Running with the Buffaloes

by Chris Lear

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  Tuesday, October 20, 1998

  Balch Gym

  3:15 p.m.

  Welcome to Anaerobia

  Goucher’s leg still aches, and Wetmore tells him to test it jogging to Kitt.

  They will decide there whether or not he will run the workout. Goucher wants to run. The pain in his thigh has not subsided, but, he says, “I don’t want to think of taking any more time off. I can feel it from my groin right through my hip flexor. I think its muscular, but it hurts when I grab it right through the middle.” Wetmore drives to Kitt with JD, and while waiting for everyone to arrive, he confesses his concern to JD. “Now I’m para-noid about Goucher’s leg. It’s terrifying . . . It sounds lke a femural stress fracture.”

  Goucher’s presence does nothing to ease his concern. He limps to Kitt. It is obvious that he is in considerable distress, and the sight of him hobbling along is all Wetmore needs to know; Goucher is not running the workout. Goucher approaches Wetmore, and Wetmore immediately

  calms his mind. “Hopefully tomorrow, you’ll feel 100%. What’s the big deal, we lose one workout.” “Just jog back then?” Goucher asks. “Yeah, we’re not going to advance your fitness, so just jog back. You’re in monster shape. You’re in great shape and you can get in better shape, but not if you half-ass it.”

  Goucher does not object. JD and Wetmore blankly stare at Goucher as he jogs off with a pronounced limp.

  But the show must go on. Batliner is doing the workout. Amazingly, he hangs with the leaders for the entire workout. JD stands at the finish line of the uphill 300. As they get ready to start the downhill 300’s he encourages them to make it hurt. “Let’s get into debt, now, let’s get into debt.”

  The pack is solid up front, and Berkshire is also hanging in there.

  Berkshire is not running Big 12’s though; Valenti is. Valenti has beaten him in three of four races, so for Wetmore, it is an easy call. As usual, Valenti looks like a stallion out here, running casually and powerfully with the leaders.

  There is a surprising leader on the fourteenth 300: Tommy Reese. On the fifteenth Reese again pulls ahead slightly with Napier on his shoulder.

  With one to go, Tessman walks while the others mill around jogging. He has his hands on his hips, and he struggles to regain his breath. He falls off the back on the last interval.

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  Wetmore and JD talk afterwards, and Wetmore is concerned that

  maybe they did not get into enough debt. “Ah,” JD says, “wait till the 30-30’s.” The 30-30’s, otherwise known as the “Master Blaster,” is 30-second 200’s with 30 seconds rest till you can go no more. It is scheduled for November tenth. “Yeah,” says Wetmore, “that’ll be a whole different lifestyle.”

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  Wednesday, October 21, 1998

  The Tank

  4:00 p.m.

  Changing of the Guard

  A CU bus awaits the men after they finish stretching to head to the Tank for their medium-distance run. On the ride over, the bus is decidedly quiet. After a quick glance around the bus, it is readily apparent why it is so silent. Goucher, Batliner, Johnson, Napier, Reese, and yes, Severy are not here. The only upperclassman here is Tessman, the Brown transfer.

  The heart and soul of the team is missing, and their absence is palpable.

  Everyone quietly goes about their business when they get to the Tank. The pace is controlled on the way out, and the first group of freshmen turns back after 32 minutes. Roybal, Berkshire, Tessman, and Valenti do the full Tank–Berkshire rolling all the way back. Ten minutes later, Ponce and Friedberg run in side by side while everyone finishes stretching outside the bus.

  The void the seniors have left is evident today, but even without these characters, in fact, because of their absence, Wetmore expects CU

  to be a contender next year. He says, “I can see everyone rising up when Goucher is gone. He inhibits their testosterone or something. People can begin to believe there is a little piece of territory for themselves. Now, there’s this alpha male haunting. It can be pretty discouraging.”

  The bus is silent again on the way home. People stare off into the distance, absorbed in their thoughts. A year from now, which of these men will rise to the challenge?

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  Friday, October 23, 1998

  The Buffalo Range

  4:00 p.m.

  Who is Friedberg?

  As usual, Goucher is the last to roll in as Reese directs the stretching circle. He is dressed to run. He says he is OK, so Wetmore has decided to

  “let him go at it, be smart and communicate with me what’s going on.”

  The team takes a couple of vans out to the course. They will run a two-mile warmup once they have arrived.

  As the men get ready to go after their warmup, Wetmore gives them some instructions: “You men are semi-autonomous today. Goucher, you’re alone, and the rest of you guys are in one big group.” He turns to Sean Smith, the walk-on who has been impressive as of late. “You hang in the back, do 5:10’s, OK?” Smith nods his approval.

  Bat asks Goucher if his leg is good, and Gouch shrugs. “All right.”

  “Good or all right?” “All right enough.” Batliner has been through the ringer enough, so he gives Goucher some advice he hopes Goucher will heed, “Be brave enough to call it early.”

  Despite the rash of injuries, Wetmore is not backing off his program at all. He is taking Goucher at his word, so he has assigned him six miles averaging 4:42 with 2:30 rest. That is three seconds per mile faster than when he last ran this on September 29th. The others are expected to make similar improvements, running, on average, five seconds faster per mile. While the rest of the men put on their spikes, Goucher takes off alone, shirtless with black Adidas shorts on, into the distance.

  Seeing Goucher take off spurs Captain Reese. “Two minutes!” he shouts. Reese appoints Berkshire and Valenti as the designated “time-in-betweeners.” Wetmore then offers them some final counsel: “Hey now, listen. Let’s go! It’s time to get in debt. I want you vomiting after this. Hey, actually, I want you to vomit after three.” He then turns to Smith, who looks petrified. “Sean, you don’t have to vomit, you can just dry-retch.”

  The big climb is on the first mile, so it is no surprise that Friedberg leads the men in only 5:09. The pack finishes six seconds later, while Bat runs 5:25 and Johnson is way off the back at 5:45. Johnson’s performance is inexplicable since he is healthy. Only after the interval does Johnson reveal that he is having trouble because he cannot see anything. He forgot his contacts. He does not finish the workout.

  Down the hill into the second mile, Friedberg starts gapping the pack, to Wetmore’s chagrin. “Wouldn’t you think these guys would go with Friedberg? You’d think that they’d say, ‘Who the fuck is Friedberg?’”

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  Friedberg runs past Wetmore as he speaks. “Friedberg’s drilling these guys!” Friedberg runs the second mile in 4:44. Elmuccio mixes it up with the main pack. “Yeah,” says Wetmore as he sees the Mooch move, “he’s decided to be good now.”

  He speaks too soon, for Mooch is off the back on the third mile, running 5:37. He skips the fourth. “I just feel like poop,” he says after the others take off. “My last one was 5:37 and I didn’t think it would do me any good to run 6:00, so I’m skipping one.”

  Some of the men started out with shirts, but by the third mile, everyone is bare-chested as the action heats up. Reese is right on Friedberg’s tail on the fourth mile. This is by far his best workout of the season. Roybal encourages Smith before as th
ey ready for the fifth one. “Let’s go Sean,” he says. The walk-on is hanging tough. He has yet to be dropped on a single interval.

  On the sixth and final mile, they fly. Roybal and Reese lead the charge, and no one holds back. When they finish, Roybal turns and tells Reese what they ran. He stares at him after hearing the time and says, “Are you fucking with me?” They have run the last mile in a blazing 4:21. Tessman runs 4:30, and Friedberg run 4:32. Friedberg jokes that his time almost equals his PR in the mile.

  All alone, Goucher ran his last mile in 4:23. It was the capper to a brilliant workout. He exceeded Wetmore’s projection by eight seconds–

  running a cumulative time of 28:04. If anything, the days off appear to have him energized.

  Batliner quit after the fifth mile, and running two uphill miles slows his average, so he is not disappointed that he did not meet his goal for the workout. If he ran the last downhill mile instead of the uphill mile, he would easily have averaged 5:10 a mile. He has run a fantastic workout, and he feels every step of it afterwards. As he stretches before cooling down he says, “I am without a doubt more muscularly sore than I have ever been in my entire life. There’s no decipherable pain beyond the muscle soreness, but every once in a while I feel a pain on the inside of my shin. It scares the shit out of me but” — he pauses — “even if it hurts me, what the hell am I going to do at this point? Take two weeks off?”

  Wetmore yells at Batliner and Mooch to get moving and catch the guys who have already begun their cooldown. “Come on Mooch, you fell off, let’s get back on!” You are either on the bus . . .

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  Name

  9/29 Pace

  10/23 Goal

  Actual

  Elmuccio 5:08

  DNF

  Johnson 5:17

  5:10/31:00

  DNF

  Smith 5:16

  No

  watch

  Valenti

  5:06

  5:00/30:00

  NT (watch prob.)

  Schafer 5:08

  30:49

  Roybal 5:12

  5:00/30:00

  29:44

  Tessman 5:06

  5:00/30:00

  29:51

  Reese 5:10

  5:00/30:00

  29:30

  Ponce 5:06

  5:00/30:00

  30:02

  Berkshire 5:06

  5:00/30:00 30:15

  Friedberg 5:00

  4:55/29:30 29:27

  Goucher 4:45

  4:42/28:12

  28:04

  Batliner

  Did Not Run

  5:10/25:50

  26:24 (uphill)

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  Sunday, October 25, 1998

  Magnolia Road

  8:45 a.m.

  One More Victim

  Old Man Mags is a greedy old bastard, and he is hungry for more — but Wetmore sits on a hilltop of his own. Wanting a little extra rest before Big 12’s this weekend, Wetmore steps off the gas and decreases the distance the men normally run on Sunday. Six men, including Goucher and Reese, are assigned fifteen miles while the others are assigned twelve.

  There is another reason why Wetmore is easing today’s assignment. The results of Big 12’s will largely determine his roster for regionals and Nationals, and “the people who are on the bubble, numbers five through nine, two of whom are going to be whittled down, need to be on the same page as far as rest is concerned.” Tessman, Valenti, Johnson, and Bat cannot afford to be too tired to race well this weekend.

  It is bitterly cold on Mags this morning. Everyone is bundled up to protect against the chill. Two miles in, a small car flies by and parks along the road. It is Reese. His alarm did not go off due to a power outage last night. He jumps out of his car and joins the guys.

  Goucher appreciates the extra rest he will get before Big 12’s, and he “only” runs 1:31 for 15 this morning. He is unusually subdued this morning and he does not speak to anybody after his run. Physically, he is hanging on, but emotionally, he is suffering. Two weeks ago he lost one of his best friends. Yesterday, he split with his fiancée. His far-off stare is enough to know that he is lost in his thoughts, and does not want to be disturbed.

  Valenti and Tessman crank twelve miles. Everyone is seemingly in one piece, but Tessman felt a shooting pain in his foot towards the end of the run. He dismisses it and mentions it to no one. Only later would he learn the heartbreaking severity of his injury.

  It is the last the men will see of Old Man Mags this fall. When they leave, no one sheds a tear.

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  Monday, October 26, 1998

  Balch Gym

  2:00 p.m.

  Musings

  Conference week. Around the nation, teams are running for local brag-ging rights, and those teams on the bubble for NCAA’s will be trying to establish themselves as worthy of an at-large selection to the Big Dance in Lawrence. There is a lot at stake.

  For Colorado, ranked fourth in the nation in the last coaches poll released on October 20th, the Big 12 conference meet does not have the significance that it does for lesser teams unsure of their post-season chances. But even if it did matter, Wetmore would not alter his preparation. Some squads will peak for the race, but Wetmore will only rest his runners a little more than usual (as he did yesterday) to give him a better read on how they are progressing for Nationals.

  The race should be competitive. Says Wetmore, “Oklahoma State is a good team, and you can’t overlook your conference meet.” A victory by the Buffs is by no means assured. The Cowboys are led by steeplechaser Chuck Sloan, a senior whom Reese and Batliner have battled frequently. They are a talented, veteran squad that the pollsters have ranked ninth in the country. If they have done a lot of anaerobic work in preparation for the Big 12’s, they will be even tougher to beat.

  Nevertheless, Wetmore has made his preparations to peak for one meet: NCAA’s. He says, “I have never adjusted the preparation throughout a season for the Big 12’s, and I’m still not. We’re resting this week because in preparation for NCAA’s we need to run well. We need a good race.”

  Batliner will have his second test this weekend on the road back from his stress fracture, and depending on how he responds, it could well be his last. Despite their fourth-place ranking in the latest polls, Wetmore says, “At this point we’re not contending for the national championship.

  If his leg hurts, I’m not gonna risk his outdoor season. We’re certainly not going to push the envelope in this case.”

  Tomorrow Batliner will run a full workout of repeat 800’s with the others. The workout is designed to induce anaerobic debt with “some sub-race pace work. But I don’t want 8000 meters of anaerobic stimulus in their legs. It’s gonna be faster than race pace without much recovery.”

  One man Wetmore is expecting a lot out of this weekend given his recent training is Mike Friedberg. Wetmore is impressed with his progress.

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  “Two years ago he didn’t know shit. He was a total rube. But he learned it so fast. He sounds like a 29:30 10k runner now. He could be the guy, like [CU alum and national class marathoner] Scotty Larson, who two years out, in the Olympic Trials, people will say ‘Who is this guy?’ We expect him to be top 40 at NCAA’s.”

  Wetmore says Friedberg’s success is due, interestingly, to attendance. He says, “Seventy percent of the best [high school] runners in the last ten years disappear. They’re all gone, sitting on a hillside. In the top 25 at NCAA’s, many of the big Foot Locker stars from ’94 to ’96 will be gone. They’ll be back in the 30’s and 40’s.” He laughs
thinking of the dili-gence it has taken Friedberg to climb past those who excelled in high school. “If you want to be successful in college, don’t go to Foot Locker or run 8:55 [for two miles in high school].”

  Friedberg and his mates are facing another challenge this weekend: the first race since Severy’s death. Wetmore is not sure how they will respond. He talks about the feel he had for this team, and what may lie ahead: “Each team has its own character and style. Five years ago, they were hungry. There was an esprit de corps of the underdog. Even though they were fourth that year, and second the next year, they still felt like the underdog. Now that we’re on the top level, the fourths and fifths don’t thrill us. I have to sit down and say, ‘Stay hungry. It’s all brand new. Stay hungry like a new team. The ’98 Colorado team ain’t done shit, keep thinking that way.’

  “I have to sit with them and tell them, ‘Don’t presume you’re good because you got the uniform on.’ The irony is I felt best about this team’s dynamic. It was a great group dynamic. Now they’re back on their heels.

  Now I don’t know.”

  And while Wetmore never counts on his athletes running out of

  their heads, he admits that “once in a while, you get a group of guys. You can feel the synergy moving. I felt that about this group.”

  That said, he was and is preparing them to approach NCAA’s as just another race. After all, “How many people go to NC’s and run better than they have all year? Ten percent? I don’t want to go in having to run better than ever. I want them to think business as usual. If five of us run business as usual, we’ll be all right.”

  For this reason, there will be no fire and brimstone speeches about winning one for Sev this weekend — or ever.Wetmore believes “the more cranked up you are on rhetoric, the less likely you are to run well. You go out too hard the first mile, mile and a half, and run worse than you would have.”

  The armbands the guys got, on which to embroider Sev’s initials, lie in a pile in the corner of Reese’s living room.

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  Tuesday, October 27, 1998