In the middle of the night, Nathan Szubin ’29 woke up and brought the couch cushions to the kitchen. He arranged the cushions lengthwise on the floor, repositioned his inflatable pillow and slipped back into his sleeping bag as he drifted off again. It was the night before the regional championship race, and as the St. Lawrence University soccer team partied next door, Szubin had to improvise his own quiet.
Improvisation, compromise and finding balance have long shaped Szubin’s life. Szubin practices traditional egalitarian Judaism, differing in philosophy but similar in observance to Orthodox Judaism. A core part of his faith thus involves observing the Sabbath: no driving cars, using phones, or even turning on lights, among other rules, from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown.
At home, the Sabbath is typically spent having family dinners, attending synagogue and relaxing with a book or friends. But since joining the Middlebury cross country team, the Sabbath has looked different for Szubin. He books the closest hotels to each meet weeks in advance, drives down alone during the daytime on Friday and buys his own groceries for each pre-race dinner. He has kept the observance alive, but it has been far from ideal.
“Sitting in a hotel room by myself or sitting around a meet is not my favorite way of spending the Sabbath,” Szubin admitted. “It’s not really how I was raised.” Race days themselves require their own set of accommodations.
On race day, Szubin wakes up without an alarm, although sometimes his Middlebury teammates assist.
“I usually just leave a window open and hope that I get up on time… God usually comes through,” Szubin said.
After a breakfast of bagels, peanut butter and bananas, he either bikes or walks to the meet. At the regional championship, the best option was to stay in St. Lawrence University Cross Country’s townhouse. Szubin got a morning course preview on his walk to the Middlebury team camp.
Despite the logistical hurdles, Szubin’s faith has proved advantageous in numerous aspects of running. One distinct benefit is the spiritual “lock-in” inherent to the Sabbath.
“The spirit of Friday night from a religious standpoint and Friday night as the night before a race tend to actually overlap a fair amount. There’s the idea of religiously disconnecting, getting focused on the spirit of the day, turning off your distractions… you let yourself relax and unwind from the tensions, and I think that’s a very helpful way of going into a race as well.”
Distancing himself from technology and outside distractions is not only meditative, but has also developed a unique extent of bodily awareness as a runner. On any given Saturday in season, if the team is not racing, they are likely working out. From sustained tempo efforts on Creek Rd. to hill repeats up Chipman, precise timing is key for effective training. However, Szubin cannot use a watch — his own intuition must dictate the tempo.
“I can’t go off the pace, so I just go off feel. And I can tell if this feels too fast or too slow, or is this a 5:35 or 5:30 [mile] pace,” Szubin explained.
Szubin’s religious practice has also served a constructive role in racing. Rather than viewing his compromise between running and religion as an obstacle, Szubin finds motivation in the resulting challenges.
“When I stand on the line with everyone else, I know that I’m probably the only one that had to book a hotel five weeks in advance, or bike over there, or stop at Stop & Shop to get my dinner… I do feel a sense that I’ve had to just take an extra step just to be on the line. That gives me more gratitude but also lights a little bit of a fire.”
Accommodating the Sabbath has required an unwavering willingness and flexibility, not only from Szubin, but also from head coach Nicole Wilkerson. In fact, if there was one particular factor that led Szubin to pick Middlebury, it was coach Wilkerson’s immediate acceptance and enthusiasm about jumping through the many hoops posed by the Sabbath.
“When I brought it up to her, she’d already thought seven steps ahead of where I was thinking and was talking about biking to meets in Boston for indoor track when it was icy on the ground,” Szubin recounted.
Regardless, Szubin acknowledges that the balancing act will rarely be perfect. It was tested at the Paul Short invitational earlier in the season. Taking place the morning after the Yom Kippur fast, Szubin’s pre-race routine was significantly thrown off. His finish was satisfactory given the circumstances, but it was clear that Szubin had more in the tank. Between the holiest day of the year and an early-season invitational, one had to give.
Over two months and several crucial races have passed since then.
On the Saturday morning after sleeping on the kitchen floor, Szubin ran a gritty regionals race to cement his spot on Middlebury’s nine-man NCAA nationals roster. To cap off his season, Szubin finished as Middlebury’s sixth runner at the national championship race in South Carolina — an impressive feat for any runner, let alone a first year who has jumped through as many hoops as he has just to race. In only his first fall as a Panther, Szubin has shown his family, team and community a glimpse of what’s possible in balancing the Sabbath and sport.
Simon Schmieder '26 (he/him) is a Senior Sports Editor.
Simon is an avid runner and biker and enjoys spending time outdoors. He is a philosophy and political science joint major with a minor in German, in addition to being a Philly sports fan.
