Fourteen Quarters

 

Fourteen Quarters

Last night after work, I stopped into a store to see if they had something I wanted before they’d closed. It was quiet. One of the young men at the counter I’d spoken to in the past, recognized me. He got excited, maybe because when I have come in to the store in the past I end up telling him a story. He likes my stories. What’s even funnier, is he is probably not quite thirty years of age. He has a youthful innocent level of excitement when he sees me. And he thinks I’m cool. Which is a wild thought. Because I’ve never associated myself with being cool. Especially, with my generation and ever younger, my daughters’ generation who are now both at college age.

So, last night I had time as he and his other friend working with him behind the counter had time to hear a slice of someone else’s life. I gave them a brief history of my mobilization and the time of the Iran-Contra Hearings. A question the one young man asked was, “What got you into ultrarunning?” And good God, there is always a story behind the story, behind the story and well, so forth. LOL. (Sidebar for us geeky older folks: That means Laugh Out Loud.)

Then I’d begun with “I loved playing football… I was my brother’s other brother—in a sense…” And then I told them about my sixth-grade current events book report. They stayed glued to my words. I basically, began a small history lesson of the Vietnam War. If we’d had more time, I would have told them about Kent State 1970. For those who are curious—look up May 4^th, 1970, Kent State. I will state it is an important part of history in this country.

Where the thought of fourteen quarters came into play, was this morning after finishing my chores before a training run and then to work—My mind switched from praying for the success and safety of the protestors across the country, to the fourteen quarter mile intervals that our cross-country coach Jack Scullion had us do nearly every Friday after school. During the mid to late 1970s—as girls and women were just gaining certain freedoms between athletics and careers in the United States. Mind you that wasn’t quite fifty years ago. Yes, you could say it was more recent than anyone under the age of forty-five could remember.

Today as I stood in our laundry room I paused and said out loud, “How much rest did Scullion give us in-between each of those quarter mile intervals?” I reckoned it was about a minute. Although, from what I could remember Mr. Scullion was a fairly detailed man. I nodded at my ascertaining such. I can say, I think I was the only one I knew who enjoyed that Friday afternoon workout. I heard complaints in-between each quarter back then. Scullion would give us a drink break after the first seven quarters. I always had stayed down at the track near Mr. Scullion, never taking a water or pee break—whilst quite a few had taken advantage of that smattering of rest in-between the first set of seven quarter mile intervals.

The idea behind the fourteen quarter mile intervals, was pacing. Getting the pace correctly over and over again for each individual runner. However, I interpreted it completely differently. And I think that’s why I looked forward to doing that workout every Friday afternoon, unless there was a special race on a Saturday.

On Friday afternoons, we’d warm up with about a mile or so of a light cross-country run after stretching in the field. I remember the air well—as some Fridays had an autumn-summer warmth in the air when the clouds threatened rain. Yet the smell of freshly cut grass remained as if to keep the summer air in one’s mind. Sometimes the marching band would be practicing in another area of the field. The football team’s grunts could be heard as their coaches would shout orders. It’d faded into the background during each of my quarter-mile repeats.

This morning as I’d reminisced on those fourteen quarter mile intervals, and what made me happy about doing them. It was my chance to improve. To be better than I was in the last quarter mile interval and to hang onto the idea of improvement. Every quarter mile that passed I’d feel shame, for I wasn’t pacing properly. But then I’d get happy with my internal dialog of, ‘Okay, but I can be better. I can do better next in the next one.’

I can say I couldn’t sense a pace at all. I couldn’t feel it. Now with nearly fifty years of running I can. Back then, most of the other high schoolers didn’t seem to revel in wanting to run all that far, like running ten miles or so. Mr. Scullion never had us run more than six miles in any one session of practice or in a day, that I could recall. Me I wanted more. Last night at the store counter, I got to the part about finding books in our high school library on long-distance running and where it began for me to want to run 100 miles in a day. I won’t reveal that here, because I feel I owe those two young men the rest of the story before I blog to the world on that. Hec, I hadn’t even gotten to fourteen-quarter interval story of that one strange but true Friday in 1977. Which is where the idea of ultrarunning all began.---Jody-Lynn Reicher