Sub 4:00 by Chris Lear

Author:Chris Lear
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2003-03-17T05:00:00+00:00

THE RELAY

CRACK!—and they’re off. The 1200-meter runners bang into one another like pinballs off the start, jockeying for position into the curve.

Within seconds, as Sully watches from the east stands on the backstretch, he hears a loud gasp emanate from the fans on the homestretch. On the track, Lincoln, Arkansas’s leadoff man, hears a loud “Shit!” moments before he hears the sound of a baton hitting the ground. He turns his head to see Villanova’s Ryan Hayden turning in the opposite direction to retrieve it.

Hayden had been gripping the baton at the very top, not in the middle, and his arm swung backward just as Abilene Christian’s Jean-Marie Ndikumana came tumbling into him. As Ndikumana braced himself, his arm flew into Hayden’s baton, popping it loose from his hand.

A year ago, Villanova won the event for the first time in 20 years. And they validated that title by winning the distance medley at this year’s NCAA Indoor Championships. Now, seeing Hayden lurching backward to retrieve the stick, Lincoln has a single thought: Go! He doesn’t want to lead, but given the circumstances, he’s more than happy to hammer to squash any hope Villanova may harbor of getting back into contention.

The development is a bad omen for Michigan. Sully was hoping the leadoff leg would be a tactical “sit and kick” affair. In such a race, Cookie would at least have a chance of getting the stick across in contention. The hot pace spells trouble for him.

Yet, for 800 meters, Cookie hangs gamely onto the back of the pack. He comes through the half at the back in 1:55, but 100 meters later, as he heads into the backstretch, he starts to slowly lose contact. With 200 meters to go, his gait slows to a painful crawl. As Cookie tells me later, “That’s when the fat kid from the slow heat jumped on my back.”

Back in Ann Arbor, Brannen watches the race on his computer monitor via a live Internet broadcast. He stares wordlessly at the screen as he watches Cookie fall out of contention. All year, he’d looked forward to this moment. Now, to watch the race go up in smoke when he should have had the stick is too much. Before Cookie can even finish his leg, Brannen abruptly turns off the monitor.

Even Villanova’s Hayden, who had stopped dead and run backward to retrieve the baton after his initial gaffe, catches Cookie in the final homestretch. Cookie is still running as the clock ticks over 3 minutes. Sully wordlessly shakes his head in disgust. Michigan is buried in last place, 10 seconds off the lead, when Lamb sets off on his quarter. Like Villanova, their day is done, and three men have yet to run.

Lamb runs a superb quarter, recording his first-ever sub-47-second split, and passes even Villanova when their quarter-miler, Paul Moser, trips before he can pass the stick to Jason Jabaut for the 800-meter leg.

Schneider follows up with an awful 1:55 leg.

Then Webb and Blincoe, the two

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