Running with the Buffaloes

by Chris Lear

  Goucher is more succinct. He writes, “Now it’s just time to focus and rest. Twelve hours from now I’ll be done with my collegiate career, hopefully as the 1998 NCAA National Cross Country Champion. ”

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  Monday, November 23, 1998

  Rim Rock Farm

  Lawrence, Kansas

  10:30 a.m.

  The 1998 Men’s NCAA

  Cross Country Championship

  “Last night was another shitty night of sleep. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Hotel Eldridge SUCKS!!!” Such is Adam Goucher’s state of mind this morning after another sleepless night in Lawrence. Surely this is not what Wetmore had envisioned when he selected the hotel. An infuriated Goucher writes in his journal:

  What the hell, there was some band playing a block away (on a Sunday night) till like 2:00 a.m. I could hear everything clearly, even the singer. It was so frustrating. After about 30 minutes of listening to this, I got up and attempted to make earplugs out of tissue. It worked well enough for me to finally get back to sleep.

  But the damage is done; on the morning of the most important race of his life, he writes, “I woke up pretty tired.” He has his traditional pre-race meal of Pop Tarts and Gatorade and then decides to take a walk to vent his frustration and clear his mind.

  He steps outside and is immediately struck by the morning’s chill and blustery winds. But he has trained with this day in mind for 94 days, and as he walks, he rediscovers an inner voice, the same voice that has been speaking to him all week. It tells him, “You’re ready, you’re ready to go. If you just do what you’re trained to do, if you just execute everything correctly, no one, no one, no one can beat you.” Wind?

  No matter. Cold? No matter. All

  that matters is the voice inside his

  head, and as he walks back to his

  room, he knows, no doubt about

  it, he is ready to go.

  Goucher’s peace of mind, and

  that of his teammates, is tested by,

  of all things, a massive traffic jam on

  the way to the course. Numerous

  Off and running at the1998 NCAA Cross

  Country Championship.

  RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOES

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  teams sit idling on the one way road to Rim Rock Farm. Driver after driver pokes his head out the window, trying to ascertain the cause for the delay — to no avail. There is no accident; the organizers are simply re-demonstrating their incompetence with an inefficient parking system.

  Perhaps they did not anticipate the thousands of spectators that have come to witness the event. But the reason w hy there is a delay is of no concern to the guys; the end result is that they arrive just in time to watch the women’s race go off — a scant hour before their race.

  The delay adds to their anxiety. Warming up, each athlete is hyper-sensitive to his body. Are my legs heavy? Is that a cramp coming on? Did I eat too much? For Goucher, “Everything felt good. I was a little nervous, which was different for me. All season, I can’t think of one time that I was nervous. So coming into this race I was wondering if that nervous adrenaline edge would come back. It did, and I knew I was ready. Now all I needed to do was get the job done.”

  Every team has its own pre-race rituals. Now, twenty minutes to showtime, each team is busy completing their preparations. The Princeton Tigers gather at their box, number 16, in the middle of the starting line. They do a fast 400-meter stride as they have done before every meet this season. For the Tigers and their competitors, the repetition of a familiar routine helps them to treat the race as just another race. Other teams are also assembling at their boxes, lacing up their spikes, stretching, or simply lying down, collecting their nerves.

  Colorado repeats their routine from Pre-Nationals. They gather at their van, talking, stretching, and putting their jerseys on. No one disturbs them. They finish their pre-race preparation and head to the starting line. Goucher is the last one to leave. He finishes tying his spikes, and stands nervously, staring into the distance. Wetmore calms him with some final words: “You’re fine, Adam, you’re fine. Trust it, Adam; trust all your work.” His voice terse, Adam responds, “I know.”

  He turns away from Wetmore, and leaves to meet his teammates at the starting line.

  He is only ten minutes from a moment he has worked toward since late November 1994, when as a precocious freshman he finished second to the University of Arizona’s Martin Keino at the NCAA championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas — in the process becoming the highest freshman finisher in the NCAA championships since Indiana yearling Bob Kennedy took home the title in 1988. He moves with confidence.

  He is not alone. Oscar Ponce, Mike Friedberg, Ronald Roybal, Tom Reese, Adam Batliner, and Jay Johnson — each with aspirations of his own — also ready themselves as they prepare to join Adam in the battle to establish collegiate distance-running supremacy.

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  On August 18th, 23 men dreamt of standing in their shoes. In the ensuing 94 days, these seven demonstrated that they indeed possessed the right stuff. They emerged after myriad trials, leaner, meaner, wiser, and ready.

  The Buffaloes are in box fourteen, right toward the middle. Northern Arizona University, their mountain district rivals, are to their left in box thirteen, and a box of individual qualifiers (including a man familiar to all the Buffaloes after training with them last summer, Columbia’s Tom Kloos) are to their right. Oregon, their primary rival, is at the far end of the line on the right.

  Roybal stands at ease, snaps his arms backwards, and takes in the sight of the 250 foot soldiers — a battalion awaiting the bugle’s call — that surround him. Reese stands in place, shaking out his limbs, staring blankly into space. Batliner, tired and wanting to yawn, legs feeling just a smidge lethargic, knows it is time to go. Goucher stands and adjusts his necklace of shrunken skulls, symbols of his prey, determined to add some more scalps.

  As 250 men bounce, fiddle, and stretch, hoping by God, just to get this thing started, Wetmore barks final instructions to his runners. “Gentlemen, you’ll hear no splits, and you won’t see any mile markers. You’re running by feel. Pay attention to your sensory data.”

  No splits? This angers the Buffaloes, particularly Friedberg. “I was pissed,” he says. “I just knew they weren’t going to be able to give splits, because that’s the way things were run out there.” Hearing this rattles him nonetheless. With only five minutes until the start, Friedberg is losing his shit. Nicknamed “Iceberg” by Wetmore early in the season for his unflappable temperament under pressure, his fears are getting the best of him. Johnson senses his anxiety, and tries to settle his nerves. “Don’t worry about this,” he says. “This is fake, everyone’s full of shit. What’s real is Magnolia Road. What’s real is milers out on the course.” Friedberg internalizes Johnson’s counsel, and to a certain extent, it works. But still, doubt lingers. Just a year ago he was a Junior Varsity runner, a walk-on nobody from the Park School in Baltimore, Maryland — hardly a recruiting hotbed. Now he is being counted on to be up at the front, contending for All-American honors.

  It’s go time. The men nod and slap hands with one another, wordlessly expressing their hopes, their prayers, and their brotherhood. Ninety-four days and thousands of miles since they convened at Kitt Field on an 88-degree afternoon, they await the starter’s call. All that remains is 30 minutes to man up and take the pain, one last time. They are not afraid.

  The gun sounds. The runners — all 250 of them — take off in a mad dash in order to not get pinched out of position as they head into the sharp left turn less than a half mile into the race. Goucher charges out, determined to establish himself among the leaders. Get out with the leaders, RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOE
S

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  he tells himself. Don’t get boxed in. It’ll slow after a mile and a half. I’ll be all right. Behind him, the Buffs are uncharacteristically rolling. Perhaps it is their position in the middle of the line, or perhaps they have taken Wetmore’s advice to get out a little faster than usual too much to heart. The fast start unnerves Batliner. In races past, his nervous tension has dissi-pated in a sea of adrenaline and firing neurons. Today, the opposite happens. They are out so quickly that he becomes more nervous with every step. Says Batliner afterwards, “All seven of us took off for the fastest 400

  I’ve ever run in the beginning of a cross race. Usually we would be in the last 30 to 40 people at this point at Nationals, but this time we were in the top 100. That doesn’t sound fast, but after five years of going out controlled at a reasonable pace, it felt like we were flying.”

  Try to fit 250 mad dashing men around a corner with a path fifteen feet wide. The results are predictable; elbows fly, and piercing spikes land not in the ground but in the bony shin of the man right on your ass. Boom!

  A man goes down right in Friedberg’s path. Hurdle him? Go around?

  There is no time to think, and Friedberg’s instincts scream “Hurdle!” just as the downed runner rises. Friedberg stops. Bam! Someone slams into him, and Friedberg is eating dirt before he can comprehend what has happened. A singular thought crosses his mind: If I don’t get up as fast as I can, I’m gonna get trampled. He rises instantly, heart racing, and starts sprinting. He has lost only two spots but he is rattled. He feels the coolness of the blood from the cuts on his knees and a burning sensation from the scrapes on his hands. He sprints to maintain his position. It’s all right, he thinks, calming himself. Whatever happened, happened. Now is not the time to panic. He passes the mile with Batliner and Reese. There are no splits, and they do not know where they stand. Their best guess — in the 80s. Batliner’s sensory data tells him it is about 4:50, at slowest 4:55.

  Friedberg is back into it, into the moment, into the now, and he prepares to hide out here and settle in.

  Mark Hauser of UCLA had the early lead. At 1k, Abdirahman puts in a little surge, getting into his rhythm, and the pack follows. A minute later, Abdirahman surges again. Goucher is not surprised; he has raced him before, and he knows this is how Abdirahman runs. “He doesn’t surge, surge, surge, [continuously building the pace] and pull away.” He knows Abdirahman is coming back.

  But it is the NCAA’s, and now is not the time to gamble recklessly.

  So before Abdirahman can get over ten meters on him, Goucher goes after him and reels him in. Only, Goucher does not stop. He catches Abdirahman and goes right past. Now he is in control, he is setting the pace — reminding everyone in that front pack — I’m here to race. Goucher appears as relaxed as he did in August on the aqueduct. His face reveals 242

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  no tension, only a narrowness of the eyes. He hears the crowd around him with every step. “Go, Goucher! Come on, Adam!” The crowd’s exhortations fuel his ambition.

  Soon after the leaders pass the mile, Abdirahman of Arizona retakes the point. Mwangi is there. Lagat is there. Mixed into the sea of African faces with his pale complexion and black and gold uniform is Adam Goucher. OK, Goucher thinks, now the race begins.

  The lead cart kicks up a cloud of dust as they approach two miles.

  This sucks! The wind blows the billowing dust right to left. Goucher moves to the right-hand side of the plume, right on the edge. The others will bear the brunt of it.

  The leaders hit two miles and the pace escalates just a notch.

  Enough, though, to separate them from the rest of the field. Brad Hauser of Stanford, Jeff Simonich of Utah, Matt Downin of Wisconsin, and Sean Kaley of Arkansas hang on to Goucher and the African trio of Mwangi, Abdirahman, and Lagat. Goucher pays attention to those around him. He does this primarily by listening to their breathing. No one gives any signals of distress; they all seem comfortable. But at this early stage, he expects this, and he is not concerned. Be patient, he tells himself. Good guys take a long time to die. Don’t get too excited.

  Goucher feels the grains of dust on his teeth. He is on autopilot, gulping up land with his gargantuan stride. Although only 141 pounds, he looks enormous next to Abdirahman. Goucher powers along, every step a contraction and expansion of swollen muscles that have hardened for this task. With his skeleton-like frame, Abdirahman merely floats. While Goucher’s an American SUV, gobbling up fuel from a massive tank, Abdirahman moves with the

  clean efficiency of a sleek

  two-door roadster. Abdi-

  rahman’s engine purrs as

  his elbows cock back, and

  his willowy legs glide for-

  ward, always forward. He

  has no backkick, no wasted

  motion, and looks as if he

  is out for a Sunday stroll.

  Only the obvious exertion

  of those around Abdirah-

  man gives him away.

  Goucher, Abdirahman, and Kaley.

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  Goucher eases off the accelerator as they approach three miles. OK, he thinks, your turn, you can lead for a while. Kaley takes the bait. He flies down a short, steep descent in full stride, but his momentum only carries him through the covered bridge at the base of another steep little climb. Abdirahman flies past Kaley, then Goucher. Kaley holds the lead for less than ten seconds, and as Goucher passes Kaley he feels him laboring, hears his rival breathing.

  He’s had enough.

  One down.

  Abdirahman pushes up the climb. Lagat goes right with him, and Goucher remembers the cardinal Colorado cross country rule: Take it easy, relax up the climb. These guys are sprinting! He relaxes as much as he can, but it is getting a little difficult. Lagat and Abdirahman are flying away up the hill, and doubt starts to seep into his system along with the faintest hints of lactic acid.

  The three harriers crest the hill, having gapped the others. Goucher immediately passes Lagat and presses. Lagat struggles to hang on. A minute later, Goucher knows There’s just three of us. This is where we start picking it up. They shoot down and around a short, steep descent, arms out from their sides like three airplanes as they negotiate the sharp, quick left. They then enter into a corridor of fans. They ride the tube of a human wave, not knowing who will emerge alive. Again, Goucher repeatedly hears his name above the din. Each spectator attempts the impossible task of fix-ing one eye on the leaders with the other cocked back desperately searching for the faces or jerseys of those individuals they have come to support.

  Abdirahman, Lagat,

  and Goucher fly through

  this corridor, and whip

  down a little five-foot dip.

  Seventeen minutes have

  expired, and Lagat has

  quietly slipped ten feet

  out of the slipstream pro-

  vided by Abdirahman and

  Goucher running side by

  side, stride for stride. Ten

  feet. The distance from

  Goucher and Abdirahman

  drop Lagat.

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  gym floor to basketball rim is the same in Kansas as it is in Indiana, but rest assured that to Lagat it is a crevasse as formidable as the Grand Canyon.

  Goucher need not look back, for now he knows, It’s me and him now. This is where the race begins, this is where it really gets hard. It is down to two.

  Despite the effort, Abdirahman and Goucher look easy and relaxed.

  Approaching four miles, Abdirahman surges again. As with each previous surge, he repeatedly glances over his shoulder, eyeballing Goucher, searching
for signs of distress. Again he gains a stride on Goucher, and again Goucher remains calm. He is tired, but he knows Abdirahman is also tired, so he is not troubled with Abdirahman gaining a stride on him.

  He takes his time climbing back into Abdirahman’s hip pocket.

  Two miles remain, and Goucher feels the pain. A nything can happen.

  We’re pressing, and Billy Mills Hill is coming up. It’s gonna be hard. Abdirahman sustains his push. Don’t let him gain any ground. It hurts, but Goucher feels confident. The stretch from here to Billy Mills Hill is the loneliest stretch on the course. There are few spectators. They race alone. The chase pack is over 30 seconds back.

  With less than two miles to go, Goucher takes control. There is a steep little hill before Billy Mills Hill, and Goucher starts to squeeze the trigger. I can hear him breathing pretty hard now. I’m pressing all the way to Billy Mills Hill. My legs are burning so bad, but I’m just grinding, grinding. He’s right on me the whole way.

  A crowd of spectators — five deep on each side — lines the hill. As he approaches, Goucher hears a pack of CU supporters that includes Berkshire, Schafer, Slattery, and Ruhl wildly chanting, “GOUCHER! GOUCHER!

  GOUCHER!” But Goucher is already thinking past the climb. At five miles, it’s all or nothing. The crowd

  erupts as Goucher and Abdi-

  rahman crest the hill stride

  for stride. Six weeks ago it

  was he and Mwangi cresting

  the hill together. Now only