Monday, October 16, 2017

The Realest Race I Never Expected To Have

I woke up. It wasn’t dark out. I rolled over and checked my watch- 8:30am, nice! I haven’t slept that late in weeks. I fidgeted with unzipping my sleeping bag, removed myself from its warmth, took the gloves off of my feet, and put my shoes on. I opened my tent, removed the rain tarp, and looked out. In front of me, the freshly cut grass showed lingering signs of frost. Beside me on my left was a firepit and driveway with three vehicles; on my right was the house that I lived in during my last year of college. To my surprise, one of my former teammates was standing on the porch, running clothes on and GPS signals waiting. I was taken aback because I thought we were going to morning run together, but after seeing me he relented and I went to go put on my running clothes. I got to jog for 10 minutes on the greenway, which I’ve been missing lately. My legs and feet in my new Trail Minimus felt fresh. It was race day.

We watched The Office as we ate our oatmeal. I haven’t really ever enjoyed that show, but for some reason watching it with old teammates brought out the best (and simultaneously the worst) qualities of the show- it’s painful awkwardness and- at times- borderline racist humor. I laughed; it felt good to laugh again with the boys. I thought of checking my watch to make sure I was eating at the right time; see, in college I had my 3 hours before a race nailed down practically to the minute. Everything had to be meticulously planned out to perfection in order to expect perfection. I always put pressure on myself to make sure everything was right, especially after I was received on the team as the one who always did the little things properly. Now? Hey, I’m hungry and I’m gonna have some oatmeal. Oh, I have a race in a few hours so I should make sure to just put a little more in there. Tasted pretty good, too.

After that, we headed over to the HPC (High Performance Center). Basically, there was a chance of rain so the track coach opened up the track for us to warm up if we wanted. For Connor, this was his chance to show off the flashy (literally flashy, with lights and stuff) speaker they have booming during track workouts. Essentially, this turned into the song-sharing that any driver with an aux cord is well aware of. We try to one-up each other with songs we believe are better and musicians we know the other person hasn’t heard of- practically, it becomes a competition.  We bum around and wait for others to show up. The most striking sense to me is the overwhelming feeling of nostalgia that I don’t have. In fact, much the opposite- the smell of the track isn’t tantalizing or sweet; it smells of sweat, tough workouts, pain, tiredness, and suffering. You know, I was reflecting a few weeks ago on what workout of my college career I would call my ‘best’ or ‘toughest’. It’s something people always want to know about other runners- what’s that BIG workout you do? You know, that one workout that leaves you walking funny for a few days? People are always starting threads on letsrun.com wondering what one workout they can do to help them succeed, or even how fit they are from one (likely killer) workout. Even though all of training knowledge points to these kinds of workouts being a detriment to long-term speed development, nonetheless we do them, and often. 

Two workouts stood out to me- one immediate, and one after a little more thinking. The first was December of my fifth year of college. We had finished cross country, which I didn’t have eligibility for, so I took a break early and got ready for track. We jumped into the speed workouts fairly early on, and I found myself in early December doing 4x800 with I believe 2:30 recovery. In high school, the fastest indoor 800 I ran was about 2:09. On this day, I did 4 indoor 800s in around 2:08 for each, all by myself. That really got the wheels turning, and I remember that before each one I was thinking to myself (no, no, please no, time please slow down), but time can be an unflinching enemy of runners and I had to keep going. After the last one, I had to lay down for a while, and my cooldown was awful. I’ve always had a deep-seated hatred for 600s and 800s. Not sure why, but I don’t miss that workout. 

The second was again during the cold season of my fifth year of college, and again on the indoor track. This workout was fairly simple by design: 5 1000-meter repeats at 5000 meter goal race pace, with 3:00 recovery. In actuality, it was tough. You know, the running itself wasn’t the hardest part; that honor again belonged to finding enough motivation to toe the start line and take off 3 minutes after I had finished the previous one. For me, the paces were around 2:50-2:55 per kilometer, which translated roughly to 14:10-14:20 5k pace, which we believed, and I still to this day believe, I was completely capable of running. Similar to the previous workout, the cooldown was just plain rough. I don’t do workouts like that anymore, and they really just exhaust you and can contribute quite a bit to burn out, especially during a 9 month season. 

Snap back to reality, we left the HPC and I wasn’t too bummed. Yeah, it’s without a doubt the nicest track facility in the Midwest, but I need some more time before I’m ready to enjoy it again. You know, it took me about 6 years after being done swimming competitively before being in a pool was fun again. The smell of chlorine just made me plain ol tired. We went over to the race course. All the teams were already there and the women’s race was going to start in about 20 minutes. It was race day. 

My warmup for the race was different this time than when I was in college. The amount of minutes during my jog didn’t matter, and neither did what stretches I chose, the amount of drills, or how many strides I ran. The main idea was this: are my muscles warm, and are they ready to go fast? Once the answer to those questions is yes, you’re warmed up. Some teams do 15 minute warmups, some do 20. Some teams do strides during warmup, some don’t. Some do static stretching, some don’t. It really doesn’t matter, and if you judge a team by how they do their warmup, all you’re really showing is your own insecurities. Are you physically ready to race? If the answer is yes, then who cares how you got there? Do the least amount of work possible to be physically ready. Boom. 

So I’m ready to race now. Around me are hordes of college guys living vastly different lifestyles than I. These guys have classes, peer groups, teammates, and probably student debt. Almost all of them live in dorms, apartments, or college houses, all in cities much larger than any of the towns in the surrounding area. Many of them are in their teens and lower 20s (because no Mormon schools like Weber State, BYU, Utah State, Utah Valley, U of Utah, or Southern Utah are here #salt) and I’m 24. I’ve had a college career, many of theirs are in the making. Most of these athletes run in the afternoon, sun shining and warm, I run every morning in the cold darkness, running quiet roads by myself in western North Dakota. I feel out of place, a tired and tattered old man coming from the boonies to race a bunch of upstart, young boys. I’m afraid because all of my training has been longer, slower-paced workouts and not as much speed, and I’m worried these guys are going to run like hell down the opening straight. I fear the inevitable pain of racing. How out of shape am I going to be? Last two times I’ve raced here I’ve been the second finisher, what if I can’t even place top ten? My nerves bounce around like jello on a plate. Good thing I’m not hungry. It’s race day.

The gun goes off. 

We’re barreling down the opening straight. A couple kids go straight to the front, attacking the pace and dreaming of glory. The rest of us responsibly pack up behind them. I feel like I’m running a workout right now, relaxed and really not in any kind of pain or stress. I’m surprised that we’re running slow, like 3 years ago when we came through the first mile in 5:15. I find myself in an odd state of suppressed and reserved confidence. Something probably will happen soon because this isn’t right, I reasoned to myself. We came up to the first mile and I hear “57….58….59….5:00” and I’m stunned. We are actually running as fast as any other year, and we definitely aren’t slacking on the pace, but I’m feeling good! While traversing all the hairpin turns of the Ron Pynn course, I find myself suddenly thrust into the one situation I wasn’t prepared for: going for the win. I could win this thing!

The pace is quickening. I can’t prove it because I didn’t wear a watch and no one gave us splits, but I can feel us speeding up around every corner. One by one athletes are giving up their dreams and falling off the back of the front pack. We go all the way down to 4 before we are done with the first half of the race. All four of us know each other, and it’s perfectly written: two UND runners and two NDSU runners (I’m including myself as UND because I can) racing for the win at the UND home meet. What a rush!

Then comes the pain. By halfway into the race I’m hurting, bad. I’m not injured, my legs feel fine, and my breathing is controlled, but each step is getting progressively difficult. The pace is starting to wear me down, and I’m digging for motivation to stay with this seemingly stronger group. I find myself reflecting on Eluid Kipchoge, my current favorite athlete. His attitude towards racing fast is one of anticipation: the dude just loves racing and training. At this point during the race, I was repeating to myself in my head: ‘embrace the pain, enjoy the race, this is fun’ and I found, believably, that it was quite true. I did enjoy grinding up front with everything I had. I wasn’t going to peel off of this group because this is what I trained for. I would rather literally fall over and pass out from exhaustion than be relegated to a chase group. So I hugged onto the leaders with my buddy Cataldo and we fought.

And fought

And fought

You know, it was kind of funny- some of the freshman trackies at UND I could hear cheering in the crowd were suddenly saying, ‘Go Cataldo! Go Nate!’ ...I’ve never met these folks before, but man I felt like a celebrity! Well, maybe not a celebrity, but it was pretty cool.

And fought

We can smell the finish line at this point. We’re about a half mile away, and we’re down to three runners, every one of us prepared to go to the grave before giving up this victory. We’re all breathing like animals, tired as heck, and ready for the others to give up first. Distance runners are some of the mentally strongest people I’ve ever met in my life. I’ve watched teammates and competitors cross the finish line of races and collapse because they cannot push their body another step, all in pursuit of dreams and goals. It’s what gets them out of the house to run every day, to push through all kinds of pain and soreness. At this moment, where I would’ve torn my legs apart to beat these two runners, I simultaneously had a deep, enduring respect for both of them.  It’s a strange thing, how pushing your body to the limit with another person can unexpectedly give you something in common, to share. A story, a memory, a pain- they were there with you. At this moment, all of my focus was on these two people, and the crowd was simply unwavering, undecipherable noise in the background. 

About 200 meters from the finish is a short hill to climb, followed by a 180-degree turn for the sprint to the finish. Each of us threw everything up that hill. I could both feel and watch what was happening. First it was that feeling that my body was done, completely and totally done. The second was noticing the bodies in front of me getting farther and farther away, and I was powerless to do anything. I had no more gears, no more mental strength- it was all gone. My energy reserves failing, the two pulled away and dueled to the finish. Something was happening behind me, but how far I wasn’t sure. I focused on the line ahead of me and kept pushing. 

And pushing

And pushing

And done

There was thick cloud cover in the sky above me. I searched through it and examined it. They spoke no words to me, but I threw some up anyway. I was here, smiling. For these few seconds before the next athlete crossed the finish line, people would be looking at me. If I looked in a mirror at this moment, I might come to understand why, but I knew not how I looked, but only how I felt. I wanted to prance with joy, but my legs were weak. I wanted to yell, but I couldn’t breathe. People immediately try to come up to you after a race- teammates, family, friends, but I had none of that. Unlike most of my races, I was allowed to die in peace, rather than be bombarded. I could enjoy this moment and suck it in with each deep, life-giving breath. I made myself a slave to the race, and I became free. For the last 25 minutes, I made my own decisions, I pushed my body, I prayed for strength, I fought, and I didn’t win. Nobody can take that away from me. In other sports, positions can be given or taken away based on subjective assessments of coaches, parents, or officials. Running is real; were you at the start line? Did you run your heart out? Did you win? You essentially make your own path, it just so happens that two others ran that path a little faster than I did. I love it.


I run my cooldown and pack up my stuff. With the obvious exceptions of former teammates (thanks y’all), I’m a largely forgotten footnote of a great race. In a week, only a few will remember. In a year, the race is just a result. In five years, we are names on a paper buried in the annals of the University of North Dakota. No records were broken, no trophies were won, no one person was immortalized. However, for each person on that day, they accomplished something you can’t take away from them; something that will stick with them for as long as they live. Details may blur and times may be forgotten, but you never forget the feeling of running fast, side-by-side with someone as strong as you. In that moment, you become a part of something deep and uncomprehendable. I chose to live in joy and hop in my car to ride home. After all, it was race day.