How I became writer Part XXIV

Title: How I became a writer

Part XXIV

How do you win, when you are literally slated to lose?  Mike Miller faced this problem going into a sectional 800 race where he was seated fourth.  He had lost against the top three runners all season long and now he had to face them once more with a sectional patch on the line.  Mike was desperate and decided to employ an extremely risky gambit to try and win. 

How do I know about this race?  I was Mike’s XC coach his senior year but I wouldn’t start coaching girls track until the year after, so I never saw Mike run track.  A few years later Mike Miller and I would coach together and then he would officiate track meets for many years after that.  How do I know about the race, then?  Mike told me about the race and had a complete video tape of it!  (Remember, this is the very early 2000s, so we are not talking about a cell phone here but a camcorder.)  The story was amazing when I heard and watched it all those years ago but after coaching for fifteen years, I appreciate it far more.

Before I tell you the story though, I have to tell you two small stories so that you can understand what makes Mike’s race strategy so risky.  One season, Courtney Cornell told me before the last invitational that she wanted to run the open 800.  She had run it many times in the 3200 relay that season but not in the open 800, which meant she didn’t have a “seed time.”  A seed time is where you give them your best time from the current track year and they place you in a fast or slow heat based on it.  Court had a zero, which meant she would be in the slow heat in dead last place.  At the coaches meeting I was given a program and noticed that a very strong pack was in the fast heat.  You can place into the top six of the fast heat from the slow heat with a good enough time, but that is very difficult to do... unless....  My eyes strayed onto the number one seed, a Hornell girl from Class B who I knew was dynamite!  She was really fast... maybe too fast!  A plan began to form in my mind and I called Courtney over.  “Court, you’ve got a chance to place.  The Hornell girl is really fast and is going to pull the fast heat pack hard!  There is a chance that she burns out some of your opponents enough to allow you to place, even from the slow heat.  For that to work, you have to get out of town and stay out of town in the slow heat!  You have to run against phantom runners, constantly pretending that you are behind.”

The gun went off and the slow heat in the 800 started.  Court raced away from the pack, beating the “box” (which I will explain in Mike’s story) and leaving the slow heat far behind.  The girls in the slow heat didn’t know who Court was (as this was an invitational with teams from all over and from all different classes were running) all they knew is the last seed was out in front!   The pack hurried to catch up to Court.  It was like trying to catch the wind but they made a valiant effort!  When they came over the finish line many of them where moaning audibly, staggering around.  Several coaches ran over to their girls excitedly and then those girls went from being dead tired to being elated as many of them hit a PR that race!  Court had done it!  She had gotten a good time but would it be enough?  I watched the fast heat line up nervously, clutching my stop watch, and silently willed the pack beside the Hornell girl to chase her.  One of those girls was a rival of Courts, who was VERY good at the 800, and she wasn’t even seeded that great!  The gun went off and the Hornell girl did not disappoint!  She hit a 1:10 her first lap and the pack dutifully tried to stay with her.  The problem was it was too fast and lactic acid started to seep into their muscles.  As I had predicted it slowed the pack enough for Court to get a ribbon and her rival did not get one.

The other story I will keep very brief.  A coach told me he once had a boy runner that could go 2:01 which was the top of small schools that year.  He was a shoo-in to go to states.  The only problem was he had to run with the big schools too.  The kid didn’t have to beat the A boys, he was just in the same race to save time in the meet.  His coach sternly said, “Ignore the A boys!  All you have to do is beat your small school rivals and you can go to states!”  The boy wanted to prove he was the fastest, so he ignored his coaches advice and challenged the A boys up front.  He burned out so bad he ended up dead last, staggering over the line pathetically.  Going too fast in an 800 is a very dangerous proposition, even for a top seed.

 Yet, Mike Miller, in the last race of his career (unless he won) was contemplating just that!  His plan was to sprint the first lap as if all he was running was a 400 meter race!  In his career Mike had made state qualifiers in the 1600 relay, so Mike could run a great 400 meter time.  Of course Mike didn’t inform his opponents about this change and that would help him far more than he realized it would!  The gun sounded and Mike took off at 400 speed.  Since he was fourth place, he was up in the box, and the other runners in the box assumed this was the right speed and followed him.  The box in the 800 is half the pack are put ahead in upper lanes with third and fourth at their head.  After they run an appropriate distance the box runners are allowed to come down to lane one, merging with the pack down there.  Usually this is smooth to watch but not that day!  Mike was pulling the upper box like an express train with a madman as the engineer and that out of control train crashed down into the lower area burying the leaders!  Two important things happened next.  The two top runners couldn’t see Michael temporarily and they had to go out into lane two or three to get around traffic jam they found themselves in.  Those two boys probably planned on going a 62 first lap maximum or even a little slower.  Imagine their surprise as they finally could see Michael again and found out he was way, way ahead!  I’ve got to imagine as a championship level 400 runner Michael could at least hit a 58 but more likely was around a 56 or 55.  With the stakes of the race I tend to believe Mike was at least a 56 or 55, especially knowing how desperate his plan was!  Seven seconds over the leaders doesn’t sound like a lot but on the track, that is an infinity! 

These boys have only seconds to react to this unexpected surprise.  Do they attempt to run Michael down or should they stay slower and try to gain on him at their normal pace to catch him in the last 100 meters?  Their coach can’t give them any advice at this point and they have very little time to think about it.  From watching the video I have to guess that they put the pedal down and tried to catch up.  Everyone is running Mike’s game now but can Mike handle his own plan?  Mike starts the second lap and begins to immediately “stride out.”  This is a way of recovering while attempting to maintain your lead by making your stride usually large and breathing.  Remember though, Mike has totally redlined himself.  He has run a 400 race in the beginning of an 800 championship run!  Lactic acid is pouring into his muscles.  Striding out is a good idea but he can’t do that forever, especially not with number one and two coming after him!  He is going to have to run again very soon!  With 200 meters to go, Mike now has to start running again.  Number one and two are now closing on him as he goes around the corner for the last hundred meters. 

Suddenly Mike feels a runner at his shoulder and he still has a hundred meters to run!  He has nothing left... NOTHING!  But he’s so close to winning!  What is he going to do?  I have to interject here that I have watched several important races where a runner led most of the way only to lose at the very end of the race.  Mike was in that position now and he was the weaker runner!  All he could think to do was start flailing his arms, trying to trick his opponent into thinking he still had energy.  Years later I became aware of a mind trick you can play of moving your arms even when your legs are dead.  Your legs will follow your arms, no matter how tired you are.  (This trick is mostly a mind trick so I encourage runners to use it sparingly.)  Perhaps Mike’s “trick” worked or perhaps, Mike pulled himself ahead by sheer force of will by making his arms go faster, I don’t know.  All I know is that his opponent falls back on the video and Mike Miller, the fourth seed, wins the race!

I was in the same position in my writing career, except I didn’t have a new plan.  The only plan I had was the self-publishing company and I was being tricked by them.  I was going to lose.  My career was about to be over before it started.  It’s a good thing I have the living God on my side!  He was already working on the situation!  In the 1990s I had tried an failed to start a Christian comic book company while I was a youth pastor.  I had worked closely with aspiring artist, Jonathan Myers, but had lost contact with him over the years.  Jonathan had been on my soccer team the year I coached at the college level and we developed a relationship that carried us into the comic company.  I had no idea where he was now or what he was doing.  I began to try and track him down in 2010 lacking the computer tools we have in 2019.  I ran into dead end after dead end until I happened to talk to a girl who attended my youth group in the 1990s, Heather Dodge.  She happened to know where Jonathan was and was able to give me his number!  I couldn’t believe it! 

“Wait,” you say skeptically.  “How does God come into this?”  God comes into this because the day I called Jonathan’s house and left a message on his machine, Jonathan suddenly had me on his mind.  “I wonder what Adrian is up to?” he wondered.  He decided he should look me up soon.  When he got home his wife told him some guy named Adrian called.  Jonathan was in shock and told his wife that he, just that day, had thought of me, and felt compelled to check up on me.  She said solemnly, “Jon, I think God is in this.  I think you should give him whatever he wants.”  Jonathan called me back and immediately agreed to do my cover for free!  I didn’t realize Jonathan was a professional artist who had gone to college for it beyond Davis.  I didn’t know that he had published Swamp Fox, a graphic novel, that had done very well in Japan selling 5, 000 copies.  I had no idea that Image Comics had thought about taking Jon on to do a Swamp Fox style comic and that he had met my hero artist, Jim Lee!  (I guess Rob Liefeld shot it down, saying he didn’t want cute characters in an Image comic book.  If you don’t know who Rob is have you ever heard of a character named Cable or Deadpool?  He was a co-creator of them.)  I had no idea that a state senator, Thomas Libous, had begged Jonathan to rerelease Swamp Fox in the US for educational purposes.  Little did I know that Jonathan was starting a small press company with a friend called OIP (Odyssey Illustrated Press) and they were starting to think about taking on Christian authors.  Like Mike’s unlikely track plan, Jonathan was about to save me from absolute ruin... only he didn’t know it yet and neither did I.  Like Mike’s plan when I first secured Jonathan as my artist, it wasn’t clear that he would save me from the self-publishing company, helping me “win.”   I was still sprinting like a madman, hoping against all hope, that I would beat the odds and become an author.

(Author Adrian Essigmann has a page on Amazon where all eighteen of his books are listed ((soon to be nineteen:)).  Type in Amazon Adrian Essigmann and click on the link that says, “Adrian Essigmann – Amazon.com” which should take you to his author’s page.)