2008 USATF Cross Country Club Nationals

It is appropriate, one might even say prophetic, that I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road on the flight out to XC Club Nationals. It's a brilliant post-apocalyptic book about cold, dark, slow death by nuclear winter.

The Spokane weathermen are delighted to describe the first storm of the 08-09 winter. Gesticulating in front of their green screens, they work themselves into a tizzy. Should we forgive their hyperbole when they drop phrases like "meteorological bomb"?

The pilot describes conditions on the ground as "freezing fog" in an indifferent, calming tone.

Landing gear and flaps down. Other passengers leaning forward, partly from deceleration and partly to see ... what? ... anything but fog out the windows. Anxiety builds. They grow more desperate to see out the windows as if it gives them control over the situation, as if they might see something actionable and heroically disregard the fasten seat belt sign to rush to the cabin and deliver the vital information to the pilots.

Pushed back suddenly in our seats, nose up, engines pulling at the air. Excited murmuring throughout the cabin.

Then comes the indifferent voice, "Well folks, we have enough fuel to make one more pass at the runway before we have to head back to Seattle."

Protests and disappointed murmurs circulate in the cabin while I just shake my head in amazement. How can so many weigh their lives so lightly against a layover in Seattle?

The pilot nails it on the second try, but we come in hot. Sudden hard braking interrupts spontaneous cheers.

This is two days before race day.

All the GVHers pack into a van and head for the race course. The men's course repeats a grassy loop three times, the women repeat twice. The loop has one long straight-away that spans the diameter of the course and then twists and winds from one end of the straight back to the other.

There are no large hills to speak of on the route marked out over the golf course, but there are many turns and motocross-like moguls. This is Friday. The weather is cold, but not unpleasant. There is no snow on the soft turf that we run over. The ground is cushy, the kind of thing runners dream of training on. "It feels like Bounty [paper towels]," exclaims Jane Vales.

Elsewhere the weather and terrain is not as accommodating. Coach Reif informs us that a bunch of GVH guys who planned on driving from Seattle were turned back at the mountain pass because of weather. We may not have enough runners for a team.

On the drive back to the hotel heavy snow begins to fall.

This is one day before the race and the supposed "meteorological bomb".

The next morning, race day, Nick End and I do a shake out run before breakfast: three laps around the hotel in a winter wonderland. The air is brisk, but not bitter. The heavy snow ceased early the previous evening and no more has fallen overnight. The "foot or more" that was forecast never materialized. Our GVH runners stuck in Seattle attempted the mountain pass again and made it through, though they lost an ox and Fontana contracted Typhoid.

When Nick and I head in for breakfast, I comment that I may just wear shorts, no spandex. Katie Aldridge, a prophet of the apocalyptic weather from the start, grimly warns that it will only get colder and windier as the day goes on. That's a serious problem for the open men who don't run until 1:30, but I remain skeptical of the doom scenario. Thus far, meterological dud is more appropriate.

The landscape is stark arctic tundra, grass and turf as hard as concrete. The few puffy, layered spectators that stepped out the door this morning have been driven into their SUV's and minivans by the wind. With running heaters and furrowed brows they look out at the skinny, skurrying runner-animals as if thinking, "they haven't put on enough fat. They won't survive the winter."

Some of the runners, myself included, sally forth to cheer on the masters men. I feel empathy pain for the idiot in nothing but a singlet and shorts. Still, the guy in spandex, 2 long sleeve tops, ski gloves, and a face mask seems over-dressed.

It gets colder.

Ryan Pauling's aunt and uncle happen to be neighbors of the course. We gather our gear and make for their house. Running across the treeless course, the cold wind doesn't so much chill me as pass through me with contempt.

We sally forth again from Pauling's relatives' house for a warm up that is anything but warm, and a chance to cheer the women once or twice. Caroline Cretti kicks butt with a 13th place finish.

Returning to the house, we wait, change clothes, change shoes, and put on Vaseline. The women return, shivering, and chilled so deep that we can feel the cold emanate from them.

"How was it?"
"We won't say."

I don't mull over this cryptic answer very long. Can it really be that bad? I wear long spandex beneath my shorts, gloves, hat, a tank top under my jersey, and Vaseline on my arms, neck and face. I have never been so covered for a race before. Nick End is wearing less. Some other people are wearing more. Andy Crawford cakes so much Vaseline on his face that he looks like he has a flesh eating virus.

I learn later that the numbers were thus: temperature in the low teens, wind gusts around 30 miles per hour, wind chill taking the air temperature down to about zero. Frankly it felt colder. One of the Penny Arcade guys has relatives in Spokane. He put it this way: "... there's no other interpretation: some god (or fraternity of gods) is trying to erase this wicked land."

I step to the line. The gun is up. Goosebumps are already raised as if something under my skin wants to push the cold away.

The gun blasts and I get off the line cleanly. The course starts on the single long straightaway on a wide open field. It's spacious, but this sort of thing never lasts long enough.

The free-flowing crowd squeezes into the roped-off alley as the course dips down into the first turn. It's tight. We've turned out of the wind and we're moving plenty fast so early in the race.

Someone stumbles into me from behind. I stumble, but palm the back of the guy ahead of me and pass the stumble forward like dominoes. I yell for people to chill out. Someone knocks me from behind again. I nearly fall, nearly drag at least one guy down with me, a racer's back-kick gives me a neat double pin prick in the knee. I curse loudly, surprising myself a little. It comes out as a bark. Everyone else is so quiet. No one speaks. I still don't know why.

I've got half-inch spikes in. A teammate of mine has five-eighths. I don't care to have a doctor survey the rest of the field based on the puncture depths in my back because some over-eager jackass thinks he is too far back and wants to push his way through to the front. The race isn't even a half mile over yet.

A bit of space frees up, but I'm still playing "Frogger" as seemingly everyone behind me tries to move up and everyone ahead drops back. The mile clock reads 5:20, meaningless in these conditions.

There are plenty of people to draft off of even as runners begin to segregate into packs on the treeless course. Turning into the wind puts everyone in slow motion and fills our ears with static. One portion puts the wind square at our backs. Everyone surges with it. Nothing changes.

I think I hear Pat Rizzo's name (a college competitor) and I see a guy who could easily be Jose Garcia (another former competitor), but other people around me are wheezing or running heavy. There's a pack ahead. I heard Crosby Freeman's name (and another) earlier and I know he moved up. I want to be up there.

I complete one lap. Back on the straightaway I put in a little surge to move up to the group ahead of me. I can feel the excitement behind me. He's going to help us move up! Draft, draft, draft! The straightaway has a harsh cross wind so the drafters are actually clustering off my left shoulder. I don't make it all the way up to the next group, but members of the group fall back to me, so our packs seem to merge.

In hindsight I don't know why I was surging. I pass a few. Some pass me. Hints of fatigue prod my legs. Why am I fighting for places? It won't matter in the end. Either my time will be better than theirs or it won't. I might as well be running alone.

I'm trying to remember to blink. How cold can eyeballs get before you can't see with them? Can that happen? My contacts are clinging like rock climbers caught in a storm. The mile mark blows by, but I don't see it on the second loop.

At mile three I'm trying to maintain position. My arms are so cold. I feel like my elbows can't bend. When the wind drops everyone to a crawl, I want to pump my arms to kick start my legs, but my arms are stiff and worthless.

Listening to the spectators (who consisted almost entirely of other runners), I know my place is in the 40's. Not bad, not great. The group I want is still ahead. I throw in a few surges like I've got energy to spare; accelerating off down-hills and when the wind nudges me in the back. The surges don't do much. I pass a few people. I think I would have passed them anyway. The wind beats me down. Every time it gets harder to accelerate up to a respectable speed. Everyone is dancing the surge-and-slow, which compounds the fatigue as we all weave in and out of each other to pass or draft, sustaining neither. The military has a saying, "Don't reinforce failure." We're tapping our reinforcements, reservists, and drafting all our other energies to bloody ourselves against the wind.

Late in lap two the guy next to me has a misstep on an ice chunk and sprawls face first on the frozen dirt. I have nothing to add. It just sticks out in my head as a part of the awfulness. Adverse conditions are supposed to be my forte. I live for this stuff, but not today.

Are we having fun yet?

My breath is short and quick. I try to control it. My chest is cold, like I'm a sword swallower choking on an icicle. I want to beat my frozen unbending hands against my skull for not wearing more clothes. Everything is wrong, a point highlighted as I cross a particularly hard patch of earth that my half-inch spikes fail to penetrate. The tops push back up into my feet and I'm thinking, how the hell can I even feel my feet?

The second lap ends. This time, dead tired, I realize the straight-away is a gradual downhill. It almost feels good. Then I'm back to the turns, moguls, and wind. Any momentum I build is snatched away. I don't have to worry about blinking anymore. My eyes are closing, opening slowly to see a little stretch ahead, closing again. It's easier this way, and slower.

People are passing. I'm the guy they are gaining confidence from. This is totally bass ackwards. My personal Hell has officially frozen over.

I don't know where I'm at on the course. The little battles with hills and tangents, drafts and competitors, are afterthoughts to the campaign I'm losing in my head.

A bunch of masters runners are stationed deep in mile five. I hear them cheer and coach Reif, or someone, yells something to the effect of "You don't give in." Not "you won't", but "you don't". It helps to be reminded that people see me that way. I don't want to disappoint them. It gives me some impulse to fight the fatigue. My form improves. I'm no longer hunched, no longer trying to ball up frozen arms around my cold chest.

I'm on the lookout for the mile six marker, too bad it literally blew away. So I suddenly find myself two hundred meters from the finish line. I out-kick one guy like he's standing still. I'm not gaining on anyone else and I can hear that awful sound of breath and footfalls behind me. The slightest weakness and he'll have me. So this becomes my race. If I beat this one guy, then I didn't give in. I can take something away from this hellish day. I strive for the finish line and make it through without seeing the body belonging to the stalking sounds.

Later on, Jen Malik asks where I got the mylar blanket. I said I made a pathetic face at a volunteer as soon as I crossed the finish line and they gave it to me. I meant it jokingly, but thinking back, that is how it happened.

I can't convey how cold I felt. My arms seemed paralyzed. I struggled into two long sleeve shirts and then ran to Pauling's house wrapped in the mylar. Nothing felt better until I drank hot water at their house. It was the most delicious hot water I have ever tasted.

I finished 50th. Using my college competitors as a gauge... Crosby Freeman finished 31st, indeed where I wanted to be. Jose Garcia finished 209. Ouch. This guy ran a sub 30:30 10k in college. Pat Rizzo finished 47th. So, I suppose 50th is not bad. I'm just glad to be warm again.

I'm not hiding anything, but I found exactly zero pictures of myself in all of the galleries I looked through (in fact most of GVH turned out to be camera-shy), so if you find a picture that you think is me, please send it to me or send me the link. Here's a tip, I think I looked a bit like this guy.

Links

USATF Club Championships Home Page
Results
News Report of the race
More news (i think it is the same news)

Videos of the race (listen to that wind)
These goofballs made a pretty funny video showing pre-race conditions
Decent Photos
A few good photos
A large gallery with high res pics
Best photo gallery I've found
Seems like something would show up on this site eventually.

GVH Results

Open Men 13th out 41 teams. 314 Finishers

50.        Neal Holtschulte            32:43

88.        Ryan Pauling                33:24

96.        Chris Muldoon               33:30

116.      Brian Lombardo             33:52

182.      Nick End                     34:50

204.      Mike Heitzenrater           35:23

208.      Fontana Fluke               35:25

228.      Chad Byler                   35:56

236.      Kevin Burke                  36:10

250.      Andy Crawford               36:38


Open Women 20 out of 21 teams. 185 finishers

37.        Katie Aldridge              23:09

148.      Jennifer Malik               25:45   

154.      Katie Derusso                26:00

162.      Jane Vales                   26:27

177       Katie Passarell              28:18


Veteran Men 4th out of 8 teams.  252 finishers

11/54    Mark Rybinski              39:51

2/17      Jim Robinson              40:47

17/54    Charlie Andrews            41:07

19/54    Gary Radford               41:18

5/17      Tim McMullen              42:53

32/54    Tony Vodacek               43:36

7/17      Ron Blackmore             44:25

18/27    Mike Reif                  50:58


Masters Men

26/78   Chris Mattingly             37:28

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