How I FINALLY found my German track team

During the CBYX pre-departure briefings, the CBYX team kept emphasizing that you really have to take initiative to make your time in Germany what you want it to be. Turns out, they weren’t kidding. There are lots of things that you don’t have any control over, so depending on where you end up, you might really have to make a major effort to shape your experience in the ways that you can control.

For me, the biggest issue was finding a sports team. I am a three-sport athlete back home and was recruited to run track in college, so the isolation of my German home on a farm compound outside a tiny village was kind of a shock. My school is in a bigger town about a 45 minute bike ride away and about the same by city bus, which comes once an hour to a bus stop 2 kilometers from my house.

Schools in Germany don’t have sports, but people of all ages participate in sports through a Sportverein, which are community based multi-sport clubs. Almost all of them offer Fußball (soccer) and a mix of other sports. In bigger cities and towns, there will be multiple Sportvereine.

A lot of my CBYX friends had no problem at all finding their sports in their host towns or cities. One of my running buddies from language camp, Jose, who lives a few hours away from me, found a great running community through his host dad, who is a distance runner like him. And other CBYX friends found dance/cheer teams or music groups and even track teams nearby. But for me, trying to find a running team that I could get to by bike & public transport from the middle of nowhere was a complex and multi-month effort.

When I first arrived, my host parents tried to help me look around for a track or cross-country team, but my village only has one small Sportverein with very few sports. Even the ones in my school town didn’t offer running. For lack of anything else, I joined the all-ages mixed-gender volleyball team for the fall. I was the youngest member of the team, and honestly not nearly as good as most of my 40-60 year old teammates, who had been playing for many years. I gave up on running with a track or cross-country team and just ran alone in the farm fields. I joined a gym that I could get to by bike and lifted weights a few days a week.

It was depressing not to have a real sports team after playing three sports for most of my high school career, and even more depressing when it got into the dark winter months.For my mental health, I realized I had to keep trying to find a team. 

During Christmas break, I started obsessively searching Google maps in my general area, zooming in on any kind of sports complex that looked like it might have a track. I made a list of anything I found, the name of the town, the name of the track or sports facility. Then I searched the names of the tracks on Instagram, trying to cross reference any kind of team Instagram account that was associated with the track facilities.

Through this process, I found ONE track team that had an Instagram account. It was 1.5 hours away from me by bus and train, but that’s actually not too outrageous because it already takes 45 minutes to an hour just for me to get to school in the morning.

I messaged the team account on Instagram and got a response that said I could come and start practicing with them. I was so happy to have a team again! I could only do the commute twice a week due to my school schedule, but better than nothing. The team was called Leichtathletik-Verband Nordrhein in Duisberg and they had great facilities and also a really strong training program. Teams at the Sportvereine are all ages, from little kids up to 20+ year old national competition level. I practiced with the Duisberg team for about a month and a half and met some runners my age who I really liked, but about ⅓ of the time, the train or bus was either cancelled or delayed. Once it turned into an 8 hour round trip, between the journey there and back plus the practice in the middle.

My host family thought I was crazy.

The team in Duisberg was understanding about my transportation predicament and helped me get in contact with another team a little closer to my host village called LAZ Rhede. It’s still an hour long commute by bus because my home is so remote, but it’s geographically much closer than my first team, only about 15 minutes by car. I eventually found a teammate who lives kind of close to me and has a car, so I just have to ride my bike a few kilometers to her house to catch a ride. And if all else fails, I have actually ridden my bike to the track in about 30 minutes. Needless to say, riding my bike on hilly dirt farm roads for 30 minutes doesn’t leave a ton of energy in my legs for sprint practice, but it’s better than not going at all.

It turns out that being on a sports team is essential to my happiness, not just for the exercise aspect but also the community aspect. Since I found my team at LAZ Rhede, I feel so much more like myself again. My teammates are great, a whole new set of supportive, active friends. The LAZ Rhede head coach Jurgen and my sprint coach were welcoming and helpful, and I’ll miss them. Unfortunately, I didn’t find LAZ Rhede in time to compete in the winter indoor track season, but I’m really happy that I was able to compete in two spring track meets with my team before my CBYX year comes to an end. My race times aren’t back up to my US standards yet, but it has been totally worth it! The friends I made on the team are definitely people I hope to keep in touch with and hopefully welcome them when they come to visit or compete in the US.

The fall and winter were pretty rough for me without any real sports and it was also kind of annoying that I had to jump through so many hoops to finally find a track team. It was truly discouraging at times and I felt like I was just fumbling and constantly being beat down by Deutsche Bahn and the bus system. But the main thing I took away from this experience is that you really, REALLY have to take the initiative and make things happen for yourself. Sure, we were warned during CBYX orientation, but I didn’t expect that it would be such a freaking difficult process. The bottom line, though, is that if you use some creativity and are willing to fumble your way through and reach out to strangers on the internet for help, you can shape your experience to meet your priorities.