It was a warm, sunny, breezy mid-September day at Orange Country Park, the year 1993. We had a dual meet against Pine Bush, the first race of the first season, on their home course. We lost. There was a tremendous hill, one that 12 year olds should not be expected to climb in their first races – I’m not sure where I finished (though I know it was in the near proximity of JB). Mostly I knew that something was beginning. This had been brewing my entire life; I was a runner, from a family of runners – a family with unfinished business and I was the herald to a new age, those the opening salvos fired by a new generation of warriors.
On a warm, sunny, breezy late May day on Princeton’s track, my last battle ended with little fanfare. I ran the best race of my life in front of a few hundred people I didn’t know. The plan was to lead off our weak leg in the 4×800 at IC4As, then follow it with our two strongest legs, Lou and I, before finishing with the gritty Walsh. I went out in 52.8 for the first quarter of the 800, desperate in my one last chance, my one last chance, my one last – I powered up to the pack in front and with 200 to go I tried to go to the jets, I swung to the outside, I swung to the outside, I…
…wasn’t fast enough. Never fast enough.
On a warm, sunny, breezy day in mid-June 2008, 15 years gone by, Stephen, at the pinnacle of his sport, ran the race of his life in front of a crowd of a few thousand people he didn’t know and a handful that he did. The rivers in Iowa were swollen to levels not seen since the last great flood, 1993. The Furst running-road-show in its last year, we traveled thousands of miles, prolonging, for one last meet, the fundamental unit of cohesion in our developmental years. The last runner in a family of runners, vindicating an injured father and a disappointing brother, he swung around to the homestretch with 500 meters to go; blood in his eyes and knives in his thighs and a top-5 finish in his soul.
Good enough to bind a nuclear family for 15 years. Good enough to smash records, raise bars to obscene heights. Good enough to belong with the best of the best, to stand toe to toe with the greats and not back down. Just that good, just that fast. But no more, but now it’s no more.
For five years my job was to cart supplies up to the front lines while Stephen waged war against enemies far too imposing for my meager munitions. For five years, he tirelessly carried the banner, until at long last, staggering punch drunk across his last finish line, he fought his last fight.
An army without a war; racers from a family of racers with no more races to run.
Words 
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