THE FIRST RACE OF THE SEASON was the University City Invitational. Curtis and I nabbed the back seats of the bus and he gave me a rundown of what to expect in the race.
“This is a tricky course,” he emphasized. “If you don’t get out quick, you’re going to find yourself up shit’s creek without a paddle.”
“Suddenly I feel nervous,” I mumbled to Curtis.
“You’re also going to want to piss ten times between now and when that gun goes off,” Rosenthal said, looking over his shoulder. He and Stuper were in the seat in front of us and eavesdropping on our conversation.
“Rasmussen sometimes pisses thirty times before a race,” Stuper announced loudly. “And Burpee can verify.”
“He once pissed forty-seven times,” Burpee confirmed.
“I’m writing a paper on it for biology,” Rasmussen announced.
“And what have you discovered thus far in your research?” Curtis asked.
“I’ve only come up with my title so far,” Rasmussen admitted. “I’m calling my work ‘The Rasmussen Phenomenon: The Trickle-Down Effect.’ ”
I turned to Burpee. “Speaking of urine, what kind of name is Burpee, anyway?”
“It’s Welsh,” he informed me. “I have not one but two bodily functions in one last name,” he said proudly. “What more could a guy want in life?”
“That his future life partner feels the same way,” Stuper said, laughing.
When we pulled into the parking lot, Curtis refocused the conversation. “We’ll have plenty of time to jog the course and squelch the butterflies,” Curtis assured me. “You’ve got to have a plan for this race, or you’ll get killed.”
“I feel like I’m going to puke. I’m serious.”
He laughed. “Just do me a favor and make sure and direct it toward Stuper if you’re going to hurl.”
The parking lot was full of school buses unloading runners in sweats who were lugging gym bags toward an open field bordered by forest and a golf course. Our team set up camp beneath a tall, shady oak tree between the Clayton and De Smet teams. After we dropped our stuff, Curtis and I met up with Stuper and Burpee to preview the course. “We’ll start on the opposite side of this field,” Curtis explained as we headed off in a slow jog. “It’s wide open, so runners get a brief chance to sort and position themselves, and then the course angles toward that tree line we’re running toward now. We’ll follow it over a series of hills for about a mile before we head into the forest down a very narrow trail. That’s where things get interesting,” he told me. “Just jog slowly, shake off the bus ride, and try to settle your nerves.”
Inside the forest, the path was no wider than two feet across in most sections, and bordered by trees that forced us to run single file. “Once you get in here, it’s going to be virtually impossible to pass anyone. It’s about eight hundred meters of single-track running before it opens up again, so if you get out slow, you’re pretty much screwed.”
“And after this?” I asked.
“You’ll find out.” We jogged in silence down the narrow forest trail. There were a few places where the trail was maybe wide enough for two abreast, but Curtis was right—it would be difficult to slip past anyone. The trail eventually opened into the large field where the start and finish were located.
“That’s it?”
Curtis laughed. “Not a chance. You run past the starting line and circle the edge of that field.” He pointed to an expanse of baseball diamonds opposite where we started. “Then we repeat the loop. When you come out of the trail the second time, you make a beeline for the finish straight ahead. It’s over before you know it.”
We jogged the rest of the course in silence, did some light stretching with the rest of the team, and, with ten minutes before the gun went off, put on our spikes and did a few long strides across the field near the start. There were at least a hundred runners competing from schools all across the city.
Gorsky met us as we made our way to the starting alleys. “How are you doing, Leo?” he asked.
“I feel sick to my stomach.”
He laughed. “Nervous is good, son. You should be nervous. If you weren’t, I’d worry about you.”
My body felt tight. I grabbed my foot, pulled my knee back toward my butt, and tried to stretch my quads.
“Today you’re just learning what a race is all about, son. What you do today will help you understand what you need to do next time.” Gorsky patted me on the shoulder. “Once that gun goes off, Leo, all those butterflies will go away. Try to relax and have some fun.”
Curtis was already on the starting line. He waved me over. “Stay with me,” he said, swatting me lightly on the back. “I know you can do this,” he encouraged me. “Just stay right behind me, and you’ll be fine.”
The race official lined us up in alleys by school, a hundred runners tightly packed behind a white chalk line. At the pistol blast, the pack exploded off the line. We were a mass of elbows and knees churning at high speed. Runners held their line for the first hundred meters before the mass began to untangle.
I spotted Curtis ten meters beyond me. He had made an aggressive move toward the front of the pack as he promised, so I threaded my way through a mob of red and white singlets to pull beside him. His face was relaxed, his eyes focused toward a distant target. Sensing my presence, he paused his arm midswing and signaled a thumbs-up.
The pack now began to funnel into a line like a swarm of bees, in clusters of threes and fours. When we hit the dirt path skirting the forest, I saw about twenty-five runners ahead of us, a medley of yellows, greens, maroons, whites, and golds. My eyes stayed fixed on Curtis. He extended his right hand slightly and motioned me to move up as he accelerated. We passed fifteen runners in the next three hundred meters as we headed toward the narrow trailhead.
Curtis entered first, and I let a gap of a few meters open up between us so I could see my footing. There were five guys ahead of Curtis tunneling single file through the trail. The pace slowed, the tempo steadied, and I began to settle into myself and find a rhythm to my stride and breathing. The warm, dry September air was still, and it packed my lungs. It was quiet now: only breathing, the snap of twigs, and the crunch of leaves and stone beneath our spikes. I focused on the path and Curtis’s shoulders in front of me and reminded myself to relax and drop mine.
We exited the trail, circled the open meadow, and began the second loop. There were about ten guys ahead of us now, including three way up front. In the open I pulled beside Curtis, and he motioned me to follow him as he accelerated. The first runner we passed was struggling, gasping for air, and made no effort to respond. We passed three more as we made our way toward the tree line and twelve hundred meters of rolling fairway. Cresting the first hill, we snagged three more who had begun to fade. I glimpsed the three leaders beginning their descent down the final hill. I was running stride for stride with Curtis, our breathing strong and steady. Then he suddenly yelled, “Go!”
I looked at him.
“Go!” he yelled again. “Go now or you’re screwed.” He swatted my back and I took off.
I passed a lone runner on the uphill and spotted the three leaders funneling into the trailhead, the final segment of the race. Inside the forest, the bright afternoon light disappeared again, the trail narrowed, and it was quiet. My breathing amplified. The pounding of my heart felt steady and strong, and I leaned forward to glide over the trail, remembering to touch thumbs to index fingers and pump my arms. I spotted two runners just forty meters ahead. I’d made up a lot of ground, so I willed myself to run faster, to catch them before the trail ended.
A bright light appeared, the end of the forest path, and the runners disappeared from view. Seconds later I was out of the forest, with just three hundred meters of open field to the finish. The guy in first had distanced himself, but I had a shot at taking the other two. My chest felt like it was going to blast open, but I could see the finish. I passed one, but the other guy had another gear left in him and I wasn’t able to close the gap. I crossed the line in third place.
I stumbled through the chute and turned back toward the finish line. I saw Curtis come out of the forest in pursuit of two guys twenty meters in front of him. His form was steady, composed. He caught them easily and crossed the finish line in fifth. I met him as he walked out of the finishing chute. He pointed to me and raised his hands in question, and I held up three fingers.
“I think I could have actually won the damn race if I’d taken off a little earlier,” I told him.
“No doubt,” he agreed. “But not a bad first race, Leo. Not bad at all.” The guy was barely out of breath, and I suddenly realized he gave me that race. No one had ever done something like that for me before in my life, and I wondered what his ulterior motive was. I wasn’t quite sure if, or how, I was supposed to thank him.
We put on our sweats and jogged the course once more to cool down, running the first few minutes in silence. Curtis finally spoke. “Didn’t I tell you it would be over before you know it?”
“You did,” I said.
We jogged a few more minutes. “It hurts like hell when you’re doing it,” Curtis said. “But when it’s over there’s no greater feeling than right now.”
I thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
We repeated the forest trail one more time, a perfect loop to the day. “You held back today,” I said to him.
Curtis laughed. “A keen observation, young padawan. It’s my senior year, Leo. I’m treating this season like a chess match.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see, my friend.”
Our feet tapped the packed soil, and the fall leaves crunched beneath our steps. “You’re a runner, Leo,” he told me. Then he accelerated up the trail and flashed me a thumbs-up, just like he had in the race. It was the best I’d felt in a long time.