(Next chapter. Preceded by parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.)
I have very fond memories of the Shawnee Mission North Relays, despite what happened there in 1991. The meet is where I ran a 1600-meter PR and led my idol, Thad Sketers, for half the race as a sophomore in 1990. And it's where I would break the 1600 meet record as a senior in 1992.
The 1991 meet should've been a joyous thing, but turned out to be a terrible dissapointment that further solidified the chip on my running shoulder. It was my first 3200 since the season's opening meet and the plan was simple. I had rehearsed it in my head every day since November. I'd stay right with whoever happened to be leading, no matter how fast the pace, until 600 meters remained. Then I'd start kicking like crazy.
The leader turned out to be Carlos Paradelo of SM East, who went on to have a great college career and continues to compete professionally today. I waited for the pace to hurt, through a 4:47 first mile, but it never did. It took all the patience I had to wait for the prescribed moment when I went all out. A lap and a half later, I had won the race in 9 minutes, 36 seconds, a whopping 23-second personal best. I was elated. That is, until five minutes passed and Coaches Baxter and Wilson informed me I'd been disqualified.
Disqualified? My elation dissolved into a stunned anger. The officials insisted that, while passing someone on the inside, I had taken too many consecutive steps inside the line separating the track from the infield. Thing is, during that race (and in my entire career), I never passed anyone on the inside. Surely they'd confused me with someone else. My dad had videotaped the race and offered to show it as proof. The officials politely declined.
It still gets my blood boiling to think about it. But, the fact is that disqualification probably did a lot more good than harm. Because I was like a caged animal for the next week. If people hadn't figured out how good I was yet, they'd get a clear picture the next Friday at the Eastern Kansas League meet.
Until EKL, I'd never beaten BV North's Dan Wnorowski or Bishop Miege's Dan Decoursey, who represented the class of our league. Even so, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was going to destroy the field in both the 1600 and 3200. The SM North debacle had flipped a switch in my brain. I'd gone from hoping I could beat the best runners to knowing I could beat them and wanting to beat them, by a lot.
I opened with the 1600, where Wnorowski led the first 800 meters in 2:07. We slowed during the third quarter, hitting 1200 meters in 3:16. Then, I unleashed everything I had, sprinting the final lap in 62 seconds and winning in a huge PR of 4:18.0. It was the best 1600 time in Kansas that year. The 3200 event, a few hours later, was not as impressive timewise, but I won again, this time in 9:54.
In two weeks, I'd gone from a sub-4:30, 9:50-ish guy to a sub-4:20, 9:30-ish guy. I was at the top of the Kansas City Star's All-Metro rankings. And, once again, I was the favorite to win a state title. Unlike the previous year, I welcomed the role of favorite and was anxious to avenge the "tripping." My journal entry from two days after the EKL meet reads, "Already getting focused on regionals. (Ryan) Johnson. 1600. Must waste him."
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Running: Part VIII
(And we continue. Preceded by parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.)
The winter of 1990-91 was among the most important to my running career. I turned 17 in February and had grown, both physically and mentally, to the point where I could better handle Tom's off-season training regimen. It was becoming part of my life. Just as important, I was starting to believe I could be as good as Tom, Coach Wilson and others told me I could be.
From the first of December until the end of February, I averaged 71 miles of training per week. That included a week over Christmas break when I went nuts and ran 101 miles. This was also the period when I really bought into mental picturing. For our cross country teams, it was a weekly pre-meet ritual, thanks to Coach Wilson. Now, I was doing it every day. I can still remember falling asleep, headphones on, while music played and I envisioned the havoc I was going to wreak on my competitors in the spring.
I raced a few indoor meets in Lawrence. At the January 13 AAU Regional, I won the mile and two-mile races, missing my PR in the latter by just two seconds. At the national AAU event, in mid-February, I placed third in the two-mile on Saturday before winning Sunday's mile. (We were running late for that second race and Dad was stopped for speeding a few blocks from the track. I hopped out of the car and chugged the rest of the way, arriving five minutes before the race started.) I couldn't wait for the outdoor season to start.
Practice opened on February 25 and, due to some wet weather, we only raced once between then and April 6. It was a small event, with just four teams. But one was Shawnee Mission Northwest, then and now one of the premiere distance programs in Kansas. Someone from that team won my race, the 3200. But the look of bewilderment on his teammates' faces as they watched him try to shake the still relatively unknown Aquinas kid was satisfying. I finished a few steps back in 10:10, one second off my PR. The next few weeks were non-descript, with a mile win at Paola and an 800 win at Gardner.
On April 15, our workout consisted of eight 400-meter repeats. I ran the first five in 65, 65, 66 and 66 seconds. After that fourth repeat, our head coach informed me I had not qualified to run the mile at the Kansas Relays. The next 400 was completed in 57 seconds. That's about the best way I can describe how incredibly upset I was to not be in the KU Relays field.
I didn't compete again until the Olathe North Relays on April 23, where I released a bit of KU Relays frustration with PR victories in the 1600 (4:26) and 3200 (9:59). Four days later, I won the 800 and 1600 at our home invitational. I was getting into a groove. But the real coming-out party wouldn't occur until May 3, the Shawnee Mission North Relays.
In my mind, SM North ranked third in importance only to the state meet and the KU Relays. The competition was the best I would see all season. Yet another turning point had arrived, perhaps the biggest one yet.
The winter of 1990-91 was among the most important to my running career. I turned 17 in February and had grown, both physically and mentally, to the point where I could better handle Tom's off-season training regimen. It was becoming part of my life. Just as important, I was starting to believe I could be as good as Tom, Coach Wilson and others told me I could be.
From the first of December until the end of February, I averaged 71 miles of training per week. That included a week over Christmas break when I went nuts and ran 101 miles. This was also the period when I really bought into mental picturing. For our cross country teams, it was a weekly pre-meet ritual, thanks to Coach Wilson. Now, I was doing it every day. I can still remember falling asleep, headphones on, while music played and I envisioned the havoc I was going to wreak on my competitors in the spring.
I raced a few indoor meets in Lawrence. At the January 13 AAU Regional, I won the mile and two-mile races, missing my PR in the latter by just two seconds. At the national AAU event, in mid-February, I placed third in the two-mile on Saturday before winning Sunday's mile. (We were running late for that second race and Dad was stopped for speeding a few blocks from the track. I hopped out of the car and chugged the rest of the way, arriving five minutes before the race started.) I couldn't wait for the outdoor season to start.
Practice opened on February 25 and, due to some wet weather, we only raced once between then and April 6. It was a small event, with just four teams. But one was Shawnee Mission Northwest, then and now one of the premiere distance programs in Kansas. Someone from that team won my race, the 3200. But the look of bewilderment on his teammates' faces as they watched him try to shake the still relatively unknown Aquinas kid was satisfying. I finished a few steps back in 10:10, one second off my PR. The next few weeks were non-descript, with a mile win at Paola and an 800 win at Gardner.
On April 15, our workout consisted of eight 400-meter repeats. I ran the first five in 65, 65, 66 and 66 seconds. After that fourth repeat, our head coach informed me I had not qualified to run the mile at the Kansas Relays. The next 400 was completed in 57 seconds. That's about the best way I can describe how incredibly upset I was to not be in the KU Relays field.
I didn't compete again until the Olathe North Relays on April 23, where I released a bit of KU Relays frustration with PR victories in the 1600 (4:26) and 3200 (9:59). Four days later, I won the 800 and 1600 at our home invitational. I was getting into a groove. But the real coming-out party wouldn't occur until May 3, the Shawnee Mission North Relays.
In my mind, SM North ranked third in importance only to the state meet and the KU Relays. The competition was the best I would see all season. Yet another turning point had arrived, perhaps the biggest one yet.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Running: Part VII
(The saga continues. Preceded by parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.)
Revenge or redemption, whatever you want to call it, has been a recurring theme throughout my running career. If a race doesn't go well (1990 State track, 2001 Pike's Peak Ascent) or if I feel wronged in some way (1991 KU Relays and SM North Relays), I do all I can to make it right. Redemption was on my mind as I entered the summer of 1990. The tripping during the 1600-meter state track race sufficiently fueled three months of miles.
The problem was I never really took a breather. After my breakout sophomore track season, which I attributed largely to Tom Dowling's winter tutoring, I was ready to do whatever he commanded during the summer. If there's one retrospective criticism I have of Tom's training plans for me, it's that he didn't budget enough rest. It might not have been a problem, if I wasn't working 10-12 hours every summer day for Ronan's Roofing. Most days, I'd rise at 5 a.m., work in the sun from 6 to 6, eat dinner, then run at 9 p.m.
I was cooked by the time mid-July rolled around. If I felt that way now, I'd take a day or a week off. The 16-year-old version of me forged ahead. The result was a poor summer of training and, while I did have a better cross country season as a junior than as a sophomore, I didn’t competed for wins like I thought I should. Seventeenth at our home meet, seventh at Maur Hill, tenth at Leavenworth and sixth at Metro. Again, far better than what I'd achieved before, but nothing like I’d done during track season.
Tom suggested I jog three or so miles each morning before school, to keep my mileage up until later in the season. I know this drove Coach Wilson crazy. And, now that I've coached high school kids myself, I understand why. I followed Tom's advice for the first few weeks of the season. Then, sensing my fatigue was not easing, I backed off.
In late September, at the Blue Valley Invitational, things finally started turning around. I kept pace with BV North's Dan Wnorowski (a runner I wanted desperately to beat) for most of the race before placing just behind him in fourth.
The next week, I led for two miles before finishing third at a home meet. My confidence surging, I was somewhat disappointed with fourth and fifth place finishes at Eastern Kansas League and the 5A Regional meets. But, despite being slightly annoyed with those individual placings, I was thrilled that our team finished second at that regional to qualify for our first state meet. A year earlier, I'd missed the regional with a stress fracture. Now, we were on our way to Manhattan.
As a fifth place regional finisher, I was probably expected to place fifteenth to twentieth at state. Something got into me that day, though, and I ran what was probably my best cross country race to date, taking tenth place and earning All-State honors. Among those behind me, my track nemesis (and reigning 1600 meter champion) Ryan Johnson.
So, my junior cross country season turned out okay. I partially erased the disappointment of not running at regionals as a sophomore. And our team competed at its first state meet. But, as would always be the case, track was my first priority. The 1600-meter, in particular.
My ensuing winter training often took me by way of a bridge that crossed Interstate 35. From that bridge, I could see a highway sign that read "Olathe 2, Wichita 174." I created a cheap replica and affixed it to the inside of my school locker. I was going to avenge the state mile tripping and no one was going to stop me.
Revenge or redemption, whatever you want to call it, has been a recurring theme throughout my running career. If a race doesn't go well (1990 State track, 2001 Pike's Peak Ascent) or if I feel wronged in some way (1991 KU Relays and SM North Relays), I do all I can to make it right. Redemption was on my mind as I entered the summer of 1990. The tripping during the 1600-meter state track race sufficiently fueled three months of miles.
The problem was I never really took a breather. After my breakout sophomore track season, which I attributed largely to Tom Dowling's winter tutoring, I was ready to do whatever he commanded during the summer. If there's one retrospective criticism I have of Tom's training plans for me, it's that he didn't budget enough rest. It might not have been a problem, if I wasn't working 10-12 hours every summer day for Ronan's Roofing. Most days, I'd rise at 5 a.m., work in the sun from 6 to 6, eat dinner, then run at 9 p.m.
I was cooked by the time mid-July rolled around. If I felt that way now, I'd take a day or a week off. The 16-year-old version of me forged ahead. The result was a poor summer of training and, while I did have a better cross country season as a junior than as a sophomore, I didn’t competed for wins like I thought I should. Seventeenth at our home meet, seventh at Maur Hill, tenth at Leavenworth and sixth at Metro. Again, far better than what I'd achieved before, but nothing like I’d done during track season.
Tom suggested I jog three or so miles each morning before school, to keep my mileage up until later in the season. I know this drove Coach Wilson crazy. And, now that I've coached high school kids myself, I understand why. I followed Tom's advice for the first few weeks of the season. Then, sensing my fatigue was not easing, I backed off.
In late September, at the Blue Valley Invitational, things finally started turning around. I kept pace with BV North's Dan Wnorowski (a runner I wanted desperately to beat) for most of the race before placing just behind him in fourth.
The next week, I led for two miles before finishing third at a home meet. My confidence surging, I was somewhat disappointed with fourth and fifth place finishes at Eastern Kansas League and the 5A Regional meets. But, despite being slightly annoyed with those individual placings, I was thrilled that our team finished second at that regional to qualify for our first state meet. A year earlier, I'd missed the regional with a stress fracture. Now, we were on our way to Manhattan.
As a fifth place regional finisher, I was probably expected to place fifteenth to twentieth at state. Something got into me that day, though, and I ran what was probably my best cross country race to date, taking tenth place and earning All-State honors. Among those behind me, my track nemesis (and reigning 1600 meter champion) Ryan Johnson.
So, my junior cross country season turned out okay. I partially erased the disappointment of not running at regionals as a sophomore. And our team competed at its first state meet. But, as would always be the case, track was my first priority. The 1600-meter, in particular.
My ensuing winter training often took me by way of a bridge that crossed Interstate 35. From that bridge, I could see a highway sign that read "Olathe 2, Wichita 174." I created a cheap replica and affixed it to the inside of my school locker. I was going to avenge the state mile tripping and no one was going to stop me.
Running: Part VI
(The saga continues. Preceded by parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)
By the time the 1990 state track meet rolled around, my 16-year-old body was pretty tired. I'd run every day since early February. That training dedication had produced personal bests that season at every distance from 400 meters to 3200 meters. But, it was also fatiguing for a sophomore. Of course, I didn't realize that at the time. I was simply eager to travel to Wichita and claim my first state championship.
We arrived on Friday night and checked in to the Mark 8 Inn. I can't say what the property looks like today. But it wasn't the cat's meow then. The hour was late and we didn't know the area, so we notched our day’s mileage by running around the parking lot for 20 minutes. Then we retired, two to a bed, for whatever rest our anxious minds would allow.
My first race was the 3200m relay. I would lead off, followed by Chuck Gilbert, then Tim Gaigel and, finally, our talented anchor, Kirk Huckaby. We'd run a season-best at the regional meet, placing third to barely qualify for state in 8 minutes, 33 seconds. In my state debut, I led off with a 2:01 leg (a personal best) and the rest of the team ran very well, too. Kirk brought us home in 4th place, earning a state medal and breaking our school record with a time of 8:27. (It should be noted the Aquinas record is under eight minutes today.)
After a few hours rest, it was time for the 1600m. Even now, 21 years later, I can remember the pre-race jitters. While I was regional champion and the top-ranked 4A miler, I didn't feel the confidence I would carry into future state meets. Somehow, I felt like a bit of a fraud. Less than two months ago, I had a personal best of 4:58 and hadn’t sniffed a state meet. Now, my best was 4:29 and I was the favorite to win it all.
The starter fired the gun and 12 of us charged around the first turn. Entering the backstretch, I found myself near the back of the pack, as a flood of pent-up adolescent energy propelled my competitors to a blazing start. After about 150 meters, everyone settled down and I glided up near the front, settling into third place.
I felt unusually relaxed as we entered the homestretch of the first lap. The pace was easy. The lead was just a few strides away. And I was happy to let others do the work for awhile. Just then, I felt someone touch my shoe from behind. I lost balance for a moment, falling forward before catching myself. However, I slowed just enough for the same person to inadvertently clip my shoe again. I lunged forward, this time unable to steady myself. I tumbled to the outside lanes, while the rest of the field charged ahead.
(Here's the video of the 1990 Kansas 4A State 1600M Run...)
Filled with a mix of bewilderment and rage, I hopped up and furiously tried to catch up. It took only 150 meters for me to make my way back to the pack. Unfortunately, that spurt consumed almost every bit of energy I had, leaving me helpless as the leaders made their moves during the final two laps. I hobbled to the finish line in dead last, with a time of 4:47. The winner, who would become a great rival (and friend) was fellow sophomore Ryan Johnson of DeSoto. I'd beaten him each time we’d raced the 1600 that spring.
As I sat alone on the stadium infield, I began to cry uncontrollably. I’d never taken season-ending losses well, going all the way back to little league baseball. But this one stung a lot more. It felt like something had been stolen from me. By any measure, my sophomore track season had been a huge success. But all I could think about was the one race that got away. It would be all the motivation I'd need for the next 364 days.
By the time the 1990 state track meet rolled around, my 16-year-old body was pretty tired. I'd run every day since early February. That training dedication had produced personal bests that season at every distance from 400 meters to 3200 meters. But, it was also fatiguing for a sophomore. Of course, I didn't realize that at the time. I was simply eager to travel to Wichita and claim my first state championship.
We arrived on Friday night and checked in to the Mark 8 Inn. I can't say what the property looks like today. But it wasn't the cat's meow then. The hour was late and we didn't know the area, so we notched our day’s mileage by running around the parking lot for 20 minutes. Then we retired, two to a bed, for whatever rest our anxious minds would allow.
My first race was the 3200m relay. I would lead off, followed by Chuck Gilbert, then Tim Gaigel and, finally, our talented anchor, Kirk Huckaby. We'd run a season-best at the regional meet, placing third to barely qualify for state in 8 minutes, 33 seconds. In my state debut, I led off with a 2:01 leg (a personal best) and the rest of the team ran very well, too. Kirk brought us home in 4th place, earning a state medal and breaking our school record with a time of 8:27. (It should be noted the Aquinas record is under eight minutes today.)
After a few hours rest, it was time for the 1600m. Even now, 21 years later, I can remember the pre-race jitters. While I was regional champion and the top-ranked 4A miler, I didn't feel the confidence I would carry into future state meets. Somehow, I felt like a bit of a fraud. Less than two months ago, I had a personal best of 4:58 and hadn’t sniffed a state meet. Now, my best was 4:29 and I was the favorite to win it all.
The starter fired the gun and 12 of us charged around the first turn. Entering the backstretch, I found myself near the back of the pack, as a flood of pent-up adolescent energy propelled my competitors to a blazing start. After about 150 meters, everyone settled down and I glided up near the front, settling into third place.
I felt unusually relaxed as we entered the homestretch of the first lap. The pace was easy. The lead was just a few strides away. And I was happy to let others do the work for awhile. Just then, I felt someone touch my shoe from behind. I lost balance for a moment, falling forward before catching myself. However, I slowed just enough for the same person to inadvertently clip my shoe again. I lunged forward, this time unable to steady myself. I tumbled to the outside lanes, while the rest of the field charged ahead.
(Here's the video of the 1990 Kansas 4A State 1600M Run...)
Filled with a mix of bewilderment and rage, I hopped up and furiously tried to catch up. It took only 150 meters for me to make my way back to the pack. Unfortunately, that spurt consumed almost every bit of energy I had, leaving me helpless as the leaders made their moves during the final two laps. I hobbled to the finish line in dead last, with a time of 4:47. The winner, who would become a great rival (and friend) was fellow sophomore Ryan Johnson of DeSoto. I'd beaten him each time we’d raced the 1600 that spring.
As I sat alone on the stadium infield, I began to cry uncontrollably. I’d never taken season-ending losses well, going all the way back to little league baseball. But this one stung a lot more. It felt like something had been stolen from me. By any measure, my sophomore track season had been a huge success. But all I could think about was the one race that got away. It would be all the motivation I'd need for the next 364 days.
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