Matt Gad – Contributor
I honestly can not recall the last time I raced. I mean, I think it was a 5K a few years ago in Woodbridge — the Murray Lender Bagel Run. My time was around 26 minutes and I was disappointed but I had not been training properly, or enough. That has been something I have lacked since leaving high school, since my Amity cross-country and track and field days.
And so after two weeks of training I decided to do the Bob Corda 5K, put on by the cross-country and track and field teams on campus. It was something I told John Wallin I would do before, but last year I failed to find the mental toughness to push through the race. But even though I was not in the best shape, I put my body to the test. And I did the best that I could do with my current fitness level. My race time: in the 28-minute range.
Gone I am from my 22 minute race times and the great coaching and times from high school. But I can still push it — I can try get some of that speed back and just keep pushing myself harder.
And if the motivation of Wallin, Melissa Stoll and their student-athletes was not enough, timing the meet was one of my high school coaches, coach [Thom] Jacobs. He has been a huge motivator for my life on and off the running circuit. Coach is a tough coach and an even better man. If I never did high school running I would have never developed some great friendships and I would have never known two of the greatest high school coaches ever in coach Jacobs and coach [Bob] Orgovan. I was truly blessed.
And, yes, ah, the race itself: I felt alright, but how do you really pace yourself after all that time off from a race? It is really tough. It was a flat course, starting by Buley and going through the future home of Health and Human Services, passing the back fields and one of the temporary buildings, running around Lyman and hitting the sidewalk off Crescent Street. You then came all the way up the road and to the foot bridge and swept around past Connecticut Hall and down Fitch Street, before hitting the construction site. And after that the race consisted of going through North, pushing the back lots once more and powering to the finish past the basement entrance to Engelman Hall.
After I crossed the finish line I realized I could have pushed that half-mile more, knowing it was really just a giant sweep back through the quad, but in full-on race mode I was not sure of all the specifics. Maybe I could have gotten a time less on the heels of a half-hour but there was no way I was hitting a new personal record over the weekend. There was just not enough in the tank — not yet.
