This is the message I sent last night to the Greater Boston Track Club about tonight workout:
Fans jangled cowbells during the race at Stanford for the 10,000 meters. When Chris Solinsky had a lap to go, he ran at American record pace. . The officials rang a higher pitched bell. Solinsky ran the 800 meters in 1:56. He finished in a new American record of 26:59.60. But the bell wasn't just for him. Bells ring for all sorts of reasons and poets write poems about them. Poe wrote one called "The Bells" and John Donne wrote:
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. "
Donne referred to death and funeral bells, but no one is an island in setting a track and field record either. If death diminishes, then a record reaffirms. We are not the lesser like Europe less minus a clod. We are more when a record is set like a mountain range upthrust by plate tectonics.. I always feel different in a different world on the day after a track and field record is broken. The light has a new tint and the air a clarity that wasn't there the day before.
So tonight's run will be a celebration on the track for 26:59.60 with a concentration on the last 1:56. We will count our laps and fractions in meters. If the number is less than 10,000, we will subtract it from 10,000 to see how far ahead Chris Solinsky's record would put him.
One hard run for all distance runners, each for exactly the same time in this new hued and bright America.
For those training for shorter distances, who lack the attention span for 26:59.60, tell me you are coming so I can give you a different workout. Maybe you'll be the rabbit.
Tom
You are doing the right thing to make your HS runners fans of the sport and the people in it.