The Complete History of Cross-Country Running by Andrew Boyd Hutchinson

Author:Andrew Boyd Hutchinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carrel Books
Published: 2017-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

During the five-lap race Virgin worked his way up to the back of the lead pack after three laps, finding himself just 100 meters behind leader Nick Rose:

I see 4–5 guys running in the lead pack and about 50 meters in front of them I see Nick Rose running solo and no one was going after him. I had another “moment of truth” decision and had to decide to either stay in the safety of the lead pack, or take off after Nick. Nick Rose and I have history. We had been rivals in college, he had beaten me in the NCAA championships my sophomore year. I beat him my junior year. I knew I would be possibly setting myself up to fail—I knew we couldn’t just give him the lead as I didn’t think he would die. I thought, ‘Did I come 3,000 miles to race for second or to try and win?’

I decided to slingshot around the lead pack and go after him. My goal was to be on Nick’s shoulder with a lap to go and to try to out sprint him on the last lap. I got closer and closer but on the home straight with a lap to go he looked back, saw me and took off. I looked over my shoulder and saw two runners coming up and thought I could be in trouble. I worked so hard to catch him and when he took off I was just dead in the water. I was sucking wind and suddenly 3, 4, 5 were coming up on me. In that moment, I had another defining moment of truth and I had to answer the call. Instead of giving up and saying, “I gave it the old college try,” I had to make a decision once again to hang in there and let them push me as they were right behind me. I forced myself to recover on the run. I forced myself to stay with the pack when they caught me.

Over the next 1K I fought through the pain and agony of burning lungs. Then out of nowhere I got a second wind. West German Hans-Jürgen Orthmann and Belgian Leon Schots were on my shoulder and we were chasing Nick Rose with the Russian Aleksandras Antipovis chasing us. The stage was set. Rose paid a price for making a big move at the bell lap. He was fading and we were closing. Orthmann took off with 600 or 700 yards to go. I had practiced the final stretch of the course several times during the two days before the meet and decided the straightaway was too long to start my kick so early. So I held back until under 400 meters to go and made first one move and then a second move with 150 meters to go and got by Rose. I look at the finish line and realize I may be able to catch Orthmann. As I came up behind Orthmann I wanted to use the element of surprise.

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