I'm a sucker for superstitious traditions when it comes to racing. I always
wear my lucky shorts and attach my bib number with exactly 3 safety pins.
I always have 1 slice of toast, lightly buttered, and 1 cup of black coffee.
As I carefully place a large rock on the rail next to the starting line
of the Syracuse University track, I'm aware that this particular ritual is
not a normal part of my road race routine, but it seems extremely
fitting nevertheless. As it happens, today's race, the most important
one of the year, starts less than 200 meters from the track where I've
spent the last six weeks preparing to race.

Now you may laugh at this, but I never start a workout without carefully
arranging a line of pebbles on the rail next to the starting line. Each
pebble stands for an interval, and when it is done I remove the 
corresponding pebble and throw it ceremoniously into the parking lot. It's
just one of my strange quirks, and it amuses my running buddies. Today,
there is only one interval to do, but it is a big one. Hence the big rock
on the rail.

The race is the Syracuse Festival of Races 5K. As I line up 5 rows behind
the Kenyans in a field of some 400 runners, I'm keenly aware of the 
pressure I've put on myself for this race. Like dominoes, I have
arranged 3 goals in my mind, each more modest than the last. The 17:40
mark Jack Daniels has been kind enough to set for me -- based upon my
mythical training "VDOT" -- is the first. Behind it,  merely to better last 
year's time on this course (17:55). And last is the 18:05 mark I need to 
score 6 points for the 5K in our faculty/staff running league. 

I should be confident. My training went very well, at least in the beginning.
But a slight hamstring pull in the final weeks and a nasty cold I'd picked
up just 4 days before have shaken me. And at age 47 I've begun to feel I'm
simply too old for this kind of nonsense.  "You are old, Father William...," 
the words of Lewis Carrol echo in my mind as I edge 1 row further back in 
the pack.

At the gun, the pack surges forward and I am carried along as if in the
grip of a living thing. For the first hundred meters or so of a road
race there is the wonderful sense that we are all running together; and in
the mingled sounds of footfalls and shouts from bystanders lining the
streets, the first K passes almost unnoticed. 3:27: Too fast, but somehow
I don't care. I'm feeling good, energized, almost frolicking. The mile:
5:39.

I'm already passing runners, many of them young and fit looking, though
perhaps new to running. My wife had worked registration the previous day
and told an amusing anecdote of a young man who had approached her and
asked "what's this race all about?" She had explained that it is a race
of about 3 miles on city streets and is one of the most competitive races
held during the year in our area. "Are there prizes?", he asked. "Yes,
first prize is $1000," my wife explained. "Last year the winner, a man
named Sammy N'geno, ran the course in 13 minutes and 40 seconds and he is 
returning this year to defend his title." The young man stood for several
moments doing the mental arithmetic. "I think I could do that!", he said,
brightening. "If it meant winning $1000 I think I could just really push
myself, you know? Just really bear down and suck it up and do what it takes
to win the money." She saw him later at another table filling out an
entry form. Perhaps this very young man was one of those now beginning to drift
back, having learned that effort and desire alone are not sufficient in
this simplest of sports.
 
I can almost hear the first domino falling as I finish kilometer 2 in
3:35. That's a fine pace if you want to dip into the 17:50's, but it is
not going to cut it for 17:40. Moreover, it is moving in the wrong direction.
It is one thing when you conciously back off and run a slower split for
strategic purposes, but when a split slows on its own accord it is very
bad news. The same effort will buy less and less, and subsequent spits will
tend to slow even further without a supreme effort.

I hit 3K in 10:41, only one second slower than last year's pace, but already
the second domino is gone. The trend is clear. I will probably not
break 18:00, and will do well to salvage even the third goal.

As I tire, I drift to the extreme right side of the road, as if there is
some protection to be gotten from hugging the curb. This part of the
course is a long, sweeping, wide open curve. It is hard to carry a pace
when the horizon looks far away, even harder if it is in the late stages
of a 5K. I had jogged this part of the course before the race, visualizing
myself "just really bearing down and sucking it up," but all of that seems
far away now.

At the 4K mark I'm dimly aware of a familiar voice yelling "Terry, it's only
1K. You can get those 3 guys in front of you!" I consider briefly the
consequences of the heroic effort it would take to make up those 3 places.
Instead of finishing in nth place, I finish in place n-3. Somehow, at 4K
the difference just doesn't seem that compelling. 

The last of the dominoes falls as I lunge across the line in 18:06, one
second shy of a 6 point performance. All things considered, though, it
seems a creditable effort and I don't feel as if I have left anything
on the course.

Postrace congratulations and commiserations behind me, there remains 1 job
to do. The rock, as I lift it from the rail next to the starting line, seems
neither too heavy nor too light. In heft, it seems to be about right. I
ignore the curious look from a couple walking their dog near the infield as
I heave the rock into the parking lot. "It's a runner thing," I think to
myself. "You wouldn't understand."