All-Ohio Open Race at Ohio Wesleyan

October 5, 2007

I arrived at the course during the Men’s varsity race and quickly hoofed across the greens with my backpack bouncing on my back to find a good vantage point.

The weather was hot and dry, the golf course hard and patchy in areas. I stationed myself just past the last mile marker where the runners emerge from the woods before descending a long downhill followed by the long uphill struggle into the finish. My heart pounded as the gator rumbled out of the woods. The lead runners appeared before the dust had settled.

I stayed there to watch for a while and listen to teammates cheer on their teams. Runners from all three divisions poured from the woods. Before the stream of runners got too thick I crossed over the course to the final uphill to watch the grueling finish and try to imagine and remember myself charging up that hill and passing Yuot in '05.

On this hot day, sapped by a hilly course, runners hit the hill and came to a virtual standstill. I watched one runner stagger and fall, stand, and fall again. His coach tended to him right in the middle of the course while the still-racing runners made their way around him. After the race, gators shuttled in other runners who had collapsed even further from the finish line. The women's open race began and almost immediately passed stretchers being loaded into the ambulance.

With that dire vision fresh in my head I made my way to the Columbus Running Company van to meet Matt DeLeon and Eric Fruth, the owners of the CRC. Matt had signed up to run the open race. Eric was just taking pictures today. All three of us ran a short warm up and then Matt and I took our spikes up to the starting line. I fretted over the lack of water on the course and Eric graciously agreed to set out a water bottle along the side of the course for me.

The open race is composed of college JV teams as well as unaffiliated open runners. All of the unaffiliated runners shared starting boxes on the side of the starting line closest to the finish. It could not have been far from the box Steve Wills and I occupied in 2005. I felt like I waited a long time for the start. Thankfully the sun dissappeared behind a cloud and the air cooled. Still, it was warm enough that I didn't cool down much before the gun.

I moved fast off the line. Race starts remind me of the scene in Return of the Jedi when the Millennium Falcon is racing the explosion out of the death star. The flames creep around it, threatening to engulf it. The runners crept up on either side of me. The pack threatened to engulf me. An entire team had sprinted out into the lead. I caught most of them on the first downhill, all but leading the race within 300 meters. I leapt the creek jump and inconceivably the lead runner did not. I took the lead as he took the longer, and marginally safer, route over the bridge. I heard his coach barking at him about tangents behind me.

I relaxed up the hill and the other runner climbed into the lead again. In retrospect, despite easing off the speed on the hills, I was still pushing too hard too early. We swung around the top of the hill, crossed a patch of forest where the gator kicked up a nasty dust storm, and emerged on another hole of the golf course. I split the first mile sub-five (the results say differently, but I saw what I saw on the clock).

I slowed on every subsequent up-hill while others surged. I pounded the down hills and passed or gained on any one that had moved ahead. No one was moving downhill as fast as I was, but (again, in retrospect) I could have slowed my ascents even further. I was moving slower relative to my competitors, but they were beating the fight out of themselves as they charged up hills.

By the start of the fourth mile I felt crushed. The second time around the back loop I felt a chill run through my body, a good (bad) sign of dehydration. I couldn't move fast on the up-hills even if I wanted to. My competitor in what had become a two-man race seemed to have no problem putting distance between us on the up-hills. I was mentally talking myself out of first place. This guy was inside my head. Still, I hung on. I didn't dare pause to scoop up the water bottle Eric left beside the course. I told myself I could make it to the finish. There would be water there.

Miraculously, by the end of the fourth mile I had taken the lead and started to drop the other runner. I wasn't accelerating, just maintaining, but he had spent himself trying to gain a larger lead. Eric told me afterwards that if I had seen the guy's face I would have known he didn't have it in him. During the race, however, I had a flame lit under my ass out of fear that this guy was going to come back and pass me any minute. I used the downhill as I entered the last mile. At the bottom of the hill with over a half mile to go people seemed to be giving me the unenthusiastic "nice win" clap. I didn't believe them, but I hoped they were right.

I rounded the final bend and hit the long up-hill into the finish. It was agonizing. I felt like I was swimming through peanut butter. Somehow I made it up the hill and gave a push into the finish. It was one of those stuttering pushes. The kind that boosts my speed and then fizzles. I had to restart it like a stalled car, but each successive boost lasted less time than last. I made it across the line. The water table seemed to be miles away. It was like a sick joke. I walked towards it. I looked at various race officials and helpers, and wobbled towards them. Not because I needed help, it was more like the reason they tell you not to look at rocks while mountain biking; you’ll end up riding right towards them. I wasn’t trying to run into people. It just looked that way.

I found the water table and drank like a fish. My winning time was 25:40.7. That time would have placed me fourth in the men's varsity race. In 05 when I won D3 nationals I ran 25:13.8. Interestingly, the varsity winner this year ran a 25:13.4. The weasel beat my time by point four! I couldn't resist checking and comparing the times.

Matt De Leon finished 24th in 27:51.6. Not to be out done he then invited me to run an 8 miler with him after the race, claiming he had to get mileage in for his marathon training. I went out with him and Eric (he and Eric?) and turned back before my legs felt like giving out. I reckon my cool down covered three miles.

Pictures and links to results

Men's Open Race results

All results