Patriot League Champs

[frojoe23]

Jeremy, Tommy, and I went up to Lehigh on Saturday to watch young Daniel tear it up at the Patriot League meet. Dan had quite a support crew there: his parents, Theresa, Justin and Charlotte, Steve Parrish with his wife and kids, and of course his biggest supporter FRED (capitalized because he likes to scream a lot)!

A good meet all around. Navy really dominated the womens side of things. I believe that I heard they had 6 in the top 4. I'm pretty sure this guy must have been dislexic.

On the guys side, Lehigh looked good early, but somewhere in the middle of the race, Navy started to pack their guys up front. Army was in the mix too and in the end Navy and Army came up with the same amount of points, with Army taking the win. Lehigh finished up in third, but I thought they had a pretty good race. A few guys had a bad day, but it looked like some guys stepped up and filled those holes nicely. They should have a good run at Regionals.

Dan ended up at 25:42 - don't know if he was happy with it or not. He did state that after 5k, he just felt like he couldn't move anymore. He can give a better recap if he so chooses, but it was nice to see him race. He cut 18 seconds off of his time from Paul Short and that is all that matters.
a 35th place finish seems pretty good to me also.

Results:

patriotleague.cstv.com/sports/c-xc/stats/110108aaa.html

Team Results:
patriotleague.cstv.com/sports/c-xc/stats/110108aac.html

[dan]

See if you can make it to the end of this:

The starting line was calm and quiet as the runners milled around in the tense moments before the start. Temperatures in the mid-50’s and virtually no wind made the conditions for racing ideal. Eight teams and 12 maximum runners per team meant that there would be less than 100 runners toeing the line. Making use of what seemed like every available inch of Lehigh’s larger-than-normal starting line, the officials spread out the competitors so that every single runner had a toe on the common starting line. Official Ed Donahue shot the gun after a moment’s hesitation, and all runners departed off towards the two telephone poles which signify the “narrowing” of the course.

For some reason, Clinton Orloski and Andrew Huebner from Bucknell felt compelled to take the early pace along with some other kid from Colgate who seemed to be sprinting as fast as he could. Around the metal trees, I glanced to see several Navy jerseys directly in front of me in addition to those of Lampi, McClimon, and Wetzel. Favorites Jon Anderson of Army and Carlos Jamieson of American were nowhere to be seen. However, the pace didn’t feel too “hot,” so I didn’t slow down. Carl, Kenny, and I rolled as one until we got to the mile mark.

At mile one, I strained my ears to hear a time, but the noise was of a decibel level that is seemingly unmatched by almost anything. I glanced around for a clock, but there was none. All I could see was a sea of faces, undistinguishable as I clipped along at what seemed to be 4:55-5:00 mile pace. I knew my legs were hurting already, but I also knew that my mind was a big wuss and I just had to keep going until two miles before I could really decide how I was feeling.

As the race continued to string out, I counted my position. Carl and I sat in 13th and 14th position as we neared the 3000m mark. I felt comfortable with this position, though the pace didn’t really slacken much from 1 mile until this point. I tried to assure myself that my head was just being stupid and that my legs would soon wake from whatever stupor they were feeling.

Two miles passed and Mark Degenhart, one of our beloved SMD’s on the track team, called out the splits: “10:03, 10:04, 10:05…” We flew by and made the hard left down the long hill into the woods. At this point, I didn’t know what to feel. I knew that this was the spot where we were supposed to start rolling, but my heart was telling me something else. As I glanced around to see who I was with, the inevitable began to happen. To my left, one, then two, and then three runners in blue and gold from Navy passed me. To my right, two more from Army strode by me like I would have been running eight-minute miles. Mixed in this sea of navy and black were a handful of purple, white, and royal blue as runners from Holy Cross, Bucknell, and American, respectively, passed me on either side. I knew that this spot really was the make-or-break point. I knew that if I chose to go with these guys, I would definitely be taking a big risk. They were moving at a pace much faster than the one that I currently was running at. I had no idea if I could hold this faster pace for 3 minutes, let alone another three miles. As I was contemplating this decision, it was starting to become too late. These newbies continued to increase the distance between them and me, and my last-ditch effort to hop in and ride in their wake went unrewarded.

Despite the fact that this was probably not true, I told myself that the race had just left me. It is a strange feeling when you almost give up on yourself in a race and it isn’t even halfway over. When a race is going well, I can look at mile marks and think “Okay, I have so-and-so many miles to go, so-and-so many more spots to make up…” but on a day like this one, where my head was starting to turn on me, I began to think “I am coming up on 4k. I’m halfway done this mess and I’m already really hurting.”

The group I was with passed Etters and all the other people who run all over the course to cheer right before the 4k mark. I didn’t hear what he said, but he could tell that I was slowly falling off the pace. Shortly before we emerged from the woods and headed towards the 3-mile mark, Evans passed me. He was freaking FLYING. I have no idea how he was doing it, but he blew by me like nothing else. I yelled at him to keep rolling, and he looked superb. I never saw him near me again after that. By the time I made it to three miles, Kenny had evened up with me and I tried to start thinking what we could do to make a move together. The split at three miles had been 15:14, and even though I knew that with a decent last two miles all might NOT be lost, I knew even deeper down that I was slowly shifting into survival mode. Kenny looked to be in the same mindset, because even though we were running together, our pleas to pick up the pace, or to get moving, seemed halfhearted and heartless.

We headed together towards the road crossing next to Transportation and we were still getting passed by kids. I didn’t even know what place we were in now, but it didn’t look too good. I had no idea what place the other guys in front of us were in, but right before we crossed the road, I looked up about 50 yards ahead to see Evans catching McClimon. McClimon looked to be in pain, so it didn’t bode well for our other two front-runners. Kenny and I didn’t catch McClimon or Evans, because as we headed towards the grass track, our paced slowed even more than it had since the 5k mark. It was definitely turning into one of those days where the connection between legs and mind exists only to harm you. If your mind tells you that your legs are hurting, then, of course, your legs will start to hurt. Conversely, and unfortunately, if your legs try to override your mind and get moving your mind slams the door and your legs are left out in the cold.

Rolling along the grass track started to become slightly deflating as we saw all the people cheering for us. We kept hearing how Bucknell was only one or two spots ahead of us. Or, did we realize that American had just passed us? I can’t speak for Kenny, but I will now very plainly state that I absolutely realized that I was getting passed by every single creature in God’s glorious creation. I certainly was not happy about it, but what in the world could I do? My legs stopped paying attention to me about fifteen minutes beforehand.

Four miles were passed just over the bridge and then the haze of the upcoming finish really set in. Negative thoughts crept into my mind that it was likely going to be my fault that we didn’t win the Patriot League title. I started wondering how slow I was going to run and started to contemplate how upset I would be when I realized that I ran slower today than I had at Paul Short. With just over 1000m to go, Etters looked right at me and Kenny and pleaded with one of us to try and make a move. Silently, wordlessly, and hopelessly, Kenny and I seemed to communicate that neither one of us would be able to do this over the last 1000m.

Up the final hill and down towards “Slow Coach” rock, the race seemed to speed up and slow down at the same time. The runners who were passing me in the mirage of different colors flew by me at alarmingly high rates of speed. However, for my own set of legs, time seemed to lessen its pace. Rolling up and down the bumpy ground on the way to Pac-Man, I realized that 400 meters to go would be coming up and I really had no kick. I knew that there was nothing in my gut to summon. I couldn’t do it for the team, I couldn’t do it for anyone else, but worst of all, I couldn’t even do it for myself. I knew that no matter what was going to happen around me, I was already at my top speed and no amount of fancy cajoling would convince my stupid legs to go any faster.

I stumbled across the line about 8 meters behind Kenny in a time of 25:42.

The usual post-race frenzy of talking to friends and family followed. As I saw Jeremy, Jaron, and Tommy standing there, I was quite touched that they had taken the time to come up and watch me race. I talked to them about how I was feeling during the race. I said something to Jaron about the negative thoughts that crept in my mind after about two miles, and he told me I might need to see a psychologist. Hearing myself talk and looking back on it now, I realize I was probably a little overdramatic when it came to the whole race. I didn’t run a huge new PR, and I didn’t make my first all-conference team. We didn’t win the race as a team, but there were several positives. I still ran 18 seconds better than the time that was my PR for three years before this season. Our team finished third, in its highest finish in a conference meet since our coach was a sophomore (somewhere around 2000, I think). We did have some guys step up and really run well and show a lot of promise for track and the fall seasons to come.

I was dejected for awhile, but once I noticed that everyone else who had come to support me seemed to not care, I decided not to care, either. I still have another race left to run in a few weeks, and even though my 35th place wasn’t super, I think it was more just bad timing than anything else. I’d been feeling super for the last few weeks, but the day that my legs felt achy and not totally awesome was the one day when it “counted” more than others. In the grand scheme of things, I can handle running a near-PR and getting smoked by some pretty decent runners in the process.

Thanks to Jaron for putting up the results and to those three guys for coming up to watch when there are certainly better things to do on a Saturday afternoon. Thanks to Justin and his family for coming out, and special thanks to Justin for scaring the crap out of me a few times along the course with some particularly loud cheering. It was awesome to see so many familiar faces up here at school.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and I can’t wait to come home and run in the Turkey Day. Hope everyone is still recovering well from the marathon or whatever else is going on, and I look forward to talking with you guys again soon!

Sorry this was so freaking long.

[Justin]

Sorry to scare you Dan, I should have warned you about that. I get really excited and am well known in the Lehigh community as having some good pipes. I'm probably one of the biggest Lehigh XC fans in the world.

I think a meet like Patriot Leagues is one of the toughest to race in. Those who have never run in something similar would have a hard time understanding. With the limited field the quality is high and there's really no room for error. Places are the key thing, pretty much throw times out the window, which is probably why Dan is probably feeling worse about this one than he probably should. In a big invite if you drop 10 seconds it may be a couple spots, but there are so many people that it isn't that bad. In a meet like this there is nowhere to hide, 10 seconds can be 2 places and the difference between a good race for the team or a bad one.

I am overall proud as hell of the team. My Freshman year we got slaughtered at Leagues. By the time I was a Junior, 1999, we got 3rd and we were all just on top of the world. To see a team get 3rd and be greatly dissatisfied makes me think how far the program has come. The vision now is to be on top, not just return respect to the program.

Keep you head up Dan and focus on Regionals. A lot of guys turn the focus off after Leagues and it shows in the results. Don't be one of them and come back in a couple weeks and get some scalps.