August 28, 1979 (Tuesday)

From running log:
Cross country practice, ran 6.5 miles total on trails, on the 3 mile cross country course I designed for our home meet this year, at 7:30 pace or slower. My right knee was really hurting again. Always seem to be injured, frustrating. This was supposed to be team time trial, but I didn't run it for time because of my knee. Moose won the time trail in 19:28, Nellie ran 20:54. Not too impressive, but that course is really tough. Whirlpooled my knee again, but it didn't help much.

30 years later:
I'm not sure when the tradition began, or if it continued, but in those days the team captain was allowed to design the 3 mile course on our home trails. I had run miles and miles on those trails, and I knew them well. I also knew that what I wanted to design was a tough, tough course using the gnarliest trails and the steepest hills. In fact, my first iteration involved running twice up what we called Cardiac Hill, but both coaches and all of my teammates said it was simply too difficult. So I made a new version with a smaller loop including smaller hills, then a bigger loop with the climb up Cardiac. That hill and most of the trails I used are long gone, made into streets and houses (and they must have been leveled off too, or the houses would tip over). Want to know how tough Cardiac was? It was maybe 300 meters long, climbed perhaps 120 feet, was very a steep singletrack trail that was badly eroded, leaving ruts, rocks, roots, and even one sandy spot. It came up suddenly, as a 90 degree left hand turn just as you emerged from the woods, and the trail twisted and turned on the way up, so you couldn't see the top until you had arrived there. In a word: intimidating. Most of our runners couldn't run up the full thing even once, and they planned to walk it during the upcoming race. In fact, walking it was strategic, because if runners from the opposing teams forced themselves to run up the thing, they'd be so shattered at the top that our guys figured we could blow past them on the ensuing downhills. As for me, I wanted that hill, it would be where I would put the major hurt on anyone still with me, by running it hard, as I did in practice many times. Plus, we hadn't used that hill on our course for several years, and I knew it would take the opposing runners by surprise.

As for the time trial, I just watched. My knee was too sore to push the pace. I expected times to be slow, just not that slow. At least it proved that our home course was a killer, which made me very happy.