Oliver Crocker
Carol Severino
Travel Writing
November 12, 2019
State Track
“How are you feeling?”
“Nervous as hell,” I responded to my friend Caden. Our bus had arrived in Des Moines for state track the night before. It had felt like I had all the time in the world before my race back then, but here I was only 12 hours later getting ready to run in the 3200. A crowd of thousands of people filled the stadium around me, whooping and hollering as runners passed them along the track.
“Yeah, I bet you are. I remember how nervous I was before my first race at state,” said my friend David. The three of us were the only distance runners from our school to qualify for state, all seniors. We’d been running together since seventh-grade cross country. David was the only one of us to qualify for state track in the past years. To me and Caden, this was entirely new. The two wished me luck as I left them to go to the infield. In other circumstances, they would’ve kept me company until my race started, but only runners on call for their race are allowed onto the field at state.
Heat radiated from the turf as I stepped onto the infield. It was only 11 o’clock, but the temperature had already reached the upper 80’s. As I looked around me, I was astounded by the number of people gathered here from all across Iowa. The sport feels so much smaller until you’re standing in the stadium in Des Moines. I felt a wave of anxiety as I heard a gun signaling the start of a race ahead of me, followed by the roaring of the crowd. In less than a half hour, it’d be me at that start line. After forcing down the last of my water bottle, I decided to jog some laps around the track to try and calm my nerves.
I’m not normally so nervous before my races, but these were special circumstances. The weather was one cause of concern. While I can handle a race in the freezing cold, running in heat is a different story. The exhaustion from running under the beating sun is unavoidable, and I could feel it before the race had even started. The setting of state track is also no less than nerve-racking. It looked like there wasn’t a single empty seat out of the 15,000 in the stadium, and I couldn’t help but stress over the fact that all those eyes would be on me if I slipped up during the race. More importantly, however, was the fact that this would be the first race I would run without any of my teammates running alongside me. I hadn’t run a race by myself since I first started running in middle school. There’s a great deal of comfort that comes with competing alongside people you know. With that taken away from me now, I was damn near a nervous wreck.
As I rounded the corner and made my way back towards the entrance to the infield, I was relieved to be greeted by two runners that I knew from my district. Gavin and Harry ran distance at Marion High School, a school about 15 minutes away from my hometown. We competed against each other at nearly every meet of the year.
“How are you guys feeling?” I asked them.
“I’m nervous,” Harry responded. “Today I’m going for gold.”
I knew he wasn’t joking when he said this either. Harry may not have been the top ranked runner, but he set his goals high before races and he had every reason to. Me and my teammates often referred to him as an animal which is a compliment in track. You never knew when he’d pop off in a race.
“Well hey, I’ll be rooting for you man. We need to have a runner from the district at the top of the ranks,” I replied. It’s probably looked down upon to root for a member of a rival team, but I knew I didn’t stand a chance in the race anyways. I was seated 25th out of the 30 runners. Instead, my goal was to set a new personal record, but with the heat this wasn’t looking very likely.
After we talked, I decided to finish warming up with them. It felt good to be around people I knew again. We did a couple run outs but were interrupted when a staff member called us over to the corner of the track. Pretty soon, we’d have to head to the start line for our race.
Each of us did our last pre-race stretches before the event staff had us line up based on our seating. I wished Harry and Gavin luck as we split up and shuffled along the edge of the track to where the start line was located. I was a little less nervous now. Even though the heat was still unbearable and the stadium was still daunting, I could at least find comfort in knowing I had familiar faces competing alongside me. The starter fired the gun signaling the last race before us, and now began the dreaded 10-minute wait as we watched our fellow athletes take eight laps around the track before we followed in their footsteps.
As the last runners crossed the finish line, we were brought in to replace them. Standing on the start line, I searched the stadium for my teammates and coaches, but it was impossible to find them among the crowd. The starter called us to set. I could feel my heart pounding in anticipation of the race. All my training during track season had led up to this moment: the countless hills, the innumerable laps around the track. Nerves quickly turned into adrenaline as the gun fired and we took off.
Harry made his way to the front of the pack, Gavin following close behind. I fell into the back of the pack at the start, but I did my best to break my way out of it. Harry continued distancing himself from us as he tried to keep up with the leaders, but he eventually started to fall back. The heat didn’t start to catch up to me until around the seventh lap. By that time, it didn’t matter that I was being watched by thousands of people. My legs were now my only concern, which had gone completely numb to any feeling. I felt like a toddler running for the first time, and I’m sure I looked like it too. All my focus went towards where to plant my feet and when to transition my weight to take off for the next stride. With just a couple laps remaining, though, I pushed through. Harry crossed the finish line far from in first to his disappointment. I came in at 22nd, with Gavin just a few places behind me.
I struggled to stay on my feet as I trailed off from the track onto the infield. I couldn’t help but feel euphoric as I realized I had just finished my last 3200 of my high school running career. I stumbled over to the water station to fill up where I was met once again by Gavin and Harry.
“Great job, guys,” I managed to wheeze out.
“Hey you too. That was a tough one,” Gavin responded before squatting in front of the cooler to splash the back of his neck with ice water.
The three of us made our way back over to our bags where we sat and slowly changed out of our running spikes while other runners warmed up around us. They were both a little disappointed with the outcome of the race, but I was happy for them nonetheless. For Harry, this was his last 3200 of high school too, but Gavin still had a chance to come back next year to compete for a better place. When I finished changing out of my spikes and had rehydrated a little, I stood up to go find my coaches.
Normally, our coaches wait at the gate leaving the track, but as I looked around and saw no one, I realized I would have to go searching blindly for them in the stadium. Stumbling along the walkway, people congratulated me as they saw me pass in my jersey and bib. Eventually I ran into my coaching assistant, J-Feld, on his way to the concession stand.
“Great job, Oliver,” he said. “I know it was hotter than you would’ve liked but you did a good job competing out there. You got a 10:27,” he announced to my disappointment. State track is universally known as the place to lower your personal record, but I had fallen 25 seconds short of my own.
“Thanks, J-Feld. Where’s the rest of the team at?”
He pointed me to an entrance of the stadium where I was met by my teammates who congratulated and offered their sympathies to me for having to run in the heat. I was relieved to finally join them in the stands.
As I sat with my teammates, I thought about how grateful I was to have found people outside of my own team to run alongside. If it weren’t for the Marion runners, I would’ve had a much harder time keeping up in the race. Running in an event for track is nerve-racking regardless, but running it alone is even worse.
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