Beginning with the premise that there's a story behind every race
t-shirt, hence, every runner has a story regarding
every race they've run, this feature attempts to share a few of these unique
experiences with the reader.
TRAINING RUN REDEFINED
It started like any other normal day in Smallville, KS, except
this wasn't quite Smallville, but almost. I wasn't feeling too super
myself, so I opted for the 2 mile run that day at Lakin's Rodeo Run, and
thenassisted at the finish line for the 5 mile race. To the
bestof my knowledge there was nothing out of the ordinary to be expected
during the race, and as usual, Jeff Bernasky came in first with a good
time. Coming in second was Steve Nash, and so far I still wasn't aware
of anything out of the ordinary. The third finisher was (I think)a
local girl named Joan Parks who was obviously a very good runner.
While waiting for the next finisher,
we were joined by another race volunteer who had been marshalling part
of the course. He told us of noticing that a train was coming (and
the race course was to cross the tracks), and since he knew she (Parks)
was coming, he thought she might have to wait for the train. He intended
to time how long she had to wait in case it could be subtracted again after
she finished.
She related how she hadn't had to wait
on the train, it was gone before she got there, but she got excited about
the runner that had been ahead of her. He had crossed right in front
of the train. The engineer was blowing the whistle like the dickens
and he still crossed. It didn't take much sleuthing to figure that
it had to have been either Jeff or Steve, and most likely Steve. I
had to find out from Steve what had prompted such a stunt. He must
think he's Superman or something, faster than a speeding locomotive and all
that. Steve wasn't to be found. He'd evidently already headed
for his fortress of solitude.
I tracked down Steve at another
racethe next week in Dodge City. When asked, he told me he'd seen
thetrain when it was about a quarter mile away. It was then he decided
that he could outrun it. He'd just put his head down and ran hard.
"Didn't you hear the whistle?"
He did but he ignored it. He never
looked toward the train again until he was across.
"Wasn't there a crossing
guard down or anything?"
There was but he just ran around it.
As soon as he got across he felt the wind from the train and he looked
backbut it was already gone. It was Amtrak. If he'd known it
wasAmtrak he wouldn't have tried to cross ahead of it.
"So you're just used to outrunning regular trains?"
That wasn't it. He just thought
he'd be waiting for a long freight train while Jeff got further ahead and
others would be catching up to him.
So that's the story of the race that redefined
"training run" that day in Lakin. Steve Nash later moved to Vinita,
OK and still races some, and unless you're a superman yourself, you'll probably
need a little Kryptonite to outrun him.
According to another contemporary account, Nash is a little more like Clark
Kent except in races. Earlier the week of the race described above,
Paul Hewson and Roger Unruh were running with Nash when they came upon some
parked train cars blocking their path. Hewson and Unruh climbed over
between cars to continue running, but had to stop and coax Nash who wasn't
comfortable around trains. By that time, they had lost their "zone"
but the three runners went on with their practice run. Considering
Nash'sremarkable transformation on race day , I reckon he must have been
able tofind a convenient phone booth on Saturday morning.