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FLRC Newsletter - May 2005 |
| Skunk Cabbage 10K: Andris Grows Tall | |
Saturday morning a couple of dozen people filled the blockhouse in Barton to stuff envelopes—Skunk was off to a great start. At that moment John Whitman was in Chicago on his morning run in the sun, totally oblivious of the downpour hitting the Ithaca area.
But Saturday night was a little different for John. On arriving back in Syracuse, he stopped at a hardware store and bought mops and sponges. He then spent the whole night out on the course on his hands and knees cleaning up water so the race would go on. Okay, maybe this is not entirely true, but I'm fairly certain he didn't sleep all night as he worked on race prep stuff.
Last fall at the cross-country series race at the Cornell golf course, I was having one of those (thankfully rare) races where from a quarter mile into the race to the finish I was not at all happy. I'm still not sure what was wrong—maybe just a bug or something. That day little Andris Goncarovs dragged my singlet around the course, as he constantly threw encouraging words in my direction while he watched me suffer beside him. He stayed with me until about 800 yards from the finish when he took off and finished 400 yards ahead of me!
The first half of my race at Skunk was generally lonely. The group ahead was steadily becoming smaller figures as they pulled further away, and I tried to run at my own pace. Bob Talda rode past a couple of times in the rain and made some encouraging comments, I remember feeling sorry for him in the cold rain on his bike! I was feeling surprisingly good after trying to train through late winter, suffering from bronchitis and pneumonia. I reached the Ithaca United Track Club kids' water stop by Dodge Road still feeling okay, especially as it was a little while before I heard their yells for Andris behind me. I met the returning five-minutes-per-mile leaders quite a ways before I reached the turnaround in 19:08.
Still feeling reasonably okay, I headed home meeting lots of familiar faces and more encouragement as the rain really started. With Geoff Hutchinson leading the half marathoners at that point, we met them going the opposite direction and Skip Stroebel, running the half, yelled at me for looking back as I turned onto Route 366, telling me "the race is in front of you not behind"—and then my race began! Thanks Skip! I hit the 5-mile marker exactly on 31 minutes, and as I turned onto Tower Road the footsteps behind me became louder. Cutting the tangent by the vet school looked like such an obvious thing to do, you all know what I mean!
There were many smaller "races within a race" on Sunday, and some outstanding personal performances, but few people witnessed what unfolded around me coming down Tower Road.
I didn't exactly know who was right behind me, but I made it though the crossroads and on another couple of hundred yards before Andris crept up on me. Over the last few years many of us have watched him run, and we have read reports of his progress as he has become one of the top nationally ranked runners in his age group.
At first he stayed behind me on my shoulder, and then I sensed someone else behind him, and then someone else, too. He moved up beside me on my right and started to run right there without a sound. I remember thinking, "What is he doing? Why doesn't he just blow right by me? There's nothing I can do!" Then I got a sense that he was about to start to talk to me; I was completely dying, and he wanted to chat—ugh!!!
It was different this time than at that cross-country race last fall. I had been running feeling pretty well this time (until now!), and Andris was again pulling me along. He stayed right there, with not a word. He knew I needed help, and he gave it to me by staying with me. At the time I thought he was making a tactical error in not going right by. There is no doubt he could have done just that, and most people would have, but that is not what he wanted to do. He just wanted to help me in. Only when the first female finisher, Judy Johnson, threatened his position and came up to us did he move ahead. She then passed me, and Sarah Kramer was coming up very strong behind me, too—all three of them having run terrific second 5Ks.
As Andris ran to the final turn off of Tower Road he suddenly looked very tall. In that few hundred yards he had grown a foot and had run a brilliant race tactically. He had gone out steadily and increased the pace the whole way. I had nothing left; my return trip was a 19:04, only slightly faster than the first 5K. Quite honestly I really don't think he cared if he beat me or not, in that 200 yards when we ran side by side I learned an awful lot from a 13-year-old. He is one hell of a competitor, and years from now Ill be able to say, "I used to run with that guy!" Unfortunately, I probably won't be running 38-minute 10Ks any more—and neither will he! The day we ran the Skunk Classic was his 13th birthday, but during the race he had acted as if he just turned 19.
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