Greatest Athletic Accomplishments

Someone asked me awhile back what my greatest athletic accomplishment was..

Winning the track and field day overall individual class competition in the 6th grade.

I was always the smallest kid in class (except for maybe a girl or two), the kids who would win it were usually more physically mature.

We had to pick a distance event, a couple of sprint events, and a handful of field events, usually at least two jump events and two throws.

This all took place on a dirt/gravel track in a small logging town outside of Eugene, Oregon. Our heros were the studs at UO; Joaquin Cruz, Dub Myers, Salazar, Mary Decker (nee Slaney) and so on.

I remember seeing Cruz at the mall when I was about 9 y/old; he looked like a horse. I started running local road-races at age 9, so I was 11 and was a fit skinny kid; just not a future bruiser in football games.

One day a month before "Field Day" I looked up at the Track and Field records posted in the gym and decided I could break the 880yd run record; It was 2.55 I'm not sure why but I thought that if I could run a lap around the school in around 1.17-20(the PE teacher said it was about a 440), then I could do two and have my name up there.

I told my Dad about the goal who wrote up a training program that I followed, it was pretty light compared to what jr. high kids do now actually, and set about training.

What made it more interesting is that the class bully, a bruising physically mature kid whose older brother was the star running back for the HS football team had started working out with a private track team in Eugene; ultimately he'd be more of a 400m type later, and I'd run the 1500m in college and at NCAA Div II XC Nationals, so I guess we spilt the difference!

Anyhow, said class bully didn't pick on me; guess he must have respected my athletic talents then or just picked on kids that were more a challenge w/the fisticuffs.

Needless to say, this was *the* match up, because all the kids in school, in my class and outside of it knew I ran road-races in Eugene, and knew the bully was training in track spikes and doing jr. olympic stuff after school.

There was tension everyday in PE; I lost sleep.

The bully and I didn't talk. I kept my record-breaking ambitions to myself.

The week before the event my Dad came over my house and we ran a time-trial at the track, he led and I just followed for two laps at record pace. I went under the record by a second.

It was very, very hard; it was like the one-lap around the school sprint times two. And, my Dad paced it evenly.

Field day came and the 880yd dash was later in the day; I set about scoring as many points as I could in Field events I had a fighting chance in.. Events like the high-jump were good because I was small, light, could jump and wasn't afraid of the bar.

It was all a prelude to the big showdown. David vs. Goliath in a sense. I wasn't a prodigy, just a tiny lightweight kid. I just knew my strategy had to be to get out in front and just run at what felt like the pace I'd done w/my dad a week before and hope that the bully couldn't hang on..

I wasn't sure if he could. He was plenty fast in the one lap around the school affairs, but who knew about the longer stuff.

It was May, and it was a hot day, the track was dusty; the starter's pistol went off and I flew over the first 200m just the way the guys in a fast international 800m do, hard and fast; just a hair off red-line.

I couldn't hear the bully behind me. I came through the first lap in about 1.26-ish.

At this point I didn't care about the competition, the effort was hard. And the entire school was watching; potentially surprised at my lead, I was never sure how close he really was incidentally.

Heading into the first turn of the second lap I started to get that tell-tale middle-distance runner slight lung burn, but I knew what that felt like already; This was different than the time-trial with my Dad, I'd gone a little harder from the gun and was just hanging it out there.

Heading into the final turn I knew that unless something weird happened I was going to win. That feeling when you know you're going to win is intoxicating, it's the light-headed, "did I really do it? Yes I did!" sensation that I was heightened because this was in front of a crowd.

My language arts teacher who watched meets at Hayward yelled at me as I rounded that last turn, "Dig, Dig!"

I didn't know what that meant, but I went harder, or least felt like I did!

The last hundred/seventy-five yards or so were an eternity, I didn't hear anyone, it was tunnel vision all the way to the line; I crossed the line not being sure of whether I had the record, not caring and knew I'd beaten the class bully who had special training and shoes. I was so small that I still nicely into my purple crushed velvet soccer shorts from second grade.

How it ended- I tied the record, 2 min 55 seconds for 880yd. Because I'd done well enough through a combo of scoring a series of first place ribbons, seconds and a handful of thirds I'd outscored everyone and I won a small medal with a ribbon which I still have to this day in my dresser.

It's more important to me than any other medal, including Ironman.

I walked on air the rest of the school year. The time in 880yd would have placed me against 7th and 8th graders that year, something that had made its way around the school.

I'll never forget it, and I still drive to that small town every couple of years to walk around the track and tell the story to who ever will listen as I hear the gravel crunching beneath me.