by Chris Lear
Wetmore is enthusiastic about Ruhl and the other aspirant’s
chances. “Almost all the guys who try to make it will make it. Those who don’t get scared and run away.” Those who do not make it are lacking what Wetmore refers to as “the right stuff.”
“‘The right stuff’ on this level,” he says, “is some combination of these four qualities: talent, durability, determination, and courage. Not everyone needs to have a monster four, but everyone has to have some combination of the four of these. You need some level of all four, and not having one will kill you.”
He offers himself by way of example. “If I came out for my own team, I’d cut me. I have no talent.” But a lack of talent can be made up for by an overabundance of courage. “You’re not gonna die,” he says. “This isn’t jousting, but some people are just petrified. They can’t do it.”
One guy not lacking in courage is Goucher. “Yeah,” Wetmore says,
“he’s a big talent, and he’ll hold his hand in the fire. He’s got above average courage. He’ll go up against anybody. If there’s a weakness, it’s his durability. He’s got allergies, chronically sprained ankles. But the allergies—Christ they kill him!” He sums up his star pupil, with an eye to the future: “He’s got three out of four. If he’s got durability and can do ten years of one-hundred-plus-mile weeks, he’ll have four out of four, and he’ll be hard to beat . . .”
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Time to Work
The men are doing a “steady” medium-distance run this afternoon. It is not an easy run. In Wetmorespeak, “steady” means hard but controlled.
The men will have four hard days a week—Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday—all season long. It is the density of this training that separates Wetmore’s men from most other teams.
The longest group will run the Marshall loop, 15.7 miles. Wetmore knows the exact distance, and it is one of the reasons he assigns this run.
He says, “It’s a quantifiable run. I like to know what we do.” He reconsiders his choice of words before saying, “I need to know what we do.”
The men head out en masse, and Goucher immediately takes the
point with Berkshire and Batliner just a few steps behind him. Batliner and Berkshire are chatting with one another when Goucher pulls away from them just a mile into the run. Once he has distanced himself he pointedly remarks, “One thing I hope these guys learn is that when you’re here, you’re here to train, not to socialize. I’ll socialize later. If I sit there and talk like Wes back there on a run, I feel like I am cheating, cheating myself. I know I can beat anybody in the country, but when I train hard, it gives me that extra confidence.” He passes three miles in 18:12.
Is Goucher going faster than steady? He pointedly remarks, “No. If you’re talking, you’re not going steady. If I’m running and people are talking around me, I feel I should be running harder.”
He burps, and his indigestion only adds to his irritation. “See,” he says, “that’s because I ate lunch. I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at two o’clock.” He burps again. “Shit! I like to feel hungry.”
Goucher never eats lunch. If he is hungry, he will have a granola bar or another light snack. The guys, especially Reese, kid him that he does not eat enough. He used to eat more. Standing 5′9′′ to 5′10′′, he weighs in at just under 140 pounds. At the Olympic Trials in Atlanta in 1996, he weighed 145. After the 5000-meter final, where he finished a disappointing fourteenth, Wetmore told him he was fat. Goucher was livid. When he calmed down he realized Wetmore was right, and he has made a conscious effort to lose any excess weight since then. He feels the difference. “My chest was bigger, my arms were bigger. Losing the five pounds has helped me thin out, and it’s cut me more. It’s made a big difference.”
Still cut, he does not lift weights. “I love to lift,” he says, but it bulks him up too much, so Wetmore will not allow it. Now the only upper-body 42
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work he does are push-ups and situps. Still, much like Steve Prefontaine, the great American 5000-meter runner, he is blessed with tremendous upper-body strength. Pound for pound, there is arguably no stronger distance runner in the United States, and maybe even the world.
At about 3.5 miles, Batliner and Friedberg catch Goucher. Goucher turns to them and says in a slightly condescending tone, “So, you guys decided to start training?” Batliner, visibly pissed, replies, “Yeah, that’s it.”
Soon after Bat stops for a pit stop, and Friedberg and Goucher decide to take one as well. Batliner takes his time. Goucher waits for a minute before departing without Batliner or Friedberg.
Goucher runs solo the rest of the way. As he runs a tune from country singer Tim McGraw plays in his mind. The song is one of many things that he will think about during the course of a run. Many times he thinks of the mundane, such as what he will have for dinner, or his homework.
But right now the exertion is rising. “I’m thinking that I’m tired,” he says,
“but I just have to maintain.”
He presses on wordlessly until about two miles from the finish at Balch, when he is forced to stop at a stoplight. “Shit!” he says. “I hate this.”
There are lines of salt streaking down his cheeks. He has hardly had anything to drink today, and he pulls his waistband down off of his hip to reveal a line of red irritated skin from the salt. “I’m not taking good enough care of myself,” he says. “I’m dehydrated.” The opposite light turns yellow and he darts across the intersection. He is easily running under six-minute-mile pace. He finishes shortly thereafter in one hour and thirty minutes. He has averaged 5:44 a mile.
Four minutes later, Batliner and Friedberg roll in as Wetmore waits for them outside the gym. They are followed by Ponce and Severy. The injury-prone Ponce has cautiously run a mile shorter than the others. “I gotta stay healthy,” he says, “I don’t need to get hurt.”
Severy would do well to follow Ponce’s example. Goucher takes one glance at his bandaged shin as he enters the gym and says, “Sev man, be careful, please!” Sev rolls his shoulder and laughs.
Reese is long gone. Yesterday’s simulated fartlek on the course wiped him out, so today he ran easy for 45 minutes around Kitt field. He, for one, is unable to handle the density of training . . . for now.
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Thursday, August 27, 1998
Balch Field House
3:15 p.m.
So Many Gouchers
The document brings joy to the guys’ eyes: Easy aerobic run to Potts. The two groups are either going 50 or 60 minutes before running eight 150-meter strides at “mile pace” on the track at Potts Field. Jason Robbie is one who needs the rest. “I’m exhausted,” he says. “It’s four days into classes, and I feel like I’ve just been through finals!”
Slattery does not join his mates. His ankle is still sore, so he is listening to the trainers and taking a day in the pool. Wetmore, however, feels no remorse about working his guys so hard. He looks at the other contenders for the national crown—Arkansas and Stanford—and he sees a large disparity in talent between them and CU. “Arkansas,” he explains,
“has a lot of Gouchers. Stanford—with Riley, Jennings, the Hausers—
they have five or six Gouchers. Our only hope is to take our Friedbergs, hang it out, and see what happens.”
“Us,” he continues, “we got a Goucher, a Bat, a Reese, a Sev, and then the talent drops precipitously.” There is an alternative to the density of training—mediocrity. “Some guys out there, who don’t get it, they think they can be a Division I distance runner on 55 miles a week.”
He pauses before thinking of how a tremendous work ethic has positioned one of his walk-ons to make the Varsity squad. “Wes,�
� he says,
“he’s doing great. The only guy who’s got less talent than him is me. But he really wants to make this team. He’s waiting for September fifth.” On September fifth Wes will get to show off his fitness at the time trial. But certainly Goucher, with all his talent, could afford to work less. “Sure,”
Wetmore says, “Goucher can be a Division 1 runner on 55 miles a week.
But he’d be running 15:48, not 13:48.” Berkshire and the others will take their next step tomorrow morning. Wetmore will be there to greet them at Kitt Field as the sun rises. They will be spiked up and ready to run at 6:30 a.m.
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Friday, August 28, 1998
Kitt Field
6:24 a.m.
St. Crispin’s Day
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England, now abed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii
by William Shakespeare
Wetmore walks quietly between the men and women who sit on the grass, stretching and switching into spikes. It is a cool fifty-degree morning and the sun is rising in the east, casting a faint glow on the Flatirons looming straight ahead. “Six minutes,” he says matter-of-factly. Three minutes later he speaks directly to those sitting on the ground who have not begun their strides. “Let’s get going on the strides. We don’t want to coddle tardiness, now do we?”
Why are they here at 6:30? For one, Thursday is always the easiest day of the week, so they should have had enough recovery to fare well this early. Second, practicing this early gives them more recovery before the week’s key workout on Sunday. Finally, it makes their lives a little more difficult, and that serves to callous them a little more and develop a shared sense of sacrifice.
Everyone is here, except for Sev. He runs onto the field with two minutes to spare. There is now 100 percent attendance. Once Sev reaches the others, Wetmore explains the workout. They will be doing 300-meter repeats back and forth on the perimeter of Kitt Field before jogging around a backstop and back (a distance of approximately 200 meters) as a recovery. Then they will start again back down the stretch in the opposite direction. “This is a neuromuscular workout,” he says, “so I’m not concerned about your rest. Take as much as you need.” Although the primary purpose of the workout is to get a neuromuscular stimulus, they will still get an aerobic benefit from today’s effort. Wetmore explains, “All we’re really doing is training their legs today, so I don’t care RUNNING WITH THE BUFFALOES
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how slowly they run their 200’s, although given 300 of every 500 is quick, they’ll probably end up running sub-six minutes a mile.”
Reese is scheduled to do eight repeats while everyone else is doing twelve to sixteen. Wetmore points to the slowest group, which includes Roybal and Robbie. “Reese, start with those guys,” he says. The briefest look of indecision crosses Wetmore’s face before he turns to JD, “I’m just worried we’re being stupid.” Reese had recently returned to running following his surgery, and Wetmore questions whether Reese should be doing any workouts yet. But this is Reese’s last collegiate cross country season, and he is adamant about pushing the envelope to give himself a chance to do well at NCAA’s. They are both prepared to live with the consequences.
Reese looks better. He still looks like he is favoring his good leg, but he has always run with a roll to his stride. He runs for the first time this morning without the knee strap he has used to stabilize his knee since the surgery. Scheduled originally to do eight repeats, he does twelve. He says afterwards, “I think we’ll be fucking good this year.”
If there is a flaw to the workout, it is that as it progresses and the men and women spread out, it becomes controlled chaos with runners going in all directions, narrowly avoiding one another. To limit potential mishaps, Wetmore is meeting the freshmen here this afternoon. Through it all, Wetmore keeps a watchful eye on both teams, noting who is suffering and who is handling the work. He will not hesitate to pull someone early if they have fallen off the back of the pack.
Goucher hammers in front, running the 300’s in about 50 seconds, two seconds ahead of the pack. Chris Valenti leads the chase pack.
“Valenti’s looking heroic today,” Wetmore observes. By way of explanation, JD says, “He’s been running 65 to 70 miles for the last month.” “Oh,”
Wetmore replies, “that’s why he looks so fresh out there.”
It is hard to make any judgments from this workout because everyone is coming into it with varying levels of fatigue. While Valenti looks great, Berkshire falls off the back after the tenth repetition. However, Berkshire is running one hundred and ten miles a week. When he is rested and they race, he may get the best of Valenti, even though Valenti murders him today.
Berkshire is not the only one suffering. Chris Schafer is quickly off the back of the pack. He runs the 300’s as fast as the others, but he needs more recovery time between intervals. Noting this, JD reasons that, “He might have done his 150’s a little fast yesterday.” “Yeah,” concurs Wetmore, “that was his day to show off (in front of the freshman girls who were out on the track).” O’Mara looks flat-out beat. Wetmore has book-marked the website showing results from the indoor meet last year 46
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when he ran 8:24 to remind himself that O’Mara possesses the right stuff. O’Mara has not shown a glimpse of those abilities yet. JD and Wetmore eye him as he labors past. “Well,” says Wetmore candidly, “I think we’re looking at our mistake.”
As the men and women get deeper into the workout, Wetmore
takes off to the opposite corner of the field, leaving JD and Lorie to take this side of the field. He turns his head and says, “I’m going here so I can offer ridicule and sarcasm to them.” The men pass him as he walks; Friedberg is hanging onto the lead pack. “Okay,” he says, “who’s feeling bad today? Friedberg? Friedberg’s feeling bad today.”
Sev, Ponce, Batliner, Blondeau, Friedberg, and Napier run together towards the end. Roybal also mixes it up with them for the first time. Wetmore pulls him aside afterwards and says quietly, “It’s about time.” “Yeah,”
Roybal replies, “I know.”
Goucher and Batliner are the last ones on the course. Goucher finishes their sixteenth and final interval with Batliner on his heels. As the men change into their trainers for their cooldown, Wetmore indirectly compliments their efforts. “It’s like St. Crispin’s Day,” he says loud enough for all to hear. “Everyone here wants to be the real deal. Everyone in this town wants to be you, and everyone who wants to be you is in bed. I’m going to do my run so I can say I fought on St. Crispin’s Day.”
This last line would be a good slogan for a T-shirt: CU Cross Country —
Where were you on St. Crispin’s Day? Wetmore will have none of it. “No slogans,” he emphatically states. “I hate slogans. I tell Goucher, you run fast and one day you can go on the Jay Leno show and just sit there.”
The day’s work done, most of the guys head to The Village Coffee Shop a half mile from Kitt Field on the corner of Folsom and Arapahoe.
It is a blue-collar place, with the best hash browns and french toast in town. The team favorite is the #5: two eggs, hash browns, and wheat toast for $3.00. Catch Sev eating one of these, though, and you will have a tough time making out what exactly lies beneath a blanket of ketchup.
Laminated articles of the team from daily papers are posted on a wall by the front
entrance of the village. If there is a place in town where the team gets star treatment, it is fittingly here. The waitresses love the runners, especially the steeplechasers. As Shana, one of the waitresses, sees Reese enter she says, “There’s my favorite man in the whole wide world!”
Batliner and 1997 graduate Clint Wells also get extra love for their hur-dling exploits.
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Kitt Field
4:20 p.m.
Bluebirds
Wetmore heads down to Kitt from his office in his university-provided Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer. He was ebullient this morning, and this was not by accident. “The team absolutely responds to me,” he says.
“If I show up at practice in a bad mood, no matter how good they’re feeling, they’ll feel worse because of me. I’ve got to remind myself every day that I’ve also got to be at my best in November. Jonathan Riley saved Stanford last year,” he continues. “I want to make sure we win this year.”
Slattery is the only guy down here, and he is joined by a large pack of freshman girls. There are five freshman girls, who make up the best freshman class Wetmore has ever had, along with a large group of walk-ons. Some of them are feeling exhausted already, so Wetmore reassures them this is how they should be feeling. “Every year from Pre-Nationals to Nationals we improve more than any other team because we are orchestrating our energy. Okay?” Even if they do not all buy what he is selling, no one argues.
Wetmore watches them go through their paces. Slattery is feeling better after a day of rest and some ibuprofen. He shows some of his speed as he runs ten intervals in 48 seconds. The pack of walk-ons moves way behind the recruits. Their pace does not discourage Wetmore. Out of this pack of walk-ons, or bluebirds, as Wetmore calls them, one may emerge as a Varsity runner, or even become an All-American. After all, the women have a walk-on to All-American legacy of their own.