By Matt Evans

Commentary

The miles hardest to train for are always in the middle. I tell myself that every year, and every year I find myself in the same quandary: out of air, out of legs, exhausted, heaving up a hill. Somehow, just somehow, I find the strength to continue on with a flush red face, and the pain subsides.

It happens in every race over 5000 meters (3.1 miles) for me. It happened to me in the Papa John’s 10 miler last Saturday. Somewhere in Iroquois Park, I realized just how exhausted I was, and then scaled myself back just a little bit more to make myself feel a little cheaper than I should.

I started off a little too quickly with the fast boys, and then, in the park, I was paying the price, going up a hill. I think to myself that this race can still be salvaged, but this seems less plausible as I make it out of the park and am making no headway.

The miles seem long and longer until an infinite or finite point of exhaustion, but I know it will all be over soon in some brilliant blitz. I must push for that point at any cost. I run by an old fart playing, “Going to Fly Now” from the movie “Rocky,” and I know that I’m going to fly sooner or later. The feet come off the ground a little more quickly, and the cadence gets a little better.

I see Central Avenue and push my head against the wind. I feel like Bennie, but my legs are the jets, and I know just at this moment what I should have known all along: The moment comes when you make or break, and I now I will break everyone else. I push another running, shouting words of encouragement as I round the stadium walkways, pushing just a little harder.

I come into the stadium and blow through the grass. I breathe a little harder and finish. No chip. No recording of my accomplishment. Only a few will know my greatness, and few might belittle my accomplishments.

I care not for these people, for they are quite little.

I care for myself.

I look back sadly, knowing that we should not name this race after some fat cat who held his esteem in the spotlight. Rather, we should name this race after the man who so prominently ran this events for so many years, Gil Clark. The race was previously named after the Metro Parks Director as the Gil Clark Memorial Run which ran into Churchill Down; now, it’s sadly named after some U of L alumnus. That’s sad. What did Papa Johns ever do for running?

I leave and know that I will greet the thousands of people once again in the MiniMarathon. Oh, the pain I will feel, I tell myself. I know the time, though, now, an hour and 16 minutes.

That’s what I’ll run in the mini.

Yep, I hope for that time, to trim 10 minutes off my personal record. So it goes. Foot after foot. Pain to pain. Ashes to ashes. We know good old Tom’s a junkie, and that can’t be helped. For now, at this moment, I’m running by the next registration, thinking of Iroquois Park.

Spare me not the prize.

Give me not the talk.

Present me with life so primal.

Give me those things I hold dear. A life on my feet, day after day.