Below is the latest narrative by NCAA Division III Cross Country Champion Neal Holtschulte. Is it an insightful look into the "thoughts of a champion?" Or is it a long-winded piece of melodramatic claptrap by a self-inflated gasbag? Please share your thoughts. As always, postmodern and post-structuralist approaches are welcome.
"The Thoughts of a Champion -- Neal Holtschulte"
THE MEN'S RACE
The gun goes off and thankfully it is as if the gun had been loaded and the bullet had blasted all thought and worries out of my head. The start is too simple for thought. Run as fast as you can with 210 of your 'closest friends' all converging on the same narrow corridor. The box on the starting line that Steve and I shared with other individual qualifiers had an excellent position. Box 31 out of 38 was well to the right of center, looking out from the line. This put us in good position to avoid some mud and swing the first turn wide.
Leading up to the race day, I had visualized the race and multiple ways in which it could unfold, I had always expected to be jostled by elbows, slowed as people in front of me stumbled or stopped short, and generally packed into the first mile. Instead, I hurtled off the line with clear vision of the first downhill. The 3/8ths inch metal teeth in my spikes bit into the ground and propelled me forward. I hit the first choke point and the other fast starters closed in around me but I was with the leaders and we had plenty of space. I maneuvered away from slick mud as the first two rolling hills jolted our legs: up, down, across pavement, up, down.
I expect that Steve got out nearly as well as I did. I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if he had been right behind me, but I didn't look back to check. The frontrunners and I hit the first turn and I swung it wider than anyone else. It is possibly the closest thing to a hairpin I have ever raced and Caroline [Cretti] had been adamant when insisting that we take the turns wide to avoid mud. Her advice was wise and helped throughout the race. The bottoms of her spikes were caked with mud after her race. The half inch recessed spikes she had in were invisible beneath it.
So I swung wide and when I came back in tight with the pack I still had space, which was about to be important as we came upon the creek jump. It was easy to one-step across the gap from one bank to the other but doing so in a race situation made me nervous. A single misstep, jostle, or miscalculation could result in a nasty and wet stumble. I stepped over like a deer and felt greatly relieved. The race was going better than I could possibly have hoped. I was rubbing shoulders with the leaders early, I felt relaxed, and I had navigated some of the most treacherous parts of the course. I had been mentally prepared to chase the lead pack for four and a half miles; I would have been overjoyed if I had been watching my own race. As things were, I let myself feel cautiously content. Four and a half miles of this race remained.
Up the first of many muddy hills I saved energy and let others ease past me. I followed tight around the turn and sought the good footing on the next straight away. We turned into the short trail and clattered across pavement with our spikes. We blazed through the first mile. I didn't hear my time. Next came a steep and very slick downhill followed by a long uphill. This downhill claimed many victims. Michelle Rorke fell on it and Steve told me that he basically caught Tufts' Matt Lacey when Lacey fell into him. The group and I ran along the right edge of this left hand down hill turn trading distance for traction. A few runners comically slipped through the mud moving faster over a shorter distance but losing their stride.
Next we climbed the biggest hill on the course. I, as always, slowed to save energy. By this time one or two runners had gapped our chase pack and taken a sizeable lead. As I saw the runners near me and heard coaches yelling out names I knew that I was exactly where I needed to be. Macharia Yuot, Mike Sawicki, Tim Finnegan, Owen Kiely. These were some of the names I heard and included the two that concerned me the most. I was confident that those who had leapt ahead of our pack would wear themselves out or be so dominant that they would wear out anyone who chased them. In either case, they were no concern of mine.
The back loop quieted as fewer spectators sprinted out to it and the pace slowed. After seeing the Williams fans do an encouraging "Bear Toss" by the side of the course, I briefly took the lead of the chase pack. Though I felt the wind in my face as I moved out from behind the runner I was drafting, I didn't mind. The pace felt too comfortable and it was worth a bit of wind to lead the down hills and choose exactly where to plant my feet. Up the next hill three runners passed me. A handful of us danced like this for most of the race. A few guys would move up and others would cut in behind them. A hill, or a turn, or a slip in the mud rearranged our order. Even when I found myself shuffled towards the back of the pack I felt relaxed. I had been expecting to chase these guys. Instead I could let them help carry me along.
Next our group traversed a short parking lot with much clacking of spikes. After that we crossed the same creek we had jumped earlier but this time, with the race more spread out, we used the narrow bridge. Having figured out where the mud was most slippery on the first loop, we approached the short trail a second time hugging the left side of the course with its heartier grass. Unfortunately, this brought us in to a sharp left hand turn from the left side. I swung out around the turn, carried by momentum, as others turned more sharply. I ran into Kiely and gave him a sharp nudge. This was probably the most contact I had with anyone the whole race, a marked contrast from the ruckus that was Regionals the week before.
As the race progressed my excitement built. Everything kept going well. As I charged through some portions of the course I felt as if I wasn't expending any energy at all. I felt confident in my reserves and kept hoping that I would be in a position to bring these weapons to bear when it counted. I kept waiting for someone to make the big move. Who would begin the final push into the finish that would truly test our mettle? Would I be the one to decide that the moment was right and the time for victory was now or never? More importantly, if someone else took the initiative, when would the big move begin? By the fourth mile Tyler Sigl, a sophomore from Wisconsin-Platteville, had taken the lead and put a gap between him and my group, the chasers. Pete told me afterwards that he thought Sigl was so far ahead that he would surely take first place. Dave Stroh [Neal's high school coach] clocked him at eleven seconds ahead of us at one point. In the fourth mile, however, we crept up on Sigl.
Just before the last mile began, as we were climbing the slippery hill we had come down twice already, Macharia Yuot surged after Sigl. I pepped up my pace as well, but didn't match Yuot. He pulled away from me a bit as I still wanted to save energy on these hills. At the top of the hill I put in a surge to match Yuot's own. He remained ahead of me with the gap he had extended on the hill, but we both caught and passed Sigl. I heard someone, I think it was the Calvin College coach, yelling, "This is the surge! This is the surge!" I felt flush with adrenaline. This was the big move we had all been waiting for. Calvin's Finnegan might have been close behind at that instant but Yuot and I were pulling away from him and the rest of the field. It would be a two-man race!
We swooped through the down and up hills of the trail and skidded around the turn on the other side. Yuot was still a few strides ahead. I bargained to add distance and move to the far right side to let my spikes devour the firm ground. I gained much more traction and watched as Yuot made the same decision a moment later and drifted to the right in front of me. The race was on now and I dreaded the moment when he would begin pulling away from me, drifting further with imperceptible changes in stride. It never happened as I tracked him around the curve and let out my legs on the downhill. I neared him. We shot across the bridge and the course was instantly thick with spectators screaming their heads off. I heard "Williams!" I heard "Widener!" I tread in Yuot's shadow at this point and I hardly dared to believe that I could win. A voice in my head was screaming, "Believe it, believe it." Another voice shouted, "Want it, want it." We rounded the final turn of the race and both struggled a bit in the mud. The harder you push off the more you slip.
One more steep hill challenged our path to the finish and was followed by a grueling 300-meter gradual up hill. As I had felt last year, elation and fear swam together in my veins. Would I have the guts to take this victory I had been dreaming of for two years? Would I have the guts to take it from a competitor who had dreamed of it for just as long and been tempted by three second place finishes in National level running competitions?
We started up the hill. Yuot was two strides ahead and to my right. I didn't follow up directly behind him because I thought the footing looked better further to the left. I charged up the hill holding nothing back for the first time on the course. I found myself advancing steadily. Just before the uphill took its first of two dips, just before we jarred our legs down on pavement, I passed Yuot. Visions of Williams mountains and chasing Steve Wills up Mt. Greylock flashed before my eyes. I crested the hill with Yuot right on my shoulder.
A slight downhill graced my feet before the gradual uphill into the finish. I milked the down hill for all it was worth. This was my now or never time. The down hill sparked the fire in my engine and I started sprinting all pistons firing. The fence that holds back the fans in the finish line area curves to the right. I cut the tangent as close as I could without hitting any of the flagellating arms of these screaming people. I couldn't hear anything over the din of their cheers. I feared Yuot rolling up on my shoulder at any moment. I feared his arrival in my peripheral vision; steaming indomitably to the finish. The fear made my fire burn hotter.
I saw the finish line detach itself from the wall of arms flailing like streamers and refused to let myself believe that I would be victorious. I left my distance sprint behind and ceased to land heel first. Up on my toes like a hydrofoil my calves carried their burden to the line and suddenly I was across. I was across first. I didn't know what to do with myself as the joy wracked my body like an electric current. Having drained my salt water sweat on the course I could only cry invisible gusts of crusty air. Pain couldn't enter my body in this state.
Eventually I stood after falling to my knees with happiness. I looked around for something to ground me and take away this energy. The first person I saw was Dave Stroh, my first high school coach. I wobbled over to the barrier and hugged him across it. Soon some of my other fans approached: Jaime Bisker, my aunt Sue Haban. Slowly the Earth rose back up to my feet again, but it stayed their precariously and kept slipping away from me leaving my stomach hanging and chills shooting up my spine as I floated weightless over the ground. Various things brought me to Earth before I floated back up. Steve finished. He was bent over with his hands on his knees. He thought he had cracked All American. I told him I won. We embraced. I floated. I felt sharp pain that I'm not used to feeling. I took off my shoe and found blood across my toes. It was nothing more than a war wound to be proud of. I floated. I somehow managed to sign a consent form for drug testing, as if I had a choice. One of the Ohio Wesleyan runners was assigned to me like a shadow to jog around with me, go wherever I went, but to never let me out of his sight until I was drug tested. Whatever, I floated.
I shook hands with the Wesleyan runners I know and the Tufts ones, and runners from other regions. My parents finally sorted me out of the crowd and hugged me. I took some time to pour out some excited energy into a reporter for CBS. I poured out energy for each of my local fans that had come to see me, many seeing me for the first time at a college race. I was a never empty pitcher pouring out happiness. I wound my way to the Williams camp. I beamed at everyone and hugged Pete. The Williams runners that had driven over ten hours to get to the race and would drive the same amount back before Monday bounded over with T-Bear in their arms and gave a shout of "Victory!" (it's actually something of an inside joke, try shouting it in a library and you'll be a little closer to the inside).
Steve and I changed shoes, chugged water, and munched on bananas. The goofy drug testing guards stood politely by. Eventually we got out on a cool down jog and I came down more solidly to Earth. Then we did the drug test. Nothing like being watched while pissing into a cup to bring you back to reality. That was interminable as we were all a little dehydrated. Annoyingly the awards ceremony wasn't delayed, or wasn't delayed much for the top three finishers as we all tried to force water through our bodies with will power.
The awards ceremony lifted me up again. It's never been so easy to smile for a camera before. I got chills as I accepted my All-America plaque and NCAA Division 3 Cross Country Athlete of the Year award. This was my wildest dream come true. No one could ask for a better capstone to a cross country career.
I can't thank enough my teammates, those who came out to see me, those who deserved to be racing that day with Steve and I, and those who supported us from afar in Williamstown. I also want to thank the only two people as nervous as I was, my parents. I want to thank my Coach Pete Farwell for tempering my enthusiasm at times and pushing me to run harder at other times. I also want to thank the men's assistant coach Dusty Lopez for his support and friendship this year and in past years. I do my fans a disservice by thanking them all in one lump but it will have to do. Thank you all.