September 6, 1979 (Thursday)

From running log:
Cross country practice. 2 mile warmup, then a 3 mile time trial, followed by a 2 mile cooldown (7 miles total). We ran on the 1979 BHS cross country course (Hegley's). I wore the LDVs, saving the racing spikes for the real races. I finished in 18:43 (6:14 pace), Moose in 18:57, Todd in 19:51, then Ben, then Nellie. This was a somewhat informal time trial. Brian Toman ran well, a bit of a surprise.

30 years later:
This was my first all-out run on the 3 mile cross country course that I had designed. Of course, I'd selfishly made up a course that suited my abilities, but I also believed that our entire team would run well on that route because (a) they'd know what was in store, and (b) we lived in Baraboo, so we all ran on hills, it was our strength.

I don't know why I wrote that this was "a somewhat informal time trial" ... perhaps one of my ex-teammates will comment here if they remember. My conjecture is that we were all on the same page about the mistakes of 1978, when the team had been so busy competing within itself that the runners were all worn out, injured, or sick by late in the season. In 1979 we had decided to put our own petty differences and rivalries aside as best as we could, and concentrate on the competition outside of our own classmates. I can't say that we accomplished this perfectly, but keeping our eyes on the real prize certainly helped us maintain focus.

Given all of that, and the fact that I don't exactly recall this workout, leads me to believe that we didn't run at 100% effort, saving something for the upcoming weekend race. Whether that wise approach was given to us by our coaches or by our own experience has been lost to the winds of time.

Just a quick word on Brian Toman: I've written in earlier posts that he was a bit of an unknown quantity to us. Here is what I do remember: he was enthusiastic and he did his best in practice every day. Sometimes that meant he would run the first part of a workout way too hard, and then fade with fatigue. In fact, it wasn't surprising to see Brian leading the early stages of a workout, only to be passed one-by-one along the road. By writing that his time trial performance was surprising, what I meant was that he did not fade as much as usual. So it was a pleasant surprise. Many of us, had we been in Brian's shoes, might have found it discouraging to be up there at the start of each run only to fall back along the way. But if memory serves me correctly, Brian just kept on plugging. Maybe he wasn't the most-talented runner on the team, and maybe he couldn't quite crack varsity, but there is a need on any team for that guy-who-never-stops-trying. I wouldn't call it "leadership by example", because it's not exactly leadership. It's something different; it's the guy who sort of keeps everyone else 'honest' in a workout. In other words, if you goofed off, he'd beat you simply because he was not going to give up, ever. So you'd better put in the effort. I don't think the value of guys like Brian is recognized by teammates on high school teams, so I'm taking a short moment here to thank Brian Toman and all of his kindred spirits out there. Keep up the good work.