A few thoughts on Jenny Barringer Simpson and Matt Centrowitz 

I’m not going to bother with my normal recap of either of these spectacular races.  If you haven’t seen them by now…

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbm28PPZ5Ts&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ICRVlIvDHE&feature=related)

shame on you for calling yourself a fan of American track and field.  In fact, I’m barely going to focus on these two athletes and their respective performances…Instead I want to tell you what these races mean for other American hopefuls.

It wasn’t less than two months from the time that Roger Bannister first shattered the barrier of a 4-minute mile that John Landy followed in his footsteps.  Both men, despite having the ability and quite possibly the fitness within them well before the event, struggled for years to finally achieve the unachievable.  Similarly, when Ritz finally put together an incredible sub 13:00 minute 5k on August 28^th, 2009, classmate Matt Tegenkamp did the same just seven days later.  Once that dam breaks, all bets are off as the floodgates of success appear to be wide open.

“I don’t want winning a gold medal to mean this is the end of the line,” Barringer stated in her post race interview, still beaming from her thrilling run to victory.  She was referring to herself, but the thought echoes what we American fans have been waiting to see for years.  We watched as the first domino fell…but now we want to see the whole damn thing go off!  No more excuses, no more it can’t be done if you’re a footlocker kid, a product of the NCAA system, or any other half-cocked explanation you can come up with.  The time for American distance running is now.

Which brings me to my next point…Americans need to learn just as Barringer and Centrowitz have to embrace the moment, for unfortunately one never knows when the opportunity might be there again.  I recall watching Dorian Ulrey make the semi final heat of the 1500 back in Berlin in 2009 and thinking wow, this kid is the next big thing.  Not that Ulrey has completely fallen off of the map, but a season that spectacular is a very rare thing that only comes around once in a while; Dorian is still waiting for another.  Meanwhile, America’s depth is improving every year, more runners stepping up to the plate, ready to go toe to toe with the world’s finest. 

Centro could have folded at any moment, content to rest upon his many accomplishments this season.  He could have been just another athlete talking about how great of an experience it was, hoping that he might find himself back on the world stage next year, but instead of talking about his opportunities he seized them.  He could easily return to campus this fall thinking he’s hot stuff for doing all he’s done as a collegian, but he need look no further than the teenagers contending with the big boys to know that it’s a race…and nothing, not age, not your PR, not how you finished last week, can change the indisputable fact that ANYTHING can happen.  So why wait until the next time around to make something happen?  If you’re lucky enough to find yourself on the starting line of a WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL, make it count.  You never know when, if ever, you’ll get to take another a stab at it. 

So with one medal in the 1500 behind us and one hopeful one the line, I ask who’s next America?  Who will join the ranks of Jenny, and further Jesse Williams and Lashinda Demus?  Don’t let this great momentum slip away into the barren, dark decades of US distance running that we have waited so long to emerge from.  Seize the day might be a bit of a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true of a sentiment.