The Woodberry Harrier 2014: Volume 2

Woodberry Harrier 2014:  Volume 2

Getting Pumped

On Saturday Oatlands looked like the Virginia State Fair.  The dale was a maze of brightly colored tents with people bustling in every direction. On my way to check in, I passed the snow cone truck and smelled the hot dog wagon and tried to make out the announcer’s boomy chatter.  Such classic Americana might delighted if it weren’t for the music.   

I really don’t know “Techno” from “Techtronic or “House” from “Hardstyle,” so I’ll just say that I could have closed my eyes and imagined an after-hours club at 3:00 AM instead of a 200-year-old plantation on a sunny Saturday.  And that music did exactly what its makers intended:  it got into the circuits of my brain and looped endlessly until someone changed the playlist to a familiar pre-game mix. I never thought I’d be glad to hear Eye of the Tiger twice in thirty minutes, but it was welcome, believe me. 

It wasn’t just the disconnect between setting and sound which jarred.  Rather it was the misguided assumption that an external stimulus (a sound drug, essentially) was just the thing these kids needed before a race to get “amped” and “pumped” and “psyched” as if they were hobby lifters at Gold’s Gym or hockey players getting ready to rumble.  But the simple truth is that a true runner really wants the calm focus and ready stillness of a big cat whose ears and toes and every muscle and nerve between are moving with the same silent intention. 

 “Intention” and “intense” share the same root meaning of a thing stretched to just the right tension, like a banjo string.  Perhaps I would not have objected so much to the music had it been Earl Scruggs, but I’ll never find out because we all know the chances of hearing Foggy Mountain Breakdown before a sporting event. But I am not talking about tastes or preferences.  I am talking about moving from within rather than being moved from without.  I am talking about being centered in your own deep sense of purpose and being moved by its still, small rhythms, which are hard to hear over the thumping of the same canned excitement you can hear at a professional wrestling match or tractor pull (and like the hot dogs and fountain drinks, it tastes the same everywhere). We seem to love not just loud spectacle but very familiar loud spectacle.

I shook hands with the guys on the line and fled the scene, pedaling over the hill and down the course until the music faded away and I was alone.  I sat a minute before my ears began to register the wind in the trees, and then the silent course became a drum for the 858 feet striking in unison, and when they passed I fancied I could hear hearts beating and muscles plucking ligaments and bones striking to the tune of young courage.  Finally, the music I had come to hear.

The team had a bit of a rough day with two of our top five running into trouble, one with an asthma attack and the other with a bad ankle sprain, but all the individual finishes were respectable and some were downright exciting:

	Oatlands Invitational
	Leesburg, Va
	20 September, 2014
	Place:  47th out of  63 teams 1-5  spread:  2:10
			Place out of 429 runners
	Singleton	17:31	86th
	Finley	17:50	129th
	Rich	18:53	257th
	Hernandez	19:17	308th	a 22-sec. drop from WFS!
	Tydings	19:41	353rd
	Flory	20:06	379th
			Place out of 284 runners
	Jacobs	19:59	119th	A 4-sec. drop from WFS
	Vieth	20:43	170th
Prater		22:19	233rd
	Carrington	DNF
	Gussler	DNR
Dameron		DNR
Wall		DNR