Before you judge a person, run a mile in their shoes

I've posted results on the NNHS web site for the Milton meet, although there's no link to them on the front page. I'm hoping to catch up with downloading pictures, updating the front page, and posting stories for the first two meets this weekend.

There was little doubt about the eventual result of the meet. Both the girls and boys teams won easily, using their top runners to pace other runners to better times. Thus, the winning times were slower than Tuesday, but the middle and back of the pack times were generally much faster.

The girls team continues to look good, with Haleigh Smith running a fine 21:13 to take second behind Jess Barton. The freshmen continue to impress, and coach Peter Martin looks forward to the Bay State Invitational, where he will be able to run five strong runners (Carolyn Ranti, Adina Henley-Bronstein, Nora Barnicle, Liz Altieri, and Franca Gadenzi) together in the fresman race.



The boys team, meanwhile, got the performance of the day from sophomore Ben Chebot, who took 38 seconds off his Cold Springs Park PR to finish 5th overall in 18:42. Ben was sporting racing flats for the first time, and seemed to have wings under his feet.

How important are racing flats or spikes? Well, they won't find you 38 seconds if you didn't have it already in your legs and lungs, but they will improve your time by 3-4 seconds per mile based simply on reducing the weight you must lug around. Actually, the most important factor when calculating the effect of racing shoes might be psychological: racing shoes just make you feel fast, and feel like you want to go fast.

As a coach, I'm often asked the question "Should I buy spikes?" and I usually answer by saying that the time to buy spikes is when you start caring about 3-4 seconds per mile. Me, I would mortgage my house to get another 3-4 seconds per mile, but not every kid feels that way.

Once you have raced in fast shoes, it's hard to go back. It feels vaguely disrespectful to where heavy training shoes when you know that there are faster shoes sitting at home in your closet, dying to be let out to do their thing. Also, you become attached to your racing shoes -- they bring back powerful memories of times you battled competitors and your own weakness to record some triumph.

In the novel "Once a Runner," the character of Bruce Denton lends Quentin Cassidy a pair of Nike spikes that "have never lost." I like the idea of shoes having their own personality, their own track record, so to speak. Well, Ben Chebot's shoes have a fast career in front of them.