Way of the Runner (Part 2)

First Race
(Part two … Way of The Runner… )

Fifteen minutes’ notice was given ’round. The athletic building began emptying and my team moved briskly with the river of boys filing outside. The day was clear and not so cold as one might expect for Thanksgiving. It was ideal for running. A sizeable crowd of students and parents were gathered alongside the race course, forward and after the starting line. I searched the sea of faces for my parents and Lynn. I found them about fifty yards beyond the starting line, on my left. Neither of my parents had ever attended a sporting event for one of their sons, and they both stood with an aloof dignity amid a crowd well-versed in spectator excitements. They looked calm enough to me, and I was proud of them for coming to this “worldly” event. I knew they were there for me and not for entertainment. They knew it too, but had no way to anticipate what would develop that day. This would not be their last sporting event.

The runners bunched while the coaches all received last-minute conferencing from the starter. It seemed that each team was to start in a file, with the next team aligned beside them and then the next. The first runner in each file toed the chalked line, so that the starting line was as broad as there were teams. It made a formidable mass of undisciplined bulk except for the first runners whose feet were on the width of the chalk line.

The theory of large-race starts fell to two views. In one view the coach would want his best runner to head the team file and have less obstruction in reaching the leaders as the race shaped up. The other view was to put the slowest runner up front to help even his odds of finishing higher. Coach Blevins felt that since the rest of the team had bothered to race each week thus far into the season, they should have a better start than I, so I was placed at the rear of our file. That placed me well to the back of the pack, but it did not bother me. I knew that I would leave the leggy mass soon enough, and my mind was fixed on Runo. I could not see him from where I stood.

Boys all about me were moving in place, stretching, jogging, jumping lightly off the balls of their feet. I found myself looking from one runner’s legs to the next, assessing muscular development, noting stronger knees and skinny knees. I looked at my own legs to see if I approved, to see if they looked like a runner’s legs. An undercurrent of murmur quietly hummed among the mass of runners as we all waited. Liniment wafted about us in the thin air. I felt an urge of nervousness trying to appeal to me from deep within my belly, but had the good sense to ignore it as I jogged in place waiting for the “ready” call. Soon enough it came, and a “runners to your marks” followed.

Coach had put my friend just ahead of me, so he and I were the tail end of the team. He was leaning from the waist with his left shoulder forward, swinging his arms. I was marveling at the large gathering of track shoes which surrounded me, and could feel a tension in the crowd of eager runners. I had no idea about what to think, so I tried not to think at all. I simply registered that I was now to begin my first competition and it just happened to be in a sport which was as natural to me as breathing. Unlike Runo, I had no demands from my parents to excel, and I felt remarkably relaxed except for a clammy feeling which came with knowing that I had no idea how to perform in an official competition.

“Get set!” Then a loud sharp explosion from the starter’s pistol rent the morning into two hundred shreds of subjective pandemonium before anyone had a chance to out-jump the gun. As the files of runners leapt across the chalk line the great crowd of runners broke ranks and seemed to jam toward the middle, bunching up finally toward the right side of the field. The turns of this course would place the right side of the course on the inside. There would be only six turns, and five of them would be to the right. This I happily memorized while making the first lap around the course.

By the time I and the other “last starters” were in stride and I found that the first bend in the race would be to the right, I felt like I was ready to go to work. I was the only runner who did not know this course’s every turn. Seeing the bend coming upon us, I kept to the left, deliberately trading a few extra strides for the sake of passing a number of runners instead of bunching in where the elbowing was rampant as young men vied for position coming out of the sharp turn. I chose to run farther to clear the bend but in so doing managed to place myself ahead of several scores of runners.

Flying heels were everywhere, and at the apex of the turn the lane was narrowed deliberately by planted shrubbery put there for that reason, I received no cleated kicks as I safely and smoothly squeezed into the spill-out which opened upon passing the shrub’s bottleneck. This race would take us around a short mile course three times, so I knew I could use the first lap to learn the way. I also knew that I would not have to hurry to clear the pack in just the first lap, but could easily use the first two laps to get into position. Unless, that is, Reno was accelerating ahead of the pack too far, in which case I was ready to work harder earlier to keep within closing distance.

To the right and ahead of me stretched a bubbly stream of runners, heads bobbing, arms stroking, legs trying nobly to keep pace with the will of each runner’s heart, that will to win. I could see that I still had about a hundred and fifty runners to pass before completing the second lap, so I settled my head and let my stride stretch itself out. I held to the outside part of the running lane where the passing was less contested, and mused to myself as I looked for the head of the line ahead of me.

As I passed runners I did so gradually, so as not to engender any spurts of premature defiance. Of course, nobody outside my team knew I might be a threat, so no one seemed to pay much attention to me as I worked my way toward the forward half of the lengthy pack. Though I was certainly excited to finally get to see and feel what a competition was like, I also was remarkably relaxed as I plodded along. I began to look to the left into the brush and whatever thinned woods we ran past. I noticed some robins in a clearing, standing like proud busboys in short grass. I remember thinking that they would likely not linger here much longer before moving south for the winter. The runners I passed seemed to blur into faceless mileposts, and I began to see them as non-persons, as mere obstacles to pass.

One thing I recall very clearly was the red and white painted stakes which marked the forbidden “inside area” of the course, the space around which the race would be run. A runner was free to take as far an excursion out of the way to the left, beyond the markers, as he pleased. But anyone who stepped inside the marked off “center grounds” would be instantly disqualified. Better, I thought, to leave plenty of room for error when approaching a rise over which we could not see, in case the next stake was well to the left, which could let a runner run afoul of the course for simply not knowing all the turns.

Of course there were still over a hundred runners ahead of me, so I simply kept to their left side as I passed one or two at a time.

We came upon turn number two, and I was still in the last-half group of runners. I noticed that this turn was not nearly so tight as the first had been, nor as sharp an angle. I passed two men while shooting through that turn and let my stride pick up a little more. My legs felt good, and the blood was beginning to reach it’s optimum fluidity as my muscles mechanically obeyed my eyes and will. It all felt quite effortless, though every man there was a team runner and the pace was anything but relaxing to the most of them.

Already I was hearing labored breathing as I passed shoulder after shoulder. Faces were taut and fixed, jaws were stationary and either relaxed or locked in determination. The pace of the race was notably fast, even here in the mid-way part of the pack. It brought to my face a smile, and I let my stride stretch a bit more.

I loved the smell of the air as I took long deep breaths, counting as I often did six strides per one inhale, three strides for the exhale. Soon enough my legs let me know they wanted more, and I sped up my pace and lengthened my stride. By the third turn I was moving past runners more swiftly than I would have intended, but everything about me wanted to let loose and run at a pace my legs called for. I let my cupped hands relax, letting my thumbs rest alongside my curled forefingers like weak, half-opened fists caught in the act of unfolding.

I kept the swing of my wrists low and constant at just below my waistline. Well I knew the fallacy of tensing up for a willed command of my legs and lungs. That is for sprinters, not distance runners. I felt literally light upon my feet, and my shoes felt as if they were my skin. Occasionally I would glance down at the red leather shoes, enjoying what for me was a thrilling moment of seeing myself finally in a real race, and sporting the finest shoes I’d ever had. Their red leather matched the red top of my team’s competition colors, and the white laces matched my running shorts.

The course took us through a field of taller weeds, which we thrashed as best we could while trampling with broken stride-rhythms our way across. I noted that on the next lap around, I’d want to be sure to run more to the right where all the weeds would have been more compactly beaten down by the bulk of the race’s long formation.

Suddenly, just after straightening out after the third turn, we mounted a grassy knoll which fell away sharply downward past it’s apex and funneled everyone into a narrow clog caused by the stakes and a fence which seemed to have come out of nowhere. Two abreast was all we could make of this little stretch, and I fell in between two runners, one fore and one aft, having decided to suspend my passing until this narrow leg of the race opened up again. It ran for about seventy yards and then got really wicked on us, making another right-angled turn to the right at a squeeze between a painted stake and a large oak tree into which the fence was terminated. Only one man at a time could get through that turn, so the runners at the head of the pack had slowed and their slowing had rippled back to the runners behind, causing a painful slowdown which I found myself resenting.

I should have already blasted my way into the lead, I mused, so I would not have to wait for so many runners to take their turns at the turn. I’d know better next time around.

When finally through it, I let go with a kick even though Coach had always taught against kicking anytime before one’s final dash at the finish line. I felt I had the energy to spare, and it felt good to speed by so many runners building up their pace again after the slow-down. I did get control of myself quickly enough however, and settled back down to a pace similar to the pace I’d been enjoying before the last turn.

Next to please me was a “log-jump” which also featured a small mud-puddle just the other side of the log, causing one to reach for more “launch” than one had initially taken off with for clearing the log. I sailed over the puddle easily, but noticed a number of footprints in the soft edges of the far side of the puddle. I remember talking to my shoes just then, saying that I’d never splash them down in a mudhole.

Again I picked up the pace and went by more runners. By now I was within the first forty or so runners, and knew I had plenty of time to get up with the leaders. While running so, the reality of Coach’s caution about some teams maybe having planted “pacers” in the race began to make sense. I could see that a team which had no real hopes of winning the event might have inter-rivalry motives to push Runo too hard for the first lap in hopes of depleting his energies early in the race. I checked myself inside, and found that I was fine for all day at the pace I was running. I kept on passing runners.

By now my skin was starting to show the slightest moisture as my pores breathed a fine sweat outward to the air. Still I was not breathing hard, and my pulse was relatively calm and steady, very much under control, very much still relaxed. I knew that I may be thrown into a muscle-abusing, hard-breathing, all-out kick for the last half-mile of the race, but that was still quite a ways ahead of me as I was about two thirds around the first lap.

The leaders took us through a stand of young trees in a manicured grove, and when we burst out of it, suddenly came upon us the only turn to the left. I saw by bent weeds the wiser runner’s veered course, and quickly realized why some of the runners ahead of me had leaned left coming out of the grove. I followed suit and as my feet dropped down a slight embankment I was suddenly “inside” a turn for the first time.

That turn to the left was not just the only left turn, it was also the only hairpin turn on the course. I used my position to out-step another runner and pass him, though I noticed that he was hesitant to grant me space between the stake and the path his feet were on. I literally jumped ahead of him, squeezing past the stake, thereby surprising him and evoking an audible sigh which quickly turned into a breathy grunt. He already knew he would not catch me. I didn’t look back, but accelerated my stride once again and took off for a point closer to the leaders.

Too soon, we rounded a bend and saw the high roof-line of the gym, and presently we were running swiftly past the spectators who were still on our left as we completed the first lap. I looked to my parents and smiled, tossing them an abbreviated wave by turning my right hand palm-toward them and extending the fingers while my hand was on it’s forward stroke. They appeared to be as stoic as before, but I did notice that my mother was being friendly with a family standing next to them. Lynn was between them, waving at me and smiling. I tried to get a grin back to her, but am not sure if my face was free to smile with the ups and downs of the fast strides I rode.

I turned to the race again, anticipating the upcoming right-angled turn now approaching rapidly. I fell into the line to the right and took the turn smoothly by planting my feet just so as I navigated the turn’s tilt of balance.

Now I knew there was a good stretch of running before me, and I moved left again and proceeded to pass runners as best as I could. I noticed however that the runners I was passing now were not so indifferent about being passed as were those from farther back in the pack. Each in his turn would, upon hearing my footfalls approaching, turn on some more determination in his stride and attempt to discourage me by letting himself briefly spurt forward. A couple of times, I felt playful about that and paced myself at the runner’s shoulder and held to his own pace with him for a little while. Worse, I would chat with them, saying silly things off the cuff, which came from nowhere.

It was terribly unsettling to each of them to have someone catch up with him and match his stride and yet have the breath to engage in a monologue all the while. “Man, like we’re at least eighty yards ahead of the next guys back there…” I’d say. Or maybe I’d say, “Hey, man, have you seen some cat named Runo going this way?”

No matter what I said, I never got a good-humored reply. Actually, I got no reply at all from any of them, unless you could call a fierce re-doubling of their efforts to outpace me a reply. This amused me.

I began to think a plan. Perhaps I would talk to Runo when I caught up with him, and perhaps, since runners apparently never talk while running races, I could disorient him somewhat by asking him stupid questions. I resolved to do just that.

But I should say at this point that passing a hundred and seventy runners out of a couple of hundred is one thing. But passing the remaining thirty or so is not quite so easily done. And Mr. Runo, who I could now see ahead of me, was in the lead half-way through the second lap and had set his own blistering pace. A group of five runners were dogging his heels, but were not wanting to push him at their own expense. Literally no runner was attempting to pass him, or even pull alongside him. Apparently these were the smarter runners who were letting Runo take the drain of leading early and were holding back in hopes of out-kicking him at the last.

Of course Runo knew this. He had silently determined to, within reason, run them down while they tried to keep within closing distance of him. He was truly a beautiful runner. Light on his feet, with angular knees and elbows, head still but loose on his neck, arms pumping easily as his knees and the balls of his feet seemed to eat up the strides and call for more. He leapt forward off each step, but did not do it with any visible effort. He was very thin, so he had no fleshly cul-de-sacs on his frame to vie for the oxygen his lungs were pouring into his bloodstream. The only sign I saw which was encouraging was when I had worked my way close enough to him to actually see in his back muscles the evidence of his hard breathing. He was not gasping, but was breathing with a visible labor. That told me much.

We were nearing completion of the second lap as I got to within six runners from Runo. This time when I ran past the spectators at the gym I only nodded at my parents and did not try to mess with my rhythms enough to venture a wave. I cut my eyes for a glimpse of Lynn, but didn’t turn my head. I had got into the hunt of the race, and was consumed with my rate of gain on the leader. Catching Runo would be a task, I was beginning to understand. Even as I realized this, I ran past the coaches who were grouped around the line on the inside of the course. Coach was hollering at me to “Pace it, boy, pace it back some!” I didn’t even look his way, knowing that I must now focus on the back of Runo’s head.

I zipped over the starter’s line which would be the finish line the next time I saw it, and scooted on down the grade to the first turn for the last time. Now we were in the last lap, and it would not be too early to let my challenge be known to Runo. I was running in seventh place. Sixth back from first place was my friend. I pulled up behind him and spoke reassuringly to him that I sorta hated to do this, but it was time for me to catch Runo and so I was going to have to pass him.

Oddly, I noticed, he reacted just as had the other runners from the other teams I’d been talking to as I had passed them. He hunkered down and drove his legs harder, fighting to keep ahead of me.

It meant a lot to him not to let me beat him. I hadn’t thought about that before, not since the first day of practice in which I thought I’d picked up some slight, vague fear in him of my running abilities. “Well”, I remember thinking, ” hate to do it to a friend, but after all, he’s been in every competition this season thus far, and this is my only shot at winning a race, so I’m going to have to work on Runo no matter what.”

I gathered myself and blew past him quickly, saying over my shoulder that I’d see him at the finish line. Nobly, as soon as he saw the burst with which I pulled ahead of him, and as it all became clear to him at that instant, he said between huffs, “Get that damn Runo! Go, man!”, and that was the last I saw of him until my surprise a few hundred yards ahead on the course.

I sustained the burst of speed with which I had passed my friend and team-mate. Soon I was within four paces of being dead even with Runo. He had heard me pass the number two man, but he had no idea who had done that. He knew very well to never break his concentration on his pace and stride by looking back over his shoulder, so he must have just focused on the fact that as the runner leading the last lap, he had about two hundred runners to worry about, and at that point it did not matter who was pulling up on him. Others would make their play, their move, before this race was over.

His attitude was to just speed up anytime anyone sounded like they were gaining on him. Once a runner is in first place in the race, he’ll win it if he doesn’t let anyone pass him. That was Reno’s logic, and he apparently believed in it.

I pulled, laboring now, to within two strides behind him. I thrilled as he answered my nearness with renewed determination to not allow himself to be passed. He sped up and for the first time I saw him clench his fists. It was unconscious, but it happened. “Good”, I thought. “I’ll build his tenseness a little more by talking to him from behind him. If he knows I’m not breathing too hard yet, it could discourage him.”

But Runo was not one to understand discouragement until the winner’s ribbon had been broken at the end of any race he ran. He only knew one thing, and that was to run all out as fast as he could for as long as he could, if that was what it took to beat the field. So when I said, “Hey, Runo, you don’t need to be kicking this early, man…..we’re at least fifteen yards ahead of the third-place man”, well, he just let loose with a new flurry of knees and elbows in flight and tried for all he was worth to make it look like he could do it all the way to the finish line. I knew he couldn’t kick for over a half-mile in grass and with grades and a couple of turns yet to navigate, so I turned it on myself, pulling even with him on his left shoulder.

I continued to jabber at him while matching strides with him. I won’t say I was now running easily, for in truth I was pushing myself to hold his commanding pace. But I did know that I still had a heck of a kick in me, and I also figured that I’d have over two minutes to work on his head by chatting with him.

“Seriously, man! We’re way out in front of the rest of them, so what-say we slack off a little so we can have an impressive kick at the finish. Man, did you see that crowd of spectators there? Wouldn’t it be cool if we were just flying like crazy when we crossed that line in front of all those people?”

With such as that, I kept his ear itching and his feet flying in his determination to not let the “voice” get ahead of him. Meanwhile, I mused within myself that I could be the first cross-country runner ever to make use of idle chat to wear down the resolve of my competition. I smiled at the liberty I’d presumed in talking to the struggling runners.

But presently, I realized that this Runo was possibly capable of continuing to increase our speed, and that I may be facing a more formidable adversary here than I had initially thought. I thought to try to pass him, running ahead just inches off his left shoulder. To my surprise, he advanced back up to even with me though I was pouring it on now. For a glimmering of an instant, a sickly, cold stab of fear tried to root itself in my guts. I quickly dismissed it, but found that in doing so Runo gained a couple of inches ahead of my shoulders.

We were turning this event into quite a battle for first place, but neither of us had time to register any awe about what that meant. By now we were running headlong side by side and we both were fearful and confident at the same time. At this point, it occurred to me that he may beat me simply because he was a veteran runner, a runner seasoned by many competitions. He may know just some silly little thing which could empower him past me at the last second, I imagined.

Again I reached within me and added a little more speed to my now pumping strides. And now I noticed that I had to keep reminding my hands not to clench. I felt my jaw freeze with determination. I tried to remember how to relax at full speed ahead. My ears were ringing slightly, and my breathing was now beginning to be labored as was Runo’s. Desperation was trying to set in. I could only hope that the same was tearing down his mind more gravely than it was mine. Surely this guy was just human after all. Surely if I put yet another burst of speed into our equation he’d have to start falling back.

I did. He didn’t fall back.

I was beginning to find good reason to admire this runner. I was now close to giving it all I had, and I couldn’t pull ahead of him. By now, every placement of our feet was awesomely important. Use of a tuft of low-rooted grass for leverage and spring was considered and opted for without conscious departure from the mental registering of the physical pace of flying legs and feet.

He and I were locked into a duel which neither of us would have expected. We were like two clouds in a frisky wind current, bending this way and that, holding parallel as the wind kept them constant. We were moving farther and farther ahead of the field, but there were still several runners within twenty-five yards of us, struggling in their fight for third place as the yards of the short-three-mile race began to run out on us.

It was just at that time that we cleared out of that grove and veered to the left to head for the hair-pin turn. Runo was side by side with me, and the only consolation I had left was that I felt that he was actually breathing with more labor than was I. But whatever his breathing was doing, his feet were keeping his shoulder exactly side by side with mine.

We both slowed somewhat in preparation for taking the hair-pin turn, and for once I was on the inside with the advantage of position as we came upon the hard turn and slanted our toes for the shifting of our leans into the turn. That is when I learned something which has never left me. That is when I got the surprise of my young life.

For all he was worth as a runner and a man, Runo did not know how to react to having been so seriously challenged by a runner he did not know. It was as though he flipped out or something. I say “flipped out”, though I’m sure he didn’t really lose his mind. He just reached down into his pool of past experience, or into the memory of something he may have seen in a movie somewhere. Whatever took charge of his mind, he stamped down with his right foot in front of him just as I approached the red and white painted stake marking this hair-pin turn.

Using that right foot as an anchor, he turned slightly toward me and threw his shoulder, with all the weight he could muster for a frail-framed young runner, into me and pushed me off balance so that I ran into the wooden stake, straddling it, breaking it with my jock-strap and it’s contents.

That caused me to tumble head over heels, rolling over twice before I could shift enough to cease the rolling. That put Runo twenty yards ahead of me, and left me looking quite sheepish as my friend passed me through the turn without breaking his pace or saying anything other than, “Hey! You alright?”.

My testicles were in pain, and it seemed that every muscle in my lower torso must have been attached to them with sinews of fire. Still, I got up as quickly as I could, over-looking the pain. I felt stunned and surprised, felt quite confused. I took after the leader again, but had now a real handicap with which to work. Less than a hundred seventy yards remained. Could I “kick” all the way in? I had no choice.

Something inside me reveled in the decision to ignore the pain and to tell the muscles to ignore it too and perform as they had always enjoyed performing before. My body did try to execute my wish. I did manage to pass my friend again, but Runo beat me by seven yards through the tape and suddenly he was the favorite of the crowd and the coaches and all the other runners. And I was once again relegated to being a nobody with no victory. But now I had finally been in a race, and in my heart I knew that there was no excuse for not having won a race.

The turn where Runo had shoved me into the marker stake was not visible to the crowds or coaches, but there was, as there were at every turn along the course, an official “spotter” standing by inside the turn. He had seen what happened, and I knew that he must have seen it. I went straight to Coach and told him what had happened. He just looked at my legs and said, “Well, I told you to watch for tricks, didn’t I? That damned Runo came out here to win, boy. Let that be a lesson to you.” With that he walked away to check on other team-mates.

There was a trophy presentation, and the first three finishers would receive a personal trophy. I felt that was some consolation, to at least get a second-place trophy. But to my surprise I learned as I went forward to claim my trophy that I had been disqualified! I had no place in the finish at all, for when I had straddled that post, half of my body had been out of bounds! The spotter had indeed seen it, and had felt duty-bound to reveal my infraction to the race officials, who, being sticklers for procedure, regretfully ruled me “disqualified”.

My friend came up to me and said he had seen what had happened. He said he wished there was some way he could help, but the die was cast already it seemed. Then he said the one thing which would light a fire within me that would never die. He said, walking away slowly, “Well, there’s always next year.”

I went to my parents, who were smiling broadly that I had finished second even though they knew that I had been disqualified. Lynn stepped forward to meet me and she took my arm and said I had looked fine running the race. She thought Runo should have been disqualified instead of me. My parents agreed. They told me all the right things about how well I ran, and about how it was an evil thing that Runo had done to assure his victory.

For the first time in my life, my dad exhibited a justifiable sense of indignation graced with a cold glare of intended vengeance. It was for me. He wanted me to know that if I wanted to focus on beating this runner in the Turkey Day Run next year, he’d be behind me all the way. I appreciated that, but felt myself sinking into a remorse somewhere deep inside myself. I remained mostly silent as my parents drove me home. Lynn didn’t know whether to hold my hand or not. I seemed to be distant to myself, and I’ve no idea how distant I may have seemed to Lynn and my parents.

My testicles seemed to recover alright, though they were sore for days afterward.

Even as Runo had given me a surprise, he and I, and the Coach and my team-mates, and my parents, and all my classmates at school, were yet to see another surprise that a few weeks more would usher into our lives. It came about this way….
~

Part 1– https://thementalmilitia.org/2024/08/29/way-of-the-runner/

Part 2 — https://thementalmilitia.org/2024/08/31/way-of-the-runner-part-2/

Part 3 — https://thementalmilitia.org/2024/08/31/way-of-the-runner-part-3/

Thank You For Reading.