A Starting Line At The Top Of A Mountain

The start of the first round of the Men’s 1500m at the 2024 US Olympic Trials

I only had a few goals. Goals I would have been so proud to achieve. One of them was to qualify for the US Olympic Trials. I was good. Maybe, I thought, even Olympic Trials qualifier good. I was not Olympic good. I may have believed I was at one point. But I wasn’t. I eventually understood that. When you do some strides with a 3:50 miler you can’t help but understand. I couldn’t do what they did. No matter how hard I trained. And I trained hard. No matter how much I wanted it. And I wanted it bad. I was never going to run 3:50 or 3:52 in the mile or 3:33 or 3:34 in the 1500m. I was okay with it. My mountaintop is just as high as yours... but that doesn’t mean we need to see the same things from our summits. Some saw the Olympics out there in the distance. I saw the Olympic Trials.

So, my dream became qualifying for those Trials in 2000. I knew that if I really busted my ass I could qualify in the 1500m. I could line up next to the best milers of this great country... and belong. I could race knowing I earned my bib and my spot on the starting line. That was one of my mountaintops and I spent years trying to climb there. I was close. I could feel it. Would I be fast enough?

The day the accepted entries came out I scrolled down the list. The moment had arrived. I read the final time listed. That’s not my time. I read the final name. That’s not my name. Maybe I missed my time. Maybe I misread that last name. I read the list again. I didn’t make the list. I didn’t qualify. There would be no bib for me. I hadn’t earned a spot on the line. I was only a few strides away from making it… only a few strides away from the top of my mountain.

I was only 24 years old. And I knew I would run faster. I knew there would be another Trials. I knew I would make it next time... four years later. It’s funny. You don’t know you’ve just run the fastest you will ever run when you run the fastest you have ever run. You just think “I can be faster”. But I never did run faster. I didn’t make the Olympic Trials next time either.

I’m thinking about all this because the 2024 Trials end today. And when the 1500m field gets called to the line I still see me there lining up alongside them. I see myself taking a deep breath to get the butterflies under control. I imagine myself looking to my left and then to my right to see the other milers… the best milers in the United States. And then I wait for the sound of the starters gun to release us. So we can race. Like kids on a playground. A playground at the top of a mountain.

The dream has never faded away. But it will always be a dream. Because I’ll really just be sitting up there in the stands. A fan. A runner. I may not be on the starting line but my heart still races every time I hear the gun go off. Every time the 1500m starts a part of me is there… on the track… racing. And every time my heart aches a little bit. I’m proud that it still does. Because it means it was a good dream.

Even if it never came true.

Cheers,

Coach Bennett

Me on the sideline… not the starting line… cheering on those extraordinary athletes competing at the Olympic Trials