Chapter 18: The Freshman/Sophomore
Relay
My
freshman season of indoor track was odd because I had such mixed feelings about
getting selected for a meet. I had to wake up early, I was trapped in a dingy
indoor fieldhouse and I couldn’t shake this odd feeling of outsider-ness. But a
year later, my attitude had transformed. I was excited to go to a meet, put on
my racing singlet (no more gym uniforms for me!) and chase some PRs.
During
the indoor track season, Upper Dublin High School was a part of the Track and
Field Coaches Association of Great Philadelphia (or TFCAofGP) Meet Series. Each
weekend, this organization would put on indoor meets at Lehigh, Haverford or
Ursinus College and give all the schools an opportunity to enter one
runner/relay per event. These meets would also include a special relay at the
start of the meet for just freshmen and sophomores. Once you earned a ribbon in
this race (I believe you needed to be top five to earn a ribbon), you weren’t
eligible for it anymore, meaning you only had one real shot to win.
So
naturally, that was the goal heading into my first frosh/soph relay of the season:
a 4x800 meters. After my 56.9, I had clocked a 2:16 relay split in the first
meet which gave me another big PR to feel good about. Based on that split, I
got anchor duties on our relay. I would be joined on the team by my friend and
classmate Todd Warszawski as well as two freshman newcomers, Pete Schartel and
Mitchell Silver.
As you
might remember, we didn’t have any freshmen join the cross country team during
the fall so we were grateful to have a couple newbies on the track. Plus, Pete
and Mitch were pretty talented runners and, as we quickly learned, strong
racers. In their first relay appearance, they put us in excellent position at
the front of the pack and ran some 10 seconds faster than I did in these meets as
a frosh. By the time I got the baton, it was between us and Abington for the
title.
Abington’s
relay not only featured my childhood friend Tommy Hartsough[1], but it also featured a
blazing fast freshman with a spiky haired mohawk. On Abington’s second leg,
Kyle Moran[2] took the baton and shot
off like a rocket. He moved his relay all the way up from deep in the pack to
first place overall with a 2:07 split. However, on the third leg, we took
control again and I got the baton with a small lead.
At this
point, I could count on one hand the times I was leading a race with no one to
chase. On the track, it was probably even fewer. I could feel Abington’s anchor
close by, but I was having a hard time pushing myself to sprint away from him.
I knew based on my early splits that I wasn’t running as fast as I had been the
previous week, so I tried to dig deeper and find an extra gear.
On the
final lap, Abington’s anchor surged ahead of me and I latched on to stick with
him. I really didn’t want to lose it for my guys. On the home stretch, I
prepared to launch into my final kick. I saw a small opening on the inside and
I went for it. But when I did, the opposing anchor cut down on me and I was
knocked slightly off balance. I then tried to swing back out wide and pass him
on the outside but, over the course of just a 50 meter straightaway, I ran out
of room.
It was
just some stupid freshman/sophomore race, but for me that was one of my toughest
losses. I felt like I had let an opportunity slip away that I couldn’t get back
and, more importantly, I felt like I let my teammates down. But that’s the
thing. I cared. I was officially 110% invested in this sport and this team. And
sometimes it takes heartbreak to make you realize that. Perhaps in this moment,
I became a runner.
[2] I’m going off the cuff here, but
Kyle may have been the best freshman half miler I’ve ever seen. I feel like his
800 abilities get somewhat overlooked in the history books because of injuries
and things of that sort, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his four
years in high school overlapped with four consistently improving results for
the Abington 4x8
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