 |
 |
| Blind Corners |
|
We were pretty strong cross town rivals. My Catholic school was
a class "B" school with an enrollment of only about 600
students. The public school was three times the size of ours,
but we put together some pretty competitive sports programs. The
public school used to be in an old building in the middle of
town, but while I was in school they built a huge new complex
only a half mile from my house, completing it just a few years
before my graduation. I could walk through a little patch of
woods and be there within a few mintues. I picked up the local paper one day to see that Joe Sain had set a new course record for their cross country team. This would be our first year to compete against "Public" as we referred to them, and it looked like I would have some competition. About a week later I was running their course which wound through the fields, down into the forest, along their building, and around their track. Joe was about 10 yards behind me, probably determined to stick with me and try to beat me with his finishing kick. I had been reading the running magazines, and I had read about a strategy of "blind corners". If someone is following close behind you, as you turn a corner they can't see you, so if you kick in and put some distance between you they won't even know about it until they turn the corner. At that time they will see that the gap has widened and psychologically it will demoralize them. We came to a corner in the building of the school, and I don't know whether my blind corner strategy had anything to do with it or not, but I finished far ahead of Joe and the rest of the runners. A few weeks later we were to meet again, this time on my home course. For the first two years our cross country team ran its races on the same 2 1/2 mile course that for many years our track team had used in its workouts. Prior to our meet with Public our coach suddenly changed the course. He probably decided that running the last half mile of a race along the highway coming back to the school was a safety hazard. So before running out onto the highway he twice turned the course left, up a hill, and coincidently right past Joe Sain's house. Funny, I lived across town close to his school, while he lived here close to my school. That hill leading up to Joe Sain's house was quite steep. He probably knew that hill better than anyone. If he was like me he probably had done quite a few workouts on that hill. I made up my mind that I was not going to get beat on that hill, but that instead that is where I would beat him. In preparation for the race I ran that hill six or eight times on two seperate occasions. Most runners may slow down once they hit a steep hill, but as we hit that hill I accelerated putting some distance between myself and anyone who was following me, bringing in a second win against my cross town rival. There was only one person I hadn't beaten that year, and that was the superstar, Terry Wile, that I mentioned on the previous page. I had won six other races, but lost to him twice. All the teams in our area belonged to a league which we called the "Bi-County Cross Country League" and at the end of the regular season we held the championship meet. I was never one to settle for seconds, so I made up my mind that I was going to beat Terry Wile. My strategy was that I was going to stick with him no matter what. (Chuckling to myself that there were no blind corners or steep hills to break that seperation.) But Terry started out fast, really fast. I was sure we ran that first half mile in 2:00 which really took its toll on me. I stuck with him for the first two miles, but with a half mile to go I began to run out of gas and he pulled away. As I got down to the last several hundred yards Joe Sain came up from behind me and I just didn't have enough gas in the tank to hold him off. They had three individual trophies and the second one was quite a bit bigger than the third. My teammates said the league had bought that trophy just for me, that no one had expected Joe Sain to beat me.
There was only one cross country meet left in my high school career, and that was the Catholic state meet. I had read in the magazines that it is more efficient to start a race slow because that would give your body time to warm up before you really started pushing it. I didn't want to make the same mistake again, so unlike my usual quick start to get out in front of the pack, I started out with just a stride while I watched a whole crowd of competitors run out in front of me. I had plenty of energy for that last half mile, I was passing people by the dozens and as I approached the finish line I thought I had passed the last person capturing first place, only to be subsequently told that I actually finished in sixth place. That was a huge disappointment for me and I felt like I had overcompensated for my fast start the week before. I definitely didn't want to run the first half mile the way I did with Terry Wile, but I should have at least kept the front runners in sight so that I would know where they were. Furthermore, I really had too much gas in the tank at the end. My energy should have been spread a little more evenly, covering the first two miles a little faster than I did. (Above: A photo from the middle portion of a mile run during my senior year.) |