Racing
in Oregon
Summerville
High shows Southern pride in 127-mile relay race on West Coast
By Paul Bowers
Ink contributor
Cross country is a bizarre concept to many
people.
The practice of running at a difficult
pace for long distances serves as a form of punishment in other sports, and as
a longtime soccer player, I was a bit skeptical when I started training with
Summerville High School's cross country team at the start of summer.
Now, after a rare chance to prove myself
in Oregon, where competitive running took off in this country, I know that the
sport's many lessons and payoffs are well worth the effort.
No slacking
A sense of anticipation filled the air in
May when we received word that our running could earn us an expenses-paid trip
to the West Coast. And since many of us had never been, we looked forward to a
land covered with redwoods and flowing with Starbucks coffee.
Veteran running coaches Jim and Eileen
Kilbreth had just relocated to the school from Spartanburg, and they brought
with them an opportunity to participate in the annual Portland to Coast High
School Challenge, a sister race of the Hood to Coast Relay, which is the
largest relay race on the continent.
As a recent addition to the Summerville
High squad, I worked hard to prepare for the qualifying time trial, showing up
for training nearly every weekday morning at 6:45 over the course of the
summer. We ran about 6-8 miles a day, pushing through local neighborhoods,
pounding the Sawmill Branch bike path and tackling the Cooper River bridge on
several occasions.
There was little room for slacking under
the watch of the Kilbreths, a formidable husband-and-wife coaching combo who
led the Spartanburg girls' and boys' cross country teams to numerous state and
region titles. Every morning, Mr. Kilbreth arrived at practice sharply dressed
and greeted each member of the boys' team with a firm handshake. Mrs. Kilbreth
treated the girls with equal respect as she coached them separately. Their
strict discipline and positive attitude were exactly what we needed to succeed.
When the summer drew to an end, all the
sweat and early mornings finally paid off.
I placed third, qualifying for the co-ed
team of six boys and six girls. I still considered myself a soccer player with
little knowledge of running strategy, so it would be an understatement to say
that I was honored.
As we learned at the informational
meeting, the tremendous bill for our coast-to-coast adventure was being paid by
Bob Nicolls, a record-holding runner who trained under coach Kilbreth during
the 1970s at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange, Ill. Nicolls sponsors the
trip every year for his ex-coach's team as a sort of repayment for the valuable
experiences he gained.
I'm beginning to understand his gratitude.
The footsteps of legends
On Aug. 22, in the wee hours of the
morning, I met with my teammates and coaches for the transcontinental plane
ride. Hours later, as we approached Portland International Airport, we flew
over snow-capped mountains the likes of which we had never seen. Many of us
wasted our disposable cameras on out-the-window shots before we even landed.
Our first order of business after checking
into a hotel was a workout at nearby Gabriel Park. The brisk run through
winding forest trails was refreshingly easy in the cool, dry climate,
especially since we were used to the muggy, stifling heat back home. We were
surrounded by trees that looked hundreds of years old, and we couldn't resist
sprinting up and down the grassy hill beside the parking lot.
The next day, rubbing jetlagged sleep from
our eyes, we made a trip to Eugene to tour the beautiful University of Oregon
campus, home of the Ducks. We saw the football stadium, and we got a taste of the
campus life (including no shortage of bona-fide hippies). Still, the most
fascinating part from a runner's perspective was Hayward Field, the historic
facility, where running legend Steve Prefontaine trained and shattered
collegiate records in every event from 2,000 to 10,000 meters.
We set foot on the track, where
Prefontaine, or "Pre" as the running world affectionately calls him,
virtually redefined distance running. Pre was once quoted as saying, "To
give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift," and runners
across the country have adopted this as a sort of motto. In the athletic
training building beside the track, memorial items were set up for him and the
other athletes who have given the university its high reputation in track and
field. As we stared through the glass display cases at all the trophies,
plaques and black-and-white photographs, we got a taste of what separates the
good from the great.
Another important figure in the history of
Oregon track was Bill Bowerman, who has a life-size bronze statue near the
track in his honor. He was the coach who trained Pre, helped launch the jogging
craze in America and co-founded the company we now know as Nike.
We spent the next day touring the main
Nike headquarters in Beaverton, where we learned the history of one of the most
successful athletic corporations in the world. As it turns out, Bowerman made
some of his first track shoes with rubber soles made in a waffle iron, and
business has expanded from there.
Race day
By the day of the race, we were acclimated
from daily workouts in Gabriel Park, and we were inspired by the historic
places we had seen over the past few days. At 6 p.m. on Aug. 25, when our first
runner crossed the starting line, our team's excitement was palpable. Out of 50
high school teams, we were the only one from anywhere east of Montana or south
of Oregon, and we felt like we had something to prove to the West Coast, to our
coaches and to ourselves.
The process for the relay was somewhat
complicated, involving three separate rental vans that we used for
transportation to the beginning of each leg. We constantly rotated between
vans, and we had it worked out so that the next person to run would be at the
trade-off point with ample time to stretch and wait for the previous runner.
There was no baton, only an orange slap-bracelet that we handed off at each
transition. I was struck by the focus and intensity that overtook my teammates
as they drew nearer to their sections of the race.
My first leg was the longest of the race,
7.4 miles of terrain that was rated as "hard" by the race officials.
It was my first real cross country meet, but I went into it with confidence.
Night was approaching as I started my leg, and I could feel the temperature
start to drop as I took off down the shoulder of Highway 30.
I kept up a brutally quick pace for the
first five miles or so, but toward the end I felt sick in the pit of my
stomach. Fighting back nausea, I willed myself to keep my legs moving, though I
slowed down considerably before passing the bracelet to our next runner.
It was on this leg that I learned a
much-needed lesson about keeping a reasonable pace, something my coaches and
teammates had tried to drill into my head all summer. More importantly, I
learned about something I had heard a thousand times in church sermons: Pray
continuously.
It's an elusive concept, but I finally
discovered what it really meant while I was running in Oregon. On my second
leg, a 5.9-mile stretch of road through a heavily wooded area, I prayed
nonstop. It was about 2:30 a.m. when I started running, the temperature was 48
degrees, and I could look up through the treetops and see every star laid out
above me like the roof of a giant tent. If my God could create all this, I
thought, then he could certainly pull some 17-year-old kid across a stretch of
pavement.
And he did.
After 127 miles
The race continued straight through the
night and into the next morning, our coaches chugging coffee like water to stay
awake at the wheel. I was impressed by my teammates as they pushed their own
limits on the punishing, hilly course, and before too long our team had taken
the lead.
We would hold that lead for the remainder
of the race, finishing the 127-mile trek with a total time of 14 hours, 43
minutes, 57 seconds. We won in the mixed-gender division by a long shot, with
the second-place team trailing us by about 17 minutes.
The race ended on the beach in Seaside,
and we felt it necessary to plunge our tired bodies into the frigid Pacific
Ocean. We had traveled from the oppressive heat of the East Coast to the
numbingly cold waters of the West Coast, and we had been more successful than
we had ever expected.
When we returned to Charleston, we had
plenty of stories to tell, but more importantly, we had learned lessons that we
will not soon forget - about running, about life and about ourselves.
Paul Bowers is a senior at Summerville High School. Contact him at paul@thebowershome.com.
Summerville Cross Country Web Site (Lots of Pictures)