2009 Chase Corporate Challenge and East End Mile

I can't help but think, isn't this so typical of America, where accomplishment is about posting the biggest numbers, getting the TV cameras and the microphone in your face, name on the radio, picture on the sports page. Everybody thinks I'm a star because I won the Chase Corporate Challenge.

Maybe I'm being too hard on American culture. This is running. Nobody's listening and if they are listening (and Chase brings such a media army to this event that people do listen) then they don't understand.

Nick End placed 105th in the Boston Marathon. His coworkers don't understand why he didn't win the Challenge. It makes my skin crawl because they are both raising up his accomplishment to more than it is and at the same time debasing it. No, he is not the 105th fastest person in America. No, a marathon is not like a 5K. Yes, he blazed a very difficult marathon at a speed that would drop most people to the pavement after only one mile. Yes, he trained like a maniac, often alone, beating his body into shape like forged steel. Yes, other true runners are impressed. Yes, you should be impressed, but only for the right reasons dammit!

I'll get off the soapbox now.

I admit, there is a lot of pressure at the Chase Challenge because of all the attention. I'd like to be above such things, but this race is going to define me for the vast non-running community. Also, my company desperately wants me to win. Also, I got second place last year by less than one second.

And yet, this feels like a circus. On the starting line there is a forty year old female clown on my right. No offense to middle-age female runners, but there are 9000 people behind me. I'm sure that I would be in the right to ask her to move back a few rows. The Genesee Valley Harriers are going to rock six of the eight top finishing overall places and some of my buddies aren't even on the front line, but you know what? It's also pouring rain in buckets. Whatever happens, happens.

The race starts and the planets settle into their proper orbits, that is, the fast people move up and politely deign not to trample stupid people. Julius Rono is out in the lead and this is very interesting. Rono looks like a runner: tall, lean, African, and furthermore, I'm told he is wicked fast. For the first mile I'm in second behind him and he keeps encouraging me to come on up. He's even waving and pointing at the empty space next to him. No thanks, I'm good five paces behind you. Bradshaw is breathing down my neck and he is the one I'm really worried about. Rono is Schrodinger's cat. He is either going to win the race or not and no one knows until we open the box, but if I cramp up, bonk in the last mile, get the shits, anything, then Bradshaw will be there to seize the win.

Rono drops back to a jog after the first mile. For whatever reason, he just wanted to pace the start. Great, now it's my time to control this race. I keep it fast. The rain eases a bit. It will be back in force before the end. I can hear Bradshaw splashing through the puddles behind me still. That's ok. He's not breathing down my neck. He's not drafting. Mile two falls at 9:40. Fast, but I want to put victory in the bag right now. I don't want to leave any questions for later. Mile three is where I really lay down the hammer. Bradshaw falls back.

I start to hurt, but I'm comforted: if I hold this pace, I will win, no force in the verse can stop me. But, this is no 5K. This is 3.5 miles, Point four more than 5K and that's not insignificant. Yeah, this hurts. I can see the finish line by 5K. I'm golden. Here's a little sprint for the cameras. I finish in 17:01, eleven seconds faster than last year. Bradshaw is next 14 seconds later, then Chad Byler, and so on.

The rain pulls at me, everything I've taken on falls away, washes into the gutter. The air is cool, pure, good to breathe.

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Results

DNC Article

A week and a day later I'm preparing for another evening race: The East End Mile, yes, just one. My motives are not pure. There is a lot of money up for grabs. 500 dollars for first, 250 for second, 100 for third.

Julius Rono is running and he brought friends or relatives. I meet the three Africans: Julius, Nick, and another Rono (didn't catch his first name). They are running an outstandingly slow warm up. Seriously, it's my mom's fast walk pace. Not sure if they know something I don't about warming up I nonetheless excuse myself on the pretext of helping Steve Strelick find registration. Then I warm up with Strelick and Chad Byler. We run into Eric Boyce and Ryan Pauling. This is going to be an interesting race. This is no Corporate Challenge. This race has brought out-of-towners with the lure of big money. There are a lot of fast-looking people here.

I warm up for about 30 minutes. It's only a mile. I'm not worried about getting tired, I just need to be warm. The great thing about a mile race is that it doesn't hurt unless you pull a muscle. I don't recall having had any pain during this race, only afterward.

The race starts and a cluster of people are ahead of me in an instant. That's okay. I expected it. We round the first turn, coming up on the first quarter. I ease off, just guessing that these others are going out too fast. At this speed, and with the minuteness of my slowing, I don't even feel any relief in my legs, but I trust that the tiny relaxation will pay off three minutes in the future.

I feel like I'm running a workout, of course, in a workout I stop after 400 meters at this pace. Now I just keep going.

I pass two or three people before the half way mark. A mile run can hurt it turns out; when you go out way too fast. I see one of the Africans drop out, literally step onto the sidewalk and slow to a walk. It's like a signal we didn't know we were waiting for. The pace picks up as a lot more people are suddenly thinking, things are not as they appear; I can win this thing.

I slide up next to Julius just before 800 meters. He and I go stride for stride for at least a hundred meters before he fades back slightly. We come up on the hairpin turn. This is the last thing you want in a short fast race; a momentum killer. I'm little. I've got less momentum to kill. I take the turn and this taller guy is skidding, taking the turn wider, slower. I hit the afterburners and pass him on the inside.

Three quarters of a mile is here and gone. Two guys remain ahead of me but I've shifted gears. They are coming back. It's inevitable. The differences in pace are ultravisible. I take the lead. The finish is in sight, but I know I won't have it. I can't say how I knew. Did I hear him? Hear the cheers? Hear his footsteps? ESP? Somehow I knew this guy was coming up faster than I could match. And he did. He shows up in my peripheral and my perspective shifts: he is walking past me on a moving train. I am still. It's the world outside careening by.

Then its over. I cross the line in 4:25 for second. The first place guy collapses to the ground. I keep my feet, but the coughing starts and I can't control it. My throat is raw. I start salivating rapidly, like my body is trying to make me puke, make me drown, probably just cool my burning wind pipe. There's so much fluid in my mouth I think some of it must be blood but the spit keeps coming out clear.

This pain is no big surprise. The air is as cool and clear as a window made of sandpaper. It's been snowing cottonwood seeds all week. For real, I swept handfuls out of my car after leaving the windows down. There's a lot of other plant matter in the air too, too small to see. My throat is in misery and the only thing to do is wait for it to go away.

I've got no room to complain. I placed exactly where I had expected, better than my revised expectation after accounting for the Africans. Another surprising thing about this race is that the winner was a white guy. He drove in from Long Island for this race. He's the same guy who won last year (so I guess that makes it less of a surprise).

After the race a bunch of us went to the East End Festival where we inhaled second hand cigarette smoke, yelled conversation at each other over the music, and paid too much for bad food. Good times. Actually, I did rather enjoy myself. I'm not sure why.

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