Not counting the covid spring, 2020, this will be the first spring in a quarter century that I am not at the helm of Mascenic track and field. I was having coffee with Walt just this morning, and as usual our conversation turned to running. I was mentioning that while I’ve always had a love for cross country, I learned to enjoy spring track over the years.
When I was in high school, and actually a bit before as we kind of had a middle-high school sort of deal with the seventh and eighth grade house at the high school, I ran five seasons of cross country but only two seasons of track. In those two seasons I tried just about every event there was, except pole vault, as we didn’t have a pole to try it with or I’m sure I would have. While my natural talents, if you could call it that, would have leaned towards the two mile, I wanted to find a different niche, considering I had one of the top distance guys in the state as a teammate. I was never going to win a race when Bret Cartwright’s in all the same ones.
I ended up being not half bad at the 800 and the 300 hurdles, running both on strength rather than speed. Biggest problem with these two events is they are back to back, not leaving much opportunity in a sport with 17 different events, much opportunity to do the two I was good at. I recall trying the triple jump my sophomore year, last meet of the season, and winning, much to the surprise of the other participants I had solicited for advice. However a one win – winning streak was not enough to hold my interest for the next ten months. Two seasons was enough.
So I really wasn’t prepared when I was approached at a professional development day in early March by the guy who had been at the helm of the track program my first year of teaching. I was interested in the cross country position, waiting for my opportunity potentially the next season. But Goldsmith approached me, being only interested in stocky kids who could throw, trying to persuade me into the “track” position. I had designs on spending my after school time white water kayaking, with a small brook that during spring thaw ran bank full on my way home. I told him I’d need to think on it, and if I said yes, I would only be able to half commit. Not wanting to deal with runners at all, he said that was fine.
It’s obvious I said yes, committing to a half hour a day right after school and no more. But of course that was a fallacy, and I was in hook, line and sinker. Once I began to get to know the kids, I wanted to see how far they could go. And as it turns out, it was pretty far.
Those early days were a far cry from where Mascenic track and field ended up. At that time, it was a fairly even distribution between track athletes and field athletes, and breaking it down further, between distance and non distance kids. There was some talent there for sure, but without much guidance over the previous seasons, saying training had been sporadic would be generous. And while I wasn’t even close to proficient at sprinting, sprinters benefit from deliberative counsel, something they hadn’t been getting previously. The wins were few and far between, but they were as important to those athletes as my other athletes that have won Meet of Champions. To say there was a lot of growth all around back then would have been an understatement. We grew together.
And as I grew as a coach, my enjoyment of spring track grew as well. The great benefit of track and field is that it mostly plays out within a 400 meter oval, allowing you to witness the pageantry in a way you can’t in cross country. Herculean efforts are front and center, regardless of whether they end up in the victory of winning, or the personal satisfaction of doing something today that you couldn’t do yesterday. I grew to enjoy bearing witness to all of my athlete’s greatest performances.
And in retrospect, they have been vast. And I’m not only focusing on wins while we’ve had our fair share. Our best team finish at states has been fourth, in 2007, some would say just off the podium. I do not want to present that this is some fantastic end result, but it is interesting if you look at how we did this. We did not contend an event shorter than 800, with no other entrant outside the 800, 1600, 3200 and 4×800. We did have a 4×400 but it was with guys that didn’t qualify for the meet (back then every team could enter a relay) and ran towards the back of the event. That year we were top three in both the 1600 and 3200, and set the D3 record in the 4×800. We scored 58 points with essentially entries in 4 of 18 events. Not a bad day.
And that leads me to make a statement of defense, one where I might take a hit that Mascenic has only focused on distance running. I would venture that while we certainly have gravitated towards the longer distances, and have been successful there, I have always been open to athletes doing other events. Not only that, we’ve had some pretty good success, however frequent, at other events as well.
It would be easy to forget that I have also coached State Championship field eventers as well. During my career, we’ve had a State Championship shot put and discus thrower, along with a champion high jumper. Justin won the shot put and discus in 2003, while also finishing third in high jump. Megan won high jump the same year, clearing 5 feet to win, with a PR of 5’3”. I am not willing to take credit for Justin, he had learned the craft from the previous throws guy, but when abandoned his senior year I stood out in the shot put pit and discus vector, tossing the implements back and encouraging him through the championship period. With Megan I played a more significant role, deconstructing her early form and bad habits, and helping construct those that would benefit her on her way to the top. I enjoyed the technical aspects of their focus, even if it was not mine.
Over the years our strength in cross country trickled down to our persona in track. Over the last fifteen years we could squarely be pegged as a distance squad. It’s not that I didn’t desire to have a more complete team, but without a surface track to work on it was hard to attract, and certainly to keep, individuals interested in things other than distance. Eventually I came to terms with that, recognizing my life would be easier with a distance dominant team if I didn’t spread my focus among too many disciplines. So while I never discouraged kids from doing shorter distances, or field events, I certainly encouraged them to do longer ones.
This has led to some of my favorite moments in track, along with some of the most colorful. I remember the year I was clerking the State Championships and was able to step out from under the tent for a moment, having just finished hipping all the 4×100 teams. I had hoped to witness a few laps of the 1600 as I had a freshman boy running. Too late to see even one step of his race, I basically ran smack dab into him coming off the track. When I asked how it went, he told me he fell. When I showed surprise and asked “you fell?!?!” he replied, “yeah, twice.” I could see the disappointment in his eyes for having had a patch of bad luck his first championship that I just had to laugh, and explain to him that he would never be in a situation where this, falling twice in a championship mile, would ever happen again. And it didn’t.
Much of my career was spent under the clerking tent, missing out on some of my kids best performances. But with many of my athletes in the two mile, I could often sneak out to watch them race, having either hipped up the 4×4 teams already, or having enough of it done to step away and let the other clerk handle the last few teams. I got to see Jake, who had been the top seed in the 1600 but opted for just the mile recognize the pace was slow at 200 and blast away, eventually building up a 30 second lead he held to the finish. I also got to see Elizabeth McGurk and Tim Fafard, two of the best athletes to have come through the Mascenic program, both win the 3200 in commanding fashion on a windswept rain delayed championship, one as their final race as a Viking, the other just on their way up to greatness.
But I’ve watched an awful lot of track from outside the clerks tent as well. My favorite spot is about 15 meters beyond the finish line, where I can still watch the finish of races but lean in and talk to my athletes as they circle the track. When I am not involved with helping run a meet I tend to camp out here, along the fence, watching my athletes from this vantage point. I’ve referred to it as the joke zone, as with track being a bit of a carnival in ways, I like to enjoy it, soak it all in, and have a little fun while we’re at it. This happens most often when you get someone new to track and field during their first meet.
It doesn’t matter how good a program you have, how many of your athletes are experienced, how well you’ve explained and described how the meets work or how the team is going to go about running at the meet, there is always going to be athletes new to the sport that are going to make some bad race time decisions, and there is no better place to witness that than the joke zone.
I recall an exchange student, friends with someone on the team, coming out without an athletic background at all. We put them in the 800 with a not too aggressive seed time so they could ease into racing. I told them to be patient, run within themselves for a lap, and if they felt good they could hit the gas over the second lap. Of course when the gun went off all that went out the window, they went straight to the front, and this slower heat going through the first lap faster than the fast heat. It was just past us that the severity of their decision making became water to everyone, with the gorilla firmly climbing on the entire fields back with just less than half a race to go. The next 350 meters were both hilarious and ugly to watch. In the end our athlete lost in a photo finish, the last lap 20 seconds slower than the first. I had to compose myself before having that conversation, my sides aching from how hard I had been laughing.
I’ve also seen loads of great efforts from the joke zone too. While most like the excitement of the sprints, I like the drama and execution that goes on in good distance races. I’ve always considered the races during the season as practice, an opportunity to master the skills needed to have that defining season, or reach an athlete’s end of season goals. While other coaches and athletes might be looking at the win, I counsel the benefit of the experience, as a tool to enhancing an athlete’s bag of tricks so to speak. This often means that while athletes from other teams might be leading our athletes at some point in the race, there is likely something afoot, and when my athletes get to the point in the races it’s time to apply those techniques and practices, the race might begin to look a lot different.
A good example of this would be our ‘everyone runs the mile’ first meet of the season plan. It might seem that when we’ve done this, it looks like a show of force, and I suppose it is. But the more practical reason for doing so is with a very distance focused program, even new athletes will likely have been running the same workouts, while slower, but have become accustomed to their teammates beside them most of the time. Splitting everyone up, means some might be going to the line for the first time ever, without their familiar teammates might be under undue stress for the first time out of the gate. They get to warm up together, stretch together, do strides together, and go to the line together. When the gun goes off, they can look around, knowing the pecking order and sort themselves out.
Now with our top athletes, we hold them back a bit, having the lead go out at five minute pace. For some, this will be significantly slower than what they are capable of at the time. For others it might be perfect, and for some, it might be a bit of a stretch. But they all have a shot to get to the ¾ mark together in 3:45, and then the yoke is off. Our top athletes now get to set off, the goal running as fast as they can from that point.
From the outside, it’s awesome to see the studs tearing up that last lap, having been held back up to that point. This always gave me good information about the state of their fitness and where to go from here. It’s also not bad to see a number of athletes break 5 for the first time, in the first meet of the season. And for those just outside it, it tells them and me they are ready. Not to mention the sea of red jerseys washing across the finish line.I imagine it could be an intimidating start to the season.
This year I will not be under the clerking tent, and likely not in the familiar joke zone either. I do anticipate at some of the bigger meets I’ll be behind the microphone, another place I like to watch meets from. For those that have listened to those broadcasts you might realize it’s just a different version of the joke zone. I imagine for some of the other meets I’ll be put to work, helping the meet run as I’ve been prone to do as well. In Belmont I imagine I’ll be track side, helping seed up the heats or calling for events on the bullhorn. I’ll be avoiding a lot of the field events, as I don’t want them to interfere with my watching of the meet.
For the rest I imagine I’ll be in a new zone, the friend and family zone where I’ll conversate with people I know, something I never was able to do while coaching. I can’t say where that will be exactly, but I can imagine setting up shop along the fence somewhere just past the finish line.
Stop on by. Joke’s will be flowing freely.
I’ll see you out there.
