Running Full Tilt by Michael Currinder

Author:Michael Currinder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Published: 2017-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

23.

GORSKY CUT OUR MILEAGE in half the final week to rest our muscles for the final race. We didn’t know what to do with all our excess energy, so by Friday morning’s departure we were bouncing off the walls. I was plenty nervous, but Curtis was an absolute train wreck.

We met Gorsky outside at his van and climbed in with our bags.

“Got everything?” Gorsky asked.

We nodded.

He turned to Curtis. “Spikes?”

Curtis blasted from his seat like someone had hit the ejection button. He sprinted back toward the locker room. For once I wasn’t the more nervous one.

Gorsky turned to me. “So how are you feeling, Leo?”

“Awesome,” I told him. “What could be better than a day off of school?” It was even better to be getting out of my house for a night, but I wasn’t going to mention that. He knew me only as a runner, and that was good enough.

“You ready to run fast?” he asked.

“Curtis says the course is a beast.”

He laughed. “He’s right about that. It’s a true cross-country course. The winner won’t necessarily be the fastest guy, but he’ll definitely be the strongest.”

“Think Curtis has a shot?”

“Of course he’s got a shot. But he’ll need to run a smart race like you did last week.” Curtis burst from the building and jogged toward the car. “Speak of the devil.”

“Onward!” Curtis yelled.

As soon as we hit the interstate, Curtis pulled out this old crumply photocopy of last year’s program with a map of the course and gave me the lay of the land. “It’s going to be an ass-kicker from the start,” he explained. “As soon as the gun goes off, we climb a long, steep incline, and then it’s basically a roller-coaster ride. This course is going to beat the crap out of most guys’ legs by the end of the first mile if they go out too fast.”

We looked at the list of previous state champions and their times. For a 5,000-meter course the times were relatively modest. “Not very impressive times,” I said.

“It’s all relative, Leo. It’s not a fast course,” he agreed. “But it’s my course.”

The drive to the capital took a little over two hours. Gorsky wouldn’t let us touch his CD player. Instead he introduced us to some guy named Herbie Hancock, and the smooth, mellow sounds actually settled Curtis. He walked me through my role as the sacrificial lamb in his quest to become state champion, just as he’d been for me in the district race. He reviewed the course topography in precise detail, drawing lines and arrows to mark the inclines and descents. His strategies and explanations weren’t really necessary, but I allowed him to ramble. My job was quite simple. When that gun went off, I was to take off like a bat out of hell and let everyone chase me, just like they chased him at district.

—

The Ramada Inn looked like a tank of tropical fish. The parking lot was filled with school buses and vans from

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