NUTC Beginner’s Guide: Ri(e)gionals

(Note: All events in this story have been heavily dramatized, ad-libbed, retconned, rewritten and possibly fabricated by myself for comedic purposes.)

“De coniuratione cursores” – The secret history of the Northwestern Track Club, and its many mortal enemies.

Prologue: Priorities

Palma, Spain – July 25, 1987

The president of Northwestern University, Arnold R. Weber, sat on a folding chair on his hotel balcony and stared into the Mediterranean. He was on vacation and had just finished reading The Impact of Capitalism on Social Justice in Western Europe 1789-1871, a book that now sat on the table beside him. As he prepared to take an afternoon siesta, he suddenly remembered that he had to give the final order to eliminate the men’s and women’s track and field programs. He wandered into the lobby and asked to call Evanston to give his consent. Afterwards, he fell asleep.

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Arnold Weber was brought into Northwestern because he was “fiscally responsible”. His job was to make sure the university was financially stable. Everything else, at least according to his official profile, meant little. He made sure Northwestern had proper budgets with real limits. He made sure Northwestern was in the black, no matter what. He probably ran about 7 miles in his entire life.

The Northwestern Track and Field team was unceremoniously disbanded after the 1987-88 season. As of 2011, a track and cross country program lost about $600,000 per year for an FBS school like Northwestern. By 1987 inflation standards (CPI based, for you econ nerds), that was about $300,000 per year. For Northwestern, a school with crappy athletic programs and funding difficulties, spending $300,000 on track was apparently too much. Never mind that Weber raised $21 million for new athletic facilities that same year, laying the groundwork for SPAC in the process.

From the honest opinion of your humble chronicler, Arnold Weber was a cheapskate.  The money he saved from cutting track was conveniently there to dedicate an arch with his name on it, thus creating a manufactured tradition of marching each class of freshmen through a rather modest arch. That’s right, Northwestern Track was sacrificed for Weber Arch. That’s the narrative I’m going with.

Do I know if Arnold Weber was in the city of Palma in the Balearic Islands on July 25, 1987? Of course not. But that’s where rich people liked to party in the 1980s, and I think it suits him. On the other hand, the question of whether Arnold Weber gave two cents about his students can be answered with a definitive “probably not”. This dude was more corporate than Viacom takedown notices on YouTube. His job was to make Northwestern money, not provide for anybody who attended the school. I’m not sure how much has changed.

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But that’s just where the story begins. In this age of conspiracies, an age where presidential candidates can garner mass swathes of popular support for incomprehensible nonsense, we were never going to preview NIRCA Regionals without uncovering a vast network of deception.

Did you think the Northwestern Track Club was just a track club? Did you think Arnold R. Weber closed down the old track teams to save himself a pittance? Did you honestly think that anything in this day and age could be simple?

I, your humble chronicler, will give you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In the process, I will actually talk about the 2016 NIRCA Regionals meet in Ames, Iowa, but only after you understand the forces at play.

Part 1: NUTC vs. the World

Minneapolis burned through the night as the Northwestern University Track Club drove into the darkness. They were pursued by a vast conspiracy of runners, band geeks and mirages of track officials. The lights of the city, a fire in the grand emptiness of the Upper Midwest, would provide no refuge.

It was clear that the OG President had underestimated the secret political underpinnings of forming the NUTC. It was clear that, after nearly getting run off the road on Ridge Ave., a series of fake police stops and an unpleasant encounter with an M1 Abrams tank, something was amiss. Of course, none of that compared to the annoyance of getting Joyce Oakes to give the NUTC a van in the first place, but the circumstances remained strange.

The Motel 6 corporation furnished the rooms with great aplomb. Gaudy orange paint hung to the walls. The attempts of Motel 6 to redefine itself as an upscale motel had entered full effect.

The room of a Motel 6

Yet that night was merely a respite. Outside, the conspiracies bided their time. In the morning, as the team headed for the meet, they were led astray by their GPS systems and nearly hit a telephone pole.

The first NIRCA Regionals event for the Northwestern Track Club went smoothly. The men’s team finished seventh overall. There was a party afterwards. They were not bothered on the way back to Evanston. But they had awakened something sinister.

In 2011, NUTC did not attend any NIRCA events (this is totally true, you can look it up with your new NIRCA login that Patrick Melendez has forced you to make).

The OG President’s attempt to register NUTC for NIRCA in 2011 went poorly. The Internet was down, then the checks didn’t cash, then Joyce Oakes said she had personally crashed all the vans into Lake Michigan on the weekend of Regionals. On the way to a random meet, the NUTC was ambushed by a group of ninjas wearing split shorts and was challenged to a high-stakes game of poker over the entirety of the club’s dues. The OG President failed to draw a club on the river to hit a flush and the NUTC lost everything.

Finally, the mysterious nature of the NUTC’s attempts to enter Regionals were solved when Pete Foote entered the team.

Part 2: The Exarchate of Distance

Forget books that take thousands of words to introduce the true nature of the conspiracy. I’m going to give it you straight.

The Northwestern Track Club is the latest iteration of an secret society from the 1940s called the Exarchate of Distance. 

So now you know. The Track Club, while an effective institution in its own right, is merely a cover for the secret society, the sheepskin of believability that covers our true work. To be fair all dues and fundraising revenue actually goes to funding the cover operation of a running club because it’s so damn expensive. The cover operation sustains itself.

It all began with a great schism. Teams were torn apart. Coaches were branded as heretical and thrown out of the profession.

The parent of the Exarchate of Distance was known simply as the Society. The Society believed that, in accordance with tradition, the mile was the proper racing distance, not the 1500m or the 1600m. The mile, in its perfection, was contested throughout the United States and around the world.

But when the Olympics began in 1896, the Society began to fracture. A new breed of runners, branding themselves as the Trackmetricians, began to advocate for the 1500m to replace the mile as the international standard. And the minority sect got its wish. The Olympics have been contesting the 1500m to this day.

This all was going on in the deep background, even deeper than the obvious conspiracy theories like the Illuminati, the Build-a-Bear Club (who control the highly-influential stuffed animals in the world) and the famous “Stalin was actually controlled by an alien goldfish” hypothesis suggested by Bons Eysseric in 1942. For the average runner, the Society and the Trackmetricians basically didn’t exist. They operated through mass mind control and untraceable bribery. But as the schism grew deeper, their conflicts grew into the open sphere.

Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire was a well-known defender of the Society, and his war with the Trackmetrician-dominated French (known in unenlightened circles as World War I) was merely a proxy for the debate over distance. But when the Germans lost the war in 1918, the Society ceased to function. Woodrow Wilson, in a desperate attempt to maintain the mile, proposed a secret amendment to the Treaty of Versailles that would mandate a secret subcommittee of the League of Nations, known as the Shadow League, that would attempt to moderate between the two sides. This plan failed catastrophically, but the rest of the world was too caught up in the dramatics of World War II to replace the Shadow League with a more competent organization.

And thus, until the formation of the Exarchate of Distance in 1947, track races were held haphazardly, with each runner and coach running whatever distance that had been passed down by his or her forefathers and foremothers! The Trackmetricians entered a schism of their own as some members were open to the compromise distance of 1600 meters. These members became known as the Savoyards, due to their concentration in the Savoy region of France, and will play a large role later in our story.

Finally, sensing that the chaos of the Second World War was over, an organization of ex-Shadow League members chose to create the Exarchate of Distance, a vast organization that would subdue all rival factions and encourage the tolerance of different distances. Taking their title from the old word for a Byzantine province (it sounded cool, even in 1945), the Exarchate finally came into effect after two years of planning on July 25, 1947, 40 years before Arnold Weber ordered the end of the Northwestern Track team.

The Exarchate was efficient and effective. In a series of brief skirmishes, the Trackmetricians and the Savoyards were cut down to size. Roger Bannister received headlines from breaking the 4-minute mile, not some arbitrary 1500m record.

But the Exarchate also allowed the Trackmetricians to retain control over the Olympics and many other international competitions. An equilibrium of postwar tolerance had been formed, and the Exarchate was lauded in extra-secret circles and trade magazines for its handling of the situation.

But everything changed when an extremist group of Trackmetricians overthrew the leadership of the Exarchate. Claiming that the 1500m was the only way forward, these new radicals, who dubbed themselves “The Concern“, put the Exarchate of Distance into hiding. By the year 1955, The Concern ruled supreme and the delicate balance that had held for eight years withered into nothingness. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a secret sleeper agent of The Concern, was able to root out high-ranking members of the Exarchate before he was himself ousted due to his political concerns. President Eisenhower could do little to help the beleaguered Exarchate, but did promise to house the surviving members at a prominent college campus on the shores of Lake Michigan.

During the period between 1960-1980, the battle between the Concern and the Exarchate devolved into a slugfest. But after 10 years of chaos, many parts of the country finally decided to adopt the Savoyard principle of the 1600m, leading to the trifurcated system we live with today. The Concern consolidated its hold over women’s track and mandated the 1500m. The Exarchate of Distance, realizing its differences with the Savoyards were literally only 9 meters long, allied with the new minority and standardized men’s track as the bastion of the 1600m and the mile. Of course, neither the Concern or the Exarchate discriminated by gender, as men and women were drafted onto both sides depending on their preferences.

Of course, none of this was set in stone. On the ground, the battle between the Concern and the Exarchate was decided by individual coaches and individual meet directors. The only “governing” body was the Exarchate headquarters established by Eisenhower in 1955 in Evanston, Ill.

Famous Examples of the Exarchate/Concern Divide in History:

1. Steve Prefontaine, a noted defender of the Mile and a card-carrying Exarchatian, was not drunk when he crashed his car, but actually sabotaged by The Concern.
2. The Cuban Missile Crisis was not fought over nuclear weapons stationed in Communist Cuba, but Fidel Castro’s devotion to the metric mile. Back then, the United States government was heavily Exarchatian (as evidenced by Eisenhower), and they couldn’t let a nation so close to its border suffer the indignity of 1500 meters.
3. Richard M. Nixon was not actually trying to spy on the Democrats (he was going to dominate the election against George McGovern regardless). He was trying to sabotage the Concern’s offices in the Watergate Hotel.
4. The Olympic boycotts in the 1980s were entirely due to the rivalry between the Exarchate and the Concern.
5. Lee Harvey Oswald’s mile PR was 5:06

Arnold Weber, despite his lack of track credentials, liked money very much, as we have established. When the Concern offered a huge bribe to remove the Northwestern Track team (and thus much of the Exarchate’s available human resources), Weber couldn’t say no. He had arches to build and tuitions to charge. Accepting a bribe that would also save Northwestern money in the long-term was a no-brainer.

Northwestern would bring back women’s cross-country in 1998. But of course, cross-country has no distinction between the mile, 1660m and 1500m, so the move was unopposed by either side. Up until recently, Northwestern didn’t even get funding for a track season. The long arm of the Concern, so to speak.

On a macro scale, detente between the Concern and the Exarchate began in 1987. Without a central headquarters, the fight became less winnable, and compromises were made. The two groups nearly dissolved into one, but the USATF, in their infinite wisdom, blocked the move fearing that someone would decide to not take money from Nike. All was quiet through the Clinton years (part one). The United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq (twice). Barack Obama was elected president. The global financial system nearly collapsed.

And then someone decided to bring back the Northwestern Track Club.

The Concern, mistakenly thinking that this was a restoration of Northwestern Track and the beginning of an Exarchate power move, could not let this occur, and immediately began to sabotage any attempts at restoring dominance. The Exarchate immediately reacted and restarted the long-dormant conflict. As of now, there are secret battles being waged around the world because our club exists. Good job everyone.

Part 3: Reginonals past and present (if you are still reading)

The cross-country course at Ames, Iowa is fully dedicated to cross-country meets. No golf courses are involved. The course, as per usual for the Midwest, looks mostly flat. The last time the NIRCA Great Plains Regional was hosted on this site was in 2012.

I have never been to this course and yet I’m already very impressed. There is a small section in a wooded area and you also pass by the track. I do take issue with Iowa State advertising itself as “one of the few colleges that has its own fully dedicated cross-country course”. Sure, that may be true for colleges (although I’m sure “few” is a vast overstatement), but plenty of random high schools have their own cross-country courses as well. Both the middle school and high school I attended had their own dedicated courses. Stop trying to say you’re special Iowa State, you’re not! It’s Iowa!

Today I realized all my recollections of Iowa State are deeply connected with Fred Hoiberg disappointing me in some way.

Anyhow, the NIRCA Regionals meet is usually a place for great cheer. People run in strange costumes and are generally not as serious as dour Division III runners. Also, everyone there is a club runner, which means that the competition is both better and worse at the same time. There will be a great deal of slower people, but also a great deal of faster people! If you can’t find someone to run your pace out of the field of around 200, than you probably should run with me because that means we’re both pace-deaf!

In previous years, the men’s team has finished 7th, Did Not Enter, 5th, 5th, 3rd and 5th. Judging by these results, we will probably finish 5th.

The women’s team has never fielded a scoring team. So, by default, the women’s team is now going to win, obviously.

Good luck. And watch out for odd occurrences and misfortunes, as well as help from completely random strangers.

 

 

NUTC Beginners’ Guide: Sauk Skyhawk Invite

I have never been to Sauk Valley Community College and I have no clue what to expect in this meet.

I decided to write a preview regardless, because that’s what competent sportswriters do. When we don’t know, we make something up and try to pass it off as legitimate. This is how Skip Bayless made an entire career.

The Sauk people were in North America before any of our ancestors. They are also known as the “Sac”, which is the name the French gave this people group during the colonial period. The Sauk originated in the north but eventually migrated to Illinois, where they stayed for a while.

The most famous Sauk is definitely Black Hawk, who fought a famous war against the United States government in 1832. Black Hawk was kicked out of Illinois but repeatedly tried to reclaim his home. Eventually, one of those attempts ended in a battle with Illinois militia, triggering Black Hawk’s War.

A painting of Black Hawk.

The Sauk lost, but at least Black Hawk got an NHL team named after him. I’m sure that would come as great comfort to a man who saw his people evicted from their land, many of his friends killed, and lived through conflict with other Native Americans and the USA from 51 years.

Black Hawk somehow became an American cultural icon, with monuments and places named after him. A historian’s quote from about Black Hawk and his subsequent popularity amongst the American public goes as follows: “most of the reconstructed memory of the Black Hawk War has been designed to make white people feel good about themselves.”

In 1965, Sauk Valley Community College was formed. The Sauk Valley Skyhawks are part of the NJCAA, which is the National Junior College Athletic Association and easily the least-known of the college athletic associations. The Skyhawks compete in Division I of the NJCAA.

The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, used during the Cold War. Was used in Vietnam, the Yom Kippur War and in the Falklands War.

There appears to be no animal that is actually called a “Skyhawk”. Hawks exist. Skyhawks do not exist. The only real Skyhawk is one of the most successful military jets ever designed and was produced for 34 years, with regular modifications. If you’ve ever seen Top Gun, these planes appear in the movie. DANGER ZONE!!

Strangely enough, the US military also named a plane after Black Hawk.

They say American imperialism has vast effects on the world at large, but you can’t underestimate its effects on community colleges in the state of Illinois.

Anyhow, I have no idea why Sauk Valley Community College called themselves the Skyhawks. The name is shared by the University of Tennessee-Martin, Point University and Stonehill College. It is also a name of a minor league baseball team in Sussex, NJ, which I may or may not have seen when I was a child, especially considering their stadium is 20 minutes from my house.

The race itself should be good competition for the Northwestern Track Club. I think we might do significantly better than we did last week in terms of place, on both sides. For the women, that means getting a full scoring team. Infinite improvement! For the men, there won’t be as many teams, I hope, so that will help us. I expect the course will be totally flat again because this is Illinois.

I tried to find historical results for this meet, but they do not exist on the Internet. It’s very strange. I’ve done some serious Googling and I can’t find anything. I can assure you that people are going to extremely confused when they see Northwestern jerseys and logos at this meet. You may overhear statements like, “why is Northwestern here?”, “aren’t they a Division I school?”, “they came this far south” and “wow that jersey looks fresh”. Take these in stride.

What I did find was a large classifieds section on the USTFCCCA website advertising random cross-country meets. Next fall when Northwestern starts very late, I’m going to go to as many of these random cross-country meets in the TRI-STATE AREAAAAAA

That feeling you get when you make yet another Phineas and Ferb joke on your blog

as I possibly can. The entry fees are very cheap. I’m going to write a feature about it. It will be two parts funny, one part tragicomic, three parts existentialist and entirely postmodern.

In other news, I am officially van certified and can confirm that Northwestern club vehicles has more fines than your average bank. You can get basically get fined for doing anything in a Northwestern vehicle.

GO CATS!

 

How not to run a marathon

This is an article about how I ran my first marathon. It’s dedicated to my aunt because none of this would have been possible without her rather insane generosity. Who trains for a marathon over summer break as a gift? Who does that? That’s crazy! This story also has a non-linear structure, so the chronological order is IV, VIa, III, V, I, VIb, II. It’s a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure. For example, if you don’t like my observations about European politics, feel free to jump.

The walk of shame. Or triumph????

I. Laugavegur – ~12:50 p.m.

I staggered up the street holding bits of the greatest pretzel I had ever eaten.

It was a warm afternoon in Iceland. The city of Reykjavik hummed with energy from a citywide festival that helpfully coincided with a concert that would draw 100,000 people later that day (statistics according to the hotel concierge). The streets were swarmed with tourists. A chorus of American accents echoed off the cobblestones. Families reclined in packed outdoor seating areas. The marathon festivities roared around me.

It would all have been tremendously pleasant if I hadn’t just run the marathon in question. I neglected to pay for a cab or a bike after the race, so I prepared to walk another 0.75 miles back to my hotel.

II. Advanced Metrics ~ 6 days later

This is Jared Ward at the Olympics. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

On August 21st, Jared Ward finished sixth in the marathon at the Rio Olympics. In addition to being a top-tier marathoner, Ward has a master’s degree in statistics and teaches at BYU. For his master’s thesis, he calculated the optimal pace to run a marathon. According to Ward’s research, the best way to run a marathon is to go out at a conservative and controlled pace to save energy for the end. He followed through with his work and ran almost robotic split times in Rui. It served him very well.

This is not mind-blowing stuff. My friends and coaches gave the same advice. My father, taking advice from his own marathoning days, agreed. I even promised anyone who asked that my goal was to not burn through 50 percent of my energy in the first hour.

That is a picture of my split times. As you can see, I did not pace myself at all. Keep in mind that my goal time for this half was around 3 hours 15 minutes. After 10 kilometers, I was already six minutes ahead of schedule. But that’s okay, you can always slow down at 10K. Haha, nope. I was nearly nine minutes ahead of schedule at the half marathon mark. It would have taken a collapse of epic proportions to finish over four hours…

Given this wealth of advice, statistics and science, I can only include that I am a complete dunce. I’m dumber than baseball managers who order sacrifice bunts down by three runs. I’m dumber than football coaches who don’t go for it on fourth down. I may never be able to criticize a sports mistake ever again.

III. The Panacea Vanishes – 10:42 p.m.

Blue Powerade hastily mixed from powder has a very industrial taste. Powerade is already a step down from Gatorade, and drinking a watered-down, cameo appearance of otherwise potent artificial flavoring is already somewhat pitiful. It’s a step up from electrolyte water, but not an ideal hydration method at the best of times.

At the 30km water stop, each glass of Powerade I quaffed was the most precious liquid on the entire island of Iceland. I had just staggered through 5 kilometers and 30 minutes of calf cramps to reach this point. This was already the longest run I had attempted in months. My caloric intake to this point was one chocolate Gu and some light cereal I’d eaten several hours before. At a rate of about 100 calories per mile, I had burned about 2,100 calories. Thus far, I had consumed maybe 200 calories that morning. Thanks to a unforced error from my aunt, my last meal had included a huge portion of mussels that sat in my stomach and hampered my sleep.I wolfed down another Gu and three pieces of banana and pondered whether I could continue.

My marathon preparation was an exercise in systemic stupidity. Prior to the marathon, my “long runs” usually maxed out at 10 miles. My longest continuous run was maybe 13-14 miles. I was mostly going off base mileage I’d racked up in the spring, as an minor injury, travel, heat and overall laziness had sapped my long-distance range. During the race, I was a sitting duck, literally. My calf muscles were not prepared for the distance and they all cramped up. Of course, I refused to stretch until it was too late. I was barely hanging on. I had half-limped from the 25km mark and dragged myself to this Oasis of Blue Powerade and bananas. The pain of trying to move while also avoiding a muscle spasm was agonizing. I had started the race at a blistering 6:33 per mile pace. The last 5km had reduced me to 8:25 per mile pace. But it didn’t matter. I would gladly run 8:25 pace for the last chunk as long as I could finish.

The Powerade, bananas and stretching left me feeling quite a lot better, and although I’d lost about five minutes, I was no longer concerned with hitting a time. I just wanted to finish. Five miles stood between me and the finish line. An easy run, I just needed to finish one more easy run. Because of the pause, I was relatively intact from a cardiovascular standpoint. My calves felt okay to continue, and I entered the ring for my final round of torture.

IV. Iceland, I love you, but your marathon is bringing me down. – 24 hrs. earlier

Twenty-four hours earlier, I boarded a tour bus and headed for the Golden Circle. They might as well call it the “Tour Bus Circle” because that’s what it really was. I saw some incredible things, for about 40 minutes. As my stay in Iceland was only three nights, doing a full tour of the magnificent island was impossible to schedule alongside a marathon. My aunt suggested we do a relaxing bus tour to keep ourselves fresh.

The Icelandic tour guide started talking as soon as we set off on our journey through the Tour Bus Circle. And she kept talking. She did not stop talking for the entirety of the three-hour bus ride.

The incessant voiceover was a magnet that sucked all daydreaming and appreciation for the countryside into the maw of raw information. And by the one hour mark, the information had ceased to even be relevant to the tour, or Iceland whatsoever. There was a five-minute discussion comparing and contrasting the gaits of Viking horses and Icelandic horses. There was a long storytelling session in which we were subjected to an Icelandic fairy tale about elves. We listened to someone discuss elves and trolls with complete seriousness for 45 minutes. The bus, usually a place of mild chatter and incessant small talk, was completely silent except for the voice of the tour guide. Everyone had either fallen asleep to temporarily escape or was unable to get in a word.

Every sight we saw became something more than just a pretty landscape or enormous geyser. It became a respite from the incessant noise piped in over the bus intercom. It was a lesson in pain tolerance. I tried to sleep. I tried to look out the window and ignore the speaker spewing inane garbage in my ears. I tried to argue that it was no different from listening to a podcast or the radio. That was not true. It was totally different. When Sarah Koenig’s voice crackles to life on my headphones, she’s not standing right there expecting that I pay attention to her rants about Bowe Bergdahl.

My aunt is a university professor. She has been lecturing students for over fifteen years, I reckon. She was not having it whatsoever. At the first stop, she wanted the tour guide to shut up. At the second stop, she wanted her to shut the hell up. At the third stop, she wanted her to stop f***ing talking about bloody nonsense (my aunt lived in England for many years). At the final stop, we exited the bus without leaving a tip. Yes, the tour guide baldly suggested that we should tip her, despite it not really being a thing in Icelandic culture. Nobody on the bus spared a cent. I guarantee it.

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If you are going to run the Reykjavik Marathon, I suggest staying for at least seven days before the race itself. Tour buses are tour buses, and you absolutely do not have enough time to experience the country in its full glory. In a brief journey, however, you can experience Reykjavik quite well, as the city is slightly larger than Madison, Wisconsin. It feels emptier though, as there are only 130,000 permanent residents, and most of them seem to avoid the extremely expensive and tourist-y areas within the city if possible. As a denizen of a growing tourist town myself, I completely sympathize.

I can’t really give a true description of the natural wonders of Iceland, given that I only saw them for about 45 minutes at a time, but I have this picture of a rainbow over a waterfall on the side to prove that this actually happened. I can, however, give a good account of the city of Reykjavik. The city is very quirky. The language, an isolated descendent of Old Norse, has scarcely any basis in common European parlance. There is a museum that displays the world’s most diverse public collection of penises. There is construction everywhere to accommodate the booming tourism industry and the hordes of upper middle class Americans with collegiate sweatshirts that the streets feel like southern Maine rather than Iceland. The majority of people I saw spoke English as their primary language.

The city is fairly easy to navigate once you get used to the street names. Laugavegur, the street our hotel was on, has a wide variety of tourism areas and expensive restaurants. The food was passable at most places, and very good in certain cases. Yet you can see where Reykjavik attempts to rebel against its growing reputation as an easily accessible Nordic vacation area. The older residential areas around the tourist areas are completely untouched, unlike Caribbean islands, for example. The buildings around the city are a mix of bland 20th-century architecture and newer buildings constructed to match tourism and business demand. The 20th-century buildings obstinately cling to life. There are obviously no skyscrapers or even too many imposing office spaces in the city center. The quaint independent coffee shops still outnumber Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts (yes, there is a Dunkin’ Donuts in Reykjavik).

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

You get the feeling that Reykjavik, like the rest of Europe, is in a state of transition from the 1990s to the vigor of the 2010s and beyond. The staff at these tourist destinations were often Polish. Iceland allows any citizen from a European Free Trade country to work without a visa, even though it is not in the European Union. Where there is work, people will come. Thus, even Iceland, a small island in the North Atlantic that has been isolated linguistically and physically for centuries, is feeling the vast effects of globalization. There are construction cranes everywhere. There are new hotels, new restaurants, and new people. Asian fusion restaurants dot the streets. Reykjavik, one of the most isolated cities throughout history, has gone global.

Yet, there’s still incredibly strong local pride. I made fun of the tour guide who droned on for three hours about Icelandic culture, but the fact that they make it such a priority should reveal something. In a European world in which this clash of globalization and the “Old World” has occurred with very mixed results (don’t even get me started), Iceland seems to be doing okay. That’s all you can ask for.

V. The Battle of Marathon – 10:45 p.m.

Nobody cares about the Persians. According to Herodotus, the Persians lost over 6,000 men. The Greeks lost precisely 192. Now, I don’t take Herodotus’ account at all seriously, and the Battle of Marathon has been so magnified in importance over the centuries that it probably scarcely resembles truth. However, the kernel of historical truth remains apparent. The Persian invaders were crushed and limped home. The invasion of Greece was suspended. Nobody cares about the Persians.

Defeat is not glamorous. Defeat can be an ugly process of methodical erosion that ultimately results in total disintegration (e.g. the Western Roman Empire). Defeat can also be a lightning moment that results in the complete destruction of the best laid plans of mice and men. In my case, it was both. No random stranger looking at the results of the Reykjavik Marathon will notice that it took Tristan Jung 1 hour and 17 minutes to traverse 7.5km of ground. No one will note how strange that someone who reached the half marathon mark a full 35 minutes before his next-closest finisher only beat that finisher by five seconds.

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The forces of systemic stupidity, like some demented pack of hounds chasing after a hunk of inexplicably mobile meat, refused to let me finish my marathon in peace. There were too many mistakes. In a race like the marathon, where, like the Challenger disaster, one mistake can mean the difference between success and a dreaded “did not finish”, the sheer vastness of my errors were coming back to haunt me.

If you recall, I was huddled at the 30km mark, desperately trying to inject life into my cramping body through Powerade, bananas, and water. I had not eaten enough food. I had not gotten enough sleep. I had not paced the race whatsoever. My legs were cramping, I had lost a large amount of useful minerals, and my mind was exhausted. But there was a silver lining. Well, more like a golden nugget that I had systematically panned from the depths of a river. I had finished three-quarters of the marathon. I had, by my estimation, less than an hour remaining.

My aunt, a veteran of four marathons, including London (twice), Berlin and Chicago, had told me the familiar yarn of the “20-mile wall”. She explained that while marathoning was not more painful than childbirth, hitting the 20-mile wall was pretty damn close.

“Your mind just keeps constantly asking, why am I even doing this?”

18 months earlier, when I explained my intention to run a marathon within the next year to my grumpy and stoic track coach, an ex-marathoner himself, warned me about the 20-mile wall. My friends told me that in my coach’s biology classes, he often lectured about how once the body reaches 20 miles, it has reached the breaking point of its physical capabilities. Going beyond this point is not healthy. My father, who once ran the New York City Marathon, told me that this was where he felt his toenails starting to come off.

By all accounts, unless you train exceptionally hard, staying strong through 20 miles is incredibly difficult, even for elite marathoners. This is why you pace out the beginning. This is why you eat food. This is why you sleep more then 7 hours the night before. This is “crunch time”. This is the moment that all the warnings and cliches have been building up to.

If you have not noticed, the entirety of my thought process in the Powerade Oasis was as follows: I will reach the finish line in x amount of time. Of all the dumb things I did in preparation for and during this marathon, that was the dumbest mistake of all. Because, of course, pondering when you will reach the finish line is not the mentality you should be adopting as you prepare to scale the wall. You should be focusing on getting through the next 400 meters. You should be focusing on each and every step, because each and every step is a fight against the complete obliteration of your will and physical strength. The finish line should be an abstract concept. Don’t think about the end. Or at least, try to forget about finishing, because if you don’t stay focused in this next section, you ARE NOT GOING to finish.

I continued on my way. I ran for 3,000 meters and the bomb dropped. At some point, I crossed into the longest run of my entire life. Then, my left quad popped and exploded in pain. Compared to the pulled calves that had preceded this, my left quad was about 15 times worse on the pain scale. I had pulled my calf on long runs before. I had never pulled my quad. You’ll have to excuse my bragging for a minute, but I really have rather large quad muscles attached to my legs. They are, in effect, the engine that keeps my running career alive.

I stopped. I shouted in pain. I cursed very loudly and continued to scream. I couldn’t move away from the bus stop in the middle of the sidewalk/course in which I had taken refuge. Somehow, the pain eventually started to dissipate after a few minutes, and I prepared to start running again. If I had any food left or energy drinks on me, I probably should have consumed them right here. But I didn’t have any food left. I took two packages of Gu with me, assuming it would be enough to get through the marathon. And of course, the whole reason I was cramping so badly is because I hadn’t put in the time and done my long runs over the summer. But that didn’t matter. I staggered forward, and my other quad cramped up. And my left calf and hamstring started to spasm as well.

In the dying minutes of any soccer match that goes to extra time, players go down with cramp. Before I ran the marathon, I used to think that the pain of a cramp shouldn’t warrant a player collapsing on the ground and wasting precious time as the clock ticks over to a penalty shoot-out. Constant cries of “cramp” on television desensitized me to the pain of the players. How bad could a cramp at the point of complete physical and mental exhaustion possibly be? Does this player really need three minutes of medical attention?

A local Icelander came up to me and asked if I wanted to go to his house to recuperate. Uh, thank you, but no. I’m not going to recuperate in someone’s house during a marathon. That sounds as bad as taking the subway or riding in a car. If I accepted the deal, I was dropping out of the race. There was no way I was going inside a stranger’s house and getting 20 minutes of medical attention and finishing the race afterwards. My only goal was to start gingerly inching toward the finish line. I had already lost another ten minutes, but I could still finish in a decent time if I could just get running again.

In any rational, non-first-marathon situation, I probably should have stopped. I was aware that if I started to run again, I was probably jeopardizing the rest of my running season (and possibly my whole career, if I was particularly unlucky). I could have torn any number of muscles at this point (and I probably did suffer some microtears, as the current state of my calves suggests). Plenty of people drop out of the marathon. I recently saw a stat on Jon Bois’ “PRETTY GOOD” that 75 percent of runners who have attempted the marathon in the Olympics, the pinnacle of the marathon circuit, dropped out. Considering how stupid my preparation and in-race strategy was, I could have just stopped. It would have been fine. My future contained three months of NUTC that I really needed to stay healthy for. At age 19, I had countless marathons that I could finish with much better chances of survival.

But that day, I decided to be the biggest idiot in Reykjavik. I continued. I tried to run. My legs completely seized up. I walked. I tried to run again. My legs seized up. I stopped and started to walk very slowly. I repeated this process for about two miles. It felt like several kitchen knives were being dug into different parts of my legs.

As a dumb person, I have a tremendous amount of pride in my running ability. I am most definitely not ashamed to admit that at all. The fact that I have written over 3,500 words about one race should show that I am, indeed, a complete narcissist when it comes to running. This article is more to sate my soul than to entertain the masses. Because of this pride, it actually pains me to admit that I walked a portion of the race. I NEVER FUCKING WALK DURING RACES.

After all, what is the main mantra of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, a book that is essentially my bible? My aunt first got me this book, ironically. In the novel, Murakami, a great fiction writer/ultra-marathoner, obsessed over the words “at least I never walked”. He wanted “at least he never walked” on his freaking gravestone. This phrase has been the central governing principle of my life for four years. And now it is false. I can never use that phrase again. This phrase has been my credo forever. “He never walked, except for that one time” is ridiculous.

“At least I never walked.”

“I walked.”

Also, despite the fact that I had now been walking for two miles, I was still trying to run. But after I reached the 37.5km mark and heard the piercing buzzer noise that signaled that I had reached the live timing point, I stopped trying to run again. My family watching the race at home, starved of updates, now knew what had occurred. I had started to walk. There was no other way around it. By this point, the cardiovascular exhaustion that I had avoided came back in full force. I had been walking underneath the northern sun for over 30 minutes. It was hot for Iceland. The temperature had increased to over 65 degrees.

But at this point I had psychologically damaged myself beyond repair. I didn’t want to run anymore. I was prepared to walk my way to the finish line. Now that I had opened the dreaded Pandora’s Box of walking, it couldn’t be closed. This sport had given me so much, and now it was all slipping away into the Atlantic Ocean that stood impassively on my left. Hundreds of people passed me. And I’m not exaggerating one bit. I was in 40th place at the half marathon and I finished 482nd. At least 440 people passed me.

I basically never wanted to run again.

6,000 dead Persians. If this ancient battle was indeed like most other ancient battles, the vast majority of the Persians died retreating. They died in flight after the army had broken apart as Greek hoplites speared hundreds of their countrymen.

VI. The part where I get a grip. – 12:30 p.m.

A. It was a beautiful day. Reykjavik, by the way, constantly has an incredible view of the Atlantic Ocean, punctuated by mountains that rise from the water to add the finishing touches on the scenery. The start of the race weaved through the outer residential areas of Reykjavik. It was stunning. The townspeople all came out and banged pots and pans together, as if it was 1616 instead of 2016. There were bands. I particularly appreciated the band that played “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, even if it was completely inappropriate for the situation.

“Love, love will tear us apart, again,” rang through the group of runners trying to establish a baseline pace. Not the most optimistic choice.

There was a runner in his mid-twenties who was wearing a singlet with a Scandinavian soccer club emblazoned on the back. I tried to keep pace with him for a while, but he eventually broke ahead of me and probably finished under three hours. Good for him. A group of three men that looked older than my parents was rolling with me at 6:30 per mile pace. They were only running the half marathon, but they rocked every minute of the race.

For a while, I paced off Katarina. I learned her name through the results; there wasn’t time for conversation. She was also running the half, but I paced off her for a good 15 minutes. She was one of those runners who fluctuates between different paces while on runs, but it eventually all averages out. I breezed through those first 10 miles. I hadn’t felt this good on a run in a very long time, what with my weird summer foot injury and oppressive New York heat. It was perfect. Temperatures were around 50 degrees, the ideal temperature to run a marathon, and I was having fun. The Reykjavik course was 40 percent rolling hills, but they were the hills that you barely feel. Perfect hills really, the kind that give you a challenge and variety, but don’t leave you knackered when you reach the summit.

Of course, I was ruining my pacing and leaving absolutely nothing left in the tank, but it didn’t matter. This is what running was about for me. The hard pavement meant nothing to my legs. The only sign of things to come was when the half marathoners turned right at a fork in the road to finish and I had to continue. Honestly, this feels like an entirely different day. I swung past the dazzling open-air national soccer stadium, in which the Icelandic team that famously advanced to the quarterfinals of Euro 2016 played matches. I then entered a state park that we ran through for a good 7 miles. It felt like I was back in New York on a casual Saturday morning run along the Hudson River.

I felt good. I was probably on a runner’s high at this point. I passed by a runner with a University of Wisconsin singlet and I made casual conversation. Big Ten bros, right? Keep in mind, this dude was definitely good at running because he was also about to split a sub 1:30 half.

“Are you on the club at Wisconsin or something?”

“No, I’m just doing this on my own.”

“Wow, that’s impressive. I train with a club at Northwestern.”

And then I sped ahead. In hindsight, as one of my friends explained, I was in very good shape for a half marathon, but probably not in good enough shape for a full.

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The thing about bliss is that you can never remember what it feels like when the pain comes. When you have a headache, it’s impossible to conceive of what not having a headache feels like. When you’re in pain during the marathon, the hardest part is remembering what normality feels like. David Foster Wallace explains this feeling best, I think, during the first Katherine Gompert segment of Infinite Jest:

“But when you’re in the feeling you forget. The feeling feels like it’s always been there and will always be there, and you forget. It’s like this whole filter drops down over the whole way you think about everything…” – Infinite Jest p. 74

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B. I did not walk to the finish line. You’ll notice that at the 37.5km mark, I shifted from a hilariously bad 16:31 mile pace to a slightly more reasonable 11:43 per mile pace. But that is misleading. I kept walking, tired and miserable. There was another young man in a blue shirt, who had also clearly gone out too fast and was also struggling with cramp and dead legs. But he was 50 meters ahead of me, we couldn’t exchange consolations, and we were both hopeless cases. People, seeing me walking from a distance, stopped shouting encouragements at me. I had tried to start jogging a few times, but my legs were not having it.

As the four hour pace group passed me, with a trail of balloons and a crowd of mostly middle-aged women in tow, I shrugged my shoulders. The course was looping back around, and I could see the city center in the distance. While some would think it was far away, I knew that it was not. At the 38km mark, I realized there were only about 2.5 miles remaining. That is one Van Cortlandt Park 4K. On a good day, I could run a 4K in 13:48. At this point, I would have settled for 23:48. I started running again.

In reality, I could have started running earlier and probably caught the four-hour pace group if I hadn’t broken down mentally. But after that last dumb mistake, I am happy to report I finished the race intelligently. I started passing people left and right. I passed my partner-in-arms in the blue shirt and he started to run again. But I moved well past him. I probably looked pretty good at this point, as everyone had slowed to a crawl, but my crawl was still faster than most people (I did mention I was incredibly narcissistic about running). I did not try to speed ahead and trigger another cramp. I saved a little energy until the final 800 meters. I even kicked a little.

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I want to tell you a story about a 60-year-old man named Gianpaolo. Gianpaolo knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He paced out his 10K at 9:16 per mile pace. He finished the marathon in 4 hours, 3 minutes and 46 seconds. That works out to 9:17 per mile. He paced the marathon perfectly. He had everything prepared and under control.

Gianpaolo was 17 minutes behind me at the 10K, 35 minutes behind me at the half, and 43 minutes behind me at 30K. But as the finish line approached, he started to use up all the energy he had saved. He passed me. And just to show how prepared he was, he pulled out an Italian flag that he had been saving in his pocket for four hours and started waving it to the crowd. He was having the time of his life. The crowd cheered him on and he started pulling out a lead on me. With my legs completely toast, I actually tried to out-kick this 60-year-old man waving his Italian flag. I surged ahead slightly, but Gianpaolo was not having it. The crowd went crazy for Gianpaolo as he waved his flag in the air and crossed the line. Gianpaolo beat me by one second. If you needed another reminder to never give up, I hope that was sufficient.

As I quickly rushed to find the pretzel stand and some blue Powerade to relieve my cramp, I saw him give a small fist pump. Gianpaolo beat me, and I would imagine that even he didn’t realize how much he deserved to beat me. He took his time, relished the journey, and ran without fear. Thanks to Gianpaolo, I stopped regretting the whole marathon experience. I couldn’t feel regret. Distance running is just the best.

Video proof that this actually happened:

Postscript: My aunt also finished the race in just over five hours. She was disappointed that she didn’t break 5 hours. We were both very disappointed, but glad we did it. We zombied our way through the next day in Reykjavik and flew home.

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Final USA Track & Field Olympic Trials Review

THE FINAL CHAPTER

Men’s 5000m

Ok, there were definitely some other things that happened in the final two days in Eugene, but seriously, Bernard Lagat just won the Trials 5K at age 41. Is there any better story than that? We’ll just have to wait until he comes back in the final mile to win gold at Rio.

Hassan Mead and Paul Chelimo were second and third. This was not the best race of the Trials (women’s 800, men’s 1500 probably go 1-2) but this was certainly the most interesting for me. And of course, the only way I can analyze it best is through some misguided prose!

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Galen Rupp, who had already qualified for two events at Rio, led the race by a large margin going into the final lap. The chase pack strung out well behind him going into the final 400 meters. But it quickly became clear that Rupp, with no real motivation to win the race, had immediately transformed into an incredibly fast pumpkin. The chase pack took out Rupp’s 10 meter lead in about three seconds. Rupp said he wanted to draw the race out to help his teammate Eric Jenkins, but all Rupp’s strategy guaranteed was that he had nothing left to match a surge from the huge chase pack. In the end, Jenkins didn’t even make the team, meaning his efforts were for naught. Galen Rupp faded in the span of ten seconds, his face not one of surprise but of crushed resignation. It looked like he was walking in sand while his competitors were running on a moving airport walkway.

Then, with 200 meters to go, Paul Chelimo made, in my opinion, the bravest move of Olympic Trials (on the men’s side). Knowing the chase pack of Mead, Lagat and Jenkins were going to probably out-kick him if he played it straight, Chelimo decided to go into maximum overdrive from 200 meters out. He shot ahead, but Mead and Lagat immediately matched his bold move with a devastating counter-attack. Chelimo’s gambit was to have enough in the tank to hold off anybody else left in the field, but it came .06 seconds from blowing up in his face. Chelimo, with nothing to lose, with no Wikipedia page or accolades or World Championships to speak of, decided to gamble everything with 200 meters. It took some serious balls to just go for it and try to out-kick Bernard freakin’ Lagat, and yet Chelimo somehow made the team.

Courtesy of NBC Sports’ broadcast

Look at Chelimo desperately looking behind him to make sure Jenkins wouldn’t pass him at the end. That is the face of a guy knows he f***ed up royally and that he wasted his energy going for it at the 200 meter mark. That is the face of a man who is really, really tired of running in circles and is about to lose a 5,000 meter race because of the last 10…5…2… meters. That is a face of complete panic.

But meanwhile, entering stage left, was Bernard Lagat, who predictably remained in close contention for the entire race precisely for a moment like this. You can say all you want about “veteran’s savvy” or “experience”, but from my point of view Lagat was in a rare position in the scope of his long career. Lagat, a man used to dominating races from the front and challenging Mo Farah for gold medals, was forced to make a big comeback from sixth (even by his standards) to catch Chelimo and hold off everyone off. Lagat’s speed cannot be debated of course, but at age 41, coming in with a stellar but not spectacular 2016, perhaps you could have debated his will. Remember, Lagat couldn’t finish the 10K earlier this week. For the first time, it looked like his era might be fading.

Did Lagat really need to go for this? His track legacy is as solid as Mt. Everest’s claim to being the world’s tallest mountain. He would have gone down as one of the greats (or at least a member of the Hall of Very, Very Good), no matter what happened in the final meters of this 5000.

The answer is of course Lagat needed to go for it. For the American part of his career, the 5K is his event. Lagat is to American 5K runners as Roger Federer is to Wimbledon. Winning this 5K was just the natural order of Bernard Lagat’s career. And so, entering stage left, Bernard Lagat, aged 41, the boogyman of American hopefuls and seemingly the runner of past, present and future, dove into the lead as he always does, and closed out with the fastest final lap in the field. And while no athlete can ever achieve immortality, (a truth that has been broadcasted endlessly in recent months with Muhammad Ali tributes, crying Jordan memes, lame duck throws from Peyton Manning and Roger Federer himself crashing out up 2-1 at Wimbledon) for a second it seemed like Bernard Lagat could do this forever.

Hassan Mead finished second after a good comeback of his own. He has never made an Olympic team. Mead’s finish was less dramatic, as he kicked with Lagat and was comfortably in third as the finish drew closer. He blew past Chelimo and raised his arms in a tepid celebration. You could argue that this should have been the 26-year-old’s moment, but after his 10K implosion, the only feeling he felt was relief. He could beat Lagat at Rio. But in those moments, as Lagat grabbed a flag and cheered with the crowd, Hassan Mead had to be at least a little bit amazed that Lagat had done it again.

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Women’s 1500m

Simpson/Rowbury/Martinez.

Jenny Simspon and Shannon Rowbury were in a class of their own at the front. Meanwhile, complete chaos ensued for third. Brenda Martinez beat Amanda Eccleston to the line by .03 seconds. Amanda Uceny was also less than a second behind in fifth.

 

I would not be surprised if Brenda Martinez takes a few mental health days after this week. She deserves it. I guess “The Trip” from the 800m prepared her well to dive for the line in the 1500m. As for Amanda Eccleston…I dunno, I’d take a mental health month after that. She was as close as you can get. Her post-race interview made me feel dismal inside.

Alexa Efraimson ran well but she came up just short. Vaughn was 7th. Mary Cain was 11th. I was pulling for Grunewald to do well but she was well off the pace and finished last.

Men’s 1500m

Instead of writing proper commentary, I will instead give some grades to the performances.

Centrowitz:  A+ – Not much to say here. He’s just unstoppable right now. He also set an Olympic Trials record, for what it’s worth. All the pressure will be on him to get a medal at Rio. This was just a test.

Robby Andrews: A+ – Andrews was really impressive and his first Olympic appearance was not really in doubt after he clearly came out ahead of the position shuffling behind Centrowitz.

Ben Blankenship: B  – I feel like Blankenship left it very late. I thought he would’ve broken away a bit more from Manzano (I realize that’s difficult). Obviously still a great job. He gets knocked down for pushing Avila as well. That was not necessary (and not DQ’able).

Leonel Manzano: A – This dude really gutted it out. A bit sad he couldn’t make it.

Craig Engels: A+ – First off, he’s a junior at Ole Miss and he just ran 3:37. Secondly, after Yorks, McNamara and Avila went out like ringwraiths to try to get the standard early, I really appreciated Engels’ far more patient approach. And who was the closest to the standard? Craig Engels. Slightly slower than an absurdly fast pace and steady wins the race.

Johnny Gregorek: B+  – Solid race from Gregorek, who had the same strategy as Engels and did pretty well. Unfortunately, it will not be enough for Gregorek to crack that top tier this time around.

Alexander, Winn, Merber: B

Izaic Yorks: C+ – I get the strategy. I understand he didn’t have the standard. However, I feel like you have to plan ahead a little bit if you decide to go for it that hard. Yorks clearly spent too much energy in the beginning and the pressure of getting to third after expending a huge amount of energy at the start led to that fairly horrendous last lap.

Eric Avila: C+ – Same as above. Props for going for it

Jordan McNamara: F – What on earth happened here? A 65 to close? Really?

Andrew Wheating: F– – Was nowhere for the whole race.

Men’s 200m Final

Gatlin/Merritt/Ameer Webb.

Will Merrit pull out of the 200m so he can focus on the 400m (and relays)? His agency says no. Lyles and Norman, the two high schoolers, did not make the team but still put their names on the map.

Women’s 400m Hurdles

Muhammad/Spencer/McLaughlin

I’m not too familiar with hurdles, but a 16-year-old named Sydney McLaughlin made the team. Her summer trip will be a ticket to the Olympics. She continues to lower the self-esteem of thousands college students around the country who are toiling at low-paid jobs are internships.

Women’s 5000m

Huddle/Houlihan/Infeld

Molly Huddle did the double! Gosh, I’m on vacation and honestly I missed this race while eating some food. From the highlights and the results, it didn’t look extremely compelling. Huddle is a beast though.

Crap, I know I missed some events completely (you’ll have to go somewhere else for your heptathlon coverage, I’m sorry). I hope you enjoyed reading through my often inane comments on Olympic Trials. I promise to be back with more coverage for the Olympics itself!

 

 

USA Olympic Trials Recaps: July 7-8, Jump!

After a few days off for athletes (and writers), we’re back with more semi-knowledgable comments about Olympic Trials. 

STEEPLECHASE – THE ONLY CHASE YOU NEED!

Ah, it’s time to recap the finals of my favorite event, the 3000m steeplechase. There’s just something heart-palpitating about the sight of 14-16 runners trying to jump over a pool of water simultaneously. It’s also tremendously entertaining, a feeling likely brought on from the schadenfreude of not having to run the race yourself.

The Ten Commandments of Steeplechasing

1. Thou shalt not use one’s hands to assist in getting over the barrier unless absolutely necessary.
2. Thou shalt not push or impede someone whilst he or she is jumping over a barrier.
3. Thou shalt not run into the barrier, because it hurts a lot.
4. Thou shalt not attempt to hurdle all the barriers unless sufficiently skilled.
5. Thou shalt not spend too much time in self-pity after a fall.
6. If thou hast been lapped, thou shalt not get in the way of a faster runner trying to hurdle a barrier.
7. Thou shalt not jump off a barrier with two feet like a broad jump, because thou looks like an idiot when doing that.
8. Thou shalt not run around the barrier.
9. Thou shalt not wear socks.
10. Thou shalt not have any fun whatsoever after lap 2.

Men’s and Women’s 3000m Steeplechase

Despite my enjoyment, the two winners of this event were probably the most predictable outcome in the entirety of Olympic Trials. Evan Jager and Emma Coburn won both races and they didn’t even exert maximum effort, which shocks exactly nobody. Instead, we can talk about the other interesting contestants who managed to make the team. Hillary Bor, another U.S. Army runner with a cool name, ran the race of his life and PRed by 3 seconds. The U.S. Army distance team has had a really good showing at these trials with Kipchirchir and Korir in the 10K and now Bor in the steeple. Apparently the U.S. Army runners have done a great job of peaking at the right time.

I would still argue that the U.S. Army’s influence on the USMNT has been more effective, but the World Class Athletes Program has worked out well for everyone thus far.

Bor took the spot from Andrew Bayer of Bowerman TC, who has run sub 8:20 before but will not make the team. Bayer lost out to Domm Cabral, who will make his first Olympic team. Cabral is my kind of runner. He’s from the Northeast (Glastonbury, CT to be precise) and he specializes in cross-country and the steeplechase. Can’t get much better than that.

The top step of the podium was anticlimactic as Coburn powered to a Trials record. Coburn didn’t challenge the American record again, but she will have another shot to do that at Rio. Behind Coburn, two Bowerman TC runners placed second and third, capping a fantastic showing at the steeplechase for the club. Of course, all the times can’t fix the glaring typo on Bowerman’s website…

But I digress.

Teammates Courtney Frerichs and Colleen Quigley both PRed en route to a stunning comeback after a late implosion from both Stephanie Garcia and Leah O’Connor. Garcia’s dramatic and desperate attempt to hang on to an Olympic spot was probably the most depressing thing I’ve seen all week. Garcia’s fall on the last barrier was just an example of why the steeplechase could be considered cruel and unusual punishment by a particularly sarcastic court system. Garcia’s collapse (literally and figuratively) was pretty easy to spot once she started slowing down with 400 to go. Turns out leading for most of the race for no real reason is not a long-lasting strategy. The two Bowerman runners were then able to use their consistency to take the race.

I thought O’Connor would challenge for the team and run well. My prediction just went completely off the rails on the last lap. She closed with a 1:44!! Ouch.

Women’s 100m Hurdles

This was a very surprising race. Keni Harrison, the presumptive favorite, was only sixth. Meanwhile, Brianna Rollins won the race despite nearly crossing into the lane next to her for the last 50 meters. Kristi Castlin and Nia Ali finished second and third.

Field Event Finals

Michelle Carter’s Trials-winning shot put was ridiculous, and she’ll be heading back to the Olympics with a chance at doing some damage.

I missed the men’s pole vault review in my last column, so I’d like to give a shout-out to Sam Kendricks, who could finish the summer with a gold medal after another solid performance in trials.

Qualifying Rounds for Various Distance Events

• There were no major implosions in the women’s 1500m qualifiers, although Mary Cain was pretty close to missing the 1500m final. She’s had a bizarre season, and she needs to have a good performance in the final on Sunday to stop the 30 for 30-worthy narrative that is starting to build around her career. Not that there will be a 30 for 30 about Mary Cain unless I somehow start running ESPN Films, but I’m getting some serious “This Magic Moment” Shaq/Penny vibes right now.
• High school phenom Kate Murphy got knocked out in the 1500m semi-finals with a 4:14.52, despite running a stunning 4:07 earlier this year.
• Speaking of high school phenoms, ALLIE OSTRANDER WTF?! She had a stress fracture for four months and then she ended up 4th in qualifying with a 15:27. What? Seriously? How is this possible? She’s just that good, I guess. Or maybe it’s because she’s Alaskan and enjoying the weather. I really have no idea. Alaska’s not even that bad in summer.
• The 1500m semi-final heats were horribly divided. The Centrowitz Heat was absolutely stacked with Centro, Blankenship, Manzano, Wheating and Jordan McNamara, leaving the first heat particularly weak. The entirety of heat 2 finished ahead of the 5th place finisher in Heat 1, which is shitty for determining the finals for an Olympic Trials race. Matthew Maton (yes, the guy who broke four in high school), Frezer Legesse, Dorian Ulrey and Dusty Solis all got screwed over. The fact that Maton should’ve made the 1500m final at age 20 (I think; he has some Thon Maker crap going on with his age) is terrifying.
• The 200m semi-final was uneventful, Actually it was very eventful, (thanks to the reader who pointed this out). Two recently graduated high schoolers, Noah Lyles and Mike Norman, won their heats and advanced to the finals. Add them to the list of new generation sprinters I mentioned in my rant about Gay/Gatlin earlier this week. I would also like to point out the final finisher in the 200m semi was named Tevin Hester. Not Devin Hester. Tevin Hester.

Predictions for Today:

Well, I guess I’m obligated to pick the team for the men’s 5000m. Here we go:

1. Rupp 2. Mead (He has to redeem himself after the 10K disaster, right?) 3. True

I’m going mostly chalk. Mead and True won’t have any other shots to get into Rio, so they’ll be going all-out. If I have to take a sleeper, it would be Jenkins. Also, I expect Lomong and Lagat will be right there, so my predictions will probably be completely incorrect.

USA Olympic Track & Field Trials Review: July 3-4, TRACK IS EXCITING!

After taking a day off to write a strange piece of parody/baseball analysis, I’m back with more commentary on the USA Track & Field qualifiers.

Women’s 800m

And people say track is boring. This race was unbelievable. Go watch the full race now if you haven’t. It’s the best two minutes of sports you’ll watch this week. Controversy! Drama! Action! Alysia Montano and Brenda Martinez collided on the last turn. Seriously, that actually happened! Two of the best American 800m runners (and two presumptive favorites to make the team) collided at Olympic Trials! And then everybody had to avoid them! And then Montano got up anyway and finished the race a minute later despite clearly having an injury.

Meanwhile, Kate Grace won the race by less than half a second over Ajee Wilson. Grace was in fifth when the collision happened with 150m to go. Absolute madness. To contextualize this, because I barely even knew who she was before this race, this was like when the 7-9 Seahawks defeated the Saints in the first round of the playoffs. You know, the Marshawn Lynch Beast Mode game. Kate Grace winning the 800m is essentially like that team knocking off the Super Bowl champions. In this analogy, Martinez hitting Montano was equivalent to making the playoffs as a 7-9 team.

By the way, this was a PR for Grace in the most important race of her career to date, which is unbelievably clutch. She basically went “Beast Mode” in the last 100 meters. Wilson and Chrishuna Williams will join Grace in Rio. I have never heard of Chrishuna Williams but apparently she was only running in the 2:09s two years ago. Haha, what? Um, she ran at Arkansas, according to that Flotrack article.

Now, to be completely honest, I don’t think a race in which two of the top American runners in this event fell is a true indicator of talent. A shocking thought, I know. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is, and Martinez will have to try again in the 1500m. Don’t get me wrong, this sucks. It was a racing incident that rarely happens, but this is the reality when deciding an Olympic team based on one race. It looked like Martinez hit Montano’s leg while Montano was passing and then lost her balance. Montano was trying to make the classic outside pass on the final turn of the 800m but she didn’t want to swing out wide until the final stretch. I think Montano panicked a bit, as she went out in a crazy 57.45 (a stupidly hard first 400m for an 800) and tried to recover the ground she lost once she inevitably started to fade. I can’t embed the video because this dumbed-down WordPress software doesn’t allow iframes, but the slow-mo link is here.

For track neophytes, the proper etiquette for passing during a tight 800m race is as follows:

Remember when Montee Ball was good?

Well, that’s not really proper track etiquette, but that was how I passed people and how my, er, shall we say over-exuberant co-captain taught my team how to pass. You’re supposed to go outside and give plenty of room. However, at this point, during the second lap of 800m, everyone is basically in hell. I have described it as “the worst experience of my life” and “the last place I want to be on planet Earth”. If you’re trying to pass someone, you should go outside, but can you really blame Martinez and Montano for staying as tight as possible and taking the optimal racing line during Olympic Trials? No, your mental capacity is reaching the breaking point and accidents happen. Heck, I’ve been pushed out to lane three during the slowest heat of a 800m at a weekday league meet for no apparent reason.

Men’s 800m

This event was less interesting than the women’s race, but still very exciting. Clayton Murphy surprised many by edging out Boris Berian by a mere .16 seconds. They will both make the team, but that was intense. Clayton followed Kate Grace’s example and set a PR in Olympic Trials to make the team, which must be a good feeling. Murphy is just 21 years old and graduated from Akron this year. Now he’s headed for the Olympics. Veteran Charles Jock finished third and looked pretty solid. The only person who should be upset at himself after this race is Eric Sowinski, who probably could’ve finished third on paper.

Women’s 100m

THIS WAS ALSO INSANE!

Three women under 10.8 on a wind-legal day! Are you freakin’ joking? That’s literally never happened in the history of track & field! Gardner’s time was good enough to win the World Championships in Beijing in 2015! Her name is English, but thank God she’s American because that’s a heckuva time! Actually, apparently it’s the 7th-fastest in history! So, apparently English Gardner has made the leap. Just like that.

That’s why track is the best. It only takes one race to make “the leap” to potential superstardom. Shame that Prandini couldn’t make it, but she’ll probably be on the 4×100 team with Gardner and Bowie so at least she’ll make the team.

Men’s 100m

Justin Gatlin won the race with a 9.80, which was nice, but I’m more concerned with the two new faces that made the team—Trayvon Bromell and Marvin Bracy. I hadn’t even really heard of Bracy until this weekend, after which I learned he was a junior 100m champion and ran a 10.05 before he entered college. That was before I started following track, so I’m going to excuse myself. He also played for FSU as a wide receiver for a year, which is cool. I don’t think Bracy really has any shot at making it past the semifinals in Rio, but the 100m is about as predictable as the Bundesliga (as in, you’re pretty sure Bolt [Bayern Munich] are going to win and someone else from Jamaica [Borussia Dortmund] will finish second, but everybody else is a complete crapshoot). Of course, with Bolt’s supposedly minor hamstring injury leaving him less than 100 percent, I can’t even be sure of that either (Pep leaving Bayern for Man City).

Bromell, on the other hand, is a legitimate medal contender, despite being just 20 years old. He won the 60m at World Indoors (defeating Bracy and Asafa Powell) and he finished with a bronze at the World Championships at Beijing in 2015. He was behind Bolt and Gatlin at Beijing, but that still means he has a decent shot at bringing home some hardware for the United States. Bracy and Bromell are really heralding a new generation of sprinting talent for the 100m into Team USA, even as Gatlin and Tyson Gay remain remarkably effective into their late 30s.

I don’t know, maybe Justin Gatlin and David Ortiz hang out a lot, because they are both experiencing insane late-career renaissances. As many Twitter accounts have noted, Gatlin is the oldest men’s 100m runner to make an Olympic team. Tyson Gay finished fifth and will not be going to Rio, and we shall see if he wants to compete again in another four years. For now, I would say his Olympic career is probably over. Until he magically comes back in four years, because Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin are actually vampires and just can’t go away.

Because track & field is, at best, the 12th-most important American sport, nobody is going to really care about the legacies of Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay once they retire, as they will forever be overshadowed by the overpowering magnitude of Usain Bolt (a man so great he requires two unnecessary superlatives). However, I really don’t know what their legacies are going to be. Are they going to be considered mid-tier greats of the sport, which you could reasonably argue considering their times, or will they fade because of the drug allegations and repeated losses in the A-list events? I would go with the latter, and quite frankly I can’t wait for Bromell, Bracy and others to breathe some fresh life into this event for the USA.

Men’s and Women’s 400m

These two events went about as expected, with Allyson Felix the GOAT overcoming her injury to win and LaShawn Merritt throwing down a dominant 43.97 to win by a good margin. Hopefully Merritt can get some redemption and possibly take gold at Rio.

Steeplechase First Round

No surprises here. Emma Coburn and Evan Jager are still overwhelming favorites to win. but I did want to give a shout-out to Brianna Nerud of the University of Oregon, who was a counselor at Northeast Kingdom Running Camp for the last two years and finished fifth in heat two of the steeple. That was really, really cool. Apologies for laughing at you during Weekday Update.

Men’s 5000m First Round

Bernard Lagat won a heat! The guy’s an absolute legend. Who is having a better year, Lagat, Bartolo Colon or Ichiro Suzuki?  The main surprise was that Leonard Korir, who qualified for the 10k earlier, didn’t even make the second round. Chris Derrick, who has run a 13:08 and I mistakenly said was obscure in an earlier edition of this column (guys, I can’t keep track of all the US runners, sorry), was well off the pace and looks injured.

The men’s final is Saturday. Get hyped. The first round of the women’s race isn’t until Thursday.

Ashton Eaton won the decathlon – that’s all you need to know.

Personal Statistics Section

I’m happy to say I would’ve won the Women’s Masters 1500m by 6 seconds! Go me! I would have been 22 seconds slower than the last place finisher in the Men’s Masters 1500m. I would have placed 31st of 35 competitors in the Women’s 3000m Steeplechase. My best converted 3k time would still be worse than the slowest runner in the Men’s 3000m Steeplechase. Remember, these guys have to jump over barriers and a water pit for 7 laps, and they can still crush my best 3K time without any obstacles.

In short, making it to Olympic Trials is an insane accomplishment.

Predictions:

None, there’s a day off tomorrow and just field events on Wednesday. If you really want me to predict something…uh… Emma Coburn will win the 3k steeple on Thursday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olympic Trials Day 2: Huddle for warmth

It’s Day 2 at Olympic Trials, and although I was caught up watching Sam Querrey and the Mets, I managed to write a semi-coherent recap.

Women’s 10,000m

Unsurprisingly, Molly Huddle won the 10K and has punched her ticket to Rio. It was a dominant and controlled performance from the presumptive 10K favorite, as Huddle paced out with Emily Infeld until pulling away on the final lap, ensuring that she would comfortably make the Olympic team. For once in my writing career, I refrain from making any cheap jokes with this situation. Huddle is having a very good season and looks to be heading into Rio in top form. Today’s win is the just the beginning.

The interest was really on who would finish second and third, with Kim Conley, Emily Infeld and Marielle Hall battling it out for just two spots. Infeld finished second, which would hardly be surprise had she not missed the entire outdoor season with an injury. What a way to make your 2016 debut! Conley was in with a shot at third but lost a shoe during the race and dropped out, leaving Marielle Hall in command to finish in third (as I predictedas I predicted). Conley will have a very good chance at making the team for the 5K, her premier event, so don’t worry too much.

As for Marielle Hall, she seems poised to make a big step forward on an international level. She still has the best American 10K time this year and probably backed off slightly once Conley dropped out and third place was in hand. Infeld will also be making her Olympic debut following three very solid years on the pro circuit, so that’s fun. I really hope she can stay healthy.

Kellyn Taylor came up just short to finish fourth. Laura Thweatt finished an impressive fifth. In the other names you may have heard of department, Jordan Hasay finished well off the pace in ninth and Emily Sisson was 10th. Sisson will have another chance in the 5000m. As for Hasay…well…there’s no way to sugarcoat the disappointment of this result (for the uninitiated, Hasay finished 2nd in the 10K as the USA outdoor championships just two years ago). I mean, there was nothing to suggest that she would be in contention leading up to the race, but it’s still rough. Well, she still has time to make it to the next Olympic cycle and regain her earlier form. I’m trying to stay optimistic here. Injuries suck.

Men’s and Women’s 100m

No huge shocks in the first round. Bromell looks legit. Gay and Gatlin are hanging around, as always. The curse of the 30+ from yesterday has subsided, for now. The main women in the event also qualified. Shoutout to Jenna Prandini for PRing in the first round of qualifying and topping the timesheets though! You probably should read a recap of the Jamaican 100m qualifying instead though.

Men’s and Women’s 400m

Everyone you’d expect to make it advanced, including Allyson Felix and Lashawn Merritt. The over-30 curse did not escape this event, however, as Jeremy Wariner dropped out. Honestly, he broke out a while before I started following track so this doesn’t mean that much to me. I need to study my recent short distance track history.

Men’s and Women’s 800m

Again, no alarms and no surprises, but there was a dramatic fall! Engels and Shaq Walker collided on the final stretch and both qualified, setting up a nine-man final.

Other events:

I haven’t given much love to field events, but congrats to Brittney Reese and Whitney Ashley for winning the long jump and discus, respectively. Ashton Eaton is winning the decathlon right now. Huge shocker, I know. World champ Trey Hardee is not going to make the team, and he complained about the entire Olympic Trials system to Flotrack. He has a point, but unless he suggests a better way to determine who makes the team, I can’t take him 100% seriously.

Also, Noah Affolder ran a 4:07 and he only finished 5th. Haha, yet another reminder that I’ve accomplished nothing in my life. Fun fact (if my math is correct): if Noah Affolder were able to run at a 4:07 pace from Warwick, NY to Carthage, NY and I could run my PR pace, he would beat me by over three hours.

Predictions:

I’m going to go out on a limb and say David Verburg does not make the Olympic team in the 400m. Just a hunch. I have no idea what the order of the 100m final is going to look like (and neither do you, tbh), but there’s a decent chance the 2016 curse of the over 30s continues. One of Gay and Gatlin to not make it? That would be very bold, but this is the Forget the Protocol preview, so we’re making bold choices.

 

Someone just ran the slowest 3K at Indoor Worlds in over a decade

Sometimes, I daydream about being an professional runner. That dream is basically impossible for me to achieve at this point in my running career, but that does not stop me. Competing on a world stage, being able to run absurdly quick times–I am not the first nor the last runner to aspire to those things. And thankfully, there are a select few who are able to achieve those goals.

The amount of hard work and respect I have for elite runners is off the charts. That respect has only grown as I have attempted to replicate a small fraction of their accomplishments. I recently watched the Indoor World Track & Field Championships that just concluded in Portland, Oregon. I was in awe of most of the incredibly talented athletes who competed. Most of them.

But buried underneath the immense respect I felt for Matt Centrowitz, Ashton Eaton and Genzebe Dibaba, there was utter confusion. In the first heat of the 3000m run, alongside Ryan Hill and 18-year-old phenom Yomif Kejelcha (who would win the final on Sunday), there was 23-year-old Adilet Kyshtabekov of Kyrgyzstan.

He quickly fell behind.

He ran a time of 8:44.95 for 3000 meters in an IAAF World Championship meet. That’s about 4:43 mile pace.

For those of you who do not run or follow track, you would think that he ran a fast time that is well beyond your level of physical skill. For anyone acquainted with the sport, that is astoundingly slow for this level of competition. Kejelcha cruised home with a 7:51, nearly a full minute ahead of Kyshtabekov. Kyshtabekov finished a full 19 seconds behind the next-slowest finisher in the following heat.

Looking back through Indoor World Championship results, Kyshtabekov’s 8:44 was the slowest 3K attempt of any male athlete since Birmingham 2003, when Ajmal Amirov of Tajikistan ran a staggering 9:04.53 in the 3K. We can safely assume that this is one of the worst men’s performances in the recent history of the IAAF Indoor World Championships.

At this year’s New Balance Indoor Nationals, a meet that draws the best American high school athletes of the 2015-16 indoor season, Kyshtabekov’s converted two-mile time would have placed him around 37th or 38th among America’s best high school runners. The guy would have finished dead last in the NCAA Division I Championships, 16th in the Division II Championships, and 14th in Division III. It also would have barely won the Illinois Club Relays event that I participated in last month. This is a race that features college students who weren’t good enough/don’t have the time to run on a real college team. Kyshtabekov is basically a solid club runner. And he just ran in the first heat of the men’s 3000m at the Indoor World Championships.

Seriously, although it is quite impressive that he made it this far, Kyshtabekov’s effort makes no sense whatsoever. The outdoor World Championships and the Olympics are much more prestigious. Both events draw plenty of runners from obscure countries who use their free national wild-card entry that each country has to get into events. That means even if you go out and run a 4:30 in the 1500m (which would be a pretty standard time in the JV mile at a random New York high school weekend meet), like Ribeiro Pinto De Carvalho of Timor-Leste did in 2011, you still get to say you ran in the World Championships!

I should start registering to be a Kyrgyz or East Timorean runner…

Anyway, countries send representatives for national pride all the time. It’s actually very cool and adds to the global allure of these events. Some of them come from unbelievable backgrounds and are interesting and charming people. I’m sure Mr. Kyshtabekov is also interesting. After all, he has been running internationally for about three years now. But why wouldn’t he just save his time and money and just go for the Olympics rather than trying Indoor Worlds? If he’s trying to impress the Kyrgyz Olympic Staff, why would he think that running completely alone in the first heat of the 3K improve his chances of making the team?

That being said, the Indoor World Championships are the equivalent of the League Cup in English soccer. It’s prestigious, but definitely not the most prestigious event in the world. It’s been a while since a slow runner from an obscure country has entered in the 3000m. Kyshtabekov is basically unknown on Google, but the few records of his previous races show that he occasionally ran in Asia and Eastern Europe.

So why did he decide to go to Portland, Oregon and race in the Indoor World Championships, despite being significantly slower than the meet standards? His personal best in the 3K was only 8:29. He had no business being in this meet other than national and personal pride. But why not just register for the Olympics in the Summer? Why go to Portland and run a race that even professional runners don’t take too seriously?

I have no idea. Again, the guy is basically a mystery. He shows up on the NBC broadcast and the commentator says he’s from Kazakhstan. His Google results have no personal information. Assuming he flew from Kyrgyzstan to Portland, the round-trip flight would have cost him $1,629. Somehow, this guy either spent the money out of his own pocket, or convinced the Kyrgyz Athletic Board that it would be worth around $4,000 with food and lodging to send him to Portland and run the race. Alternatively, he could be working in America and has the time to run in international track competitions in his spare time. In that case, good on him for staying in such good shape.

I’d like to think this is some sort of conspiracy and that “Adilet Kyshtabekov” is a Russian spy who is using the cover of distance to spy on the United States. Kyrgyzstan was a former Soviet republic, after all. I’m sure Putin has old KGB ties there.

You can look at his athletic profile here. He appears to not have any specialties and will run every event from the 800m to the 10K. He does not run particularly well in any of the events, and yet his travels have taken him to China and the United States, both of which are Russian geopolitical rivals. He has also traveled to Qatar and South Korea, two rising commercial powers on either side of the vast Asian continent.

Perhaps he is a sleeper agent that is working right under our noses. Again, slower runners have generally avoided the Indoor World Championships in the past decade. It’s not like “Kyshtabekov” was going to get good competition. There was really no solid reason for him to come to Portland, and yet he was there. It’s actually an ingenious disguise. Nobody ever notices the slowest runner in a long-distance race. Trust me, I’ve been the slowest runner in a 3200m race, and the only time anyone maybe pays attention to you is while you are getting lapped.

By the way, Kyshtabekov did not even practice good running etiquette. The entire lead pack of runners had to pass him on the outside while lapping him in the closing stages of the race.

Dude, get out of the way, you’re two laps down!

He also went out in a 67 because even undercover Russian spies run the first lap too quickly. Perhaps it’s part of his secret identity.

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In reality, Adilet Kyshtabekov is probably just living out his dreams, and we should all applaud him for doing something that takes incredible physical skill and courage. Even if he decided to perform on an international stage rather than a smaller competition, his dedication is admirable. I am happy that he got a chance to be on international television. I am also slightly jealous, but then again, there is no way that I could have run faster than him, so who am I to talk?

Run on, Adilet. Make Kyrgyzstan proud.

(Cole Paxton contributed some research and jokes to this story.)