At the eight-hundred-meter mark, Graham was in seventh place and on pace for a 4:48-mile finish. We were at the New Balance world headquarters on one of the nicest indoor tracks in the world—in fact, the NCAA indoor national championship will be held there in 2024. Graham had qualified for the race eighth out of eighteen, and the field was packed with freshmen elites from New York through Maine. He appeared to have the field right where he had planned in order to reach the podium.
As he crossed the eight-hundred mark, though, I said to Lauren, “He’s going to have to do some work now to reel in some of these guys, and he looks like he’s laboring.” And apparently, he was. His form gradually broke down over the next three laps, his kick from six hundred meters was lacking, and with one lap to go, we could tell he would not break five minutes nor finish on the podium.
A half hour later, he joined us in the stands. “How was it?” Lauren asked.
“Terrible,” he said.
Terrible does not induce in Graham the same darkness and angst it does in his siblings. He seemed only mildly bothered.
“I thought it would be a way more tactical race since we’re all elites, and instead, they all went out in the first two hundred like they were running a four hundred.”
“That wasn’t really the issue, though,” I said. “You were on pace for what you wanted to do until about six hundred meters.”
“Yeah,” he said.
We chatted a little more then agreed to head to Mainely Burgers just up the road. After we sat down with our burgers (the Maine-ah is great—crisp green apple, cheese, and maple mayonnaise), truffle fries, and onion rings, Graham said, “I think I know what the problem was.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Having to get up wicked early to run and then go to work yesterday. I need the right amount of sleep.”
“Nah,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Look, you have dudes from all over the east coast and even the country. They’re sleeping in hotels and in beds they’re not used to. They had to travel. I’m sure everyone is out of sorts.”
He shook his head. “Sleeping in a hotel bed for enough hours would be better than getting up at 5:30 in your own bed.”
“You’ve had to race on days you had early morning seminary. I think the real issue is you got an upper respiratory infection ten days ago, and you’re still recovering.”
“I think I’m over it.”
“You’re still hacking and blowing your nose. You probably don’t feel that different in workouts, but when you need max lung capacity, it isn’t quite there yet. You don’t have to be off by a lot to struggle in an elite race.”
He was quiet for a couple of minutes. He ate his fries, took drags on his shake, worked on his burger. You may recall a previous story wherein I explained Graham’s incredible ability to turn mortifying defeat into total victory in his mind. Totally missing both the BB gun target and its backstop was no big thing—he had actually hit a super secret headshot that no one could see.
Graham looked at me at last. “So Dad, would you say that a 5:10 with an upper respiratory infection is basically a 4:48 without?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I’m running the 1k at the next meet. I already told Coach Moore.”
“When’s the next meet?”
“Wednesday.”
“That’s coming quick.”
“But I have to do the mile at the freshman/sophomore state meet.”
“Why is that?”
“Qualifying times are due Tuesday, and I don’t get to run in a meet till Wednesday. And Coach Moore had me do the mile till now so I could qualify for this race.”
“I see,” I said.
“But I’ll be doing the 1k at the league meet.”
It wasn’t the day Graham wanted, but of the eighty kids on Graham’s indoor team, they only took eight to this event. The final race of the day featured a USA Track and Field championship in which the top-ranked mile runner in the nation ran. He is committed to University of Oregon already, came up from Texas, and was hoping to break the four-minute-mile barrier. Graham saw him in the hallway and was mildly starstruck. He had told Lauren he hoped to talk to the guy.
“If you become friends, do you want to move to where he is and train together?” she asked.
“Well, Moooomm, he would be nearly a half a lap ahead of me at eight hundred meters, so there’s no way we would be training together. I mean, maybe we could do an easy run together. Maybe.”
Graham was starving from all his work, so he headed back to the register to order more fries. I went to the restroom, and when I came back to the table, we had the true highlight of the day. A man at the next table was getting ready to leave. On our table was the book I had brought for the slow moments of the day, Verdun by Paul Jankowski.
“Is that a good book?” the gray-haired man asked me.
“So far,” I said. “I’m not that far into it yet.”
“Could you tell me what university the author is at? Does it say?”
I flipped to the back cover. “Brandeis.”
“No kidding. He’s still there.”
“You know him?” I said.
“He chaired my dissertation committee,” the man said.
“Wow. So history then?” I said.
“Political science,” he said.
“I should probably get his book,” the man said. He turned to his son and motioned to the book. “The author of that book was one of my dissertation advisors.”
“Cool,” his son said with much less enthusiasm than the word implies.
“Have a great day, guys,” said the man.
As he moved off, Lauren said, “So those are really your people, huh.”
“We should have invited them to sit back down and talk some history,” I said.
“You probably feel really smart now,” she said.
“Wicked smaht,” I said.
So Graham might have taken a small L today, but I won obviously.
When we were driving home, Lauren said, “I don’t really care that much whether he won today. I’m just amazed at some of the places our kids have competed and some of the people they have trained with and gone against.”
Graham had earbuds in so wasn’t paying attention.
“I said as much to him when we were walking to the car to put his bag away. I asked him if he was still enjoying the experience at such a top-flight facility and with so many great athletes, and he said yeah.”
“That’s good.”
Sometimes, taking in the experience is the best you can do. Even the very best on this day didn’t do what he wanted. The guy from Texas qualified with a 4:03, and all the hype was about him breaking four. He didn’t—he won comfortably but ran 4:09.
Which leaves us with one obvious lesson from the day, and I hope all of you take it to heart: I’m wicked smaht.
His Smile Lit Up a Room and Other Things to Say at My Funeral 