Delayed Gratification

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

The clamshells have yet to arrive, though unlike the Eugene Half Marathon’s never fulfilled promise of award-by-mail delivery (you think I’ve forgotten?…think again!), I have faith that those prized hand-painted quahog trophies will arrive any day now. Victory Number Six is in the books, even if it took hours to discover that it wasn’t nearly as hard to notch as we’d anticipated and even if we – as yet – have nothing to show for it.

Winter in New England means it’s time to plod to Hyannis for the only thing that happens on the Cape between the Cape Cod Marathon and spring. Blown away by last year’s absurd concentration of blizzards, the Hyannis Festival of Oh So Many Events returned this year and broke out on a day oh-so-typical of this year’s Quasi-Winter, that is, it was barely winter at all. Brilliant sunshine and mild air made for a far more inviting than usual day to bask with over two dozen of my local club mates, though the weather’s racing-worthiness was another matter, sporting the fiercest winds I can recall in my six trips to the party. But wind or not, traditions must go on. And the real challenge, frankly, is how to tell the story of number six in a way that makes you, dear reader, want to relive this dream yet one more time.

So we’ll start with the differences, namely that this year’s Highland City Striders Masters team had little in common with any previous year’s team. There’s an old yarn about an eighties band who replaced their entire group during the course of a single tour (and of course I can’t recall who it was, but I’m sure you’ll all remind me). Certainly our team has undergone changes over the years, most notably with the tragic loss of Rocket John, but for five previous appearances, Captain Dan got the band back together, yours truly held the beat, and we filled in a couple more roadway musicians, usually for at least a span of a couple years each, to get that winning sound back each winter.

But this year Captain Dan answered a higher calling, abandoning his squad for the allure of finishing his sixth world majors marathon in Tokyo. Seriously? Tokyo over Hyannis in the winter? Admittedly he scored the bigger adventure, and I scored the temporary management of a team of…nobody. Not one returnee. Other than myself, starting from scratch. [Ed Note: Man Number Two doth protest said recollection and reminds me that Captain Dan did pursue him, so no, technically I wasn’t starting entirely from scratch. While Number Two did indeed have Hyannis experience, this was his initiation to the Men’s Masters team. PolitiFact would rate it “Mostly True” but certainly not “Pants on Fire”!] But how hard should it be to find three old guys in our ever-growing club? How about three reasonably fast old guys who would alleviate Captain Dan’s fear that we *gasp* might not retain our crown? How about three reasonably fast old guys whom I could convince really were reasonably fast?

The first part wasn’t hard. The second, only moderately (though alleviating Captain Dan’s fears was somewhat tougher). The third took some work. I’ll swear on your favorite book of faith that I plugged in only the estimated paces that my new teammates offered up themselves, but by race day you’d have thought I put them up to facing off against Galen Rupp. Clearly the weight of Captain Dan’s potential wrath bore down on them; the fear of his everlasting scorn should he return from the Land of the Rising Sun to learn that our streak was broken. As for me, I took the stance I take every year: if someone showed up who really wanted it, we’d have a rough go; if not, it’s clamshell time. Some years it’s been a contest. Others, not so much. This one, it would turn out, was one of those others, but it would take a while to figure that out.

Hanging at the exchange zone for my traditional third leg there didn’t seem to be many old dudes in sight, but appearances can be deceiving; I’d be pouring it onto the course and taking no chances. To my delight, our Number Two Man flew into the zone ahead of forecast in what I thought was – and kicked myself later for not being certain – a surprising fifth place. Not bad for our first two old guys, not bad at all. And nobody in front of them looked remotely old.

I’d conservatively plugged in my own forecast pace at twenty seconds slower per mile than my ten mile leg at Mill Cities back in December. Politics aside, conservatism can be a good thing. The wind, always present at Hyannis and almost always to the disadvantage of legs one and three, outdid itself. Save for about a mile and a half early on, this one was an epic battle against that one key element. And while it was nice to take the stick near the leaders, the lonely sparseness of the front offered no drafting opportunities. I picked off three relay teams and a bunch of full marathoners, handed off to Anchor Man Peter, and then realized I’d merely made my conservative pace – ironically within one second total over seven miles – yet feeling demolished as if I’d run a world record.

Remarkably, other than our Number Two, who, enjoying the downwind segment, clipped about a minute off his forecast, the rest of us had astoundingly accurate days like mine: Number One coming within eight seconds of plan, and Anchor Man, who’d been the most nervous about his prediction and his contribution to the team, arriving two seconds ahead of schedule. Consider: three of the four legs within eight seconds of forecast – not per mile but for the entire legs. Now if that ain’t planning, well…

We rolled in a few minutes shy of three hours, good enough to win it most years, but no guarantee. Anchor Man knew he’d lost one relay place (which would have put us third overall if my counting was right) but was fairly certain it wasn’t to an ancient. We thought we had title number six, but with the mayhem of multiple events, you just can’t be certain, and the team results always tend to be the last to arrive…so…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

The first sign of trouble came when the race director called us up to verify we were, in fact, a masters team. That was odd, because he knows us. He’s awarded us clamshells many times before, and even noted our repetitive dominance when he’s called out our victories. For him, it turned out, this was just a sanity check, verifying that what he was seeing, what knew was wrong, was indeed wrong.

The second sign of trouble came when our phones buzzed with the automatic emailed results that put our team in fifth place overall and listed our age as zero – yep, zero. While I kicked myself for not counting more carefully at the exchange zone, I was pretty sure that fifth was highly unlikely.

Confirmation of trouble came minutes later, when said race director officially threw up his hands. Somehow every relay team was misclassified, every placing was mistaken, every division was just plain missed up (yes, that was intentional – to paraphrase Jeb!, please groan). Rather than trying to unsort the debris on the fly, he apologetically promised to ship our awards and offered up a generous “I’m sorry” bonus for next year. Though disappointing to ourselves and many other teams, I applauded his decision to get it right rather than get it fast.

Though we didn’t have assurance of the win, we were, admittedly, slightly presumptuous in posing for an imaginary clamshell picture – really, just imagine we’re holding them – but otherwise, we just had to…

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

…for only a brief few hours, till the wreckage was cleaned up and the truth was posted online by the evening. Yes, our counting was right, third overall – even amongst the young’uns – highly pleasing to a bunch of old farts. And yes, another masters division win for the home team, number six. The only surprise was our lack of competition. All that concern, all that angst, and the other team? (Yes, it turned out there were only two in our division – go figure.) Over an hour behind us.

Needless to say, we needn’t have worried, but you never know. And having to wait that much longer to find out made the result that much more pleasing. After all, instant gratification is for sprinters.