June 8 and 9; The bittersweet agony of near success

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	123 steps(s)	400 meters(s)	Start time
9 June	Orlyonok-Орлёнок	49	27.93	1:15.09	07:19

          Oh, the bittersweet agony of near success. Earlier this week I had run the quarter mile* in almost 75 seconds, 76.03 and 76.83, two times this week. Therefore, I thought it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to run just a bit faster and achieve my long-standing goal from four years ago.
This morning, approaching the starting point of my all-out sprint, I was fully prepared, thinking about running on my toes and picking up my knees.

           I achieved my best time to date in the quarter-mile sprint. A cause for joy on some level. The problem is that I did not make my supreme goal of 75 seconds. I achieved 75.09 seconds. If another runner running beside me achieved 75 seconds, I would have lost to that person by 1.5 feet, 18 inches, barely the width of your shoulders. If I would have run .0012% faster, I would have made it.

          My lungs were starved of oxygen, my legs ached, and even my neck was sore. How could my neck be sore, you ask? Three years ago in Moscow, a friend filmed my sprint. The camera clearly shows me straining, my teeth visible, the tendons bulging out from the jaw to the top of my shoulders. I’m sure I was doing something similar today. 

          Immediately upon finishing, I stepped away from the inside lane to lane number 2, then to lane number 3. I knew that I would be walking slowly, so I didn’t want to get in anyone’s way. I didn’t want to force anyone to detour around me. During my run, I had had to run around someone running slowly in the inside lane. I had had to do it on the turn also. To quote Bill Cosby, in order to pass someone on the turn, “not only do you have to run twice as far, but you have to run twice as fast.” This could easily have been the difference between 75 seconds and 75.09 seconds.

          I began at the cusp of one of a turns so that I would be able to finish with a long straight away. As I neared the finish, my legs felt full of the heaviest concrete. It was as if I was trying to step over a mound of quick sand 4 feet tall with every stride. At other venues where I had been trying to break records, when I finished I was awash in similar feelings of ineptitude, but I still managed to achieve good results. Whether that was because I had already run quickly and I just needed to hang on, I’m not sure.

          Now, I am faced with the thought that all of my runs in the future will be compared to this all-out effort, and I will feel similar pain. Do I look like a plodding old man? Do I look like a svelte athlete? Elena says that I look like a real American. I’m not sure what that means, or how she thinks she knows what American runners look like; I am the only full-blooded American on campus. There is one other teacher who is half Colombian. I will ask Lena to film my effort and I will be able to see if I am a hulking turtle.

*I say this distance is “the quarter mile” because this is the distance that took the place of the quarter mile when the athletes in the US became a small bit more sensible as they converted all their distances to the supremely logical metric distances that are used throughout the rest of the world. People in the US still often call this distance the “quarter.”

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	123 steps(s)	400 meters(s)	Start time
8 June	Orlyonok-Орлёнок	63	28.40	1:16.82	07:16

          I began the run feeling less than enthusiastic. I said right out to Lena that for some reason, I was in a bit of a sour mood. I plugged along though.