Willy here. Steve asked me to
write a little bit for the blog so that our legions of adoring fans could get
the inside scoop on our trip to Cross Country Town, USA aka Middle of Nowhere,
Midwest aka Terre Haute, IN. Apologies in advance; this ended up a little
longer than I had anticipated.
After a season filled with ups,
downs, falls, and impetigo, a solid team performance at regionals ended up
being just enough to get us into NCAAs for the first time since 2005. Our women
cruised in as well with an automatic bid from their 2nd-place showing at regionals. Add four coaches and two
managers, and you have a Big Green entourage twenty strong hopping on a plane
Wednesday afternoon. Somewhat inconveniently, this was also the first day of
reading period, with finals starting on Friday – the day before the race.
Fortunately, our professors were
sympathetic to our plight, for the most part. Exams were taken early,
postponed, or in some cases proctored at the Hampton Inn in Terre Haute by
faculty advisor and assistant coach Ron Shaiko on Friday afternoon. Unluckiest
of all was Sundance Gorman, whose Latin final didn’t technically conflict with our travel plans…but it was at 8am on
Sunday, the day after the race and a mere 7 hours after we stumbled into
Hanover, exhausted.
Despite the woes of Dartmouth’s
academic calendar, we managed to have some fun in Indiana before the big race.
Thursday was the night of the annual banquet put on by the NCAA for all the
teams. Naturally, we all wanted to look our best for our blue carpet debut. To
this end, I got a hold of a bowtie and spent an ungodly amount of time
attempting to tie it, delaying our departure by a solid ten minutes. The
highlight of the banquet was a unique motivational speech by Dr. Jason Winkle,
who holds a PhD in…leadership?
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| Da' boys. |
We had a great showing of both
parents and alumni out in Terre Haute. Younger alums Phil Royer ’13 (who wasn’t
just there for the men’s team…),
Ethan Shaw ’12 and his new lady friend, and Ben True ’08.5 all made the trek,
as did Tom Paskus ’89 and Ray Pugsley ’91.
On to the good part – the race
itself. Prognosticators had provided us with plenty of motivation – the Wood
Report had us finishing 30th to Harvard’s 18th, and on the other end of the spectrum, Ben threw us in as
a dark horse for a top ten finish in the Saucony prediction show. Our more
realistic goals were to be the top Ivy squad, as well as to crack the top 20,
with 15th as the “holy grail” because it would have matched our best
showing since the ‘80s.
We knew the weather was going to
be “unfortunate” (thanks, Chief!). It had rained for two days straight and the
course had been torn to shreds on Friday, and forecasts were calling for a
temperature in the low 30s with some strong winds. All we needed was a blizzard
to upgrade the conditions to Snow Leopard status.
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| Snow Leopard
We didn’t get our blizzard, but
according the official NCAA webcast the temperature at gun time was 27 degrees,
with 15-20mph winds. The mud was pretty bad, and it was certainly chilly; even
our native Alaskan timberwolf suited up in some extra clothing.
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| All bundled up (Tim O'Dowd photo) |
After an adrenaline-filled
pre-race speech from DJ Mango and our trademark cheer, we took our places in
box 17. For four of us, it would be the last race of our college XC career, and
it was time to make it count. The gun went off.
As we settled into race pace, I
found myself much higher up in the pack than I had expected to be. I hit 3K in
17th, about 8:55 if you adjust for the moved starting line. At
this point I still wasn’t sure if I was actually feeling good or a spectacular
blowup was coming. The big hill came and went, then 5K, then the big hill again
at 7K, and as we picked off stragglers from the lead pack I was suddenly in the
top 10. It was the second time going up the big hill, where it started to
really hurt but I still felt in control, when I realized I was going to hang on
and reach a level I never had before.
I didn’t have the strongest last
2K, falling back a little to finish in 14th with a time of
30:22, but the feeling of crossing that line ahead of my grandest expectations
is something I’ll never forget. I don’t know why I ran as well as I did. Maybe
it was because I got out hard and avoided the worst of the mud. Maybe the “Math
is Power” bandana Big Mike bequested to me has magical powers. Maybe I just got
lucky and hit the peak perfectly. Whatever it was, I’m just grateful that my
final college cross country race was such a special experience.
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| Nearing the finish (Tim O'Dowd photo) |
Next across the line for us was
fellow ’14 Hank “and Oak” Sterling in 110th, one his best
races of the season. In fact, the seniors made up our top 4. Octogenarian and
blog curator Steve Mangan was our third man in 165th; and John Bleday, our premier Evil Baby Orphanage player,
put his balls on the line and ran his heart out despite feeling terrible,
coming across in 174th. Brian Master Chieferson
stepped up to score for us despite not even racing at regionals. In his first
XC 10K ever, Brian ran aggressively and placed 204th. Sundance, who was dealing with more finals stress than
any of us, and Seabass, who had been dealing with a knee injury for weeks, had
tough days, finishing in 216th and 228th respectively.
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| Hammerin Hank (Tim O'Dowd photo) |
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| Stever (Tim O'Dowd photo) |
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| John, getting that Awad scalp (Tim O'Dowd photo) |
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| Chief, stepping up as 5th man (Tim O'Dowd photo) |
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| Sundance, always closing hard (Tim O'Dowd photo) |
We didn’t quite reach either of
our team goals for this race. When the scores were tallied and all was said and
done, we were 24th with 551 points, ahead of Harvard and Heps champion
Columbia, but two places behind Princeton. More importantly, the race marked
the end of an incredible four-year journey with my best friends and second
family. Running with these guys has been the highlight of my time at Dartmouth,
and I can’t wait to see what the next two seasons on the track have in store
for us.
Willy out
