A Writer's Journey Part XVIII
Title: A Writer’s Journey
Part XVIII
Kolton Hawkins.
Kolton is my only 8th grader to ever put in 120 miles over
the summer! It would make a HUGE
difference!! In seventh grade, as a modified runner, Kolton was
235th at the McQuaid XC Invitational but in eight grade he was 34th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mr. Lyons son (Addison), John, ran that year, and
although Kolton didn’t beat him, he was able to keep up with him only coming in
behind him by seconds. Kolton struggled to
do summer running the next two years of his career, and so even though he grew
as a varsity athlete, his progress slowed. At the beginning of Kolton’s junior year a friend named Nolan Lubberts (former JT XC and
Track athlete) got him running again. I
asked Kolton how much he had run that summer and he said, “At least fifty
miles.” His mother told me he ran WAY
more than that! She said that Kolton and
Nolan had run all over! Kolton had a
fantastic junior year! This added to his
10th and 11th grade distance track running would merge to
make Kolt VERY powerful. Going into his
senior year, he struggled to run over the summer but still clocked fifty miles.
Yet, despite all of this, after a promising start, Kolton's times
seemed to plateau his senior year.
Desperately I tried different things.
I had him go out hard and that was a disaster. I tried to slow him down but it just didn’t
work. Maybe in a different year it
wouldn’t have mattered but that year Steuben
County Addison
that day (who would go on to another team States run)! The milestone happened on JT’s course which
is called the “Hill of Death” and it earns its name! Kolton broke 20 on it!! That is a huge deal!! We’ve gone several years without a boy
athlete doing such a thing! That day he
hit a 19 on the hill of death and he was 5th!! 5th!!!!!
Kolton’s career was slipping through our fingers. We still did “Death Week” and hoped he gained
a boost at sectionals, but would he get that big of a boost? I was praying for wisdom and was so afraid
that a hard working athlete like Kolton would leave the program without any
major award. Then the last league meet
of the season, I was studying the stats, and an idea hit me! (You can say what you want but I think God
gave me this idea!) I knew Addison ’s best runners wouldn’t go for it at this last
meet but that their program called for them all to run as a pack. “Kolt, I want you to get into that pack and
just run with them!” It worked! Kolt got his first 17 outside of
McQuaid! I had been given a key BUT Addison wouldn’t do that again! They would be flying the next time we ran
with them at the county meet and sectionals!
I began to pour over Addison ’s stats
and found a runner at Kolt’s speed, who was extremely consistent. That week in practice I told Kolt, “Find this
runner and stay RIGHT behind him the first two miles! Let him pace you! Then go for it!” Kolton came in top ten of the county, running
another AWESOME time, but missing a patch by one spot! Still he beat several people, he wasn’t
supposed to beat.
Sectionals. We didn’t
actually face Addison for a patch but we ran
with them in the same race!
Perfect! When we got there I
walked Kolton to a huge area around a field.
It was very flat. “Kolt, you know
how in track you do that ‘overstride thing?’”
Kolt nodded. (Kolt would take
extremely long steps while breathing for half a lap or so to recover in the track 800 and yet
keep up with his opponents.) “I want you
to do that here! When you hit this field,
you stay right behind the Addison kid and hit
overstride mode! I want you to do it the
second time you hit this area too! Do
you understand?” He nodded.
Before the race God also blessed Kolton with extreme
mud. I had brought half inch spikes and
after some debate, we screwed them in.
It was a wonderful move! The Lord
was good I had had even asked for them the year before and actually had them in
my medical bag! I have a wonderful AD
who I merely need to ask and she will do her best to make something
happen! Some of Kolt’s opponents had
smaller spikes or NO SPIKES!! We didn't realize the course was going to be so muddy that year and we had a way to fight back! Kolt had never used spikes that long before but they worked great! I’ve seen
kids muscle through the handicap of small or no spikes and still place will, but it is a harder race...
much harder!! Even WHEN
Kolt raced was blessed of the Lord! Jillian raced two later and
told me even the half inch spikes did little good in several areas of the
course it had gotten so bad by then!!!
The gun went off and Kolt took off in the stream. I was afraid Kolt had missed the Addison runner in the crush but when the stream came out
of the woods he was right behind the kid.
He was also overstriding! It
looked so incredible! It was like
watching a three step hurdler compared to four step hurdlers. They disappeared again and Kolt’s father,
assistant coach Steven Hawkins and myself waited nervously. The leaders were late. Steve and I talked how off that second mile
was time wise compared to a normal run and hoped it worked in Kolt’s favor!
He came out in the upper pack and still looked great!! He was overstriding calmly, keeping right
with his mark. I stepped close and yelled,
“Alright, Kolt, this is it!! What have
you got?” Kolt accelerated into the
third mile. I sprinted to a different
spot. Kolt was ahead of where he should
have been! I was sure of it!! I could see people that had beaten him all
season long behind him. I exhorted him
to keep it up and then ran to the finish line area. Down the long hill he came toward us but
behind him was a pack of boys who had beaten him many times that season! They were coming for him! As Kolt got close I screamed, “They are coming! They are coming! You’ve got to go!!” Kolt did his "I'm going to put everything I got into this" cry (he did it in track often) and
kicked! It was beautiful. “He made it,” I told myself, thanking the
Lord. “He made it!!!” The boy who wasn’t supposed to win had
figured out how to win the last race of his career!!
I went back to cheer on my last guy runners, who were
battling the mud too and they didn’t have spikes. “He made it,” I thought over and over. (Again, we weren't expecting that level of mud on the course!) It is rare to have an athlete execute a plan
perfectly like that and then have the will and confidence to see it to the
end. Kolt’s hard work in track and a lot
to do with it with his lethal overstride technique!! I think it gave him a critical edge over his
opponents!!
Unlike Kolt, I haven’t made it in my writing career
yet. I’m not talking about fame or
fortune, I’m just talking about having a good number of readers. (I picked up a new fan this week, which is
great:) Like Kolt, I have worked hard,
but will it be enough? I don’t know but
I have learned something from his run. Even
when it looks like you are sure to lose, you’ve got to hang in there!! The Lord might bring a mighty blessing and I
still might yet “win!” What would be
winning for me? I think 5, 000 to 10, 000 readers on a single title. I seem so far away from that but so was Kolt! He wasn’t supposed to win either and he
didn’t give up!!! I don’t intend to
either:)
*** Author Adrian Essigmann has eighteen books in print on
Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen! All of
them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which
will be (Lord willing) an e-book before summer.
All of his books are available in soft cover too! Type Amazon Adrian Essigmann and his author’s
page should come up ***
Book of the Week – Wolf Hunting!! ($.99 on Kindle!)
“Ariel Wilson, ‘Jack’ to her friends, has a mother
determined to make her a superstar. During the school year, she is in lessons,
classes, and sports, but she never wins...at least at anything her mom cares
about. During the summer, Ariel becomes “Little Wolf”, living with her father
just as Native Americans did centuries ago. Then Ariel gets kidnapped by a
group of men who want to blackmail her mother. These men are professional
kidnappers who have abducted dangerous men before, so they’re not worried about
some rich teenage girl. They should be, though, because they haven’t kidnapped
a girl... they’ve got a wolf!”
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