So, I bought some srichacha sauce the other day... because damn it's TASTY!! It is in my desk now, ready to be eaten on whatever, but I noticed it was kind of leaky. As I was cleaning it up, I got some on my hands (okay, a good bit, like quarter sized) and I licked it off... and now my mouth is on FIRE and my new Shasta mug tastes like FIRE. But it's all worth it for the 'chacha. Chile chile chile chile rockin' everywhere.
But that's not why I am posting tonight.
I think it's important to explain the "time vs. team" mindset of college running, and it occurred to me that many people who don't run NCAA may not have had the opportunity to make a few distinctions that inevitably lead to this mindset. I think, as I reflect, that "time" is important for the individual, but "team" is important for the college racing. I also believe that if the goal is centered on the college (which generally it is, since the college is paying you to be there, and they are paying VERY WELL...), the team aspect will win. I believe also that you are very much mentally shaped and trained-- like a greyhound, I think-- to run a certain way and to have a certain mindset. I wish that it were different. I think this is why runners love Prefontaine. He was not altered by this mindset. Sure, there were a million K's who were faster than Pre. But what made Pre special is that he always said running was a gift not to be squandered for any team. But enough of that... let's talk about the NCAA. I am hoping this will be cathartic, and that maybe I can express what I need to say about it clearly and openly, and maybe that will take away some of the thoughts of it.
So here's some reasons why track runners really concern themselves more with "team" than time:
1. You can only run so fast on your own
a. Physically-- usually track is run in the spring, specifically during march and april. It is very windy outside, and on the straights of the track, you'll catch a lot of wind. So if you are an 80 second a lap 10k runner, you might run the curves at 20-20 but only be able to hold 24-24 on the straights (for the whole 10k). If you have a teammate running with you, you'll trade laps so that one person catches the wind for one lap (but pushes, say 21-21) and the other person catches it for the other lap (it's like drafting with bicycles). 10k's spread out really fast, so there's not really a "pack" to draft off of, and most runners are aware of this strategy. It's a well known fact that if a runner from another team starts drafting on you, you'll slow down to the point she has to pass, or you'll move obsequiously to the third or fourth lane, making the distance further.
b. Emotionally-- it's very hard to pace yourself and keep up your spirit while you are running on your own. You would think "I WANT TO PR!" would be great motivation, but to be honest, most people are more concerned with winning than with PR's. In fact, if you get in a slow race, you won't just ball out and win the thing by 1.5 minutes. You'll hang tight and win by 5-10 seconds. There are other races, with stiffer competition, that are worth a balls to the wall effort. In those races, you'll have the benefit of having people to run with you, which makes balls-to-the-wall slightly less painful.
c. Adrenaline-wise-- you really can only go balls-to-the-wall about 2x per season. I wish it weren't like that, and that you could get psyched to dominate in all races, but the truth is that it's just not possible, when you are running 100 miles a week and you are super dull all the time (but in good enough shape to compete at that level) to go all out in every race. So you save it for the big races, when winning means more money and prestige, or when the competition is stiff.
d. The way the individual thing works in pro running is that there are 2 standards. One is called Provo and one is called Auto. Auto has been set by the NCAA and it's a certain percent slower than the world record. Ex. in the 5k, I think women's auto is 15:45. Provo is set by "how fast is everyone else going that year?" There's an upper limit on it, like 16:40, but it's very do able for many people. The fastest 10 people in Provo who are not in auto (unless there are more than 10 in auto) get to go to the national/international meet. So the first goal is "make the auto"-- you don't have to be the fastest auto, you just need to make it. You are guarenteed a spot if you make it. But the next goal is "keep the provo slow in the early season." The idea is that you might make it with a 16:37. Other girls will also make it around that time, let's say a bunch of 16:37, 16:38, 16:39, and maybe only 2 faster girls. So then the last race of the season, right, if 10 people have made auto, and you know you can go faster, you go ahead and just bust a frickin' 16:15. You get your spot to go to the national race, and someone with a slow time gets bumped. The last thing you want is for the Provo to get fast early on, because that means you're going to have to keep on running really extremely fast times all season, and you might be wiped by the race. AKA, it's the fastest 10 runners above Auto over the course of the whole season... if you're running 16:10 in September, there is no way in hell you'll be running 16:10 in December... unless you are truely capable of running 15:45, and in that case, you should be Auto, not provo.
2. There are two different kinds of runners that can run a 5:20 mile
I'm using 5:20 here because it's a very standard mile split for a female college runner. It's 80 second quarters, and it was my 10k pace, so I'm familiar with it. Here's an example. I am "10 k runner type a." I can run 80 second quarters all day long, but anything under 76 will destroy me so badly I can't put in another quarter even at 80. I'll need at least 2 laps of 82-84 to recover and get the acid out.
Then, there are girls who can run only 82 second quarters (2 seconds is a lot of difference here), over a 10k that's 51.3 seconds! but they can put in a 60 second quarter at any time. Call these type B runners.
Before you race, you know EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THAT RACE AND WHICH TYPE THEY ARE. I mean, you have done your research. You have sat with coach and he has told you every school color and mascot and what every girl looks like. You need to know who to go with and who to not go with. Ex. I might know that, say, someone wearing a columbia uniform and someone wearing a kentucky uniform are type a runners. I will go with those girls, even if they go out slowly. Whereas LJ might know that someone wearing a SC uniform is a type B runner, and she'll go with them even if they go out fast. If I went with the type b group, I might risk a random 65 second quarter getting thrown in there. I could probably hang for about 150 before I would be totally shot, and unable to finish and place well for the team. So even if that group is running closer to my capacity than my group, I go with the group that runs the same "way" I do in order to keep from getting "dropped" <-- official running term. There are meetings that runners have where we talk about strategy, just like football players. People wonder when I say "we had 7 hours of practicing a day"-- well, I mean 7 hours of total association with the team; strategic meetings were a big part of this. I can remember so many evenings with the whole group sitting on coach's bed in a hotel room listening to infinite droning about strategy. It was so important, but at a national meet you can imagine; you're not going to remember who every single person of the 500 people there are!
c. At the end of the day, it all comes down to funding. College coaches are really not cool. When the team loses races, the team loses money. When a team score is reported it says SCHOOL 1 3 6 8 45, or whatever-- this means that your runners came in places 1, 3, 6, 8, and 45. The score is made by adding the differences from the total number of runners in the race. So runner 1 gets 99 points, runner 2 gets 97, etc., if there were 100 runners in the race. In a 10k, there's usually between 30 and 50, and that's a big race. In XC, you are looking at between 300 and 500 runners. So it doesn't matter whether or not I get 1st or 5th, as long as the value of 1 or 5 is higher than other teams values of 1 and 5... no one, except "me" cares. Normally teams enter between 7 and 10 girls in a cross race and 3-5 in a track race. They only score your top 5 runners, so girls 7-10 are not valid. They're simply there for "place shifting."
Let's say your team has girls in places 1, 3, 7, 25, 49, 51, and 70
Team 2 has girls in places 2, 4, 5, 22, and 52, 53, and 54. Your sixth runner hasn't given you any "points" but she has kept their fifth runner from being in place 51. This is the difference that your team needs to win. If you didn't enter her, they would be tied with you. It then goes to the 6th and 7th runners, and they would clearly win. The two most important dynamics in a race are the 1-2 split and the 4-5 split. A good team will have a very tight 1-2 split (also called the punch) and a very tight 4-5 split (that's just called a split). So, if you are running in the first position and your second girl gets tired, you are obligated to slow down and help her get through it. The 1-2 positions get the most points, so keeping the morale of 1-2 intact is huge. Ex. if 1 thinks she can win the race and 2 is dying and would probably drop in the kick to position 10 or 12 without person 1, person 1 will slow down to pace with person 2 even if it means loosing the race. The difference between placing 3, 4 and 1, 10 is enough to change the whole race dynamic. This is also crucial in the 4-5 position because so many girls are in that part of the pack. A 2 second difference between girls 4-5 may be 20 to 30 places of difference in the rankings.
4. You don't just run one event at a track event-- well. Some people do. let's say "I don't just ever run one event at a track race."
I am a multi-event runner-- usually I ran the 5 and 10 ks, and sometimes also a leg in the DMR (the mile, obviously, as I am not that fast!, if no one else would run it). That's three events in 2-3 days, and, if there are finals, that's 6 events. You realistically cannot race all six events all out. You will be full of lactic by the end of your best one, and the rest will be crap. There are other runners who are not multi-event runners. They are running one race. So let's say you are "as fast" as a girl running one race. You don't plan to focus on that race. It makes sense to simply go out with that girl and let her do the work (it's her only event) by setting the pace. If you're a slow runner, like me, that means you aren't going to win in the last lap. If you really wanted to "win it," you'd take a fast start and work the whole race. But it's not worth doing that. Let's say she gets 1 by putting in a hard kick at the end, and you get 2. But now she's done racing, and tired, and you are still fresh. Then you go out and get 1 in your next event. So you've brought in (usually in finals there are only 10 racers) 8 + 10 points for your team (first place gets 10 instead of 9, not sure why). She's also brought in 10. That's 28 for the two of you. What if you raced it? In the first race, you still bring in 18 points (but now you are position 1) but in your next race, you are toast, and only bring in 3 points. That's only 21 points for your team. That's a first-to-third conference rank difference, easy (most of the time when we won we beat AK by 0.5 points-- there are partial points in the field events).
As a side note, we learned that superloading pottasium is a great way to rid lactic when it's a pinch. I remember laying on a highjump mat eating literally 3 or 4 bananas and scarfing gatorade right after a race so that in 11 hours or whatever I would be really fresh for the next one. It was a terrible sugar rush, but it really worked, for some reason. This is probably where my love for the honey banana comes from-- I don't even like the taste of it, but it's a good memory.
5. Team dynamic is the ultimate goal. People (especially girls) are snitchy. Which rhymes with another word, which they also are. Teams "establish" roles just like civilizations do. Some people are leaders-- they govern the team, set the rules and the workout paces. Some people are explorers-- they chart the courses of the long runs, test out the trails far away. Some people are educators-- they lead the freshman runs. Other people are communicators-- they train with the track girls. I wasn't in a leadership role-- I was your typical "have you run ____ trail this season? Is it muddy? Can we do our long run there? Can you take us for 18 miles?" Because I didn't train track workouts with the team, and never ran any sprints, my responsibility was what we call LSD (long slow distance). It was never my place to lead, or to win... It seems strange, I know, to think that I could be a happy runner not winning... but I'll give three examples:
a. one time I ran a cross race and I placed #1 for our team (maybe like 16 overall, nationally). I remember that as I was running I saw LJ keel over to the side as I passed by her. She was 50 meters from the end. She didn't even finish the race. We're trained (or abused) to be so emotional about the running, to pour our souls into it. Being passed, when she was a #1 runner, gave her asthma problems for the whole season. Sure, she'd never say it.... but until she won again, I got snippy looks from the whole team.
b. another time, I was running the same race (another year, same course), and I was running in the #2 position. I finished in about the same place (I think LJ finished about 5th). I literally passed out on the line of the course. I came to laying on a bench, and a girl who I had raced in high school was kneeling by my feet, removing my spikes (I was bleeding all over them-- you get cut up in the start of a race because people wear spiked shoes and purposefully kick one another in the shins). I got second for the team in that race, but the event meant so much to me that I wrote a piece about it and presented it to the athletic department. It was really a beautiful act of humility on her part. That race, despite a worse team place (and worse time) was significantly more of a "win."
c. and finally, the race I won that "meant something." the athletic department told me one year that I was "injured." they took me to a hospital where a doctor I didn't like claimed I had a 7 inc fracture down the front of my shin. I was so angry at him. 2 weeks later, it stopped hurting, so I started running on my own, but I had to hide it from everyone-- the team, the other girls, etc. They would not "let" me run. I went to a doctor friend of mine in Atlanta who told me that I had chronic swelling in my shins, and that this shows up on x-rays looking like stress fractures. He got me appointments with the therapist for the GA Thrashers who taught me how to run on my midfoot to prevent some of the swelling in my lower legs-- she diagnosed my hypotonia and helped me learn how to make a more sound mind-body connection. One day, the coaches caught me running. they threatened (as usual) to remove my scholarship. I said I didn't really care (I was kind of an ass then). I told them I didn't want to talk to them, and I went to Calloway Gardens for the weekend. This was in the winter, and there was a half-marathon going on. I jumped in the 1/2 marathon. It was cold and icy the whole time. I ran as fast as I possibly could, and ended up putting in a 1:17, which is convertible to olympic trials B-standards pace. I told the coaches, thinking "okay, they will be happy for me." They were furious-- how dare I race anything not associated with the school (actually, I think it is against regulations unless you race under a pseudonym, which is why Tweedle Dee still gets mail at my parents place). The winter I trained with my buddy in Syracuse was to help her go to the Olympics in the marathon, but secretly I was thinking of quitting... I wanted to go, too. I ended up staying, I know-- my greyhound mind was well trained, I guess-- team first, me second; team first, me second.
I know that doesn't make me sound hardcore in any sort of way, or like a hero or anything. It makes me sound like a girl who let herself be brainwashed and lost her spirit to the lure of having money. And that's what happened, so I can't fake it.
But here's a lesson to be learned from it: I remember before I started all that crap running along Soap Creek trails in the rain, feeling light and agile, running for 2 or 3 hours and feeling great the whole time. Running itself in those days was absolute joy. The training was interesting in college, I loved seeing new cities and getting free shoes and all, but I would trade it all back now to be able to go out for 2-3 hours on a run and to feel awesome and light every day again. Lesson learned-- hope that was a good sharing!
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