CHAPTER 5
You have to be confident in yourself. You have to be convinced that you can see the task through and you have to be sure that you can handle the effort. Remember though, there will always be doubt. No getting around that, my friend. At some point your mind or body will beg the question: Can I continue? At that moment, the race is won or lost, the effort is supreme or compromised, and you are a champ or a chump. I started my senior year as a compromised chumpish loser.
Hooray for me
I left you last time a battered and broken boy. In a Cliff Notes type of way I will summarize my junior year Indoor and Outdoor season: Indoors was lost to injury and illness just like XC. Outdoors began with a 3 minute jog in February and ended with me being yanked off the track at Parochial A (Non Public A to you younglings) with one lap to go in the 3200m. (At the Monmouth County Championships my right foot was caught under a diving Middletown South runner at the finish as we both leaned for the win. My body kept moving forward but my right foot remained trapped under Jim Graves. I severely strained my hip flexor as I was yanked backwards. I hobbled for two weeks with little running and then raced Parochial A. My season had ended early yet again.)
Summer was a rollercoaster of a few good days of running followed by more than a few bad ones. I ended XC camp in late August 15 pounds heavier than I was one year earlier. Many would say I looked like a modern day Adonis with this new physique. (By "many" I mean me.) Regardless, I was in terrible shape, handsome and ripped but terrible.
We began the year ranked 12th in the United States. We had almost everyone returning from the year before. We had lost Sean McCafferty to Central Regional but we had Eric Savoth one year older and finally healthy. CBA was prepared to battle its arch rival, the dreaded Paul VI, for NJ supremacy. CBA vs. Paul VI. Say it. It's Notre Dame vs. USC or Dook vs. UNC. It's epic. And I was an epic disaster as I read Jim Lambert wax poetic in the season preview. Our season would start in Long Island at the revered Sunken Meadows Park. I headed out chock full of superficial confidence.
Needless to say Long Island did not go as planned. I ended up coming home from the trip 7th man on the team and a flailing one at that. Red flags should have been raised in my mind. Unbeknownst to me, the proverbial sun was beating down my neck. I had no reason to be confident after that race, none at all. But I had entered the race full of hot air. I could leave it that way too. Heck, I was the County 800m and 1600m champ. I had run the 5th Avenue Mile the previous year. I had no reason to be nervous, right? It wasn't so bad. Just leave me be and I'll be just fine.
No chance. My venerable coach, Tom Heath notified me that I would be racing the JV guys the following week in a dual meet to see who will run as 7th man at the Stewart Memorial Class Meet at Warinanco. Huh? What? I'm me? M-E! Racing a dual meet? I wasn't even met with a blank stare by the august coach. He had already moved on to the varsity guys.
Remember when I said you need confidence? I forgot to mention that the basic foundation of this sport rests on respect and humility. All confidence is born from these two traits. A wise man once told me "If you want to be a punk on the track, you better be a punk off the track first". Translation: You better be willing to put in the work if you want to get paid. Translation: Without the days there's no year. Sometimes you're taken to the wall and you're asked to stand up. Usually it's when you're weakest. And that's when it's most important. That's when you will ask yourself: Can I continue?
So, I lined up to race the dual meet as the Varsity team worked out. I was racing to make the team all over again. I was racing to prove to my teammates that they could count on me. I was racing to prove that to myself. My season started when that gun went off. My prior efforts, good and bad, meant nothing. I had put in a day's work. It was a humble day's work but one that I could respect. Luckily for me there were more days left to try and make this a year. And with that I was finally confident in something.
Chris Bennett, a native of the Jersey Shore, attended Christian Brothers Academy where he ran on 3 NJ All Group State Championship Teams. Chris went on to captain the University of North Carolina Cross Country and Track teams. After graduation Chris moved to Palo Alto, CA to run for the Nike Farm Team for over 5 years. He has run 1:51 for 800, 3:43 for 1500m, 14:10 for 5000m and most importantly, the Big Loop at CBA in under 7 minutes. He credits any and all knowledge he has or pretends to have regarding running to a series of excellent coaches he has had: Tom Heath at CBA, Joan Nesbit-Mabe, Jerry Schumacher and Mike Whittlesey at UNC, and Jeff Johnson, Vin Lannana, Frank \"Gags\" Gagliano, Jack Daniels, and Ray Appenheimer while with the Farm Team.
He is married to Tammie with two incredible kids, Jack age 3 and Maggie age 1.