Loneliness of a Lady Ram distance runner on the rocky, winding road to excellence
March 14, 2024 at 1:24 a.m.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going, as the saying goes, but that saying doesn't go far enough when applied to Port Chester's top Lady Rams distance runner Alexandra Cruz, a student-scholar-leader extraordinaire who has gone farther than most—and not just on the track.
Alexandra has a 98.4 GPA, is a super soulful flute soloist with Port Chester's nationally-ranked marching band, a member of the National Honor Society, a leader among leaders in the STEER for Student Athletes program and the idealistic yet realistic dream girl her coaches consider one of the hardest workers they have ever seen on and off the track.
Alexandra is also a "second mom" and bread winner for her family, her intrinsic strength helping her—and them—overcome all kinds of obstacles, real, anticipated, even unimaginable and of the head-spinning variety.
Old beyond her years
Her life experience makes her 17 going on 77, old beyond her years, a 5:5, 120-pound selfless optimist with her hair swept back as though to sweep away any pessimism.
She has known the loneliness of the long-distance runner yet keeps on going no matter what. And Alexandra has already seen things no teen should ever have to see, play scenes no teen should ever have to play, live through dramas no kid should ever have to live through while learning the hard way that life ain't no disco, this ain't no party, this ain't no fooling around like the song says.
In fact, if Port Chester gave an Academy Award for best overall performance in and out of the classroom under trying circumstances, Alexandra would be the local version of "Oppenheimer," the film that won seven Oscars this past Sunday (3-10) because the Cruz story is made of the stuff from which Hollywood films are made. Albeit what Alexandra is living through is all too real.
Always on the run
The girl they call Aleeeecruuuzzz doesn't call attention to herself. She doesn't talk the talk or walk the walk, she runs the run because she has learned that your mouth can't do the running for you, so she gives everything, she does everything she has because she has had to. She has lived the first generation's upwardly mobile immigrant life up close and personal in downbeat circumstances that haven't deterred her from wanting to become the first in her family to go to college.
So hers isn't a Hollywood-scripted, happily-ever-after, make believe world because her life is lived in a dramatically surrealistic world where actions speak louder than words and you have to act for yourself and those you love because nobody else will. Especially when the bills come due.
So Alexandra never takes a day off, never takes a minute off, never takes a second off because she has learned the hard way not to take anything for granted, that time is more than a number and those numbers add up to a finite limit, so make the most of them on your way to the finish line. Which in Alee's case is whatever comes next on her way to and after high school graduation and the end of her Lady Rams athletic career.
Sisters Liz and Alexandra Cruz are both long-distance runners for the Lady Rams, here posing at The Armory in New York City on Feb. 12 during the Class AA Track & Field Championships.Courtesy of Santiago Marquez
While she is short on cash and college tuition won't be easy, Alee isn't short on dreams, hope and ambition. She is well-grounded with a quiet strength born of necessity, a survivor who has gone beyond suffering, forgiving if not forgetting, indomitable in dealing with the inevitable.
Which is why Alexandra's inspirational story goes much further and unimaginably deeper than imaginable.
Long and short of it
Alee's story stretches all the way from El Salvador whence her parents came to her working more than 40 hours per week after school as a bakery assistant at a supermarket and then coming home to do her homework and study into the wee hours. And then she wakes up early for school and starts all over again, going to class, going to track and band practice, on the run, run, run all the time, going to work, going home to more schoolwork, late night study and familial responsibilities. Sleeping when she can. And all the while Alee is dreaming, dreaming, always dreaming the American dream of making it into college, becoming a computer engineer and earning enough money to buy her family a home someday.
Juggling different roles
In between dreaming the dream, she juggles all kinds of roles to earn badly-needed bucks to pay the rent and keep food on the table as the teen-turned-mother-provider of sorts, necessity changing her into the familial maternal influence who acts as a role model for her siblings and a source of loving support and comfort for her parents whose education ended in elementary school back in their home country, the lack thereof making their life difficult here while fueling their daughter's boundless drive to excel.
So Alexandra isn't an actor playing a role. She is the leading lady in an all too real local drama that keeps playing out every day in Port Chester where the melting pot keeps lots of plots and sub plots boiling to the point where too many less fortunates get burned on their way in and out.
Alexandra's father, Josée, is a seasonal landscaper, which means there isn't much if any work during the winter, Alexandra explains. And her mother, Ana, is a sporadic house cleaner whose illness and lack of opportunity has limited her work hours.
"My story is based on my parents and how they have helped me in so many ways," Alexandra says simply and not so simply. "They were not born here, they were born in El Salvador, but they have been my inspiration and mentors since I was a young girl. My dad came to Port Chester in the late 1990s or early 2000s but has been in the U.S. since the 1980s-90s. My mother came to Port Chester in 2005. They have both taught me everything I know and how to survive in the world. Since they hardly know any English and I'm the oldest, I usually always help them with things like translating, reading, and documents."
She doesn't say that complainingly. Just as a matter of fact.
The parental motivation
"My parents are the reason why I do what I do and why I am so motivated to succeed," she says. "I want to include the fact that I will always be grateful for everything that everyone has given me, even in the bad experiences at times because I learn something every time."
And there have been bad experiences. Like the soul-searing burning peppers episode last year when she and her family's life nearly went up in smoke during what she describes as the worst year of her life.
She remembers what it was like to walk into her family's smoke-filled second floor apartment near the projects to see her mother standing by the stove burning peppers, a trait in most Hispanic cultures that is a spiritual practice used to cleanse and get rid of evil spirits, according to Alexandra, describing what happened next in her own words.
"Although it's common in other households, it wasn't in mine nor have I ever heard about it," Alee said. "My mother has never burned peppers before or talked about it while I was growing up. I could never understand why she would do this since there were other families in the building including one with a newborn baby."
But she didn't have to understand it because it was happening in front of her eyes.
"All I could do was stare at her with my siblings (Elizabeth and James) behind me. I asked her, 'Why would you do this?! Were you not thinking or what?!
Her mother's response, she said, was dry and cold and unforgettable. ”Because I wanted to,” Alexandra remembers her mother saying. “No matter how long I stared into her eyes, I could not recognize the person who taught me to be strong and hardworking, the woman who comforted me when I was upset. I could not recognize my mother, she was gone, and my light was gone. All I could do was hope that she would be herself again, but she was just stuck in a psychotic episode. But eventually, she went to the hospital to be treated and left the rest of us."
The painful blur
What followed was a blur, but a painful blur that nonetheless clearly had to be lived through.
"Each day that went by I just wanted her to return, but that wasn't possible yet," Alee said. "During the week I had to figure out my way around the world for my family. I was forced to take on my mother's responsibilities because I was the oldest and strongest," Alexandra recalled. "After school, I was either learning how to or paying bills that were going to be due. To my siblings, I was the light of their life like my mom was to me. For that reason, they always called me 'their second mom,' but I always hated that name because my mom wasn't gone. Her figure was present every day; she just wasn't mentally here.
The Cruz Family, from left, Elizabeth, Ana, Alexandra, José and James Cruz on Alexandra’s 17th birthday.Courtesy of Alexandra Cruz
"While we waited for my mom to return, my father was the one who stayed with her while I was with my siblings. Out of everyone, my father is the strongest, but even then he was terrified, we all were. He told me to never show my fear because we had to take care of the family, we had to show them that everything would be okay even if it wasn't right now. At that moment, nothing else mattered other than making sure my siblings were okay. In the winter my father never worked because he was a landscape worker, so now it was just me working because neither of my parents could.
Multitasking necessary
"During this time, I was forced to be able to do many things at once, from being a student, to being an athlete, to working, to being a 'second mom', and an oldest sister (Liz is a junior and Lady Ram track star in her own right and kid brother James is a Middle Schooler). I was tired but still managed to push through to let my siblings have a stable life. Being the oldest made me grow up at a young age, and already having those responsibilities and now my mother's showed me a lot about the world. Life is hard and cruel, but it showed me that everything happens for a reason."
Even when those reasons didn't always seem to make sense at that time. Alexandra knew she just had to live through what was happening and help her family get through those dark days by setting a positive example whether she really felt that way or not.
"Once my mother got back from the hospital, our family dynamic was much closer than before," Alee remembered. "I learned that the world is a scary place, but learning to deal with it and adapt is what would get you through. I've never been more grateful to have my family and to be able to understand the world through a different perspective. The way I handled it was just using motivation. I knew that eventually things would be okay and being strong for my siblings was the easiest way to let them know everything will be okay eventually."
And eventually it was and is and things did get better and keep on getting better one day at a time.
Alexandra learned to lose herself in the classroom, on the track, with the band, in music and during work.
Major accomplishments
"One of the biggest accomplishments that I could think of is that I was able to balance everything I am doing on top of keeping up with my academics with an almost straight A average," she said. "Another highlight would be getting the high honor roll since Middle School. In my academic career my biggest inspirations are my parents and my siblings. My parents have always encouraged me to try my hardest in everything that I do. They are one of the many reasons why I try my hardest in everything I do. My siblings are another reason why I try my hardest. To them I am their example and their role model and being the oldest I know that I will always have them as a support system."
And then there was learning how to lose herself on the track, running against time and herself with an increasingly powerful stride that became stronger and more graceful and fluid with every practice because she worked hard to give it her all each time, every time, because that's how she is made.
"My sister Elizabeth talked me into running because it was such fun, so I decided to give it a try," Alexandra remembered. "I never thought I would get to love it so much. But I do. I love my teammates, my running, my coaches."
Rams then T&F head coach Nick Mancuso saw she was fast from the outset, but her smooth stride made her more than just a sprinter, so he sent her over to distance coach Hank Birdsall who saw the heart she had that could make her one of his best runners.
On the first run
"What would you like to run?" Birdsall asked the first time he met her.
"Whatever you want me to run," Alexandra responded.
"Let's start with the 400 meters," Birdsall suggested.
And she did, running the metric equivalent of a quarter mile at full speed, her lungs raw, raspy, sand papery and gasping for her next breath midway through the seemingly never-ending run, her arms clawing through the air as though they could help pull her over the unforgiving distance, her feet gradually feeling as though they were getting tied up, her thighs locked in crumbling concrete that felt like they were close to falling off, every closing stride towards the end more painful than the last.
"I was afraid, I was scared I couldn't make it to the finish, but I knew I wasn't going to stop," Alee remembered. "I knew I just had to keep pushing through."
And she did. And along the way and as practice time passed and she progressed through races run, she learned how to pace herself as she moved up and down from the 800 meters to the 600 to the 200 meters, becoming one of the team's best and most versatile runners at metric distances ranging from what amounts to an all-out sprint to a long-striding, well-paced half-mile run, a 2-4-6-8 gauntlet not for the faint-hearted. Her teammates admired her grit and followed her lead from the beginning. Birdsall admired her heart and made her his long-distance team captain as a sophomore, and she has been his captain ever since.
Math & music blend
When there were times when Alee couldn't put her feelings into words, there was her music. And the fleshed-out musical notes said what words couldn't.
"I have been part of the Port Chester music program for around eight years now, ever since I was in the fourth grade," Alexandra notes. "I have always loved listening and making music, there have been so many opportunities that the band has given me that allowed me to continue loving music. Last year at the district concert I was able to have a solo and this year for our marching band season I auditioned for a solo and got it. My biggest influence in the band is Mr. Miceli. He was my first music teacher before he moved up to the high school. He taught me everything I needed to know to improve. He not only taught me music notes, he taught me different aspects of life and how everything could relate. Without him, I would not have the amount of confidence I have with music.
Anyone who has heard her play that haunting flute solo from Dvorak's Third World Symphony during one of the marching band's performances knows how well she has learned those lessons because of the life experience that comes from her lips in the emotional way she plays, past hurt and suffering coming out in the sound of music, the hurt giving way to hope lingering in the air, time remembered, present, past, beautiful, sad, hopeful, transitory, aching, disappearing.
And then there are the numbers that don't lie, that also say what words can't say, on their way to the right answer to the bottom line, a linear truth that needs no interpreter. That matter-of-factness appeals to Alexandra. And that's why she thinks "my favorite subject in school is math. Ever since I was younger, I have always loved math because I felt that I was good at it. Reading was never my strongest, but math replaced that. When I was in elementary school at JFK, there were times where our old school principal, Mr. Cuglietto, would teach us math during recess when it was raining outside instead of watching movies. To most it was a really boring experience, but for me, I really loved everything about it."
And still does. That's why she wants to make that love of numbers the passion of her working life. Her ideal job would be becoming a computer engineer. But first comes high school graduation. Next hopefully comes college at one of the SUNY schools, maybe Binghamton, perhaps UConn, and finally, gradually, eventually, hopefully, the future holds the kind of financial success that will enable her to buy that home for her family that she dreams about.
Describes typical day
So there isn't much time for sleep and dreams during Alexandra's day. But when Alee was asked what a typical day in her life is like, she said the hours are never enough because no day is ever really typical except that, whatever happens, she will handle it. But when a day is relatively uneventful, a typical day would be: "At the start of my day, I wake up and get ready for school, and after that either my parents drive me to school, or I drive," she said. "Before school we drop off my brother and his friend to the Middle School and then go to the high school. After school, there are multiple activities that I do during the year. In the Fall, for example, I went home walking and then went to band practice for three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Saturday competitions. The winter and spring season are somewhat different where I go straight to track practice from 3:15-4:30. During the week I work at Wegmans (the upscale supermarket on Corporate Park Drive in Harrison) as a part-time bakery associate, and my dad usually takes me to work. I work around 3-5 days during the week. On the weekdays I work up to 3.5 hours a day and during the weekends up to six. I usually work on weekdays from 5:30-9:00 and on weekends 3:00-9:00. Once I get home, that's when I start my homework and study for the next day."
And then it starts all over again. Until it doesn't. Because when the high school year ends and Alee's last Lady Rams race has been run, she is looking forward to the biggest turning point in her life so far: "That would be my becoming the first person in my family to go to college," she said. "Since my parents were never able to get a true education past elementary school, this is the biggest thing for me because I am able to accomplish their dreams and mine at the same time. This is because I am so grateful for everything that they have given me because I understand that it was not easy, but they helped me get to the point where I can go to college to major in computer and electrical engineering so I can become a software engineer."
And then the Alexandra Cruz story will be one step closer to a happy ending.
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