Great finishes

Four years ago, Chetek (now Chetek-Weyerhaueser) High School hired me as their boys and girls Cross Country coach. I wouldn't call it my dream job – after all, pastoring the fellowship known as The Refuge is probably the best job a guy like me could ever work at – but I really love and relish the opportunity to coach the sport of Cross Country. It is such a metaphor of life – everybody who wants to and is able to runs; some run the course faster than others and many run it slower but all run and strive to cross the finish line. Most of the kids who run for me aren't consciously running against who ever else is also in the race. They are running against the clock, against themselves,  to beat their personal best and record another PR (“personal record”). As far as I'm concerned, the only way you lose the race is, barring injury, is dropping out, not finishing what you started. And in four seasons, that's only happened once.

 Like every other CC team, every year we have a motto or a theme for that particular season. In 2011, our theme was:

Jane (Bib # 123) broke "18" for the very first time

It wasn't really creative. It's actually standard runningspeak but it's so true on the course, on the track and in life. A lot of people burst out of the box or the blocks looking like the predestined champion who will be crowned at the race's end only to bonk or fade into the pack somewhere before the end. Anybody can start a race. Really, even those who are overweight and out-of-shape can get a little head of steam and look stellar in the first 300 meters or so. But its how they run the remaining 4.7km that ultimately will decide how they are judged. So, this past season I did a lot of preaching to my team on “finishing strong”, on going the distance and crossing the line with a strong kick. Whether or not that helped my runners is something you'll have to ask them about but at the Sectional meet in Barron last October they were rewarded for their hard work and effort when over half of my kids recorded PRs and some of them crossed time barriers they had never crossed before.

In this blog entry, I've gathered a few video clips of some great finishes because, as I've already chanted, it's not how you start it's how you finish that matters. This first one is a clip from Chariots of Fire, the 1981 Academy Award winning picture that dramatized the efforts of two of the members of Great Britain's track team in the 1924 Olympics, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams. I don't know if the race depicted was an actual event or simply a scene concocted to illustrate the heart of Liddell, “the Flying Scot”, but either way it's inspiring to watch:

Mr. Mussabini is right: when you fall down you must get up and finish the race (cool sound track or not).

The next one is the amazing finish of Billy Mills in the 10,000 meter run in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. With 300 meters to go it appears that Australian runner Ron Clarke pushes Mills out in the third lane making Mills' attempt to win gold even more difficult (however, in a recent interview run in March 2012 edition of Runner's World Mills says that this was a blessing in disguise because the track was firmer on the outside lanes and made it easier for him to accelerate.) Undeterred and undaunted that last 100 is one of the greatest feats in running history made even more dramatic by the announcer screaming in disbelief, “LOOK AT MILLS! LOOK AT MILLS!”

When you run your heart out, even if they don't crown you with the winner's laurel at the race's end, everyone notices.

The beginning of the 3200m race at the Bloomer Regionals

Our son, Ed, has been running since, well...as long as I can remember. He had a solid high school running career but in his pursuit of his goal of making it to the Cross Country finals in Wisconsin Rapids he came up short. It was a tough winter for him last year. A dream had died and while he ran steadily through the cold, winter months his fire was spent. But in the spring of the year when the southerly winds began to blow he felt fresh wind in his sails and as the 2011 track season began he set his sights in qualifying for the State Meet in LaCrosse. We had a cold spring and in April more than a handful of practices, as well as some meets, were canceled due to snow and ugly weather. But with the coming of May Ed began to hit his stride. In every successive meet he set one PR after another. His 1600m times dropped from 5:05 to 5:02 to 4:56 to 4:53; his 3200m followed suit from 11:13 to 10:55 to 10:53. He was running with poise and confidence and at the Northwestern Invite, the night he finally cracked the “5 minute” barrier, at long last he caught “the rabbit” he had chased for over a year – Hetke from Ladysmith.

400 meters to go

At the Bloomer Regionals, on a warm, overcast night, he ran well in the mile finishing 4:57 but missed qualifying for Sectionals by one position. That just left him the two mile for the chance to qualify where only the top 4 would advance to the next level of competition. As he lined up at the starting line, both he and we his parents standing in the bleachers were cognizant of the fact that this was possibly the last race of his high school career.


After one lap he was running in 10th place. Although his racing strategy is never to charge off the line I was surprised at how far back he was especially given the pace of the front runner, John Vodacek from Bloomer. But as the race progressed he steadily moved up so that by the end of the first mile he was running 5th. There was a significant gap, however, between he and the 4th place kid, Kirkhoven from Stanley-Boyd. But with two laps to go Ed had closed the gap and for 800m these two dogged it out, neck and neck, elbow to elbow, each trying to gas the other. I had never seen Ed run with such poise and determination. Hetke, the kid who had bested Ed in every race his junior year, was running a distant 6th and on his last lap actually was more interested in this duel than his own. In the last 100 meters, the Stanley-Boyd runner inched ahead and crossed the line ahead of Ed by 6 or 7 steps. Even though he recorded a personal best of 10:48:37, he came in 5th. Once again a State qualifying dream evaporated in the mugginess of that spring night. But I will always cherish the memory of that last 800meters when my son ran with fire in his heart and his legs. He had given all that he had which is also about finishing strong.

Truthfully, this blog entry is really just an excuse so I can post the following video. What makes it even more special is that its true. University of Minnesota runner Heather Dorniden, now running professionally, was expected to win this qualifying heat for the 600m finals in the 2008 Big Ten Championship Meet. With a lap to go she and another one of her competitors got tripped up and she fell flat upon the track in the University Fieldhouse. What happened next is the stuff of legend. She not only got up, but she accelerated, caught the fourth place runner, caught the third place runner and went on to catch her teammate at the line to win the heat. Again, when we fall down we must get back up and do what we can. She did that and more.

Despite the fall she wins the race

I saw an interview she gave last summer. She described the memory of that race as "magical." "I was just trying to catch the last runner and score some points for the team and then when I heard the announcer say, 'Watch out for Heather Dorniden!' and then I thought to myself, 'Yes, watch out for me, watch out for me...' and well, things ended as they did." It's simply an amazing race that sap that I am makes me weep every time I watch it again. It wasn't bio-mechanics and fitness that got her across that line. It was heart, "guts" as Mr. Mussabini would say, sheer will over body. 


I will never run as fast as Liddell, Mills, Dorniden and Ed. I'm really just a domestic Clydesdale (and an overweight one at that) but watching these clips and reliving the memory of Ed's last high school race inspire me to redouble my efforts to "...run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever" (1 Corinthians 9:24-25, NIV). And ultimately it's that crown that I want to be eager to win.