I had become a
runner by the time I got to Bay View High School. Running somehow brought me
joy. I do not remember how I started. In sixth grade I became good at the
longer distance races of the President’s Physical Fitness Test. Later in Junior High, during the occasional
free gym period, I would often run outside, encouraged by one of my gym
teachers, who himself was an avid runner.
I ran on my own outside of school, my regular path taking me through the
seminary near my house and then Bay View Park along the lake. My running got
noticed by my friends and others, and by the beginning of my sophomore year I
was urged to try out for cross country. I did not try. Into that winter I
continued to pursue my solitary runs, treading crunchy snow and ice on the
trails in seminary woods and in the park along the bluffs above the lake and
under the electric lines reaching out from the lakeside power plant toward
Kinnickinnic Avenue. I learned to pace
myself, coordinating breaths with strides, taking with each breath the same
number of strides on the inhale and exhale.
A three, or four, to one ratio made for a decent, long distance
pace. To run faster, I reduced the
number of strides for each breath until, at one to one, I was on the final dash
toward finishing. I never attempted to time my breath-stride ratios, since a
breath’s duration will change when running faster or slower. In fact, I rarely
wore my watch, because it seemed that time crawled slowly for me whenever I
paid too much attention to it. How did I
know how fast I was running? Trees and other things blurred past my vision as I
went faster, and I felt the wind pushing against me. Another sign was the
greater effort of increasing my speed and then the relief of slowing down. And
so through the winter I continued my runs over snow and ice on the bluffs and
in seminary woods and under the power lines.
Spring was a month or so away when I was urged to try out for
track. I did not try, and for another
year I ran alone. Again the following
year I was urged to try out. This time I tried. I signed up for the team on February 14, 1977.
Bay View High School was Milwaukee’s first million
dollar school. It was built
after the Great War, replacing the “barracks” that had housed the school
starting in 1914. It was named after the neighborhood that it
served[1]. A red brick castle enthroned on a lawn
covered hill next to Humbolt Park, the school had a facade that impressed its
pedagogic dignity on the students as they approached its main entrance. This impact was diminished somewhat after an addition
was built into the hill in front of the north façade. The addition was completed in my sophomore
year, and provided much needed space for the music, industrial arts and athletic
departments.
The first track
practice was on February 21. We were divided into track and field according to
our abilities. I did not even attempt field, because its projectiles and
targets confounded me. Track divided into hurdles and the various unobstructed
distances. The hurdles tripped me up,
and so to unobstructed distances I slotted for further sorting. Although I was a capable sprinter, I did not
like the ferocious, chasing nature of that race. I was better suited for long distance. I had
to adjust myself during those first few weeks of practice to running with my
teammates. Group running was new to me, and a very different experience it was
from alone running. My teammates gave content to my running, and they gave a
means of comparing not offered me merely by the pressing wind against my face,
or the passing trees. My teammates gave me a reason to run faster: to try to be
first, to try to win. The stopwatch provided the impartial standard by which to
judge ability. I never had to deal with that kind of stuff when I ran by
myself, and it was perhaps the peculiar feeling of carelessness that was the
source of the joy that I felt whenever I ran alone.
We run to and
away with each stride. When war forced
him to flee his native Knossos[2],
Ergoteles ran at the Olympian, Isthmean and Pythian games for Himera, the city
that gave him refuge. Pheidippides ran to Sparta[3]
from the Athens, resting only once, when Pan called out to him at Mount
Parthenion[4]. Three times around the walls of Troy,
Achilles chased Hector, who stopped only after being abandoned by one God and
deceived by another[5]. We run for different reasons. Ergoteles ran
for fame and the other rewards that were heaped upon victors of those ancient
games. The Persians had just landed at
Marathon when Pheidippedes delivered Athens’ request for help, and then he ran
back to Athens with Sparta’s answer. Hector was running away from certain
death. Achilles, the wrathful, was running for revenge or for justice or for
the immortal fame his deeds would win him in the songs of the poets.
Running with,
or against, my teammates during those first few weeks of practice, I had vague,
worrying feelings that things would not happen the way I wanted them to happen.
I had to learn all over again how to pace myself. The press of the wind against my face, the
trees blurring past my eyes, the sensations of greater or lesser effort – these
no longer signified; instead, my position relative to the other runners provided
the mark. I was not concerned about my
time, which was important for me only when the goal was to break my own time
record. It is very easy to see your
position when you are last, a little more difficult when you are in the middle
and almost impossible when you are out in front. If I started out front, I could sustain my
position for only a short time before exhaustion forced me to fall back. Shame, on the other hand, always propelled me
forward when I found myself trailing the others. The strategy that I eventually developed was
to keep to the pack until near the end and then dash to the finish as fast as I
could run. The mile, half mile and
quarter mile became my races. The mile
was the ideal length for my chosen pacing strategy. The quarter mile was my favorite length,
because it was the longest distance for which I could sustain the effort of
running as fast as I could run. The half
mile was my least favorite length, because for me it was like trying to run two
quarter miles, and, after a few of strides into the second quarter, I became
all gasping breaths and flailing arms.
Running the
perimeter of Humbolt Park was a staple of track practice for the long distance
runners. During one cold, rain soaked
afternoon in the last week of March, I managed to keep up with one of my
teammates, Pete[6], on our second perimeter
of the park. Pete was a veteran of the cross country team, and he was the best
distance runner on the track team. This was the first time I was able to stay
in his vicinity during a practice. He puffed me up with complements after,
which I took as a sign of my own improvement.
Running was a religion for Pete. Running books were his
bibles. He could recite the names of every leg and foot muscle. I learned all about lactic acid from him. He
fortified himself for every track meet with the powers he derived from
meditation. Pete made wondrous and
amazing claims for meditation, two of which stand out above the rest. One was
that he could meditate the essence of his race plan into a glass of water, and,
after drinking the water, the essence of his plan would transubstantiate into
the race that he would actually run. The other claim was that he could meditate
a tan onto his skin. He never demonstrated a meditated tan for us, but I am
inclined to believe the race plan in glass of water claim, since he dominated
the mile and two-mile.
I made the
Junior Varsity team, and the vague, worrying feelings waned to the background -
except for track meets - as I became familiar with my teammates and with the
routine of practice. My times gradually
improved for the mile, half and quarter mile races. I ran in a track meet at the
beginning of April. And then, on the day
before spring vacation, the teachers went on strike[7].
The strike lasted through the first week of May[8]. The school officially stayed open throughout
the strike, and I was one of a small group of students who still attended every
day. There were maybe two or three
hundred students in regular attendance, if memory serves me well. The school was staffed by the teachers who
were willing to cross the picket lines. Every morning the teachers drove in a
motorcade toward the school’s parking lot. The striking teachers waited for
them there. As the cars approached under
police escort, the strikers crowded the parking lot entrance. Signs waved in the air and beat at the car
windows. Faces grimaced and shouted. Angry gestures were affected. I often watched this rowdy scene with some
other students from a window overlooking the parking lot. The spectacle left us mixed with amusement
and disgust. Once, a student even ran
down to confront some of the striking teachers who seemed excessively rough
that morning. This encounter got
captured in a newspaper photograph[9]. We started the school day by assembling in
the auditorium for the day’s announcements and taking attendance. The remainder of the day we spent in classes
studying the subjects that were taught by the available teachers. Another team member, Bill, and I, kept
practicing as best we could after school. Another group who did not come to
school held practice at Thomas Moore High School’s field. The teachers approved
their new contract on May 9, and we had an official practice that afternoon
when the track coach showed up in the school. The teachers returned to work the
next day.
During the
remainder of that strike shortened track season, there is one peculiar day, which
seems to me noteworthy and merits a putting to words. We had a track meet June
10. It started late and ended around 9:30, by which time a restless agitation
and grumpiness permeated the team. After,
as we gathered to board the bus, a team member shouted out “Turtle Head!” to
one of the coaches, Mr. S., who was standing outside the door. He got mad and
said that he didn’t want to hear the radio Pete was playing. Pete kept on
playing it. Mr. S. then took it away. Nick came on to the bus, got into a
tussle with Mr. S. over possession of the radio. The return bus ride was all sulks, snits and
muffled snickers. I went with Bill to the Mc Donald’s nearby after we got back. As we ate, four guys from school (football
team) came in, all of them drunk. Bill and I ignored them, finished eating and
then left. We were crossing the parking lot when the drunk guys drove past us.
One of them shot an unwrapped hamburger at my head. I responded flipping him
the finger. The car then screeched to a stop. Three got out. One of them fired
some questions at me in rapid succession, enquiring as to whom I was flipping
the finger. I replied with something to
the effect that I just got hit in the head with a hamburger. My interrogator
then gave me a powerful shove that sent me rolling. This all happened in the
middle of the street. One of them kicked my gym bag, and then they left. Bill
and I walked home.
My first year on the track team came to an end.
In the fall,
Pete urged me to join the cross country team, but I could not take on another
extra-curricular activity. I was one of
the editors of the yearbook, which kept me very busy for the first half of my
senior year. I signed up for track though, and we began practice in February.
Pete took charge of the practices for the distance runners. We nicknamed him “the slave driver”. In addition to perimeter of Humbolt Park, our
practices included running up the hill at the park band shell, a run to the
lake and back, and the standard race lengths (220, 440, and 880 yards,
etc.). Pete had us alternate between
“hard” and “easy” workouts. An “easy”
workout would be a perimeter followed by four or five hills, then the same
number of some of the other lengths, and sometimes we finished with a lake
run. A “hard”work out had twice as many
of all the lengths and often we ended again with a lake run. Not everyone always made it through the hard
practices. We always had an easy workout
on the day before a track meet. As the
season progressed, my time for the mile gradually improved to within a few
seconds of five minutes. That duration
of time, however, became a barrier that I could not seem to get myself past in
practice or at meets. I made my goal to beat it. Twenty-four years earlier,
Roger Bannister also faced a barrier, the four minute barrier, a length of time
that had become significant just because it was there to be beaten. There
was some controversy about the methods Bannister used to break the four minute mark[10]:
was it an individual achievement, or the result of a team effort? Teams, individuals, clocks, competitors,
rivals, tactics - yet, the race is not
always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happens
to them all.[11]
Not that I compare myself to Bannister, but I was finally able to break through
my own barrier too.
I have happy memories of everyone on the team that year. Jeff was one of our best half-milers. He had frizzy hair and often could be moody. Coach Mierzwa nicknamed him “Mr. Cool”, because he never wore sweat pants, no matter how
cold. Randy ran the quarter mile. He was a
big Elvis fan. Bob and Terry were versatile runners. Coach could not decide whether to
put them in the hurdles, the quarter mile or the 220 yards. John began the season as our best two miler. A guy nicknamed Stork started out as a two miler but switched to the quarter mile as the season
progressed. Jeff, Pete and I often
formed a trio, keeping up with and challenging each other during practices. There was often singing on the bus returning from track meets. Sometimes we sang, or chanted, during practice runs. On one of our runs to the lake, we sang "100 Bottles of Ergs on the Wall" all the way down to the sixteen bottles.
I kept a journal
during my time in high school. How else could I remember some of the things I
have written here? The journal entries include descriptions of the track
practices and meets, and a few even include my time for the mile. But for my
most persistent memory, that of the mile race I ran in under five, I can find
no written record. The memory is fatter than the remains on the pages. Memory
is the mother of History and Poetry. She
is old - maybe as old as Death even.
Sometimes I imagine her sitting in a bower at the foot of the Hill of
Kronos, chewing on the pasts of everyone all at once, unable not to know
everything that has ever happened. I
approach her suppliant, bearing offerings for her favor in my telling the story
of that race.
The meet was on
a Saturday afternoon in May. I stretched
my leg muscles and did a couple of short warm-up jogs. I lined up at the starting
mark with the other runners. There were maybe fifteen in all. The lining up ritual had become common for me;
nevertheless, I always felt something like stage fright at the beginning of a
race, an anticipatory dread of the effort approaching me. We twitched nervous
energy as we sized each other up. The
official called us to order to form a more perfect line. Then the long wait, which actually was not
very long at all, which was followed by the false start of those whose twitchiness
exploded into running too soon, and we all dumbly followed the false starters,
spending the effort we were saving for the real race. The officials called us to order and we
gathered again into a line, forcing ourselves to twitch the nervous energy back
into our bodies that was spent in the false start. Then another long wait that
actually was not very long was followed by the true start. It seemed an unusually fast beginning for a
mile race as I attempted to find my pace during the first few frantic moments. I held off setting my strides to breaths
ratio until the pack of runners settled down.
By the middle of the first lap I was at three to one, but the breaths
were very deep, almost gasps, as I kept myself in the middle of the runners. One runner was out front, separated by a few
lengths from the rest of us. He fell
back by the middle of the second lap, and we were all bunched together. A
feeling of windedness crept up on me forcing my ratio to two to one near the
end of the second lap, and then, inspired with ambition, I pushed myself toward
the front. Normally, I would not have
begun this effort until the last lap of a mile race, but here I found myself dashing
at the beginning of the third lap. I was in front, the position from which, without
looking back, I could not tell where the other runners were. I was in front but
I did not know how far. My teammates were cheering me from the infield. I maintained the lead going into the fourth
and final lap. I was at one to one by then, throwing my feet in front of each
other as fast as I could. I could see
the finish line after the final turn. I
was in the lead. I saw my teammates
shouting at me, but I could hear nothing.
I was running as fast as I could.
My legs felt numb. I was winning.
Time seemed to slow, or distance seemed to get longer, or both. I was first.
I could see the finish line getting closer, only a few more strides,
when I saw him pass me just a few steps from the end. Afterwards, I learned
what they were shouting at me as I approached the finish line, what I could not
hear: “He’s catching up to you! Run faster!” The
race is not always to the swift but time and chance happens to them all. But
I was swift that day. I ran the mile in under five minutes, my best time
ever.
___________________________
Photograph from: Korn,
Bernard C. (1980). The Story of Bay View (Second Printing), Milwaukee County
Historical Society, ISBN
0-938076-05-1.
___________________________
The 1977 Track Team. Photograph from the
author’s personal collection.
___________________________
The 1978 Track Team. Photograph from the
1978 Oracle Yearbook.
[1]
See: Korn, Bernard C. (1980). The Story of Bay View (Second Printing),
Milwaukee County Historical Society,
ISBN 0-938076-05-1.
[6] I
use their real first names. I use last
names only if and when I get their permission.
