Individuality wrote:
Post-Fontaine wrote:I watched a kid "Prefontaine" himself into the lead with 1200m to go in the Oregon HS State Championship only to stagger in to the finish 3 minutes later, barely moving forward, with guys streaming by him on both sides. He went from 1st to 24th in the matter of 3 minutes and his team lost by 15. To collapse that badly, that quickly in a 5K he must have already been on empty when he made his move. Had he protected his place he and his team go home with a trophy.
This was only the most dramatic example of kids pulling off ridiculous stunts in trying to win the state meet against all odds. These kids are inundated with Prefontaine quotes about seeing who has the most guts and it inspires them to throw races at the biggest meet of the year.
I don't blame the kids for trying but coaches need to make sure they under the physiological limits of running. The starting line is not an even playing field. Not everyone can win just because really want to.
Let's change the quote on the t-shirts next year.
His team lost the meet, it is not on him, someone else should have scored higher and they would have won, but they didnt have anyone they lost, why not blame it on the 6 runner for not beating this kid?... This kid was running his race... just like everyone else... people like you are the reason why they should do away with the 'team' scores etc at XC Meets, it makes people like you feel entitled to have everybody run the race you want because of your goals, instead of their own race. The kid was true to himself, which means a lot considering the prvcks like you who'll critize him for it.
But it is a team race.
This kid was dotting the "i" in TEAM and cost his school the win. As I was suggesting in my original post, coaches, fans and athletes fetishize this spirit of Pre to the point that we inspire the ridiculous. I'd put this particular race in the category of stunt racing that we see out of Famiglietti . Yeah, it's fun to watch a guy gamble like that but in this case he wasn't just playing with his own money.
And to illustrate just how extreme this move was I'll point out again that he spent several days in the hospital following the meet. This wasn't just taking a stab at the win this was the Return of Falmouth.