A LITTLE BIT OF GREATNESS: RACE REPORT

My coach can be a jerk sometimes. I have went through many days where I can't stand him. Many, many days. He's the type of person who makes you feel that he doesn't care about you. He doesn't yell at us but he lets us know that he is very unhappy. I've been told on certain days that we've accomplished nothing or that we just plain suck. He used to expect us to run hard everyday until he began running again over the winter (which has made him a much nicer person and a better coach because he know's what we go through). He does have his good days, which can be very strange, but on those days the workouts seem easier.

Our team, both xc and distance track, do not get a lot of encouragement from him. At meets he wanders around by himself and doesn't talk to us except to yell during the race, if he does that. We don't get pep talks but then again, we also don't get post meet disappointment talks or any other talk. Yet we also don't get "congratulations" or "good jobs" unless we really did extremely well and accomplished something big. And no matter how much you tell yourself after races that you don't care what he says or what he thinks, you do care. His opinion can turn a good day into a bad day or make your good days so much better. His congratulations mean so much more because they are rare. He's not going to give false compliments but he will let you know when you've achieved something great. He is part of the reason that made this meet so special.

We left school around 12:30 and settled in for a nervous, 1:15 hour bus ride. This was a varsity meet, although there were only a few schools we regularly ran against, and it was to be on a 200m indoor track. And lucky me, I, along with my fast teammate JS, received the honor of running the 3000m. That's 15 laps, although it sounds longer than it actually is. I was even more nervous however, since I've only ran one 3000 about two years ago. It was the first meet of the year and a chance to show off how good I had become.

After we arrived at the college where the meet was being held, at around 3:10 JS and I began warming up with some slow laps around the track. We received the news that the state cross country champion was supposed to be in our heat because they weren't splitting us up by time. By the time we agreed on the number of times we would get lapped by her (at least twice), we found out that the heats were now by time so we would be in the second heat. Relief settled upon us but we were still worried about getting lapped because it was, after all, only a 200m track. 3000 meters leaves plenty of time for embarrassment, because if you suck, everyone knows you suck. We left those thoughts behind though once every bit of moisture left our throats. The air was incredibly dry, like all indoor meets, and having a bit of stuffy nose/sore throat, I was worried about it. Everyone had to deal with the same conditions though so that didn't leave me any excuses. I was also unsure on what shoes to wear. I had brought my spikes but following the first meet, whether xc or track, my calves hurt badly and I can't walk without being in pain. My coach told me to just wear my trainers so I ran with my regular shoes that happen to have bright pink shoelaces (others have them too, it's an xc related story).

After some stretching and strides, we headed over to the starting line which was on the opposite side of where you would think it was, so in other words it was a backwards track. We waited for the first heat to finish (state xc champion 10:43, second place 11:35, which meant she not only lapped every single person who ran the 3000m but she lapped others in her own heat twice) and we had those nervous conversations with the other runners that always take place right before a race. Once we stepped onto the track my nervousness went away, as it usually does, because there was no way of getting out of it. The directions were explained to us as we did last minute stretches and then we got ready to go. At this point, when the starter guy told us to "get set" we should've moved forward to another line. None of us did though because no one else did, so there was some stress relieving laughter at our mistake. And then we were off.

JS had somehow decided our goal should be 12:00. I was counting on her to help pace me because my splits are all over the place while she's one of those people who runs exact or negative splits. She knows how to race so I trusted her with the 48 second laps. I was still having trouble believing I could keep up with her because she has always seemed like an unreachable runner although she's a year younger. She believed in me though, so we planned to run together.

Our first lap was 51 seconds (only 14 to go!) which made me finally believe that maybe, just maybe I could keep up with these girls. It was slower than our projected pace and my legs felt pretty good. We had started out in the back, like my coach always tells us to (not that I have a choice most of the time), and since the pace wasn't increasing, we went around the three wide pack. All of a sudden there was only two girls in front of us. Dressed in purple and yellow, they were teammates and seemed to increase the gap with each lap. JS was running good and our laps (which I was still counting down) which my coach was helpfully yelling, were at 49 seconds.

When we had 8 laps left, the race began to feel very long. I couldn't believe we were still not halfway and my legs started to get a twinge of tiredness. I tried to push all these negative thoughts out of my head with the thought of the cyclists I idolize and the recent Paris-Nice ITT. I told myself this was my time trial and that I had to give it all just like those riders did. And then we had seven (7!) laps left and we were over halfway done.

This was when my coach began to yell "you can move up, if you want". This uncharacteristically pleasant shouting threw me off a little but I began noticing that JS and I had actually been decreasing the gap between the front girls and us for awhile. It still seemed we had a ways to go though so I didn't think much about what lay ahead of them.

In the middle of one of the laps, one of the front girls began to fall back. It was slow, hardly noticable, just like JS who was increasing our pace. She caught the girl and all of a sudden I did too. We were running 2-3 which made me think of our jokes before the race with another teammate. We had been saying that "the bell would ring for us" (on the last lap) and that we "were going to finish 1-2" (in our own heat). The possibility of this crossed my mind briefly at this moment but I dismissed it because something extraordinary was happening.....I was lapping people. I was lapping people, people who began the race in front of me, I was a lap ahead of them. And I had been worried about being lapped. I know that when you're being lapped, it is very depressing but lapping someone feels amazing. That feeling became even more amazing when half a lap later, JS moved into the lead.

I was cheering her on in my mind but then I also became aware of what this meant. My teammate also helped me realize this by shouting it at me "1-2, let's go 1-2". My coach thankfully didn't yell it, probably because he was in a state of shock that we were even in this position. I then realized that I had the ability to do something great. JS was doing her part so I had to do mine. We had the chance to make our coach so happy so I was going to do everything possible to achieve the unexpected.

I caught the second place girl with around two laps to go. I ran right beside her until I felt I was wasting energy in the second lane, so I moved slightly behind her. When the bell rang, it rang for JS just as we had joked it would. At this point, I was mentally cheering and throwing up my arms. We were going to do this. There was no way she was going to be caught, and by the way she took off once she heard that bell (on a 40 second lap), she was going to win our heat. She was the 1, now I had to go get that 2.

As soon as I crossed the line, with only one lap to go, I began to sprint. I passed the girl but she didn't try to pass me. She didn't go faster, just kept the same pace. I was hoping she wasn't going to pass me up right at the line and to make sure that wasn't going to happen, I ran. Fast. I gave it my all to get to that line. When JS crossed the line in front, I felt like celebrating. It made me think of pro cycling when one teammate wins and the other also puts his arms up. I couldn't figure out why, because wouldn't you want to be the one to win? At that moment however, I knew why they did that because I felt like doing the same. I left my thoughts of cycling behind as I sprinted the last meters of the race.

I crossed the line 11 seconds later in second place. We had gotten our 1-2 finish. I walked five feet to JS with a big smile on my face where she stood with an equally large smile. We high fived each other and she told me that what we had done was awesome. I didn't care what my time was or about my overall finish. I cared only about our heat, our race, which we had swept.

When JS and I walked over to our coach, he told us how amazing we were. He also told us we had used a good race strategy (slow start and in the back, then slowly passing people) and looked like he wanted to hug us. He was absolutely estastic and so where we.

The rest of the meet (which ended about 4.5 hours after our race) was spent wandering around in a daze. My coach kept coming up to us and making little comments. My favorite was not one making fun of the sprinters but one about JS and I. He came up to us and actually said "you guys are just wandering around in all your awesomeness." I knew then that my coach was incredibly proud of us and his happiness did not diminish all night, not in the cold or because of the sprinters.

Our first indoor meet this year was a great way to start off the season. My coach is still dumbfounded at what we achieved on Tuesday which was probably why he asked us for training suggestions. The race wasn't all about my coach though, it was about what my teammate and I had done over the winter and were now showing off. That small bit of greatness we accomplished has left me wanting more however, and I'm willing to work even harder to get it.

3000m

Time: 12:20

Heat finish: 2nd

Overall finish: 10th