By Michael Newman

DyeStat Illinois Editor

Chapter 6: Lessons

Sundays are a day of recovery and I just needed a long run to get the lactic acid out of my legs. It was a good group day that was optional. We would meet at York at 11:00 a.m. and head for Bullfrog Lake. The day before Mr. Newton would always check to see if we had plenty of cars so we could make the trip down Route 83. On this Sunday, there was enough. Also, enough cars to see who would get there first. There was one Sunday where Heds and Boydo had set themselves apart from the rest of the cars. The key at the beginning was to be the first car away from York and far ahead of Newton’s station wagon.

Those two were best friends, but like all of us, competitive as can be. Both cars got to a light. Both revved up their engines waiting for light to turn green. I was in the passenger seat of Hed’s car. He had the gear in park as the light was ready. The problem was that he did not shift into drive. Boydo took off. Hed’s car jerked backwards. We all started laughing as Heds tried to catch up. He was pissed. Thank goodness there were no cars behind us.

On this day we took a 90-minute run on the rolling hills of that forest preserve. No one tried to pick up the pace. It was a run where we could just recover together. We all knew what lay ahead the next day.

Labor Day was a day off for most everyone. For the Dukes of York, it meant the 2-man, 10-mile relay. Guys paired up and ran alternate quarters. I was paired with Henry. It made sense. Two best friends running together. We were not the fastest, nor did we think we were. Boydo and Heds were teamed together, which meant death to the rest of the teams. They had two of the fastest kicks on the team. Willie & Brother Mac were together along with Freegs & Lisy, and Cus & Wags. The idea is to hold on long enough. The good thing was the temperature was close to 60 degrees when we started to run at 8 a.m.

It was no contest. Heds and Boydo averaged 68 to win by a minute. Willie and Mac were next. Then Freegs and Lisy. Henry and I were fourth. The spacing made the running difficult. By the second half of the run, everyone was separated, which made this workout tougher. It seemed like a race, but it was a workout. The tough thing was to maintain the pace that we set. It is so tough to run 70s solo. When you have Mr. Newton yelling at you, it made things a little bit easier to stay on pace.

I was surprised afterwards that I had the fifth fastest set of 440s. I am not a speed demon by any means but the strength that I built up was showing. It put everything that had happened last Saturday in the background. At least I was not beating myself up anymore.

We ran repeat 200s the next day with short rest so that our legs that were still tired from the day before could recover. Wednesday was just a day of continual runs in front of the school. By this point, new freshmen were starting to run as well, making the front of the school more like a parade ground for skinny, sweaty runners. The run did remind us of the summer. Newton made it clear it was a day of recovery. We had a race the next day and he wanted us ready to go.

Thursday also happened to be the hottest day of the year as the temperatures climbed into the low 90’s. I rode my bike the mile home from school around noon when my scheduled classes were over. I had a light lunch knowing that I would be racing at 4:30. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich was on the menu for me. To wash it down, how about a couple of glasses of milk?

Right there, you can tell that something was going to happen. I did not think as I grabbed that gallon of milk out of the refrigerator. All I know is I wanted something cold and refreshing to drink. I rode my bike back to school with my meet gear. My last class of the day was gym. Since I was in a varsity sport, I did not have to participate in the class during the season. I was a hall monitor. It basically gave me a chance to do homework before practice. On this day, I was thinking about my first varsity runner. I was excited to get to the starting line.

 As a team, we were excited to race someone else. We were running at Proviso West, ranked 18th in the pre-season poll. Not a top-10 team, but they would give us a challenge. The Proviso West course is flat that winds around the campus. It is a fair test to see where we were at as a team. It was not fair that it was so damn hot.

The goal was to stay together for the first mile and then start to go after that. One thing that Newton had mentioned earlier in the week was doing roll call at the mile. It was not something that we had done in the past few years but it was something that York teams had done in the past. Heds was the captain on that day so he would perform the roll call. We got to the mile and there were 10 York runners together and only three Proviso guys.

Heds started calling off names: "Willie?" ... "HERE!" ... "Henry?" "HERE!" It went on that way through all 10 guys. Meanwhile, Proviso West’s Bob Mileski was in our pack and started calling off his team’s names in hopes to offset what we were doing. He called off two names and they answered. He called off a third name and there was no answer. He called off another name and there was silence.

We looked at each other. Heds silently said "Let’s go." There is no better feeling than running together in a pack. There is a safety there but more importantly strength there. On this day, we were just clicking along. Or so we thought.

I got to the halfway point of this three-mile race and all of a sudden I grabbed my side. It was excruitiating pain. I thought it was the heat. I had run in worse conditions and I had never had this much pain before in my life. I started dropping behind my teammates and Proviso runners started to pass me. It is the most helpless feeling in the world where you do not have the strength to respond.

I passed Newton and he started yelling: “What in the world is going on Michael?” Remember I said there were a couple of things that could happen when Mr. Newton yelled at you. It was either encouraging, the what in the world yell except with expletives, or nothing. I forgot to add that if he yelled "Newms" it had a comforting layer to it. This time he called me by my first name. Crap.

I could not tell you what my split was at two miles. I felt like turtles could pass me. The pain on my side got worse and worse. I wanted to stop and walk so bad. I knew if I did that, I would be quitting on myself, my coach and my teammates.

In agony, I ran that last mile. I am guessing it was close to seven minutes. I just wanted the pain to end. I just wanted to get to the chute. The one thing that I did not want to do was get to the chute and collapse. I just wanted to hide.

We beat Proviso West that day 20-39. Mileski from Proviso West ran away in the last mile to win in 15:54. We took the next five places with Brother Mac, Willie, Freegs, Henry, and Rags. Our split was only eleven seconds, something that Newton was overjoyed with.

I ended up in 20^th overall and the 10th man on the team. My time was 18:43, almost three minutes behind guys that I had trained with for the last three months and I was not even close to them. I was still in pain as I just wanted to get my spikes off and go hide. My parents did not want to come close to me. They saw I had that look on my face. I tried to not make eye contact with anyone. At that point, I was going through my head what had happened. It was that stupid milk that I drank at lunch. I buried my head in my shirt. What else could I do?

I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Tim Krull, who did not run because he was injured. I looked at him. He asked me if I was okay. I nodded. Then he said something that stuck with me the rest of the year. “Newms, it is just one race. You will be OK.”

I looked at Crazy Horse and I tried to smile. He usually would say something off the wall but this time was not one of them. He had done that one time before after our conference meet as a sophomore. Even though I ran a PR, I finished fourth, letting one runner pass me in the last five yards. I did hold off another runner. I was so down afterwards because I thought I let down the team. We ended up tying for the conference title. At that meeting, Mr. Newton was asking for standouts that gave it their all at that meet. Horse stood up and said if it were not for Newms holding off that guy, we would have lost that meet. Everyone started cheering. I just looked down at the ground because I just was ready to cry. That is my weak point. I wear my heart too far down my sleeve.

Henry asked if I was okay. The next day after the workout, we walked a long way home so we could both talk. It was needed. Heds came up to me. He did not run his best and was the eighth man. He looked at me and said, “We’ve worked too hard to be where we are at.” He was right. I wanted this meet to be a memorable one. It was, but in the wrong ways.

My confidence was shot. The next day we ran 8 x three-quarters with a short rest. I stayed with the pack for half the workout. I usually could fight through the pain. This workout I could not. I continued to fade. After we finished the workout, we crossed back to the front of the school to do our cool down. We went to check out with Mr. Newton. I was in the middle of the line. He looked at me and whispered if I was okay. I just nodded. He told me to wait on the side until everyone else had finished. He then told me to follow him back to his office. I did not know what to expect. Was he going to scream at me? Was he going to move me back to Group Three? 

We got in there and he did not close the door. That was a good thing. Instead he handed me a book. He wanted me to read it cover to cover. He told me to read "Psycho Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz. He wanted me to tell him when I was finished with it and then we would discuss it.

I was so tired when I got home that all I wanted to do was sleep. But I opened the book and began to read it. Anything to get me out of this funk.

I finished the book on that Monday night. I came in early for morning run the next day and put the book on his desk. He asked me one thing that I was going to do that I learned from that book.

I told him for the meet that was coming up on that Thursday, I was going to visualize the race and how I was going to run it before I went to sleep the next two nights. He nodded and smiled. He shook my hand and said, “Good moose, Newms.”

It was something that I did from that day forward. I would close my eyes and run the race. I put in my mind how I would feel at that point and what I would do if I felt certain ways. By the time I had gotten to the race, it felt like I had run it over and over again. I could not wait to try it again.

Proviso West was the worst race of my junior year. Even though I had run two dog races in a row, I had more confidence that it had to get better. It had to get better.

“The greatest achievement in life is not in never falling, but rising again after you fall.” It was a statement that Mr. Newton would tell us in meetings. It has been a saying that has stuck with me for most of my life. I now had to believe these words if I wanted to get where I dreamed of going. Positive thoughts. That is all I could do.