The Real Train

Alright folks so here is the beginning of my untitled story that I am working on this summer. To give you a brief synopsis, the story is about a group of high school cross country and track athletes and their overlapping journeys to the 1999 PA state championships. Hopefully you will find it an entertaining read. I haven't done any editing or anything like that yet so hopefully it is not too hard to follow/too boring. Basically the story is most flashbacks at the beginning leading up to the big state meet at the end.

All characters are fictional but those of you who have been around awhile will probably be able to see how I got some of the names.

I also don't have a title yet so for now I will just call it: The Real Train ... Because I think it is a great pun but it has nothing to do with the story. Enjoy!

The Real Train

November 7^th, 1999

The 1999 State Championships was truly a historic day in PA cross country. Jimmy Springer, the six foot one Senior from Union Valley, was looking to win his fourth championship in his four years of high school, a feat never before accomplished. He glided across the course with beautiful, long strides. Currently, he jogged lazily across the frosty Hershey golf course, seemingly unaware of his surroundings or the other hundreds of runners and fans flooding the course. As he approached the parking lot where he liked to do his pre-race stretching routine he passed a short runner wearing a purple sweat suit. The two locked eyes briefly, to which Jimmy responded with his usual stone cold stare. His own notoriety combined with this intimidating gaze was on many occasions enough to send his opponent’s eyes darting off in the opposite direction, but this runner’s eyes did not budge and as the two began to part ways, he gave Jimmy a small wink and a smile. “Good luck out there Jim-bo.”

Fear was not in Ben Havko’s vocabulary.

February 4^th, 1999

The weather in Lower Fairview was rarely conducive to a winter track season and the winter of 1999 was far from an exception to the rule. For this reason, Lower Fairview did not pour funds into the track and field department to allow for entry into any of the local (local being a relative word here) meets hosted by the TSTCA or PTFCA. The school had one of the best lacrosse programs in the state and that was how the school made money. Active track programs landed a school such as this consistently in the red.

But the school did have a track team and had actually had quite a strong history of producing quality state runners. Ryan Jewett ran a 4:14.72 mile at the 1979 state championships to claim state gold. In 1966, Kevin Donnelly ran a 9:05.66 2 mile at the Baldwin Invitational to set what was then a state record. The record stood for almost 30 years and was only beaten by a herculean effort by Paul Spooner of District One powerhouse Coatesville in 1995 to better the mark down to 9:00.05. He closed in a 57 second final quarter.

But Lower Fairview was now approaching the 20^th anniversary of Jewett’s 1979 state title, the school’s last state champion in any sport and the school had struggled mightily on the track during that time period. By this point the program was more of a club sport than anything. The school had no cross country or track and field coach and only three official team members, two of which had not raced during any of their four years at school but were simply using the team as a means of boosting their college applications.

The remaining member was quite the opposite. Ben Havko first joined Lower Fairview’s program as a freshman looking to run cross country. At this point he weighed in at roughly 90 pounds and was about 5 foot 4 inches tall. Needless to say, it was hard for him to contribute to any other high school sports programs. A competitive individual by nature, Havko’s father, Sam, suggested he take up running, a sport where everyone would get a chance to play. When Ben joined the squad, the team was a group of seven runners. The other six were seniors.

Ben was hooked immediately. He reveled in the chance to push himself to the brink, to compete on a weekly basis, and to be part of the running community. In Ben’s first race he clocked a 23:12 5k, but by the end of his freshman year he had cut almost four minutes off that mark to get down to 19:18. To say he was infatuated with running would be an insult to their relationship. Ben Havko was head over heels in love with running.

            Havko stepped out into the cold, swirling winter winds in his purple Lower Fairview sweats. He held a pair of spikes in one hand and a shovel in the other. The call came this morning to Ben’s house that the Edinboro Open track meet would have to be cancelled due to all the previous day’s snow. Looking out at his home track, it was clear that the meet directors had made a logical choice. But Ben was not to be deterred. He had adjusted his training preparing for this meet, preparing to hit the indoor state qualifying standard of 9:04.88 in the 3000m. He woke up expecting to race, and that, he decided, was what he would do.

He carefully stepped onto the track in his blue and black ASICS running shoes and dug his shovel into the snow. It was still relatively fresh and, thus, soft and easier to break up and shovel out of the way. After two hours of work, Ben had cleared out the entirety of lane one of the track. He had a pretty good sweat going by this point, so he figured he probably only needed another 10 minutes of jogging and some drills before he was ready to go.

As he jogged about, trying to keep his feet as dry as possible (which meant reasonably damp), he talked aloud to himself about the splits for his goal mark.

“So 9:00 is 72s meaning 9:04 would be about the same thing. I’d have to be at about 3:01 and 6:02, ideally closer to 6 flat so there is some cushion there if I start to tie up.”

It probably would have been odd to witness a little boy jogging around in the snow mumbling to himself, but there was no one else around to hear it or see it. There were no signs of life within quite the large radius of the track. But that didn’t matter to Ben. On the note he left for his parents before he left this morning he simply wrote, “Those who are truly great, are great when no one is watching”.

After a few drills and strides, Havko stripped down to simply his uniform, gloves and a hat. He was wearing roughly the amount of fabric that one would wear in a tanning salon in the aftermath of a February snow storm in Northern PA. He set his watch, toed the line, steadied himself and took off.

The first few steps of a race are always exhilarating. Even in conditions like this Ben still had butterflies in his stomach the first 200m, but those feelings had to be controlled. He didn’t want to waste all his energy in the first seconds of the race. The wind howled in his face on the home stretch has he went by the first time, nature was his opponent on the track today. Now he was coming back around towards his first 400m split. 72 on the nose, perfect split. He trudged on.

At 800m, it starts to hurt. It defies logic; there is still so much of the race left, why is it hurting so early? But in racing, pain is always present, but the best runners can shove it aside, convince themselves it’s all part of the plan and everything is going well. Ben did feel strong as he approached two laps and began to flood his mind with compliments. ‘You’re moving strong, this is perfect, this is easy.’ Then he split his watch. 78 for the second lap.

There are few worse feelings than thinking you are moving considerably faster than you are in a race. A pit dropped in Ben’s stomach and he knew it was time to work, he dropped his pace down and looked to hammer things back down. He was through the first 1k in 3:05, much slower than he had planned. He continued to put his head down, trying to stay on pace. He split his watch again and this time saw a 66. A bad overcompensation, his pacing was running him ragged around the track and he knew that lap could catch up to him. A sense of dread ate at the back of his mind, when would he pay the price for his mistake?

1600m in 4:47, 2000m in 5:59, 2400m in 6:10. He was rolling back on 72 pace, clicking off these even splits gave him confidence, but he was starting to feel the burn in his legs and in the back of his throat. It was hard to breadth in the cold winter air and the pace was faster than anything he had raced before. His Personal Best from last spring was just 10:08 for the 3200m, equating to roughly a 9:30 3k and 76 second laps. He was crossing the 400 to go mark, he imagined a tiny bell going off in his head as he hit the line. He fought the urge to look at his watch, it was sprint time from here on and he didn’t want to break form. But it was hard to keep it, down the back stretch his head began to wobble back and forth and his shoulders tightened up. The shoveling had probably not done his arms any favors as he tried to drive heading through 200m to go. He was tying up, clearly, over the last minute or so. His finishing kick was never really something he could hang his hat on.

As he made the turn for home, the wind really picked up, blowing straight into his face. He grit his teeth and bowed his head in agony hoping to use it as some type of battering ram against the wall of air he was trying to break through. After what felt like miles of fighting, he could finally stop his watch as he hit the line. His legs shook and he almost fell as he cross the line and stumbled over to the fence for support. Naturally before he could even catch his breath or understand his surroundings he was looking at his watch for the time. 9:05.2. He gave a frustrated sigh and staggered around the turn in what was intended to be a jog to go retrieve his clothes and start his cool down.

There were an unlimited amount of excuses that Ben knew he could easily make for himself, but he let those thoughts pass him by. When he was finally back home in a warm bath, soaking his aching limbs he could at least take solace in the fact that he had just set a 25 second PR.