitting around a table, eating and sharing stories, we bond by stuffing ourselves with enough food to make anyone sick.  

For example ... 

In the fall, we organize an optional event called “The Fruit by the Foot 100-Yard Relay.” We lay out 100 yards of fruit by the foot (17 boxes’ worth) and a team of two people eats for an hour attempting to finish the 100 fruit by the foot roll ups. Last year no one finished. The winning team made it 43 yards! Quite an accomplishment! Unrolling the fruit roll ups became difficult and if you stuffed too much in your mouth at a time, your jaws became really sore. The fruit by the foot became overwhelmingly sweet and some of the teams didn’t bring enough water to wash out their mouths. As you can imagine, many teams went home feeling VERY full. So if some Saturday this fall you see a bunch of people on the football field stuffing their faces with fruit roll ups, you will know it’s just the track family bonding over food.  

Our next eating event is the epic Food Olympics. We take another hour of our lives and shove as much food into our mouths as possible. It is an individual event ending when someone finishes the allotted mass amount of food or makes the biggest dent at the end of the hour. Everyone is allowed to choose the food with only a few requirements. First, the food can’t have been eaten in previous years and you must eat the food in huge quantities. For example, last year some athletes attempted to consume 50 frosted sugar cookies, 30 pancakes, two tubs of peanut butter, 30 bananas, three rolls of cookie dough and three gallons of applesauce.  

When I arrived as a spectator, I was shocked by all the food. In my 20 years of life, I have never seen more food on one table. A huge ping-pong table was set up outside with food covering every inch of it and hungry contestants standing around ready to eat. The winner ate an entire pack of saltine crackers, without water, within the hour. Not far behind was the athlete that consumed 30 pancakes. It was a humbling moment because I can’t even imagine eating so much food. While watching the events, the upperclassman could not stop talking about previous years and the amazing eating feats of the alumni. They could not stop saying, “Remember the time … ” and telling the freshmen and sophomores the funny (and at times gross) stories that happened in previous years. So many memories are made at the Food Olympics and through our fixation for food we bond as a team.  

Now, when in season, we get serious. Of course we don’t stop eating, but we become a little bit more of a traditional family. Along with eating as a team in the RPCC dining hall most nights after practice, we organize a “Pump Up Potluck” before our big Ivy League Heptagonal Championships. This dinner is for everyone that has trained so hard all season preparing for our championship meet. Similar to normal potlucks, everyone brings a dish and we fill the track center with food and talk of accomplishing goals we have been working towards all year. The purpose of this meal is to get both the men’s and women’s teams excited about competing and bringing home another Ivy League championship for Cornell. 

Food brings us –– the Cornell track team –– together. We run so we can eat. We eat so we can bond. We bond so we can become a united team fighting for our Ivy League title.