Saturday’s 3nd annual SISU Foundation 800 Meter Challenge — one of a handful of prize-money races in our sport — barely made it out of the blocks at Arizona State University. Stuff happened, writes event organizer Doug Thompson, who was sweating bullets that a race would even be held at all. Somehow, four runners made it to the starting line (including Doug himself) and lemonade was served all around. “Our . . . race was a microcosm of the highs and the lows of masters track,” Doug writes. “Because we ran during an ASU college meet, our race was not listed on the local masters track schedule, so unlike prior years we had few local ‘walk -in’ entrants.”

Doug continued courageously (because it’s not easy to fess up to failure):

Not a big deal, I thought, because a week before the race we had a very strong field of 11 runners, mostly from out-of-town. Then we had a runner scratch every day for the next five days. By late in the week, I was shell-shocked, but still expecting a few out-of-towners, so not thinking of canceling.

Friday and Saturday (day of the race) two or three more folks dropped out, but it was too late to notify the others, so I showed up at the big stadium very nervous, not knowing if we were even going to have a field. 
 
I was very happy to see Nolan Shaheed, with a big smile, waiting for me. Then a couple of my local mid-30-year-olds showed up.

Everyone at ASU was great, and very understanding. We had a fine announcer, who had done his homework on our runners, and made lemonade out of our small field, giving Nolan a great buildup.

Some of the local masters track crowd were there to cheer us on, as well as the rest of the track fans from ASU, U of U and NAU. We ran as the first event. Our younger runners battled it out for the lead, finishing 2:03/2:04; Nolan hung on for 2:10 (would have been a world record if he was two months older), and I struggled in last with a shoe malfunction, too slow to mention.
 
While the turnout was disappointing there were several things that took some of the sting away: 

• The great attitude of everyone involved: runners, crowd, officials, the ASU coaches — I don’t know of a more supportive group of people in any competitive sport than in track and field.
• The opportunity to run — one of our younger runners ran a PR, but even when doing badly (as I did) there’s a purity to giving a good effort, no matter the results.
• A new partnership (hopefully) with ASU. Running at the Sun Angel stadium in front of a college crowd is very different than running at our local masters meets.
• The opportunity to spend time with my fellow 800-meter competitors, especially the great Nolan Shaheed. My wife and I got to spend quite a bit of time with Nolan, and dropped him off at the airport afterwards — he’s a ray of sunshine, that’s for sure. 
   
  Mixed 800 Meter Run Masters
  ================================================================
      Name                    Year School                  Finals
  ================================================================
    1 Rodriguez, Ari             M Unattached             2:03.04 
    2 Sweet, Ryan                M Unattached             2:04.95 
    3 Shaheed, Nolan             M Unattached            x2:10.16 
    4 Thompson, Douglas          M Unattached            x2:18.99 

Doug, you showed up. That’s 90 percent of life. You fought the good fight. Next year, with better luck and improved economic conditions, you should have a better turnout.

And good on you, Nolan! You always deliver.