DePauw Indoor Classic
Saturday, February 17, 2007 I drove down to DePauw University in inclement weather with Bryan Falk. Bryan works in Tech Services at Culver and came down as a friend and spectator, he also helped with driving. I stuck him with the slippery, slushy portion on the way down before the temperature rose and the plows cleared the roads.
It took us nearly five hours to get to DePauw and we counted eleven cars that had gone off the road along the way. My Ford Taurus with the corroded and until recently dead battery held up admirably under the conditions. I now remember what anti-lock brakes feel like.
As late as we were, I thought I would miss the race. The meet began at 11:15 and events proceeded on an ever-nebulous rolling schedule. Like all good track meets, this one was thankfully running late. After a student gave us bad directions to the Indoor Track we found another student who we clarified the situation for.
"Ooooh, you mean the Indoor Track for the track meet," he responds.
Yes, idiot. I kept that to myself. He revised his directions and I left Bryan behind to go running through the snow clutching a shoe in each hand with my jersey stuffed into my coat pocket. I ran to the infield, stripped into my uniform, threw on my spikes, and went on to win the race with nary a warm up.
Not quite. My dramatic entrance was foiled by the women’s distance medley relay, followed by the men’s, followed by men’s and women’s 2x400, followed by the women’s 5K. The meet had only just begun. I reacquired Bryan and we found a spot for him to watch and me to plop down all my stuff. I felt very nervous and antsy the whole time. I felt like I hadn’t raced in a long time and I had no idea how fast I could go. Realistically my training was fine though my speed was questionable since I didn’t have a proper indoor track to train on and I’d been doing speed work outside based on effort.
Events moved forward whether I felt ready or not. I went for a warm-up, but cut that short (between 5-10 min total) since I was just sliding around and jumping over snow drifts. Back inside I jogged some on the track after putting my spikes on. I taped up my feet in three problem spots (both heels and the top of my left big toe) and decided to try running without socks. It would be only my second race doing so.
I met the DePauw coach, Kori Stoffregen, in the athlete “gathering area” in the outer lanes of the track near the start. Coach Kori Stoffregen (who I had assumed was a woman from the name) (but isn’t) greeted me and complimented my Columbus Running Company jersey. We made a bit of small talk before the 5K runners were ushered to the starting line. There the second position guy asked me what I was shooting for. I told him that I’d like 72 second quarters to feel comfortable. In college I might have been more secretive, but my eye was less on the big W than on:
- not embarrassing my seed time,
- gauging my fitness level,
- and lastly, ok, I wanted the big W.
The race began and I felt like the other runners let me take the lead. The pace felt very comfortable but I didn’t push it. The first lap wrapped up in 35 seconds, the second 36, and that pace was right where I stayed. I’m a marksman in the fourth dimension. After a number of laps, I estimate a mile, another racer took the lead. This pleasantly surprised me. I thought fate would have me lead the whole way, so I made peace and deferred to fate, but I wouldn’t turn down a freely-offered draft. I could feel our speed-generated head wind ruffle into eddies behind the other runner. I slipped into the draft, but not too close to avoid his back kick.
He went around for a bit at 72 second 400 pace then unexpectedly dropped the pace down to 71 low. I considered giving him some line to reel him back in later. In retrospect that was a ridiculous and wimpy thought and I am glad that I stuck with him. After a few laps, perhaps another mile he faltered and our pace slowed to nearly 74 second quarters.
At this point I chose the embarrassing and wimpy option of staying behind him. After all, I thought, I’ve got “money in the bank” from all those 71’s we were running. So I followed him around feeling good the whole way until eventually I decided that I’d spent my chronological savings and needed to go back to work. I pulled out and accelerated, went right around the leader and started clipping off 71’s, or maybe even 70’s. I had trouble hearing the times being called out towards the end of the race.
With two laps remaining I gave another little push and then I kicked it up another notch on the final 200. I crossed the line for first in 14:53. I know that I could have gone faster and felt a little disappointed that I hadn’t, but at least now I know that I’m still in excellent shape.
Unfortunately, running sock-less was an awful idea. My feet were torn to pieces much like the results of the Outdoor track race two years ago where my whole shoe came off. It looked like I had stigmata: holes in the tops of both feet above the joint of the big toe, holes in both heels (two in one of them), and most painfully a flap of skin torn off my “index toe” on my right foot.
I told myself I’d buy new spikes after I graduated. I think it’s time I followed up on that promise.
After the race I did a little cool down and picked up the t-shirt that I won. Yeah!
My mom made it just in time for the race so it was nice to see her, but it was already getting late so after a short bit Bryan and I headed back up to Culver. The roads were much nicer on the way back and we made good time.
I took a day off to heal up my feet and toe. Hopefully with proper bandages I can run on them again soon. I hope to race in Indianapolis next weekend. I’m sort of cramming in races before high school Indoor Track begins in earnest.
Meet Information
Meet Results
Pictures, hopefully coming soon.
