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.
