Running with the Buffaloes

by Chris Lear

  CHRIS LEAR

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  definitely not going to dedicate a season to somebody. We’ll dedicate ourselves to keeping his memory with us forever.” They have had to endure more than any CU team ever has, and now there is one more mountain to climb. “We’ve gone this far,” he says, “and I’d like to summit a little more adversity, one more time.”

  The task will be made easier if his runners toe the line feeling good.

  Coaches everywhere are agonizing over how best to taper their athletes right now, and Wetmore’s concern is especially magnified, considering the feedback he has received from his guys since districts. “I’m concerned,”

  he says, “with how many people said, ‘I’m pleased with my performance but I felt like shit,’ because of how much we rested last week. But it’s a matter of keeping them from freaking out and treating it like any other race; a race where we take advantage of other people’s mistakes.”

  Taking advantage of others’ mistakes will be made more difficult by the narrowness of the course. It bothered Wetmore when his team ran Pre-Nationals, and it haunts him now. “Of all the years to expand the field

  [to 31 teams] they make it on the narrowest course. This course just doesn’t comply with NCAA regulations. It just doesn’t.”

  But Wetmore knows there is no sense in worrying about something that he cannot change. What he can control is the last bit of work before the recipe is complete. He is thinking of running two all-out 800’s tomorrow to “get ’em sharpened up, make their legs feel snappy. We’ll try to do some snappy things, but nothing that will accumulate in their legs.

  In a normal year we would do an anaerobic workout tomorrow, but I’ll have to see if they’re gimping around today.”

  That includes Goucher. He is a week away from attempting to grab a title that has eluded him three times. Wetmore fears he is not as ready as a year ago, when he finished fourth. “I’d say he was better prepared a year ago. I don’t know if he’s in better shape, because he’s had great workouts in August, September, and October, but he didn’t have any com-plications a year ago until this Friday, when he got a cold.”

  Despite Goucher’s interruptions, Wetmore’s confidence is buoyed by the ease with which Goucher won on Saturday. Wetmore recalls when Goucher ran past him with a little over two miles to go. “I was standing at four miles with the Northern Arizona and Air Force coaches. They said, ‘Is he taking it easy today?’ I’m killing that story and I’m telling them he hasn’t run anything really hard since the conference meet, so he’s going to run the first five miles with this guy. Then he comes by four miles all alone and I say, ‘Don’t forget to run that last mile,’ and he says, ‘Oh yeah, sure, okay,’ like he was running to get a loaf of bread, and those two guys just rolled their eyes. But there’s a lot of good guys out there.” But is anyone out there as good as Goucher?

  At 3:15, the Varsity runners are still slipping through the door in an RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOES

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  effort to get to the stretching circle on time. As if on cue, just as Wetmore is inquiring about their whereabouts, Johnson, Friedberg, and Batliner burst through the door. As Goucher stretches, he looks at some photos from Pre-Nationals of him, Abdi Abdirahman of Arizona, and Julius Mwangi of Butler running together.

  “These,” Goucher says, turning to Batliner, “these are the guys I gotta beat. Abdi whatever from Arizona, and Mwangi.” He holds up a photo taken of Mwangi coming down the final stretch. The strain of the effort is etched on Mwangi’s face. “Man,” he says to Batliner, “look at that guy. He is hurting.” Rather than being impressed or intimidated, Goucher draws strength from the fact that it took every last bit of effort Mwangi had to beat Goucher on a day when he was less than ready to roll. After staring at the photos for a while, Goucher says, “I like to get a mental image of my opponents in my head before I race ’em.”

  Then, he turns to Batliner. “See, when I raced him, I’d done 97 miles the day before.” Within earshot of Goucher as he walks around the stretching circle, Wetmore chimes in incredulously, “The day before?

  Ninety-seven miles in one day! That’s like when you told the guy from the Harrier that you ran twenty miles at sub five minutes a mile at 9000 feet.”

  Everyone seated around Goucher laughs freely, and Goucher cor-

  rects his gaffe. “Hey, I meant that week, and I can’t help it if that guy in-terpreted what I said like that.” He turns back to Batliner, “Anyway, I was in a 100-mile week, and now I’m gonna be rested, and, for the first time this season, I’m gonna be fired up!” Wetmore interjects sternly, “Adam, do your talking with your legs.”

  Good advice to heed, for just as he says this, local reporter Mike Sandrock of the Boulder Daily Camera enters the gym. He has an article that he has written for Runner’s World Online about Goucher that he wants Goucher to peruse before he posts it online. There will be no shortage of hype on Goucher or the Buffaloes as the meet nears.

  Wetmore would prefer not to have any of the distractions of the media. In fact, Wetmore never posts articles or press clippings of the team on the bulletin board. He views the media as little more than an annoy-ance, and he does his part to ensure that the runners do not get caught up in the hype. As Sandrock chats with Goucher and Batliner, Wetmore leads the way to the door, announcing, “OK! Let’s go! We’re leaving!”

  without ever losing stride.

  The team exits the van at the South Boulder Creek Path for the last aerobic effort of the season: 65 minutes steady. Wetmore quickly briefs them: “We’re not trying to build any fitness at this point, but we are trying to maintain, so 65 minutes, at Sunday effort. We’re doing Sunday pace, with 2/3 distance. OK, let’s go.”

  Valenti is again training with the team. It is a precautionary measure Wetmore feels compelled to make, since Batliner, Reese, and Ponce are 224

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  all battling injuries. Elmuccio is officially done. “Valenti beat Mooch every time they ran,” says Wetmore, but even Valenti is running on borrowed time. Today’s run and tomorrow’s anaerobic effort will reveal whether or not the wounded soldiers are ready to storm the palace one last time. On Wednesday, if everyone has a clean bill of health, Valenti will finally start his active rest before again ascending to full volume as the team enters the indoor track season.

  The weather could not be any better: 48 degrees and sunny. Everyone is dressed in shorts and T-shirts. The ferocious winds that rolled off the eastern plains the Wednesday before Big 12’s are back in hiding.

  Just one minute into the run, Goucher pulls away from the others.

  While on occasion he relaxes once he is 100 meters ahead, essentially running the same pace as the pack, today he disappears into the distance.

  A year ago at this time, he came down with a cold. Today, for the first time in over a month, his glute problem is at bay. He runs without a trace of the limp that has hounded him since he first experienced pain in his IT

  band almost seven weeks ago, on October 1st.

  The pack rolls on behind Gouch up the flat Creek Path, before heading onto the cross country course to kill some time before returning back on the Creek Path. The pace is surprisingly conversational as Valenti, Batliner, Roybal, and Johnson near the halfway point of the run. The pace is more leisurely than Wetmore wanted. Nevertheless, if successful, this will be Batliner’s longest run since he was diagnosed with a stress fracture in September. While the fracture has healed, the bone bruise remains, and today, it is causes him some discomfort. It is tight for the first half of the run, and he is very cognizant that he is precariously balancing on the tightrope of good health — pushing it just a little too much will cause the bone to fracture. Not only would that ruin what is left of a somewhat salvageable cross country season, but it would also incalculably set b
ack his preparations for indoor and outdoor track. With the team’s title hopes seemingly dashed, any worsening of his condition would be grounds for ending the season now.

  The pressure in Batliner’s calf mercifully subsides as the runners head onto the course from Marshall Road. A few minutes later, Assistant Coach Drake, out on a run of his own, rolls ’em up — evidence of the guy’s exertion, or lack thereof. Roybal spots JD and laughs out loud, “Oh no! We got rolled up by JD!” “Not really,” JD responds. “Every time you guys got to a gate, I put in a surge to catch you.” Nevertheless, JD’s arrival lights a fire under the guys, and they get down to business. The tempo increases steadily all the way back to the van. Batliner finishes the run feeling great. “Man,” he says, “I feel good. I wish we could race today.”

  He is not alone. Goucher is excited about his pain-free run. “It’s gonna be like this all week. Man, I’m fired up! ”

  Showtime, however, is seven long days away.

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  Tuesday, November 17, 1998

  Potts Field

  4 p.m.

  Anyone Like Duck?

  Wetmore has decided to do two hard 800’s, and the men and women are paired into teams so that it will be a 4 x 800m relay. The teams are identical to the ones at the Master Blaster, minus Valenti. Batliner paces nervously as he prepares to get going. Right now, he envies Valenti: “Valenti, that lucky son of a bitch, doesn’t have to run this. What an asshole.” Wetmore informed Valenti that he is officially done for the season when he arrived at practice, so he took off for an easy run with Aaron Blondeau, who showed up for the first time since injuring his back early in the fall. It has been so long since Blondeau had been at practice that it is hard to fathom that going into the season he was seen as a definite Varsity guy.

  Wetmore explains the workout to his men: “It’s our last real anaerobic stimulus, but we’re not doing 8000 meters of work to do it. You’re doing the two fastest 800’s you can run. That doesn’t mean 1:51, 2:10.

  That means run 1:59, 1:59. It’s your two fastest average 800’s. Bear in mind the purpose is a deep anaerobic stimulus. Whoever wins is second-ary. When we get back, we’ll talk about how you race Monday so you can work it out now and fix it in your

  nightmares until Monday.”

  It is chilly enough to wear long

  sleeves, but everyone still does the

  workout in shorts. Paired once

  again with Faz, Goucher again fails

  to taste victory. The honors today

  go to Roybal and Brianna Stott-

  Messick. Roybal runs 2:02 and 2:04

  and looks easy doing it. Wetmore is

  impressed. “He looked good, didn’t

  he? He’s a talented guy.”

  Roybal looks good, but not

  quite as good as Goucher, who

  manages a 1:58 and a 2:02. He looks

  great as he does it, lengthening out

  his powerful stride on each 800. It is

  Goucher in full flight.

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  not spectacular, but Wetmore says, “I’ll take it for now. Think, in track season he’d do that with no rest.”

  The only one who really struggles is Ponce. He runs 2:00 on the first only to trudge home in 2:17 on the second. He is a 10,000-meter runner, and he does not handle the lactic acid quite as well as the others.

  Ponce says afterwards, “Man, I got bootylock.” Wetmore hears him and says, “Good thing you don’t got a big booty; you would have died.” Friedberg laughs and says, “I got chestlock.” He still managed to run both in around 2:05, to Wetmore’s amazement. “Friedberg,” he says, “you got two 800 PR’s in one day!”

  The workout is over in less than ten minutes, and the guys are chatty and laughing as they head back to the gym for some advice from the Boss.

  Everyone gathers in the waiting area of the track office as Wetmore delivers his “last rational advice”: “Whatever I tell you Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, agree and smile, but don’t do it. What I tell you today is the last rational advice I give you. Take what I say, along with your observations of the course, and formulate a plan by Thursday or Friday, recognizing you’ll be crazy Saturday and Sunday.”

  Everyone listens intently as Wetmore speaks, glancing at maps of the course they are holding on their laps. Nothing he says comes as a surprise.

  Wetmore simply reiterates what he has been telling them all season long, Roybal hammers.

  PR #2

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  “Our goal is always to go there and run better than our ranking. If the men can run as they did last week and Oscar can go to the well, we can take advantage of some of the mistakes of the teams ahead of us If we do what we’re capable of, we’ll be OK.”

  “The word out there is that if you don’t get out, you’re gonna get buried. That’s the experience after running 8k, but it’s not 8k. My feeling is that once again you’ll take advantage of the people that go barreling out and move past a lot of chumps. There’s a lot of room to move if you’re patient. Yes, it’ll be crowded and at three miles it will be disconcerting, but if you’re 15:15, or even 20:20 at four, you can still attack from there. Even when you’re out of the woods, you got one and a half miles to move. Look at it this way: 25:25 was top twenty at Pre-Nationals.”

  No one can argue with his logic. The one wrinkle in his plan is a con-cession that maybe they should go out a little harder in the first mile so that they are not too buried when they go into the woods. He looks at Roybal as he addresses them all: “You don’t want to be 5:05 at the mile.

  You want to be 4:50, then run 5:05’s till you get out of the woods. You can pass fifty people in that last mile.” Roybal nods his approval, running the race in his head. “Once more,” Wetmore continues, “it’s gonna be one of those gut-wrenching things where we wait and wait and wait. But if you come out of the woods in 60th, you can pass thirty people in that last 2k.”

  Wetmore focuses his attention on the team battle and offers some surprising counsel on the team he thinks may be within their reach:

  “We can get them. I tell you, they’ll come back to us. We can get them.

  Without us running spectacularly, Oregon is within our reach. To get Stanford or Arkan sas, we have to run

  out of our gourd. But I look at Oregon,

  and I think they’re limping. Of course,

  we are too.”

  Goucher makes it hurt.

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  Wednesday, November 18, 1998

  Championship Week

  Priorities

  Nationals are just five days away, so today Wetmore assigns the men an easy aerobic run instead of the usual medium-distance Wednesday. For both Goucher and Batliner, today offers a chance to further evaluate their health and fitness. In impromptu journals that they are keeping this week, they share their thoughts.

  Adam Batliner

  Today was probably my last day in the pool (thank God) and after I finished I started getting neurotic and ended up tying up my shoes and doing fifteen minutes of 5:30’s for no particular reason. I can’t believe I had myself talked into it before and now it seems so ridiculous. My leg hurts pretty good today but I’m not worried; it would have to get a lot worse to keep me from doing what I have to do. Friedberg told me I’m the toughest guy he knows today and I tried to tell him that I’m no different than him, just a little better at methodically dealing with injuries, maybe. After I did so well last spring in track on a fractured fibula, everybody expects me to hop out and kill everybody on Monday. My roommates, Roybal and Robbie, said they already decided I am at
least a top-twenty guy. Top twenty! I honestly don’t think I have the fitness, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough. This is making me really nervous and I have to get some sleep, so that is it for today.

  Adam Goucher

  (5 days to go!) 55 min. easy (4 x strides/pickups)

  I felt really good today on my run! My leg hardly hurt at all! Actually, I can’t really recall noticing it. It was probably just the fact that I was expecting it to hurt a little, so my attention was drawn to it, thereby making me overanalyze. Anyway, I’m very confident that everything is falling into place. I’m feeling very responsive, strong, rested, and tough. School right now is kicking my ass! I have a lot of work and pressure in a few classes right now. I just have to try to not let it bother me until after Nationals. And by no means will I repeat my sophomore year when I decided to become the model student the week before Nationals, and stay up until one and two in the morning studying. I’ll have to kick my own ass if I ever think about doing something like that again! Right now, it’s about feeling good and preparing mentally with positive self-talk, reinforcing the fact that I’ve prepared well. I’m fit, I’m strong, I’m fast, I’m tough, and I’ve never been more prepared!

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  Thursday, November 19, 1998

  Potts Field

  4:00 p.m.

  The Hay’s in the Barn

  “Well,” JD says to Wetmore as the men prepare to get started, “weather-wise we made it through the season OK.” The men are in shorts and Tshirts for the season’s final workout thanks to a cloudless sunny sky and air so still it seems hushed, in anticipation of what’s to come. All season the weather has cooperated. The only really ugly days this fall were on October 16th, when Slattery endured the hailstorm, and the bitter cold and blustery winds during the season’s last session of repeat miles on November 6th.