After numerous contributions over the last few years, this will be the final entry into our series. Coach Vermeulen's stream-of-consciousness' observations were well-read in their time, and as Jim transitions out of that role, we will be adapting this series moving forward. In the meantime, you can catch a more detailed experience in The Middle Distances-Running Seasons and the Wildcats of West Genesee High School.
Up from Section 3, we present you with "Thoughts From Three."
Great Moments in Scholastic Running History
Note: The Theory of Self-Motivation applies to athletes with three conditions: 1) the person has had the autonomy to choose and control his/her endeavor; 2) given effort, he/she is able to gain increasing competence with the chosen task; 3) the person also senses a relatedness to the task that either involves others in common pursuit or is historical by way of tradition. Those conditions are not optional. They are required.
1.
There is a place west of Syracuse, coming down from the high end of Munro Road, where our upstate world simply falls away. The valley below seems to disgorge itself onto the Ontario Lake Plain that marches northward into haze. Rounded drumlins the other side of the valley appear almost touchable, but the Tug Hill plateau to the northeast is a more distant, pencil-thin dark streak of mystery. Some days, clouds hover over it all, as though waiting on instructions from the wind.
That place was where Tom decided to be, a thought of his which included the peculiar notion of slipping quietly out the back door in pre-dawn and covering the elevated miles along Howlett Hill Road to Munro. Which is what he set out to do.
He paced the distance with no urgency. A few cars of early workers passed, but no one seemed to notice the odd intruder on the road's shoulder. A right onto Munro, past the golf course and expansive houses with their golden retrievers and boulders rolled up as entrance gates -- by then Tom had settled into the familiar rhythm that the long miles of his summer morning would require.
Thoughts were minimal and, if they came, seemed intrusive. Seasons and sacrifices and efforts had already created a mental panorama of vivid images. Hot and raucous hours in a packed Armory, muscling a leg of the 4x1mile Relay that would later stand on the podium as All-Americans. Pushing the hilly Bowdoin Park middle mile in the cross-country Federation championship. Striding the hard heat of Greensboro's Aggie Stadium before an outdoor nationals event. All those memories remained more durable than any medals. But this was different. This was the private property of thought that others would never share. This was crowd-less, silent, and it sunk deeper into his soul. This time and place was his -- and nobody else's.
He cruised a short flat bordered by field and woods, and then there it was, the image he anticipated: land falling into its own distance with an indifferent grace. The sun had already inched high enough to reclaim a quarter of the valley below. He was right on time.
2.
We were lucky twice. First, enough undulations existed among those drumlins that dot our part of upstate, and then, years ago, one farmer agreed to sell a piece of all that to our school district. Such good fortune allowed several of us to create a cross-country training and racing site on the acreage not ceded to school buildings and playing fields. Then, we eventually imagined a handy .57 mile hill-training circuit on trails that the maintenance guys regularly mowed and maintained. Three short hills. Ups and downs and straights all connected. Sweaty views of demure woods and farm fields included for free. Our petite and steep hills were quickly named: Narnia; Tunnel; Amphitheater (or Amp for short). Our amphitheater area had wooden benches, like Puritan pews, overlooking the back field for outdoor school nature activities, but they were seldom used, and weeds and thistle always threatened to swallow them whole.
That's where the hill circuit began, and, when first described, the initial runners assumed it would end too, but I told them oh no and pointed along the Amp Hill trail that climbs beside the benches and said up there. Amp Hill was the hardest of the three, so when the runners powered down the Connector Trail and back to the Amphitheater area, they would lean right, took a deep breath and charge up Amp Hill with hope and heart before teetering beside the two orange finish cones, momentarily gassed.
On our hill intervals, we could, of course, control the traditional variables of volume, velocity, and recovery times. Weather could also introduce its own variables, but we were usually off the hills when it was excessively wet to prevent wear and tear -- and falls. One of the variables that was hardest to control, however, was what goes on in the minds of the runners, meaning the psychological variables that could apply to any workout and were always multiplied by the number of runners involved. That was where Sarah came in.
Sarah just wanted to be good. She just wanted to contribute. Like everyone else, she wanted to contribute as a top 7 team racer, that arbitrary number of runners someone long ago decided would determine invitational race placements or even more important championship team selections. To be competent and included among those seven would require countless training efforts, but of course that could be easily erased by that arbitrary number. Top runners, safe in their pecking order, don't typically have to worry about that number, but anyone on the edge, on the outside looking in, eventually has to come to terms with the possibility that all the work and sacrifices would not be enough. So, a mid-October afternoon ladened with warmth and color -- perfect running weather -- often bears down on people like Sarah differently. She bent over at the finish cones. A late insect hatch flitted and sparkled in slanted sunlight. Three intervals down, two to go. So far, she had willed herself close to the backside of the front group, the top runners.
Interval number four was the most dangerous, where those psychological variables stop suggesting and start demanding. The mind likes to play it safe then, connives to slow the body and hold something in reserve. But Sarah had already decided to push beyond safe. So, she had held her close position, then wearily descended the hill with teammates, taken a sip of water, and lined up for the last time.
Their final effort coursed again through shaded Three Corners, turned two hard rights and headed up Narnia. Then it quickly zig-zagged right and left and dropped through trees on a seldom used trail to a back playing field. There, the runners turned and promptly re-climbed the hill they had just descended by the Tunnel Hill. Those two, at least, were done for the day. All that remained of the work was a long, lower-grade descent to the staging area and one last Amp Hill. Sarah gulped air on the way down and mentally braced. Below, I stood by their lined-up water bottles and watched as that girls' front group popped into view from the Connector Trail. They swung through the Amphitheater, thick as thieves, and charged up Amp Hill. Sarah was right with them.
Every memorable effort requires a time and a place. The truer the effort, then the purer that time and place of achievement becomes. Sarah pushed through the finish cones right on the shoulder of her faster teammates, as close as she'd come all afternoon. She wobbled momentarily, then dropped to her hands and knees, emptied of everything but desire. With help from her teammates, Sarah had managed to make Amp Hill feel almost holy.
3.
It is a rise, nothing more and nothing less, a two-hundred-meter tilt in a neighborhood road. That's why when I tell the runners you're heading to The Rise today, they know I am being accurate. You can loose a basketball on the crest of The Rise, and it will roll a long distance. Nothing of that tilt, though, will tire an athletic teenager except speed or repetitions. Weather, of course, can complicate matters. "It's twenty-one degrees and dropping, folks," I had told them before they left the school building. "Bundle up."
That season, our girls' front group was never given to self-pity. They never contested training assignments, never tried to negotiate workouts. They were garrulous, and they demanded much of each other, not because they wanted to be hard on anyone but because they simply had no reason to believe the group contained any slackers. Obscured with scarves, hats, and neck gaiters, they loosened up on the jog over, then congregated at the base of The Rise, anxious to get going because motion meant heat. They simply nodded at the instructions: four sets of three rises at 5k pace or faster -- and a jog down just fast enough to prevent chilling. They grouped, adjusted ear muffs, cinched jacket collars, and seemed to imply with their posture, O.K., let's have at this. The Rise, in turn, seemed to answer, well, here I am.
By the end of the fourth set, they were bending over for longer moments at the top. Then they would straighten, cross the street and start down. Framing their descent, one of those drumlins loomed over the neighborhood, its empty, snow-covered top looking like a giant ice cream cone. The temperature had slipped another notch. Only one more interval, though, then beat dusk back to the high school. When they reached where Coach D. and I stood on a side street two-thirds of the way down, they were tightly bunched, like huddled penguins. One of the girls smirked as she passed, eyeing us with our hats drawn down and gloves pulled tight, shivering.
"You having fun too V.?" she called out.
"Just living the dream, Kibby," I said, "Un mas, ladies. Finish this one strong."
They descended together through the brittle afternoon, and then that is what they did.