Top 10 Things at the Hartshorne 2001

First of all, the annual big THANK YOU to Coach Hoebeke and his helpers for another excellent event. I didn't run very fast this year but the event means a lot to me and I know to many others.

Here are my race stats: Finished fifth (I think) in men's section 2 in 5:31.8; about 20 seconds slower than last year. Not doing any speed and having a bad cold in December was a tough combination. I would really like to get back to that 5:10 area next year and am now doing the speed I should have before if only Barton had been open.

So here are this year's race memories, in Letterman-style list:

10.) I ran the first four laps in 2:41, just as planned but I forgot to speed up after that. That's where speed work would have helped.

9.) I was on the inside for my heat, but felt good that Tim Ingall was on the outside because I knew he would go to the lead. That part worked too, except he didn't fade and come back like he was supposed to in my plan. He ran a very good race, I saw almost the whole thing.

8.) The Men's Section 1 (good but not elite heat) was tremendously fun to watch. I want to get fast enough to get back in it, but for this year it was great to see Tony Vodacek and Tom Hartshorne both looking lean and mean. Ron Hulslander also ran a very strong race, and Caleb Rossiter, who I only see four times every three years (three master's miles and a tri-ennial) was his usual tough self.

7.) Warming up for the race, I was thinking of my high school friend Rick Simchik. This is a bad sign. Rick was a huge kid, a tackle in football and a pitcher in baseball, with NO footspeed. When we both played baseball he routinely beat me in the wind sprints in the first three or four, then I'd beat him (and most of the team) in the later ones. It's when I realized I should go out for cross country. (Mr. Cavanaugh, the baseball coach, had realized this some time earlier.) But the mile...well, it's more like the first couple of sprints...

6.) The elite heat was not as close as some years but still very exciting. Tim McMullen just made the rabbit his own and pulled away from the field by an astonishing amount. Watching Casey move up through the field to 2nd was also fun, but we kept waiting for Tim to pay for that early move...and he didn't.

5.) During my fifth and sixth laps, I decided the new surface in Barton Hall is WAY slower than the old one.

4.) The women's race made me want to get in shape more than any other. I like thinking I could have won, but there was no chance this year. Patti Ford was awesome, as always.

3.) Lorrie's great effort to catch Shirley W. in the later laps showed the sort of mental toughness that our FLRC president has that I lack. Good job, chief.

2.) I've been hanging around track meets most of my life, and I still am amazed that people can high jump. How does one get a body to make those motions? It's like a cartoon for me every time. Watching the college kids running up to the bar, I NEVER think they're going to clear and I'm always startled when they do.

… AND my number-one memory, something I already knew but is again indelibly burned into my brain:

1.) There is no set of four syllables in a row that make me feel worse than this one sequence: "GoRickGoHerb." If there's a long space between them, as in, "Go Rick... ... ...Go Herb", well that's not so bad. Unfortunately all through the first six laps I just heard the dreaded "GoRickGoHerb" and knew that Herb, being tougher than I am, would swallow me up in the last lap. Herb is about 10 years older than I am, but also 50 pounds lighter (as we verified after a recent workout), AND way better at running the mile.

As some Cubs fans once said, "Wait'll next year!"

Time to go do some speed. I may develop a new retro-training program where you train for the event you just did. Speed after Hartshorne, long runs after Boston, etc.

-- Rick Cleary