Running with the Buffaloes

by Chris Lear

  Then [with the Varsity] we’re going from nine to seven. It’s a subjective decision. It’s the seven I feel best about. It’s not always the same seven as at districts.

  Judging from the time trial and Fort Collins, we are not the best team we’ve ever been, but we do have the most potential we’ve ever had. We’re not there. I thought we’d start there, but we’re not. But by November, I think we’ll have the two best teams we’ve ever had. The women are ranked fourth, the men are ranked third [nationally] right now. We’re not deserv-ing of that right now.

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  We have these rankings because Colorado has a record. We lose four of our top five women, and even though we’re cleaned out, they’re thinking, “That nasty son of a gun up there, he’s gonna dream up something.”

  We have a good, good year coming. I don’t like to give a lot of rah-rah talk . . . for ten years [as a high school assistant coach] I had to listen to Tuesday and Thursday speeches. I came to hate speeches.

  I don’t need to build you up. I don’t want you to leave here smashing your head against the wall. Be businesslike, patient, and methodical. Do a little head smashing every day for one hundred days.

  Not just everyone in Boulder wants to be like you. Everyone in this university wants to be like you. You’re the top-ranked team in the school.

  We live in a city on a hill. When your alarm goes off and you’re tired, think, they all want to be you. No one knows that Heather [Burroughs] or

  [Jen] Gruia are one minute ahead of last year. No one knows I have six freshman women who one month from now will be among the top ten freshman women in the country. I like it that way.

  Rules. I have only one rule: that you be a young man or young woman of character. You follow that rule, and I’ll take care of the rest.

  See you all, at 7:59, at the Buffalo.

  No one moves. A moment later, Wetmore points to the other end of the bleachers, and pulls the men aside. He has already explained to them that choosing his teams is subjective. Now he must address Batliner’s situation, and he does not beat around the bush.

  As you all know by now, Bat’s x-ray came out positive; he has a stress fracture. My fullest intention is to find a way for him to be on our team at NCAA’s. He’s not running the next month. Nonetheless, at conference and districts, it’s gonna be our eight best, six best, and Bat. He’s one of the best runners in the country.

  I’m gonna gamble. I think I can get him in shape in a month. I want the contenders to know that someone in here is going to be pissed.

  I told him, he has a responsibility to tell me if he’s not ready. Matt, [he looks at Napier] you already know, you’re the number-one man on the bench. [Napier laughs.] You’re on hold. We won’t use you unless we have to.

  Bat, [Wetmore looks straight at him] I’m planning on taking you, whatever it takes.

  OK, [he turns back to the others] I just wanted to let you all know the status of Bat. I want to be fair to you all. OK, that’s it, you’re out.

  As the men get up to go, Wetmore singles out Chris Valenti in front of everybody. He was not at practice this morning. “Valenti, where were 100

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  you?” he asks. “I was sick.” Wetmore gives him a scornful glance, then turns to Goucher. “Gouch, where were you this morning? Have you finished your sinus medication yet? How did you manage to make it out here to practice?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, too much fun.” Point taken.

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  Sunday, September 20, 1998

  Magnolia Road

  8:30 a.m.

  Forty. Four Zero. Forty.

  Magnolia Road. Again. Guaranteed, on this morning, not everybody wants to be them. With Bat out, someone has to pick up the slack. Tessman is willing to take it up a notch. He is running Mags to the Peak to Peak Highway, fourteen miles, for the first time. “Someone’s gotta step it up now that Bat’s out,” he says. He is going hard again despite not being fully recovered from last week’s training. “Last week was tough with a race Saturday, long Sunday, and hard Tuesday and Wednesday. I was feeling beat Thursday.” Such is the life . . .

  He is not the only one picking it up. Reese joins Tessman and his roommate Clint Wells on Mags today. Reese adds on a little at the end, giving him fifteen miles for the day. “Two weeks ago I could barely hang with the freshmen. Today I felt controlled. I was psyched. I felt good today, man.”

  The Torres twins are here on their recruiting trip, and they, too, are doing their twelve-mile Sunday run at Mags (they run by themselves because NCAA rules forbid training with the team). They are small and slight in stature — maybe five feet, seven inches, 125 pounds. But as they run out along Mags next to one another the efficiency of their stride is immediately evident. Coming from sea level, though, they hurt more than the other guys. After they finish, they discuss their first Mags and their impression of CU.

  Of Mags, Jorge says, “It was hard on the way out, but on the way back it was a lot easier. Coming from Illinois, the elevation hit me right away.

  When I finished the run it took me two minutes to become undizzy.” Despite the elevation, Ed is impressed with the surroundings: “There’s no place like this with the scenery, the campus — I’m like, oh, wow! And the people here are so nice.”

  Jorge is not as easily impressed by the five-star treatment they are receiving. “But on recruiting trips I guess they’re all nice to you.” Virtually every major university has courted them, and only three schools remain in the running along with Colorado: Oregon, Montana, and Stanford.

  An advantage Colorado has is that it is a training mecca. Jorge visited Boulder this past summer, and his eyes light up when he says, “Man, we saw world-class runners all over the place!” It just so happens that there are three Kenyans running Mags today.

  Ponce and Berkshire spotted the Kenyans loping fairly casually, maybe 6:30 a mile, up ahead of them on the way back. Wanting to say that they 102

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  had run with the Kenyans, Ponce and Berkshire put in a push to catch up to them. They catch the Kenyans and run in silence next to them for two miles before one of the Kenyans, seeing Ponce’s cut-off Mexico shirt, asks him if he knows the Mexican marathoner German Silva. Ponce informs him that he does not personally know Silva, and then he discovers that all three Kenyans are marathoners, and that the one doing the talking is running the Chicago marathon, while the others are running the New York City marathon.

  The Kenyan asks Ponce how far he is running, and Ponce tells him he is running twenty miles. Ponce asks the Kenyan how far he is running, and he tells him that he is running forty. “Fourteen,” Ponce asks him, “or forty?” “Forty,” the Kenyan replies. “Four zero. Forty.”

  Ponce shakes his head, recalling the scene. “I was hurting, and once I heard that, I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m a little bitch.’ I didn’t even feel my pain anymore, I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m feeling sorry for him!’”

  Berkshire jumps into the conversation. “Fuck that,” he says. “Those guys are assholes! My whole conquest today is ruined. I’m so pissed! I thought I was a badass when I passed them, then I found out they’re doing forty. Fuck!”

  The Kenyans glide past the assembled CU runners as Ponce re-

  counts the story. Seeing them puts all of Wetmore’s needling about being thin in perspective. They are skinny.

  Ponce need not have felt too sorry for the Kenyan doing forty. Ponce thought the Kenyan meant that he was doing forty miles. An article on the Kenyans in the Boulder Daily Camera later reveals that they were running forty kilometers, not forty miles. It is still a run of over 24 miles, but not quite forty
miles.

  The man who spoke with Ponce is Ondoro Osoro. He goes on to win the Chicago Marathon later in the fall in 2:06:54. In addition to being the fastest debut ever, Osoro’s run is the third fastest marathon in history.

  As Goucher and Severy come up the final hill to the finish they both look strong. It is Sev’s first twenty miler on Mags in two years, and he runs it in 2:03 — just what Wetmore wanted. Two years ago he ran twenty with Goucher in 2:04, and it destroyed him. Today, in a role reversal, he dishes out the punishment to Goucher.

  Goucher was dragging ass at the beginning, and getting more riled every step because of the presence of a post-graduate, Dave Collum of the Palo Alto – based Farm Team, running with them. Collum’s presence irks Goucher and gets his competitive juices flowing. He says afterwards,

  “I don’t like these guys coming out to hang with us and race us so they can say, ‘I ran with Adam Goucher.’”

  At the turnaround they picked it up for a mile, and Sev continued RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOES

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  cranking up a mile-long hill. “Gouch was pretty good,” he says. “He didn’t really complain.” But Sev started pulling away from Goucher in the middle of the hill. As he started pulling away, Goucher looked up at him and said, “Goodnight!” Not even Goucher can hang with the Bus when he is rolling up here on the hills.

  Goucher turned the tables on Sev later in the run, punishing him over the final four miles. They covered the last four miles in 5:35, 5:45, 6:00, and 5:20. After already having run sixteen miles on Mags, that is hauling ass!

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  Tuesday, September 22, 1998

  The Buffalo Ranch

  3:45 p.m.

  Step It Up

  Today is their last simulated fartlek on the course, and it is the longest one yet. They are running two-minute-and-thirty-second segments this time, with equal rest. Fortunately, it is a mercifully cool 65-degree day.

  Wetmore is exuberant as everyone heads off toward the starting line.

  They react to his moods, and today he is animated. Four of his freshman women run in a group. He proclaims, “All right! There they go! The four horsewomen of the apocalypse.”

  From the gun, Goucher rolls. Wetmore yells encouragement to him as he reaches for the finish line. Eyes open wide, Goucher grimaces with the effort. He looks like he is running on rage. Wetmore did not expect to see him coming around to the finish so quickly. He excitedly yells to Goucher, “They’ll see you run next week; you’re gonna put on a show!

  Run tall, run tall!” It is the most animated he has been all year. Wetmore wanted Goucher to run 23:45 — 4:45 pace. Goucher covers the course in only 22:53. This is an astonishing 63 seconds faster than what he ran on September 1st, and today’s workout is more difficult because the segments are 30 seconds longer.

  Wetmore gets even more excited as the next pack rolls in. Nine guys come barreling to the finish line. Roybal, Napier, Ponce, Sev, Tessman, Berkshire, Valenti, Reese, and Friedberg. Everyone looks good, and no one is in danger of falling off the back.

  They run 24:35, ten seconds faster than three weeks ago, with longer segments and less recovery between intervals. The guys cannot stop talking about how good they felt as they switch into their trainers. Each guy half listens to the others, waiting to get their two cents in in the excitement of the moment. Roybal, up in the pack again, cannot believe it. “It felt so easy! It felt so good. It was an amazing workout!” Reese, too, is excited to be in it after getting dropped on the dam workout a week ago.

  “Today was the first time I felt like a runner. We were keeping it relaxed, no one had to push it.”

  Only Severy struggles today. He says afterwards, “I didn’t feel so good today. It was Sunday I think. But it was a good team workout. It was fun running with all the guys again. I’m extremely happy with our team. I was concerned when we lost Bat, but I’m not so worried now.” “Hey,” says Friedberg, “did you see how pumped Mark was?” As he says this, Wetmore makes his way to the guys. “Good work. Good day today, good day.”

  Adding to Wetmore’s good mood is that Goucher’s workout comes

  two days after having run twenty on Mags, with a lingering cold. Goucher RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOES

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  has finished his antibiotics, but he still cannot seem to shake it. All things considered, it is a tremendous breakthrough for him today, but as Wetmore will say, it is still only a workout. “Gouch is running 4:35 a mile out there. If he runs 24:00 at the Shoot-out, and he’s 30 seconds fitter than last year, then I’ll be impressed.” His pessimistic, or realistic, nature is trying to get the best of him here, but his excitement still bubbles through.

  He continues, “Gouch didn’t even look tired or winded. I’ve said all along that he hasn’t even touched what he’s going to do yet.” Again, Wetmore looks for a reason not to get overly excited. “This workout is deceptive, you can run great, and it won’t necessarily translate into a race.” But Wetmore cannot deny that the guys are, if nothing else, getting fitter. “They’re a step ahead of where they were last time and that’s what you look for.

  That means they’ve adapted to the workload.” Ever the perfectionist, his thoughts turn to what has not gone according to plan. “Maybe we’ll save Bat, I don’t know . . .”

  But Goucher is improving, and Wetmore attributes his gains to

  changes he has made in every aspect of his training. Wetmore told him he was fat, he objected, and then he lost the weight. Wetmore told him he had to run 100 a week, he grumbled, and now he is doing it.

  The only one not overly excited about Goucher’s practice is the man himself. Instead, he is thinking about how much better he could be doing if he could better manage his schoolwork. He can skate by all he wants, but he had better not fall through, because he needs to graduate. “I need to focus, but I can’t focus right now. I only think about running. I wanted to work on this homework last night, this show; I did nothing. I’ve got twenty-one credits this semester, and I’ve got a lot of homework this week. I’m not happy about this.”

  He is more jacked at how well his teammates have done today. He tells them, “We need all you guys to step up big time. You can do it too, you just need to do it.” In all the excitement, Friedberg reminds them of Batliner’s absence. “We need Bat is what we need.” Goucher’s not worried. “Yeah, he’ll be back.”

  JD is also thrilled about the guys’ work, but he is also distracted. He does not like CU’s chances of getting the services of the Torres twins.

  They had a great trip, but he thinks that they left disappointed. Why?

  One word: cash. “We told them before they came we couldn’t give them two fulls, and when we told them again here with the closing speech, their faces just dropped.”

  They have one additional worry. Blondeau, the only freshman to make the Varsity squad last year, did not finish today. He is so quiet that he is easy to overlook. But they can ill afford to lose him as well.

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  Wednesday, September 23, 1998

  The Tank

  4 p.m.

  Edge City Blues

  The team is busing out to the East Arapahoe Trailhead to run “the Tank”

  today for their medium-distance run. Blondeau and Bat are not going with them. Blondeau is getting a bone scan today on his hip and lower back. He really started to notice the pain there two weeks back at the Grange, and, he says, “I haven’t been able to run well since.”

  Already saddled with his positive reading on the bone scan, there is nothing for Bat to do but rehab: bike and pool. He still thinks about the bone scan he got at the Boulder Medical center. After injecting him with radioactive material, h
e lay still on a table while they took pictures of his leg. By looking off to his left, he could see the image of his bone forming.

  Having been through this process before, he knew what to look for.

  Two bright red spots instantly appeared, the outline of his shin forming around them. It is a moment in time he will never forget.

  The reality is that he has to stay in the best shape he can so that Wetmore has something to work with when he tries to “save” him. But, a scheduling snafu causes him to lose a day today.

  Bat got confused and arrived at Dal Ward today at five p.m. thinking that the weight room would be open until six. At 5:30 one of the trainers told him in no uncertain terms to get out. At 6:30, Batliner is still pissed. He says, “It’s a bunch of crap. I wouldn’t be in there if I didn’t have to.” If only he could just slip on his shoes and head out for a run . . .

  Out at the Tank, Wetmore wastes no time getting Goucher’s goat with some news he received today. “Hey Adam, Iowa State got two more Kenyans to go along with the two they have.”

  Goucher does not flinch. “Good,” he says, “bring ’em on, ’cause I’m hun gry, hungry for some Kenyans.” He does not fear the Kenyans, and he does not give Wetmore’s news a second thought as he runs 15.5 hilly miles in 1:28. Ponce, Friedberg, and Berkshire roll in a couple of minutes after him.

  Again, though, someone falls by the wayside. Roybal’s hamstring, the same one that bothered him all last year, is acting up again today. He stops at a trailhead two and a half miles from home, and JD goes and picks him up. Getting “Binesh-ed” has helped his hamstring, so he will drop some cash and go see him this weekend to get the problem ironed out. Roybal is just the latest in the long line of wounded men. When one considers that Wetmore is as preoccupied with the women as he is with the men, it is amazing that he gets any sleep at all. Living in Edge City, it seems, has its perils.

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