I try to avoid writing too much about myself and I don’t write about sports very often in this column, even though I’m personally a big fan of athletics.
But I was privileged last week to experience something that I think will go down as one of the more vivid memories in my lifetime, and I thought I’d share it.
As many of our readers know, one of my interests is running and, although I know it’s not for everybody and I don’t necessarily think everybody should run, it’s been something I’ve enjoyed over the years. I also get a kick out of watching the development of our local cross-country and track programs during the eight years I’ve been here, both winning trophies at state, thanks to the diligence and efforts of the kids who have made it happen. That’s really gratifying for me, seeing kids from backgrounds that many people would describe as “disadvantaged” buckle down and make something positive happen.
Of course, a lot of the credit goes to excellent coaches, who wouldn’t want me trotting out their names here, so I won’t. Sweet Home is really fortunate to have capable mentors who demonstrate good character and dedication to our youngsters as they help them learn sports – and life.
This year, a few of us came up with the idea of offering an “incentive” to the cross-country kids to train during the summer. Cross-country, in which competitors run 5K (3.1-mile) courses over hill and dale in the fall, is a sport in which success starts at the beginning of summer, not on the first day of practice in late August.
The problem for kids, especially those whose parents are not eager to roust them out of bed on summer days, is that it’s hard to get up and run several miles or more every day. But that’s what it takes to have a chance to be competitive at the state level in Oregon. All good cross-country teams do that.
So we took this idea we got from another cross-country program in a community similar to Sweet Home and we decided to set up a trip to Washington to run a half marathon (13.1 miles) that I found on the Internet. It would include camping, a trip to Wild Waves amusement park, and other fun stuff for kids. The catch was that those who wanted to participate had to show up for practice and qualify by running 10 miles the Monday after the Jamboree.
It was enough to motivate about half a dozen of our runners to get it done and we took off last week for the Seattle area, where the race would be held at Cougar Mountain State Park. The trip went well, considering it was our first time and there were some complications in getting it together.
But early Thursday morning we were on the road. We got a tour of the Nike plant from an employee who also coaches one of our alumni at Corban College, then we headed north to Federal Way, Wash., where we camped. Other than a three-hour thunderstorm on Friday night – the longest I think I’ve ever experienced on the West Coast, things went pretty much according to plan.
Early Saturday morning, we packed our soaked tents into plastic bags and headed to Cougar Mountain, southeast of Seattle.
Though we have some gifted, experienced runners, several of the kids who were on this trip were still pretty green in cross-country and they had worked hard to get in shape for this. I was hoping the difficulty of the course would be reasonable. I was still wondering how much the “Mountain” part of the name would factor into this.
Remember, I’d found this run on the Internet and the only description of the course that I could find was the term “moderate” and some photos that showed fairly flat dirt trails that reminded me of the South Hills Trail here in Sweet Home. The race was the only one I could find that was on the right date and in the right location, and the fact that it was on trails was certainly a plus, since these kids were training for cross-country, not running in lanes on a track.
As we drove uphill to the park, though, I was still wondering what, exactly, was meant by “moderate,” since we were definitely rising in elevation. The parking lot was fairly flat, which was encouraging.
We arrived at the start and learned that, first of all, since this race was on trails, not streets, on which distance is more manageable, we were actually going to be running 14.45 miles, not 13.1. Then we learned that there would be some significant (2,900-plus feet) elevation changes over that 14.4 miles. Hmmm. Well… I asked a guy who’d been there before what it was like.
“Pretty hard,” he said. “There are four big climbs.”
Coach Billy Snow and I looked at each other with slightly raised eyebrows, but it was too late to back out, even if we’d really wanted to. We’d paid our money and signed on the dotted line. We were going to have to give it a shot.
Well, that had to be the toughest run I’ve ever done in 30-plus years of running. I don’t think I’ve ever finished out of the top 15 percent of any race I’ve ever run, but halfway through this one I knew it was not going to be a red-letter day. I finished well back in the pack. I was simply running to finish, frankly. It was non-stop up and down for 14 miles, with, it seemed, maybe a half mile of flat mixed in, here and there. I counted at least six or seven “big climbs.” Brutal.
But that’s just incidental, to set the stage for the real story here. A third of the way into the race, when it became obvious that it was going to be that kind of a day, I became increasingly concerned about our young runners. One, in particular, had struggled to complete 5K races last year. She’d come a long way, obviously, to even qualify for this trip but this was way more than we’d anticipated.
Then the magic started happening. Several of our youngsters had already completed the course. One, Jakob Hiett, finished second out of 150-odd runners in under two hours – which turned heads. Some of his teammates had also run very good times. (It definitely helps to have “young” legs when you’re running mountain trails.)
But then, little more than five minutes after I’d staggered across the finish line, one of the youngsters about whom I was concerned cruised in, looking remarkably fresh. She’d obviously run a lot more than walked that course. Then another arrived. Then the one I was most concerned about.
Wow. We were all tired, but it was a significant day in terms of just seeing kids surmount difficult challenges.
I don’t know how Sweet Home will do this fall in cross-country. Stuff happens. But all I can say is that if our kids show up for one of those races with tough hills, they’ll eye it with seasoned perspective because nothing they’re going to do will come close to Cougar Mountain.
That was a red-letter day.