MAC_32
Footballguy
Regional track meet Jr year. We had a good, but not great, 4x800 team and the competition was stacked that year. We concocted a plan that probably wasn't going to work, but it was the only way we'd make states.
We put our best leg out first. He handed off in the lead as expected in 1:55. Leg #2 was not expected. This guy topped out at 2:05 in-season. Mother ****er uncorked a 1:58, never relinquishing the lead, then handed off to me. My best to date was about the same as #2, maybe a second faster. First lap? 57. I didn't run scared. I ran terrified. No one caught him, no one can catch you! Second lap was just a fog of suffrage. I vaguely remembered handing off, but I definitely came to laying in n the infield. One and only time I broke 2 mins. I had no burst, it was all guts. And according to photographic evidence I handed off in 2nd with 3rd nearly stride-for-stride.
Our last leg was the weakest. An Irish flat foot, topped out at 2:10. His job, stay on #3's hip until his body couldn't take it anymore, cause he was gonna get out kicked. Somehow came through lap one in 60 flat. He did his job, but there was a pack closing in on him. What seemed inevitable on the back stretch appeared to come to on the final curve when suddenly, he surged. He had something left! That final straightaway was the most emotionally I have ever been in any event, sport or otherwise. I won't speak for the other couple dozen on the team, but I'm sure it's up there. He never slowed from that initial surge, but at meter 3,199 genes won out. He was passed on the final stride, collapsed as he crossed the line, and like any teenager without developed emotional coping experience, I smothered my face with my hands and down to the pavement. Along with most of the others. Dejected silence directly around us with a track meet somewhere in the distance.
That school record of 7:57.18 will come down some day. It hasn't yet. And if only that record were 7:57.16.
We put our best leg out first. He handed off in the lead as expected in 1:55. Leg #2 was not expected. This guy topped out at 2:05 in-season. Mother ****er uncorked a 1:58, never relinquishing the lead, then handed off to me. My best to date was about the same as #2, maybe a second faster. First lap? 57. I didn't run scared. I ran terrified. No one caught him, no one can catch you! Second lap was just a fog of suffrage. I vaguely remembered handing off, but I definitely came to laying in n the infield. One and only time I broke 2 mins. I had no burst, it was all guts. And according to photographic evidence I handed off in 2nd with 3rd nearly stride-for-stride.
Our last leg was the weakest. An Irish flat foot, topped out at 2:10. His job, stay on #3's hip until his body couldn't take it anymore, cause he was gonna get out kicked. Somehow came through lap one in 60 flat. He did his job, but there was a pack closing in on him. What seemed inevitable on the back stretch appeared to come to on the final curve when suddenly, he surged. He had something left! That final straightaway was the most emotionally I have ever been in any event, sport or otherwise. I won't speak for the other couple dozen on the team, but I'm sure it's up there. He never slowed from that initial surge, but at meter 3,199 genes won out. He was passed on the final stride, collapsed as he crossed the line, and like any teenager without developed emotional coping experience, I smothered my face with my hands and down to the pavement. Along with most of the others. Dejected silence directly around us with a track meet somewhere in the distance.
That school record of 7:57.18 will come down some day. It hasn't yet. And if only that record were 7:57.16.
