Track Day
Back in the day when I was a wee little boy, El Capitan, the elementary school of my youth, would shut down for one day in the spring right before it released the tormented students for the glorious summer months. This one day was looked forward to like Christmas or one's birthday. We would train like miniature Olympians sprinting from one end of the playground to the other in the weeks leading up to this fateful day. Hoping like all men have hoped that greatness on the field of play will somehow translate to greatness in our lives off of it, in the minds of our peers and of course and most importantly in the minds of the ladies. Even at that young age we knew how important it was to shine on that day, the greatest of all days--FIELD DAY.
Fast forward a couple years and you'll find that same spirit exists anytime a man steps onto a field...football, soccer, baseball and track. Men yearning to make their mark.
Men measuring themselves against one another in hopes of being the best. Being better. Being great.
May 22nd was one of those days.
SOM 13 was track and field day on the man calendar. At this point last year track day featured the track but no field and so we set out to remedy that problem. After much discussion we added discus and long jump to the slate of events, one of which would spell doom for one of the competitors. One of which would change the course of the Summer of Man 2011 completely.
Coming into the day most viewed Couls as the favorite. He had the swagger of leading man, wearing the first place bracelet for yet another week like a heavyweight boxer climbing into the ring with the champs belt, and the pedigree of a high school track hero. Once upon a time Kris Couls anchored a 4X100 relay team that competed with the best of teams in all of California. There is even rumor that he beat Mo Jo Drew back when they both ran track in high school. Not a bad resume.
But that was then. We were all great once.
We started out the day with the 40. Last years numbers would have to improve dramatically if any of us wanted to best the new comer. The loss of last years champ--the Darkhorse--left an opening for a new winner in the 40. Couls looked to be this man. After posting a time of 5.5 sec he quickly bested that by running a 5.1, a full .35 seconds ahead of Bing, who oddly enough is quite quick for a big guy. Sean fell a mere .05 seconds behind Bing at 5.5 and Jantz and I tied at the bottom with a respectable old man time of 5.7 (Jantz won the head to head sprint off to capture 4th place). Pete, whom many thought would make an appearance per his MO (that being he shows when he knows he can do well and vanishes when he senses he won't) was curiously absent from track day as was the resident stoner, Johnson, who slept through the morning's events.
The results thru one:
Couls 5.1
(he didn't run his third sprint after posting the best time in his second thus robbing man challenge of a possible sub 5.0 40 time)
Bing 5.45
Sean 5.5
Jantz 5.7 (won the sprint off)
Zach 5.7
In the days second challenge it was decided to mix in a field event. This would prove to be a defining decision on the day. The long jump would be the battleground for round two. Couls was rumored to be state champion class in this event as well by his hype man and fellow competitor Matt Bingaman although the commish's office is still waiting on trophies, a school record book or momma's newspaper clippings to back up these assertions. Regardless going into this event, Couls was again looked at as the man to beat. That was until his second jump. A jump that would prove more costly than anyone could imagine.
At the time of Couls' second jump, Sean was leading with Jantz and Bing tied and zVirus yards behind. Couls' first jump had been dramatically shorter than had been expected and he was looking to make a statement. Running full steam at the pit the man who had once been the kid that flashed brilliance on the oval; the kid who took down NFL running backs; the kid who set high school records, took of into space and when he came back down to earth the kid who had become a man felt all those years that it takes to become a man catch up to him. All those nights of heavy drinking and early mornings in the taco bell drive thru, all those sleepless nights spent watching the sun come and days laying around nursing a hangover playing Tiger Woods golf came crashing down on the kid who had become a man. Came crashing down right on his dehydrated rarely used hamstring.
When Kris Couls went up on that second jump he was the all out favorite to win the day. When he came down everything had changed.
Jantz ended up reeling off a 17' jump that would put him in first ahead of Couls' first jump (we did 3 jumps and took our longest of the 3). Sean would come in 3rd, Bing 4th and Zach 5th.
It was decided that in order to give Couls a chance to see if he could nurse the hamstring back into action we would throw the discus next, a non running event. While Kris began the process of trying to coax his hammie back to good, Bing toed the line and let loose with what would stand as the longest throw of the day--49.5'.
(sidenote: Given that not a single one of us were high school track coaches and the commissioner's office did not have it in the budget to purchase an actual discus, we just manned up and threw a five lb plate)
After three rounds the standings at discus was:
Bing 1st 49.5'
Zach 2nd
Jantz 3rd
Sean 4th
Couls 5th
With only two events remaining, Couls had slipped from first all the way to battling for last. After trying to throw the discus on his third attempt--and failing--it was clear that he had pulled his hamstring. No amount of rest would aid in the 100, the next event. Bing now looked to be the favorite to win the sprint, with zVirus the front runner for the mile which meant that Couls would be the first man to go into the day as the clear cut favorite to win and would come out in butt naked last place no matter how the next two races finished up.
Bing led from the beginning and nabbed his second first place on the day, pretty much tying up the top spot for track day. His 12 second 100 would not be enough to break Usain Bolt's record though, which came as a pretty big surprise to all involved. Sean came in second, Jantz third and Zach fourth with Couls out due to injury.
That left the mile. After defending his title as the slowest short distance runner, Zach, winner of the mile last year, looked to also defend his title as the fastest long distance runner. Jantz would pose the biggest threat leaving Bing and Sean to contemplate failure, stroking out and throwing up together in the back. After reeling off two laps at 90 and 92 seconds, zVirus picked up the pace and left the rest of the men behind. Logging the next lap at 86.6 and the last at 86.3 the slowest sprinter of the group posted a 5:56 mile and successfully defended his mile victory. After totaling up the scores, Track and Field Day looked like this:
Bing 1st (2 first place..discus, 100)
Jantz 2nd (1 first place...Long Jump)
Sean 3rd (three 3rd places)
Zach 4th (1 first place...mile)
Couls 5th (1 first place...40)
Pete NO Show
Johnson NO Show
How we measure up to the best....
40 yard sprint....Couls 5.1 (Darrell Green of the Wash Redskins ran the fastest ever in 1986 4.09)
100 yard dash....Bing 12 (Usain Bolt holds the WR with 9.58 which he ran in 2009 in Berlin)
Mile.....................Zach 5:56 (WR is 3:43:13 by Hicham El Guerrouj from Morocco ran in 1999)
Discus................Bing 49.5 feet (WR 243 feet by Jurgen Schult in Germany in 2006, although the discus they were throwing was actually a discus (weighing in at 4 lbs 7 oz) we were throwing a 5 lb plate from the gym...ghetto but effective
Long Jump........Jantz 17 feet (Mike Powell from the USA jumped WR 26 feet 4 inches in 1991)
and finally, after some exhaustive digging and investigative work, I unearthed something I think you all would like. Check out this link and I think you'll find someone familiar. Take time to scroll down and specifically check out the tetherball throw. http://www.aboutlancs.com/cyo/cyopress.htm
I am 100% positive it was a 10 lb weight!!!
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