The View From Back Here
A personal account of the Dashing Dukes Invitational
It’s 5 o’clock on a Sunday morning. Quiet, or so I assume. I’m dead asleep, probably snoring like a bandsaw, when my phone starts screaming. I sit up, grimacing with the sleep-addled determination of a parent whose toddler refuses to stay down through the night. Eyes not yet fully open, I root around for the wailing rectangle just out of arm’s reach. It’s race day.
The sun hasn’t even considered coming up at this point. The clock may say it’s morning, but the sky outside is still set firmly to “night.” Being just before dawn, conventional wisdom would hold this to be the darkest hour of the night. I believe it – I almost fell over twice just trying to get dressed. I had laid out my full kit the night before, leaving it sprawled out across my bedroom floor – hat, singlet, shorts, socks, and shoes – like clothes for a paper doll, some 2-dimensional, Flat Stanley-fied version of myself. As if I’d been Raptured 800m into a race and only my clothes remained, crumpled on the ground like a chalk outline at a crime scene.
I stub my toe. Swearing under my breath, I grumble something about needing a cup of coffee.
By 6 I’ve parked by the Tree, Dunkin’ in hand, and left for a short shakeout. Only 5 minutes, little more than a shuffle, but enough to get the blood pumping before embarking on the 3-hour drive to Harrisonburg. The truth, hard as it may be, is starting to set in: I feel terrible. It’s around 55 degrees already, unseasonably warm for early March, but still cool enough to warrant sweatpants and a crewneck. The sky is still dark, but the sun has started stirring a little on the horizon. We’re heading West, into the mountains. Hopefully, I’ll feel better in a few hours when I’ve had a bit more time to wake up.
The drive is uneventful (the best thing a drive can be). I don’t need to consult navigation until we’re about 10 minutes out – there are no turns the whole way until then. You get on 64 West and you keep going for 2 ½ hours (skirting around Richmond traffic with a brief foray onto 295 North) and you’re 99% of the way there. I’m infamous on this team (or so I’m told) for being… let’s call it “navigationally challenged.” Even I can handle this one, no problem.
The trees all bow to us as we approach the parking lot. Either Harrisonburg has the politest foliage in Virginia or it’s a windy one out there. As luck would have it, the trees at JMU are just as uncouth as everywhere else, and my hat goes flying as soon as I step out of the car. There’s a windmill that overlooks the track. It’s spinning so hard it looks like it could take flight at any moment. My passengers stare at it with dismay. Somebody groans. All I can do is laugh.
I’m racing a 1600m today. Not quite a mile, but only 9 meters shorter. Close enough, as they say, for horseshoes and hand grenades. There are about 30 minutes until the gun goes off for the women’s race. I go for a quick 10-minute warmup jog with Sydney, my teammate who’s racing the 1600 and the 3200. As we’re buffeting back by the same steady 15 mph headwind that has angled itself directly down the home straight of the track, we discuss race plans. Any concerns for times have, of course, gone completely out the window. Today, we decide, is about racing. My goals are as follows:
a) Run hard from the gun and hold on for dear life. During the last mile I raced, I spaced out after 200m and wound up crossing the finish line without even going lactic. Today needs to hurt.
b) Hang with a pack. Don’t get stranded in no man’s land and end up racing alone. Especially not in this wind.
c) Don’t get last. I’ve finished near the back of the pack in several races, but never absolute last. I don’t want to find out what that feels like.
Sydney’s race plan is a bit simpler: run a race she’s happy with. If possible, race to win. Don’t go too early, though. Let the girl in front take the brunt of the wind. We’re all confident she can win this. She’s anxious not to jinx anything.
Sydney notices I’m panting pretty hard for a jog this slow. Normally this pace feels like walking, but I feel even worse than I did this morning. I was reluctant to admit it before the race, but I hadn’t exactly set myself up for success today. After having had, shall we say, a bit more fun than planned on Friday night and then paying for it all of Saturday, I was dehydrated and badly underfueled. I had also barely managed to crack 10 total hours of sleep over the last two nights combined, and I hadn’t mustered up the shakeout I’d hoped to run yesterday. I’ve been trying not to show my teammates just how bad I’m already feeling. I’m determined not to acknowledge it before the race, not even to myself. The only thing worse than making excuses after the fact is to make them beforehand and never even give yourself a shot. Today was going to be hard, sure. It’s a race. If it’s not hard then you’re doing something wrong.
We arrive back at the track just as the women’s 4x 100m relay gets underway. The only two teams are both from JMU, and the opener from one team has eschewed a more relay traditional baton in favor of large, inflatable zebra. It is unclear whether or not her teammates knew to expect this somewhat untraditional handoff, but it was a sight to behold. The anchor leg came tearing down the home straight, the zebra flailing in her hand as if struggling to keep up.
The women’s 1600 is a fun one to watch, and I have the best seat in the house. Crouching on the infield, tying my spikes and striding back and forth, I have no trouble keeping up with the action. They get out quick, coming through 400m in around 84 seconds. Things begin visibly bunching up, however, at around 600m, and they come through halfway in just over 3 minutes. Sydney had been sitting comfortably in second place through all of this, but now she’s starting to get antsy. By 800m, she’s had enough. Audibly telling the rest of the lead pack “alright, time to go,” Sydney drops the hammer, surging hard and gapping the field by about 5 seconds on the back straight. Nobody comes close for the rest of the race. Crossing the finish in a comfortable 5:51, Shannon Higgins of JMU and Simone Evans of Maryland follow close behind (4 & 8 seconds back, respectively).
I barely have time to say “congratulations” before I’m on the line myself. This, oddly, was the calmest I’ve ever felt on a start line. So much has already gone wrong in the lead-up to this. Now all that remains is to give it all I have.
What I have, as it turned out, is not a lot. I get out hard off the line and find a clear path to lane 1. I take a decent elbow to the face from a Maryland runner (I don’t blame the guy, he had like 6 inches on me – my face was directly at elbow-level), but I wind up right in the center of the pack, exactly where I want to be. We start splintering into two groups around 300m in, but I still come through 400m in about 83 seconds. It’s all downhill from there. First, I was leading the chase pack, then the chase pack was leaving me. By the time I hit 1000m I’m fighting for my life and firmly in last place, running all-out and still slowing down. My vision starts to grey out with 100m to go, but I still kick with everything I’ve got, if only to be done sooner. It’s the kind of race that leaves you with no choice but to shrug and move on – so bad that you can’t even get upset. I can’t stand getting last, but it is what it is, and I’m determined not to let it happen again.
If anyone asks, getting DFL was a journalistic decision – it gave me a much better view of the rest of the race.
There’s no time for dwelling. After a few quick heats of the 200m (won by Kiera Wissing and Dorryen Henley, respectively), the 3200m is underway. The women’s race strings out quickly, leaving every runner to fend for herself against the wind. Sydney’s comfortable in second, about 15 seconds back from Maryland’s Diana Liepinya for most of the race. Fellow Terrapin Lillian Hsu kicks it in hard but still finishes about 5 seconds back, taking third overall. The men’s race is another lonely one, everybody on their own for most of the event. It’s another Maryland runner, Eamon Plante, who ultimately locks down first place in 10:08.
However, the highlight of the men’s 3200m – and, indeed, maybe the meet itself – actually comes in the slower of the two heats. JMU runner Adam Conklin, as it turns out, has a surprise waiting for when the gun goes off. As soon as he’s off the line, he produces three small balls from Lord knows where and starts juggling. The crowd, as you might expect, goes wild. Conklin then proceeds to run the whole race without dropping a single ball (save for one slip-up in the last 100m), finishing not in last place in an impressive 12:30. Upon crossing the line, he stops, turns to his team, and starts doing tricks, juggling under his leg, behind his back, and then catching them all effortlessly. He’s met with applause from teammates and competitors alike1.
Somewhere behind me, somebody laughs. “God, I love NIRCA.”
I lose my voice cheering for the 800m races. My teammate Nora Gentry runs a smart race, going straight to the #2 spot and sticking to the girl in front. After coming through 200m in 37 seconds, they slow down considerably. At 400m, Nora goes to the front and doesn’t let up, winning handily in 2:46.
The men’s race couldn’t be more different. Right from the gun, my other teammate Patrick Smith goes directly to the front and takes it out like a madman, coming through 200m in 26 seconds and 400m in 59 (that’s a 33 second 200m into the wind, mind you). Nobody comes within 5 meters of him the whole race, and he cruises through the line to win by over 2 seconds.
The final event is the 4 x 100m “fun relay,” more often referred to as the “4 x fun.” Unscored and chaotic, the race was at once the most baffling and the most thrilling event in the entire meet. The first leg spins 10 times before running, getting nice and dizzy before rounding the curve and tagging the second leg, who speedwalks down the back straight (absolutely no running!). The speedwalkers hop on the backs of their teammates in leg three, who carry them around the curve. Navigating the minefield of a track as competitors trip and fall all around them, the duo then tags the final “runner”, who crabwalks their way down the home straight for the anchor leg.
I carried Patrick on my back and fought with everything that I had to run without falling over. I stumble about 30m in. Both of our lives flash before my eyes. Somehow, I stay on my feet. We make it to the line and tag Sam, our anchor leg, who goes crabwalking madly towards the finish. I’m wheezing by this point. I look at Sydney. “That was harder than the mile.”
You can check out the full results for the 2022 Dashing Dukes invitational here. And, while you’re at it, subscribe to the newsletter why don’t ya?
According to my research, there is no official world record for a juggling 3200m, but the time to beat for a juggling mile is 4:43. Personally, I’d love to see Mr. Conklin take a shot at this. If anybody wants to set up an attempt at the record, shoot me an email.