I opened up the New Year's running with a hard workout at The Y while Cheryl played racket ball with a friend, but the true start of the year's running was yesterday. I hearkened back to my running roots and rediscovered the trails of
Kelsey Creek Park in Bellevue. I stopped in to log a few miles on the wood chip and boardwalk trails. My memory recalled a few stairs but, whoa boy, not as many as I found yesterday. Hundreds of stairs can be found in the well established Kelsey Creek trail system. It is part of a an extensive
Lake to Lake trail connecting Lake Sammamish to Lake Washington; some day I'll have to do the whole thing. (The last link has an interactive map of the whole 7.5 mile trail.) Onward......While I attending Sammamish High School in the mid-80's the XC team regularly trained in the park utilizing the hilly wooded
area for training. Somehow the trail system received the title of "Nairobi" back then. I was not part of the naming but embraced the designation none the less. (There was also something about "XC 22" but I won't go into that.)
(Photos of the 1984 SHS XC teams, at Kelsey Creek Park) So yesterday I ran through "Nairobi memories" of hard repeat laps, hills, speed work and the few races hosted there. Kinda pitiful to imagine a forty year old reminiscing high school but sometimes it helps my soul to go back to my roots and remember. I was humbled as I recalled my fitness level back then compared to today. I was never one of the leaders, one of the faster runners, but I was recognized by Ed, our head coach, as, "A pole vaulter with a little endurance." I ran XC to prepare for the spring Track season, it was not my primary sport. I was a vaulter. But as I improved I discovered the value in cross training. The Sammamish XC team was known for its goofiness and "creative" coaching. Ed and Dave seem to have found a way to get the most out of their athletes focusing on fun and unusual training endeavours.
(Photos are the 1985 SHS XC teams. I am under the the car's bumper next to Ed and top lining up at the far right of the starting line.)
I joined, as a "jogger"/cross trainer having only played with running. (I find it very difficult to even type the word...jogger ugh.) This is where I first became aware of real running. The exact race was a JV race out at
Salt Creek in Port Angeles. I was number two on the the JV team. Ed and I chatted a bit prior to the race about how to stay alive by not running off a cliff, into a tree, another runner, or a poison oak bush. All in all a very safe race course. The race started in a wide grassy field and quickly funneled down to a single track trail that twists and winds through the woods. The woods we meander through are a dense collection of old Douglas Firs, Salal, Oregon Grape, ferns and the like. The undulation root filled trail was so narrow passing was considered a full contact activity, hence the warning about the trees. Older Douglas Fur trees have pretty rough bark and blood has been known to flow from resulting impacts. I placed myself comfortably in about 15th to 20th, mid pack, going into the woods. The race course skirts sandstone cliffs providing amazing views to the Straight of Juan de Fuca. My pace was slow, in running terms it would be called, "pedestrian". Back then I really didn't know how to "race" I just ran not wanting to lead for fear of not knowing where to go, so I began the race at a comfortable non-threatening pace. The two mile course circled around the park allowing for spectating and coaching. Ed urged me on in the first open area, "Move up, Move up!" Having never been coached in a race before I was not sure what he meant. "Move up where?" It took a few seconds for me to understand he was urging me to pass the runners in front of me. So I did, with very little effort. "Hey this is fun", I thought as I worked my way through the string of runners, passing one more just before re-entering the woods and avoiding the dreaded Doug Fir Bark Rash. On the second lap I passed a few more and experienced a new feeling. I was churning along at my regular pace when everything kinda went quite. I felt lighter and faster. Somehow a door had opened to a new level of running, like a barrier I never knew existed, holding me back, had just been surpassed. Freedom to run faster and harder. It was as if I reached an awareness level of a whole new meaning of running. My heart rate jumped, my energy level increased, and my legs were stronger. I had become a runner. Right then I became a runner. There was less than a half mile in the race and I felt like I could fly. With only five runners between me and the lead I rounded a bend to a paved road leading to the finish. The road sloped downhill. Ed ran across the grassy meadow screaming, "Lean forward, lean forward!" Apparently I was leaning back, a body position that creates breaking while running, where your point of contact with the ground is ahead of your center of mass. I leaned forward and accelerated. "Wow, I never knew running could be like this. I can breath and this is FUN!" With less than one hundred meters to go I accelerated using a gear I never knew I had, passed two more and made my way across the finish line, now a runner. Ed's smile involves his whole face, and that is what greeted me at the finish, the smile and a few knowing words. He saw the difference in me, he knew what had happened out there. The "Pole vaulter with a little endurance" who had toed the line a few minutes ago was now a runner. I don't remember much more about the race (place or finish time) or the trip to PA. I do recall attending the PA High School football game the night before and witnessing some of our top runners, also part of the SHS Marching band, borrow instruments from the PA band and break out in a spontaneous and broken version of "Tequila". It remains one of my all time favorite XC road trips.........As I descend down the trails back toward Kelsey Creek I run under a roost of crows. Their raucous noise and the rain of bark, moss and lichen sprinkling down from the tree tops pulls me back to present day. I laugh out loud at the memories and find myself grateful for the opportunity to revisit the waterlogged wood chip trails. I finish my run cooling down and recalling the faces of those SHS XC Teams. For many of those faces this was the height of their running career for me it was just the commencement.
Tony
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