David Wilder Kicks Them All Down

Track and field is not exactly a big part of the athletics program at Concord Academy. In fact, the Fighting Chameleons have never fielded a track team. That changed a little this spring with the introduction of a track club that met once a week. Even so, most of the kids who came out weren't much interested in actual competition.

The exception was David Wilder.

David was Concord's best cross-country runner in the fall, finishing 7th in the EIL League Meet, but he seemed particularly well-suited to the intensity of track races. He liked to see how hard he could push himself, and he liked nothing better than to be in a close race, battling someone for the lead with 200 meters to go. He stayed in shape over the winter, and this spring told me that he wanted to run a fast mile.

This was easier said than done. With no team and no meets on the schedule, it was a challenge to find opportunities for David to run. A few weeks ago we attended a meet for "homeless" track teams - team without tracks of their own. David ran the 1500m and finished fourth in 4:39 (a 5:00 mile). He had followed my advice and had gone out at a "reasonable" 71-72 seconds for the first quarter. Unfortunately, the leaders had run 67-68 and he was never in the hunt. He decided that next time he would stick with the leaders no matter what.

On Saturday, we drove down to Portsmouth, RI, for the SENE/EIL Championship meet. David was entered in the 1500m and the discus. I know that this is an unusual double, but David makes it work. He learned how to throw the discus in middle school from an exceptional throws coach, and his form is impeccable. With a team of one, it helps to be able to compete in multiple events!

It was windy at the start of the 1500. When the gun went off, the field of runners sprinted down the backstretch jockeying for position. David, whose had exactly one race worth of experience, expertly positioned himself in about 5th, staying in the second lane and out of trouble. The first 200 was about 31.5 for the leaders, with David about a second back.

When the leaders hit the headwind on the first turn, everything slowed, and David moved up into fourth. The quarter passed in 67, very fast for someone who had run 5:00 pace two weeks earlier! David had said he didn't want to be cheated in this race and wanted to finish with nothing left. All right, I thought, so far so good.

At the half, passed in 2:21, the race was down to three runners, with David hanging on to third. I thought it was 50-50 that the top two would pull away. It was very windy, and they probably didn't want to expend any extra effort at that point, but I, knowing the ferocity of David's kick, thought they might regret that decision.

As the leaders passed 1200 in 3:32, they were starting to accelerate for the final drive to the finish. There was a little gap, but they had not succeeded in getting rid of the lone representative of the CA track team. With a little over 200m, he was right there, still stalking the leaders, still waiting for the moment to make one really good move.



Watching the race unfold, my concern was that one of the two leaders would move first and open up a gap that would be unbridgeable. But with 150m to go, David seized the initiative, accelerating into the lead. Too soon? As he came around the final turn and saw all that empty tartan in front of him, he reached top speed. Later, he would tell me that he was pushing so hard because he didn't want to get caught, but with 50m to go he was pulling away.



David crossed the line in 4:25.4, a 14-second PR and roughly equivalent to a 4:45 mile. His 10 points in the 1500m would be enough to beat two other schools in the team scoring of the meet. Later he would add a 3rd place in the discus (throwing 97') for another 6 points.

After the 1500, I told David that he executed the race perfectly. But execution is one thing, the desire to finish the race with nothing left is something else again. Sticking with the leaders through that opening lap took guts. Not letting them get away took determination. The kick -- well, that was pretty cool, too.