September 8, 1979 (Saturday)

From running log:
Cross Country RACE. 1.5 mile warmup, 3 mile race, .7 cooldown (5.2 miles). Warm, dry, 75F. Raced in Nike Universe spikes. Race splits: 1 mile 5:11, 2 miles 10:53, 3 miles 16:31. Finished 11th out of 68, one crummy place away from a medal. I'm quite pissed. McGann ran 17:14, Crary 17:16, Ben 18:08, Nellie 18:12, then Kelly, Nikl, Toman. I beat Jimmy Way and Mike Bennett's last week's time. What about Connors? My allergies were bad today, caused me some breathing problems and a sore throat, which bled a little bit during the race. As a team, we finished 8th out of 9. Maybe we can win our home meet next Thursday if we run better on our hilly course.

30 years later:
This race was both a disappointment and a determination-builder. I had my heart set on one of those medals, and I missed out by only one place. Once again, I went out too fast, but this time I did not quite fade as badly as previous races, a sign that my fitness was improving. While my teammates ran fairly decent times, their places were less than we'd hoped, and our nearly-last-place finish was a bit discouraging. Admittedly, we were up against some running powerhouse schools like Fennimore, along with a couple of much larger high schools in Madison LaFollette and Monona Grove. Even given that, I had hoped we'd be vying for 4th or 5th place, not 8th out of a field of 9 teams. We still had our work cut out for us.

For me, this race was the first time that I encountered dirty tactics in cross country. I'd played high school football through my sophomore year, and one of the reasons I'd decided to switch to cross country was because the games were becoming more and more nasty and dirty. Up until sophomore year, it seemed like we just played football against each other, let the best team win, etc. During my sophomore year, I was subjected to numerous attacks that were meant to injure or anger: spitting, twisting of arms and ankles, sucker-punches, illegal hits to the knees from the side, stepping on feet, insulting your mother, punches in the groin ... just to name a few. I guess the competitive and violent nature of football leads to these things, but frankly they weren't for me. Running was, well, just running. How could you use dirty tactics at running?

Well, I learned the hard way. Just after the one mile mark of the Verona race, I was running right alongside another runner (from McFarland High School). As we came around a corner along the side of a hill, he reached out and pushed me hard, and I fell off the trail and down the hill a few feet. I couldn't believe it, what a complete jerk! I scrambled back up to find that I'd fallen back from about 10th place to about 25th place. I was able to work my way back to 11th, but that was it. Dirty tactics, in a running race! I guess I was pretty naive. In a culture that values winning more than honor, such behavior is inevitable.

As the season passed, I'd encounter more of this kind of thing (stay tuned), which I suppose is part of the price you pay for being seen as an important rival. I'm proud to say that I've never resorted to these kind of things, never based any of my running success on dirty tactics. If I ran a race and finished ahead of you, it was because of my running, not my conniving methods to trip you up or slice the back of your legs with my sharpened spikes. I take pride in that, and to this day believe that it's better to be true than to be famous. Sadly, I think I'm in the minority on that one.

You can see from my running log entry that I was keeping a keen eye on my conference rivals. I had now run faster than Mike Bennett had on the same course, but was wondering how Terry Connors was running. I also mention Jimmy Way, who was one of my favorite high school rivals. He ran for Monona Grove High School, and we used to race that team a couple times every cross country and track season. What I liked about Jimmy was that he was had a Prefontaine-like attitude. He'd come to the starting line and say something like, "I'm going to run so hard today that all of my spikes will come unscrewed!" Like Pre, he had longer, flowing hair and a dark mustache, and he ran aggressively, from the front. This was perfect for me, because I did not have the leg speed to sit and kick, but I also didn't want to lead the race from the gun. The best races for me were the ones in which someone else took it out hard, putting the hurt on everyone. I'd tail Jimmy for the first third of the race, then put the hammer down myself when I could. In many ways, I wished we'd been teammates. He ran hard and gave it his all, finishing in front of him took effort, he'd keep the entire field honest.

Article from the Wisconsin State Journal (click to enlarge):

Article from the Baraboo News Republic (click to enlarge):

Here's a photo of the old Nike Universe spikes. I loved these shoes, despite their hideous orange color. They were light, flexible, with six individual spike sockets, and had just enough traction on the outsole so that I always felt sure of my footing. I actually wore through two pair of these, between high school, college, and European cross country races. I know I've joked about how we runners obsess over our shoes, but I have to admit that I thought these were super groovy and I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit that I kind of miss them!