Strangers in a Strange Land Part III
Title: Strangers in a Strange Land
Part III
Cones. You find them
on the road, marking what lanes you are allowed to be in because of road
construction. In PA, I’m fairly certain
that road cones are the state flower. In
track and field cones are used to mark lanes in “boxed starts” and boards in
jumping pits... or at least, that is what I was used to. The “Square Deal Meet” had cones in the
throwing vectors and near the jumping pit sand.
Are the cones safety markers? No,
turns out they determine whether your throw or jump is good enough to
mark. In the girls triple jumping pit,
Pink’s best jump was low 24s (she is new at the event) and the cone was set at
29 feet. I would love it if Pink got to
27 or 28 by the end of the season and that would be amazing! I’m not expecting a 29 out of her this year
and maybe not even next. At least they
measured the first legal jump you took.
Past that they ignored your jump unless you were past the cone! Yipe!
This was really bad for Reese. In
the first league meets of the year Reese owned High Jump with 5’6” and 5’8” jumps,
either which would have given him points this meet. Unfortunately he got called away to long jump
as high jump opening height started and the bar started much higher than he was
used to (5’0”). He failed to qualify in
long jump (his best jump in LJ is 17’00”.50... the cone was at 17') and he hurried back only to find
the bar was now up to 5’2”. That is WAY
higher than he’s used to starting. Reese
wasn’t able to get over it and had to deal with the frustration of not making
opening height. Autumn knows how that
feels. This winter pole vault girls got
rushed and almost no warm up. The top
seed and Autumn (who was the second seed) both fowled out at 8’ and had the “no
height” by their names. Autumn’s Hornell
coach said, “Hey, you dealing with this well.
Do you see the girl over there in the corner crying? That’s the number one seed and she normally
goes over 9’.” Reese was disappointed
but he didn’t have a melt down and hopefully will have much better days in
meets ahead!
Dez and Jillian were up in the 800 slow heat. I told them to go out conservatively and they
did. Dezie got faster and faster until
she sprinted the last 100 meters breaking 3 minutes! “I could have gone even faster!” she said
excitedly. Dez has been running three
events for me a meet and now wants to up it to four. She’s a worker! Jillian didn’t have as good of a race
(although not a bad one) and I’m sure that was disappointing, especially after
not making height in pole but Jill took it in stride. She was at practice on Monday in the swirling
snow and horrible wind to work on her events.
Pink. Pink was
nervous waiting for the girls 1500 run.
She was in the slow heat and was ranked toward the bottom. I told her, “Good news! I wanted you get a better time today, so I
hired all of these girls to come help you out!”
She smiled at me and then was called to line up. The first lap she kept it under control and
then she passed the girl in front of her.
Her stride shifted to what I think of as Pink’s competitive stride. Pink’s face also changed from “I hope I do
well,” to “time to go hunting!” She
passed two more girls and was closing on another when the race was over. Pink improved her time by ten seconds and she
said, “I could have gone faster!” I
nodded. “I know,” I told her. Pink has been at practice the last two days
working hard. She did a 3.6 mile run on
course three (big hills) on Monday and 400 repeats yesterday. She’s already talking about running a third
event at a meet! I love it when girls
and boys want to run more, not less!!! I
love it when they are willing to run on cold and nasty days and endure.
Dylan was the high seed in his heat and it did not make him
happy. He looked longingly at the heats
above him, wishing he was low seed in them.
Still, he listened to Coach Laurens and I, and hit 1:05 on his first
lap! He started striding and then I
noticed a dark horse coming up on him.
The guys in his heat shouldn’t be able to be anywhere in this zip code
and yet slowly the dark horse gained on Dylan!
I was proud of Dylan because when he hit the 200 meter line his stride
changed and he threw everything he had into the race, heading for the finish
line. Dark horse ran him down in the
last 100 meters. Dylan afterward said, “I
think that was the guy that was seeded “No time.” Then he said, “I don’t know if I liked that
strategy... I had nothing left at the end!”
Dylan still improved his time by four seconds (which wasn’t what he
wanted) and he has been a man on a mission in practice this week! On Monday Leland and I tag teamed him in his
400 repeat drill. Leland would sprint
the 200 hurdles as a drill and I would do a three hundred to motivate
Dylan. The wind was bad... so bad! (40 mph at points!) Dylan complained, “Coach, I hit the back
straight away and it feels like I’m running in place!” He was dying but he got to where the number I
wanted him to reach! In the swirling
snow he went inside to run more:) Last
night he ran the hilly 3.6 and blasted through it! Today he’s going on the “Pink Run” and on
Thursday we are doing the dread 200 drill!
Dylan is putting everything he has into his Senior Year and I can’t wait
to see how that ends up for him!
Miss Cash. Several
girls had dropped out of the 3000, which meant she only had to beat ONE to get
a ribbon! I was hoping she could do
that! I told her, “Get in the line and
just beat one! Our only goal today is to
break into the high 12s, okay?” The gun
went off and Cash roared off following the number one girl. “No, no, no!” I whispered, horrified. It was telling that even the second fastest
girl let the fastest girl go and that is with good reason! The girl from Corning Corning
If you’ve never felt lactic acid before, it is like your
muscles are dead. You want to go faster,
you just can’t! I have nicknamed this “red
lining,” and it is a horrible place to be.
Just yesterday at practice Brock Miles hit this. He is not used to 400 repeats and I pushed
him by giving everyone else a head start.
Not knowing any better he blasted out some great times and then the lactic
hit. “Oh, Coach...” he said during one of
the two minute breaks, “I don’t feel so good.”
Instead of being sympathetic I growled, “I know. Your body is shutting down.” Pointing at his legs I said, “Right now acid
is flooding your muscles, turning them to jell-o! You need to teach your body to deal with
it! To push through it! That’s what this drill is all about!” Brock made it to the end.
Cash was dealing with a body that was shutting down on her
in the middle of a race and then something extraordinary happened! The first girl lapped her and instead of
crumpling and running slower, Cash picked up her pace and ran behind her as
long as she could. A slow smile spread
over my face. It reminds me of “The
Princess Bride” when the evil six fingered man says to Inigo, “Good heavens,
are you still trying to win?” as Inigo is bleeding out. Far from being discouraged Cash was clawing
her way along, willing herself to go faster!
The second fastest girl came up on her.
“Come on, Cash,” I whispered, “keep fighting!” Sure enough, Cash tied the invisible rope
onto that girl and went with her as long as she could! The last girl was in the rear view mirror and
it would take a miracle for her to beat Cash now. Better yet, Cash might get a high 12, even
after RED LINING!!! “I’m in the wrong
spot!” I told myself. I begin to run
through the crowded lanes of people trying to get over to the 200 corner. Soon most of Cash’s competitors would be done
and she needed to know that a good time was on the line. I kept glancing at the watch anxiously,
hoping Cash could do it. Then I noticed
Cash wasn’t in view. I stopped running
and searched for her. “Did I miss her?”
I wondered. No. Even if Cash all out sprinted the last 400
(and she was in NO condition to do that) I would have seen her. A sinking feeling hit my gut. “Oh, no!
No!” Dread filled me as I
realized the officials had messed up and pulled Cash in early.
I sprinted to find Cash and she was very
apologetic. “I would have run one more
if I had known!” Then she tried to
explain why she had messed up. I cut her
off with, “Cash, YOU didn’t mess up! It
is the job of the official to TELL you if you accidentally come in early like
that! Even if you are exhausted, it is
their job to get in your face and tell you, you have ONE more. You didn’t mess up!” Now what?
I headed for the line, not a happy camper. “Is it time to assemble the Game’s Committee?”
you ask. “No.” As fun as it would be to scream at myself
(and again, they would have chosen another school if JT called the committee
together), there was no point. It was an
honest mistake by the officials and I can be mad about it all day but that is
how life goes. The same thing happened
to Jillian last year, although, not at a big invitational. Still, she had been on track for a good time
too! If I thought it had been malicious
or Cash had been the leader I would have called that committee together in a
heart beat. There was nothing to be done
except make sure the officials realized Cash had not finished the race. I should have talked to them longer, they
were watching a different race so I was quick, and they knew I wasn’t happy but
I didn’t yell at them. As a coach I help
officiate races and these things happen.
You can scream at a human being for being human if that makes you feel
better but little can be done at that point.
I’ll never forget last year, when Autumn was called sixth in a 100
hurdle race where she was clearly 3rd. With a bullet! Boy, was I hot! Then I realized it was life and there was
nothing to be done. It would have been
nice if the sixth place timer would have been honest about it, though:( I’m fairly certain it was his girl who was
called third. “What if that had been
sectionals?” you ask. Oh, I’d have been
up in the booth watching the replay with YEN timing until the results were
changed! When we get Cashes ribbon in
the mail, we will be sending it to the girl who was behind her. It’s okay.
Cash will get other ribbons and I don’t want my athletes getting ribbons
they don’t deserve.
*** 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 list
Fiction
Wolf Hunting – Action/suspense
Wolf Hunting 2: Trick Shot – Military action/ science
fiction
American Fairytale – Colonial America
Life, Liberation, and the Pursuit of Video Games – Dystopian
Asylum Series (Tribulation genre meets CS Lewis meets lost)
Asylum
Killer Robots
Werewolves
Elf Princess
Zero Book – 666
C-3 Series (Pilgrim’s Progress meets Ender’s Game)
An Assumed Risk
Heavy Opposition
A Distant Boom
Two Hearts
The Magnificent Six
Don’t Pass Go!
Two Paths – Coming Soon!!
The Princess of Ashes Series (C-3 Series spin off)
Falling Ashes
Non-fiction
Miracles Can Happen: The Jim Ross Story – Jim Ross was
miraculously sparred from death... twice!
Attack on Girl’s Track – A look at boys competing in girls
sports, from the perspective of a track coach.
The book uses five years of track results from Section V (2012 – 2016)
to prove its point.
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