my prefontaine moment

suffering from a moderate hangover this past sunday, i decided on the traditional remedy: sit on the couch with the television on. and after the completion of the day's second world cup match, i started flipping channels and came to a track and field meet. normally, the steeplechase is about the least interesting race to me, but one of the competitors' names caught my ear: steve slattery, reigning national champion.

using the power of google, i got the relevant info on him. yes, it was the same steve slattery that i ran against in a state sectional cross country meet while in high school.

nowadays, i struggle jogging to the mailbox and almost collapsed last week after an hour of banging around the tennis ball with my kid brother. but back then, as a senior in high school, i had just cruised through a 16-minute 5k a couple weeks earlier and in the best shape of my life (including the next 50-odd years). slattery was just a fresman then, but was already being timed sub-4:30 in the mile. he had talent, but i had experience and the drive to go out on top.

slattery opened the race with his typical sprint, racing out to the lead while i took it out at my normal measured pace. i knew my strategy, run even splits, and pick off the runners one by one. halfway through the race, the plan unfolded to perfection. i had moved into the top-10 and could see the runners in front of me starting to break down. steadily, i gained ground on the few remaining competitors in front of me until slattery was squarely in my sites.

a moment later, i spotted my coach who exhorted me keep moving up. "slattery's 10 yards away. get him"! he screamed. then i said "slattery, you're mine" either out loud or chanted in my head.

by this point, we were all alone. everyone else must have been 30 seconds back with less than a mile to go. i could easily let slattery pull me along to the finish line and try to outkick him in the quarter mile. second place would be guaranteed that way.

but if we ran hundred races and left it to the last 400 meters, he'd win 100 of them. slattery had too much speed. if i wanted to win, i had to break him over this final mile. make the move now and decide the race before finishing speed came into play. so that's what i did.

i put in a burst and caught slattery seeing if the kid could hang with the upperclassman. i kept pushing the pace, pressuring him to break.

he didn't. i did. i went the way of prefontaine.

even casual track fans know the story of prefontaine's 5k race in the '72 olympics. he had the silver medal in hand with a lap to go and did something either foolish or brave. he went after the gold by challenging lasse virren early knowing he couldn't outrun him late. the reward for his ambition was a big pile of nothing: a 4th place finish and no medal.

my story was infinitely less dramatic, but thematically similar. i knew slattery was a better runner at that point than i could ever be. i knew i couldn't beat him in a sprint. i probably couldn't beat him in the mile either. but there was, however small, a chance -- at least in my mind, and that made it worth the risk.

it didn't pay off. i completely fell apart. two people probably made up 200m on me in the last quarter mile. by then, my coach was just urging me to finish the race. it barely happened. i tripped over the finish line and a couple people who i'll never know carried me out of the finishing chute and lay me in a grassy area. i remember closing my eyes, apparently i didn't move for about 45 minutes.

like pre i finished fourth. it sure would have been nice to say i beat a national champion, but at least i tried.