The warm-up was the easiest run I had ever done. My feet didn’t feel like they were touching the ground. I was with Ricky and O’Bryan. Even though it was close to 80 degrees, I was wearing compression tights. We were going to do about 2 miles: out then back. There was a hilly section of sidewalk and I moved up it effortlessly. I walked back into the still air of the indoor track building and immediately started dripping with sweat. I didn’t let the heat bother me. Making sure I had more than enough time before my race, I went out to the infield with my spikes and planned to start doing drills.
The women were still running and in fact Kelly’s race started right when I got there. She looked to be running well and I cheered her on until she got to the final straightaway. At that point I could see her laboring and her stride length diminishing. I yelled “Go to the arms!” as she painfully grimaced. She finished a few seconds outside of her goal time and looked disappointed. I gave her a hug, told her she ran great and went back to preparing myself. While I was jogging back and forth Chuck had come over to Kelly where she was lying on the ground. I thought to myself, “She’s really talented and has stayed dedicated to the sport for so long, but she couldn’t run her best. Could I expect the same thing today? Might there be race conditions outside of my control?” I quickly answered with, “No. I worked harder. I can achieve my goal.”
I continued getting ready. I knew that it didn’t matter how I felt during skips and toe touches; it was never an indicator of how I would perform. I just did them like I had done dozens of times before. I also made sure to do strides well before I stepped onto the track, so I could let my breathing rate and heart rate go down before the gun went off. I felt fast. Really fast. Ricky’s heat was two before mine. I expended some energy hollering at him as he fought through the race. He finished a couple seconds outside of his goal too, and wasn’t too thrilled. I thought again to myself, “Ricky is extremely talented and is one of the hardest working athletes on the club. How did he not have a great race? Is this foreshadowing my result?” The simple answer was, “No. I worked harder still.”
My spikes were on and my lane stickers were flimsily attached to my shorts and jersey. I stepped onto the rubber surface. There was no time for anymore preparation. I, and the other seven athletes in my heat were allowed to take a stride around the first curve while the previous race was finishing up. I was physically at ease but mentally anxious. I took my stride very gingerly and walked back. My breathing hastened. I did not want to be drawing in any more air than I needed to be and this got me nervous. I got to my lane and decided I was just going to forget about my goal, the work I had put in, my future, my friends and family, and my race tactics. I wanted to be okay with failing. I wanted to get it over with.
At every serious track event I’ve run, the competitors are requested to stand about a yard behind the starting line before being given the “on your mark” command. So while everyone toed the line, I stayed back, as if I wasn’t even interested in running. Sure enough, the starter pushed everyone else back a bit and we waited.
I was in lane 5, which meant I was leading the inner four runners and trailing the outer 3 during the first 100 meters. The gun fired and I strode without breathing. As I came out of the first bend and crossed the break line, I turned my head left to see where I would slot myself as smoothly as possible into the pack. I consciously ran the shortest path from lane 5 to the inside over the course of 100 meters. As I approached the 200 meter mark, I saw a small cluster of athletes gathered at that point. The tallest of the group shouted out “27!” to us a bit before I crossed the line and “28!” a bit after. Two thoughts entered my mind. The first was that ‘I am ever so slightly too quick’ and the second was ‘I feel 100% fine.’ By the time I had processed these observations, I was already several strides down the home stretch for the first time. A few runners were right in front of me and I decided to stay immediately behind them, like I could draft off them. I thought, ‘they are running at the perfect pace, and I need not lay off nor move up.’ I did not get a chance to read the clock at the 400 meter mark but right after I crossed it, I heard something that I never heard before in an 800 meter race. Chuck yelled “58! 58!” followed by “Perfect! Perfect!” In that moment, the bark of a 41 year-old man sounded like the song of an angel. Ever since 2015, I knew that this was the ideal time to hit for the first lap. But today was the first time I had ever executed it. My mood changed instantly. Suddenly I felt that breaking 2 minutes was a real possibility. I thought that this might be the day. I reminded myself not to surge down the back straight, because I knew that I would have to pay for it on the other side of the track. I hit 600 meters. The three athletes that were pulling me along fell behind me almost all at once. This created the illusion that I was accelerating past them. I felt strongest at that point. In my head I heard “Experience” by Ludovico Einaudi. Whenever I listened to this song, I envisioned myself breaking 2 for the first time, and winning the heat. That vision was about to become reality. I was going to win the heat. I was going to break 2. The only thing I had to do was not lock up. Locking up is when lactate builds up in the muscles and they refuse to move. This has happened to me a handful of times. I slow down drastically and involuntarily, as if the track surface is turning to quicksand. There were about 70 meters left in the race. My legs were getting heavier. Every stride I had to put in more and more effort to get one foot in front of the other. There was no one around me. That had to be fast enough. How could I have not done it? I never saw the clock. I turned around and looked at Chuck who was standing with his stopwatch. He said nothing. I could tell just by looking at his face that my time started with a 1.
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