One Runner’s View: One Second June 6
by Jonathan Beverly
I’m driving across Nebraska, wondering what to dream about now.
One year ago, Brett, the best high school runner that I coach ran a school record in the 800m (1:57.42) and placed fourth in the state meet. Since then his focus has been on one thing: finishing first this year, his final year. I, as his friend and mentor, adopted the dream as well.
During the summer, he ran 50 mile weeks, stadium steps and barefoot windsprints. He went to the CU running camp in Boulder. He did a twenty miler on a 90˙ F day in August, and finished looking like he could run another ten.
Cross country came and went, but never quite lived up to Brett’s expectations. During the winter off-season, the stakes were raised when the coach at the University of Nebraska, where he was accepted, said he needed to run a 1:55.5 to be able to run on the team. This too seemed probable, and certainly in line with winning state.
In February, he did a “pre-track” training program, running 200s and 400s on the road in front of the school because the track was too icy. When he could get on the track, he ran a test 800m ten seconds faster than his opening race a year ago. Our hopes were high.
I had begun to realize that I, who barely broke 5 minutes for the mile in my life, but ran a 3:03 marathon as a 17 year old, knew very little about running two laps in 58 seconds each. The head coach consulted local experts. I consulted Brad Hudson, Owen Anderson, Roy Benson, Rich Kenah. Brett did everything we asked, and trusted that we would get him ready.
He won every 800m during the season, many by wide margins. Yet he never broke that 1:57.4. His best attempt was a 1:58 on a windy day in April. At districts, he started slowly with a 60 second first lap, then kicked past most of the field to take second place with another 1:58. In front of him: last year’s state champion. Coming into the state meet in Omaha, these two runners, from neighboring towns in the far south-western corner of the state, would be ranked #1 and #2.
The trip to State is an epic journey: 345 miles – equivalent to driving from Boston through Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia, to Wilmington, Delaware. We start on the Colorado border, amid semi-arid sandhills covered with sagebrush, cattle and old-fashioned windmills pumping water into metal tanks, and make our way east, through huge circles of irrigated cropland, over the rolling hills of the Republican river valley, into the green square fields of corn that people think of as Nebraska, ending up in a city that feels as far from home as the east coast.
You drive amid a convoy of school vans from near and far, all decorated with names and words of encouragement: “Take State” “Go for the Gold” “Run Fast!” The races are held in a bowl stadium filled with thousands of fans. It’s a very long way from the windy tracks behind schools, with cheering teammates as the only fans, that we’ve run on all season. The fanfare unnerves the runners. It unnerves me, who lived in New York City for a decade.
On Friday morning at State, I awoke to a text message from Brett saying that his legs were stiff. He ran a shake-out run 4 hours before his first race. It didn’t work: he ran a leg-heavy 2:04 anchor leg in the 4X800 that evening, and I worried that I’d broken him – peaked him too early, tapered too much or forgotten something important. I didn’t sleep well that night.
Saturday morning, the open 800m was the first event. The wind was gusting from the south, the open side of the stadium, into the runners’ faces on the homestretch. Brett arrived at the track with his head up (better than yesterday), but not talking to anyone. A year, indeed four whole years of work, was coming down to less than two minutes. I played catch with my son and tried not to worry. The gun was a relief.
He came around the backside of the first lap in the middle of the pack, looking relaxed and strong. Heading into the second lap, he was poised at the back of the lead pack, moving to the outside to pass. On the backstretch he passed three or four runners, and hit the final 200 in fourth place. Down the final stretch he went by two more runners. Still moving well, he didn’t seem to have the final sprinting gear that he is famous for. It became clear that first place — the same guy who won last year, the same one who beat him at districts, who had already accepted a football scholarship at Kansas State — was out of reach. Between him and Brett was last year’s second place finisher who had run a 1:55 a year ago.
By the line, he pulled even with #2, leaned and stumbled across. A good run. A great race, nearly perfectly executed. But still. He returned to the warm up area near me and sat quietly considering the run. I called to him and he waved, then walked away.
Leaving the track, I caught the end of an announcement on the loudspeaker, “…. of Chase County. And the winner of the 800…” Second? He had placed second? Closer. Better. But not first. Not the state champion. No picture in the World Herald, no story in the hometown Imperial Republican. No legacy. The difference? 1:57.673 to 1:56.607. One second. One thousand one.
Hopefully he will have chance to run in college. Will the coach will consider that he beat a guy who had run 1:55? Will he notice that he opened the 4X400 later in the day with a lap that put them far enough ahead to hold the lead for two and half runners and finish second? Will it be clear that he never had the right conditions to run his best time this year?
For me, however, driving home, I realize that I am done. Regardless of what this runner does in the future, I am no longer part of it. He did everything we told him to do, and ran as hard as he knew how. He trusted me. Do all coaches feel this way? That if they knew more, listened more, advised better . . . that if they could have changed one little thing they might have produced the magic to put their runner over the top?
Was the quest worth it? The runner will have to decide that for himself. I hope he decides yes. I hope he doesn’t decide that the work - a year of physical and emotional effort which didn’t even lower his time - was worthless. Life is not fair, it is true. But if he wants to blame someone, let him blame me. Another coach, with more experience, more knowledge of how to tune legs that can run 400m in 50 seconds, surely could take him to the next level.
As for me, was it worth it? I’m driving across the state of Nebraska, back through the rolling hills just sprouting with this year’s corn, and I’m depressed. Not because he lost, but because it is over. Graham Greene wrote somewhere that lotteries should never been drawn, that they produce one winner and lots of losers, while before they are drawn, everyone is still a winner, still has the hope of winning. For a year I felt like I was part of a great dream — that we held the potential of a state championship in our hearts — and it made every day exciting, important and filled with drama. Was it worth it? Knowing the outcome, would I do it again? In a heartbeat.