Hidden race

12/31/11

It was pretty neat, kind of a secret for those who knew what they were watching. To fill you in, let me back up about an hour. I was playing with my phone, checking an email or something, and a friend that I know through running, Darin Brown, snuck up on me to wave his hand in my face while I wasn't paying attention. A quick hey, smile, bro-hug and we are off talking about what brought us both to the 3rd and final Boston University “Mini-Meet”.

The BU meets are held in the Month of December, and have been running a handful of years now that I know. Today’s last meet is held as usual on a Saturday. What was rather interesting is that this Saturday fell on the last day of the year. Instead of saying all the corny things about how it allowed runners to make a last ditch at a PR for the year, I will say that if you were there you could feel the energy. On the last day of the year, a collective knowledge is almost everywhere in the world but amongst all runners it was palpable.

So Darin explains that he is racing the 3k today, and before long he goes about starting his warm up. However, we got in a good chat first. He says he is in his last year of 40-44 Master’s USATF age group and that the standards are going to get easy pretty soon for All-American. He explains he is hopeful that today he will do it in his current age category and asks for hand with splits.

The time passes and we are watching the race unfold. Darin is on pace through the 15 lap race up to laps 10 or 12, 40 seconds per lap which is pretty much dead on, but then he falters. He hits a couple of slow laps and I yell he needs to pick it up and he does. The last laps are a true back and forth battle with Jen and I cheering away as he cruises by each time. It ends as Darin kicks in strong with a 9:56 high time, over three seconds under the qualifying standard. He didn’t win the race, but he did something great and only a handful of us there knew what we were seeing. We got to enjoy, and be part of, a race that no one knew was happening. Here is a little secret from me to you; one of the greatest aspects to running is being a spectator to someone's effort because it allows you to participate in their struggles and their triumphs.