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My Championship

May 9, 2010 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: Cool

Comments:
So I've been training all spring with one goal in mind: run the fastest steeplechase I am physically capable of. I didn't really have any expectations or time goals back in March when I started thinking about this - I just wanted to get out there and have fun and hope that I could improve on my college PR which I set 4 years ago. I PR'd by 2 seconds at University of Maryland back in March (10:29), and again by 19 seconds at Loch Haven 2 weeks ago (10:10). Since then I've been tapering, seriously tapering, aiming to break 10-minutes at the Duke Twilight meet, my season finale. This past week I got to bed on time, woke up at the same time each morning, and started hydrating days before hand. I did everything right building up to the race, including getting out of the car to shake my legs twice during the 5-hour drive down to North Carolina the night before. I bought brand new spikes, ate just the right time (California rolls and Gatorade, 3 1/2 hours before hand), and went for a 3-mile shakeout run when I woke up that morning. By the time I got in the car to drive to the track I was more nervous than I'd been in weeks - what if I didn't perform, after I'd invested so much!

I'd never raced in a stadium before. The meet was relatively low-key, just a bunch of DI athletes trying to a qualify for Nationals or get a PR at the end of the season plus some club athletes. It was almost like a glorified time trial. Super-glorified. An announcer boomed off runners names to an almost-empty 20,000 seat football stadium like a voice coming down from the night sky. As I stepped on the track, my eyes were dazzled by the intense flood lights setting the track aglow. I saw "Simonson" projected onto the score board along with names of all the other runners and felt a surge of excitement. This was the big leagues. Div I. My end-of-season championship.

As I jogged around the practice football field getting ready for my race, I felt fresher than I had all season. During my 2 minutes of tempo my body was just eager to go, like a toy race car all wound up. Right before my race, I witnessed several guys come within seconds of a 4-minute mile. Oh wow. This wasn't no JV time trial. I was going to get smoked!

Got out strong off the line and the first 200 felt easy. So easy in fact that I found myself in second place and felt obliged to drop back as we neared the first barrier. I remember hearing the announcer pronounce Simonson correctly as he read off the last names, and then heard one of my students from last year cheering for me in the stands. By the end of the first 600m I was in last place, but with a pack around me, and I began working my way up in the second and third laps. Made a bold move in the back stretch of lap three, passing the guy I was running with and striking out on my own, alone for the rest of the race.

The middle laps were a haze. I remember breathing really hard, losing momentum on those splashy water hazards, and pushing myself to run strong. I drew strength from of my kiddos who has run so well past last two days, particularly on lap 5, and I tried to stay focused. Thanks to the announcer, I found myself following the results of the runners up ahead, and when I needed support, I would pretend it was me he was talking about. I tried to pick it up first at the 1000 mark, then the 800 mark, then the 600 mark, thought it was around 500m I really got going. I could feel my mind starting to compromise, telling myself I could settle for less and be okay, but I did my best to fight it off. As I eyed the clock coming into the last laps I saw that I was over 8:40 and I would really have to gun it in order to reach my goal of a sub-10 minute time. Well, I thought, if Daniel Samet can bust out a ridiculously fast anaerobic last lap at the end of 2 miles then so can I.

And so I went. I don't know how, but that last lap I blazed. I don't remember anything, except that those last 80 meters I was gunning with all I had left. I burst across the line, saw 9:59 on my watch, and collapsed in waves of ecstatic exhaustion onto the nearest hurdle. "I did it!" I screamed, kissing the steel barrier. "I broke 10 minutes at last!"