I am sitting in front of a fire in my living room, seeing that the logs have become nothing more than embers clumped together by the last strength of the fibers that used to tie them together confidently. The weakening flames compete with the glowing orange hot carpet of embers that is the floor of the fireplace. The grate that holds what is left stands strong, while crispy logs hold on, trying deperately not to fall through the cracks. Eventually, they will fall and spend the overnight hours transforming into the embers and then dust. And that will be it. At some point, I'll get around to cleaning up the mess and finding new logs to endure the same fate. Not sexy, I know, but dignified and purposeful in spirit and practice. I felt obliged to have a walk with my wife, a cold one after that, and a fire after what was a good race day for me.
And so the gun went off. There were 8 or 9 of us in the fastest heat of the 800 at Regionals. I found myself in 4th place and at about :30 at the 200; I could hear the lap counter's :29/:30 as I passed. I tried to relax and not lose contact during the second lap. I felt David come up on my shoulder. I surged a bit to establish the permanence of my position. I vaguely heard :60/:61. During the third lap, I noticed that the top two runners, Kyle Lanier and teammate Nick Berra (Teammate Kevin Forde was not in the race, opting instead for the more competive Armory event in NYC. Also, Ursinus has caused him to fall ill two prior years.), were starting to pull away from the third runner. I took the inside and went past the guy, grazing him just so to make some room. I pushed up to position myself within a few meters of the leader. On my last lap I went to my arms (even though I forgot to say to myself, "arms/toes"). I felt reasonably strong, but knew something, someone, was hawking me. As I neared the finish line thinking third place to be secure, teammate Scott Landis caught me at the line. Turns out he beat me by .01 second, determined by photo finish technology. Whatever happened to my lean? You dolt! Anyway, I ran 2:04.80 (Fully Automatic Timing), a masters-level personal best for me, to Scott's 2:04. 79 (F.A.T.). Better yet, this is the best time I've run in the event since college. Then again, it's not like I've been running 800s since that time. The winning time of 2:02.11 and the second place time of 2:03+ were raced by Nick and Kyle. But that was not all.
Our club wanted to pull together a couple of 4x800 relay teams. We agreed, although we were not sure we would do the event justice. How wrong we were! Scott (brave soul) led-off. I did not want to lead off, nor did I wish to anchor. He hung in there with a guy from team TNT who took it out hard. This guy was fresh; he hadn't run. He must've uncorked a 2:04, putting TNT well into the lead. Dave's pace was comfortable and confident. With every stride, it was evident that he was eating into what initially was a 30-35 meter lead. With a lap to go, I thought Dave might pass the guy. He came within 2-3 meters as he handed off to me. I hyped up a bit before I grabbed that Penn baton, thinking of bygone days both as a Penn Relays entrant and as a coach for teams that made some noise there. I took the stick and ran up on TNT runner Kareem Lanier within the first 50 or so meters. I then relaxed and waited like a patient panther ready to pounce. Once I nipped the backs of his spikes, showing I was getting a little close. I sat, licking my lips, knowing he had beaten me in the 800 in December. With about 150 to go, a voice just told me to move my ass. And I did. I went slightly wide on the backstretch, accidentally broke Kareem's stride (for which I later apologized), and took off. "Arms and toes" it was. I had him coming up the straightaway. He came back at me, pullig near even as I handed off to Nick. Nick brought the victory home for us, running something in the 2:04-range. I think I ran something in the 2:06/07-range. We dropped an 8:31 4x800. Not bad for a crew whose average age is 40.
It was a good day at Ursinus, and I met the goal I had established months beforehand. But I have plenty of work to do in preparation for Nationals in two weeks.
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