I Owe You One, High School Track Girl

Holy cow.

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided on the spur of the moment to attend the Pacific Association 2009 Summer All Comers Series track meet. The flyer welcomed all ages and skill levels, first timers, old timers, little ones, big ones, speedsters and turtles. So I was expecting a cross-section of the local running community.

Paid my $5, which entitled me to enter any or all events, but I didn’t sign the lengthy pole vault waiver, so that was out. I was given bib #100, which is how old I felt once I entered the stadium.

There were a few hundred people already present, families mostly, but about 95% of the competitors were high school kids. Yikes. It was a pleasant atmosphere, with little kids playing in the long jump pit, notwithstanding the announcement of “no alcohol, no drugs, and no weapons.” What?! What’s an all comers track meet without a good drunken knife fight over drugs? Might as well ban foul language, rock and roll, and fartleks.

I got my warmup in while watching the only other old men present take a whack at the field events. The high jump was particularly entertaining.

Anyway, no one had any idea about the schedule of events, and there was a lot of meandering… which, for all I know, might have been an event – the 400 meter meander. It took a loooooooooooooooooooooong time for the organizers to get their feces coagulated, to coin a phrase. The first event, the 4×100 relay, got underway 45 minutes late. After the first heat, the PA announcer finally told us the schedule: next was the 1500 meters, then the hurdle events, then the sprint events, and finally the 3000 meters.

At the leisurely pace things were moving, I knew setting up and taking down the hurdles were going to take forever. I figured I’d be running the 3000 meters alone, sometime after midnight. So I made the fateful decision, about two minutes before post time, to enter the 1500 meter race.

I learned that high school kids see the sprint distances as high prestige, and most weren’t too interested in the 1500. I was one of five entrants: two young guys, one older guy (but younger than me) and one high school girl in her team track gear.

We got instructions from the starter, got set, and crack!

No, not the drug. Not even my back. It was the gun, and we were off. Of course, I was more off than the others. I may be the only 1500 meter runner in history to hit his stopwatch first, then start running. After 100 meters, the two young guys already had about a 30 meter lead, the older guy was about three steps ahead of me, and the girl was just behind my left shoulder. And I knew I was doomed.

I’ve never run a 1500 meter or mile race in my life. My best one-mile training run in the last 27 years was a 6:36.19, about two years ago. I was going completely balls-out, damn the torpedos, bat out of hell as fast as I could, the three guys were all getting further and further away, and the footfalls of High School Track Girl were thundering in my ears.

I hit the 300 meter mark at 1:03.24 – the last time I would have the energy to spare to look at my watch. If I had been able to do the math in my head at the time, I would have quit right there. It’s an effin’ 5:37 mile pace! And I was losing ground! And I still had 1200 meters to go! And I can’t run that fast to begin with! And I’m running out of exclamation points!

Well, as Clarence DeMar once said, “Run like hell and get the agony over with.” I kept going as fast as I could, concentrating only on keeping upright because I didn’t want to stumble and kill myself in front of all those people. At the 800 meter mark, a race official was helpfully calling out split times, not that they mattered much to me at this point. The front-runners were out of sight and the older guy was about 50 meters in front. As I passed, the guy said “3:03.” I couldn’t quite believe it, since I had struggled last week just running 3:36s for 800 meters. What was better, though, was I heard him yell “3:18″ as High School Track Girl passed him.

I had a 15 second lead with 700 meters to go. Fifteen seconds in front of the ignominy of last place. For the rest of the race, which seemed to last dogs’ years, all I cared about was staying out of last place. I came down the straightaway like I was in quicksand, and spotted the race official holding up one finger and then pointing at me. I knew this meant: a) we don’t have a bell and you have one lap to go; or b) you look as though you have one minute left to live.

At this point I had complete tunnel vision and tunnel hearing. I had no idea what my splits were, I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me, and I couldn’t tell where High School Track Girl was. I kept chugging, huffing and puffing my way around the final turn, and looked up. I could see the older guy just finishing, 100 meters in front of me, as I exited the turn. The two young guys, I assume, were already at the snack bar, enjoying nachos and chili.

I then swiveled my head and my body halfway around, expecting to see High School Track Girl coming on like Allyson Felix. Instead, I saw she was still about halfway through the final turn. I had about a 50 meter lead with 100 meters to go. All I had to do was avoi—-

I turned back around JUST IN TIME to avoid some kid who inadvertently strayed off the infield into lane 1. A quick sidestep and I was clear. I would have breathed a sigh of relief except I could hardly breathe. I crossed the finish line and hit my stopwatch. Good thing, too, because the way things were going it’ll be 2012 before I get my official time.

Unofficially, it was a 6:08.92 – which translates out to a 6:35 mile pace. I don’t know what High School Track Girl’s time was, or even if she finished. For all I know, she was doing the 1500 as a warm-up, spotted some friends in the stands, and headed over to them rather than bother overtaking the struggling old man. I’d like to think that was the case, because otherwise she spent the night in tears because her friends were razzing her about getting dusted by some old fart. Whatever happened, her sacrifice kept me from trailing the field like a lost kindergartener, and I’ll always be grateful.

I was well past the puke threshold, reaching that physiological limbo where you absolutely are going to hurl, but can’t because you’re unable to take a deep enough breath to expel your lunch. My lungs were burning and it took a full 20 minutes before I was coherent enough to drink some water and cool down. It won’t surprise you to know that they were still setting up the hurdles when I got out of there.

I admit that was a lot of melodrama for a mere six minutes of exertion at a pace that was hardly eye-watering, but for me it encapsulated the last few miles of a marathon in sprint form. I’m glad I did it, and it’s a race I’ll remember for a very long time.

I’ll be damned before I do it again, though.