"Coach?"
"Yes, Diana?"
"Thank you for everything."
Chapter 31
SECRETARIAT
Diana Bailey ran with the courage that owning a berth on the Olympic team allows. The Trials schedule mirrored the Olympic format as closely as possible. A 10,000/5,000 double was difficult for men – and nearly impossible for women.
A woman aspiring to race both events had to compete in a 5,000 semifinal, return for the 5,000 final after a single rest day, then have just one more day to gather her resources for the 10,000.
Calvin Benlehr had not suggested the five & ten double; Diana brought the proposal to him.
“Coach, I have to share something with you and Patty,” she said one early June afternoon. They’d just lunched on whole grain bread, cold cuts, and fruit salad, then sent Nikolas and Madras into Alamosa for groceries and water.
The three sat around one corner of the huge oak dining table that Benlehr had built for twelve. Patty served mugs of hot cocoa and a plate of Diana’s cookies. All eyes were on the running waif who had won their admiration.
“I have breast cancer”
Diana didn’t wait for a reaction – she plowed ahead.
“I was diagnosed eighteen months ago after cross country Nationals. It’s inoperable and untreatable. My mom died of breast cancer when I was twelve. Her sister died from it at the age of twenty-three; I was in high school and watched her illness progress. Four other women in my bloodline developed the disease and died before they were thirty – it’s a genetic curse.”
Patty’s heart nearly stopped from the news. “Oh, Diana! Oh, Diana. Oh, I’m so sorry.” She placed her hand on the girl’s arm. Tears of sympathy and affection rolled down her face.
Calvin sat numb, processing the information. He realized instantly that Diana knew, with more urgency than most people, she had only a short time to accomplish things.
“My aunt suffered through three years of chemo and radiation. She then laid in Hospice for four months, too weak to walk. My mother went to Tijuana for drugs unavailable here in the States. She was brought home in an ambulance and died as I stood by her bed.
“The chemotherapy just doesn’t work. The cancer progresses no matter what they do. An oncologist at the Mayo Clinic verified the cell type last spring – I have the exact thing that killed my mom and my aunt.”
Calvin, usually inert at times of sadness and death, dropped his head and seemed to pray. He raised his face up, turned to Diana and said, “So you chose to fight it here instead of in a hospital.”
“That’s right, Coach. I could live in the city with doctors and hospitals. I could try their drugs and be too weak to run. I chose the mountains.”
She slid her chair closer to Patty’s. She draped her arm across Patty’s back to comfort her.
“When you called me last May,” she said to Calvin, “I was trying to decide what form my suicide would take. You rescued me from despair. You were an Angel of Life. I just didn’t know that you guys lived in Heaven!” Diana’s smile calmed them all.
“Anyway, I’ve decided to race both the 5,000 and 10,000 at the Trials. What do I have to lose?”
* * * * *
In the 5,000-meter final, Diana surged away from the tight pack of ten Olympic hopefuls with three laps to go. Murray Halberg had stolen the gold medal in the men’s 5,000 in Rome with that tactic. It worked like a charm a second time.
“Take off with twelve hundred to run. No one will go with you,” Coach Benlehr predicted.
Diana imagined herself on the final approach to the High Dune. She put her head down and sprinted for one minute. The other contenders glanced at each other, afraid to respond.
You go, and I’ll go with you.
No, it’s too early – she’ll fade.
Let’s run her down together.
Not one woman reacted with her feet until Diana Bailey had a forty-meter gap. By then, there were just two laps remaining. Carolyn Marsh and Amy Golden pulled away from the clump of contenders, but with six hundred meters to go, they broke off their futile countermove and gathered themselves for a kick. Two places on the Olympic team remained. First place was gone.
“Good evening, sports fans. This is H.R. Javitts. Welcome to CSN’s special coverage of the U.S. Olympic Trials.
“Diana Bailey, a Notre Dame graduate who has spent the past year training at high altitude in Colorado, won the women’s 5,000 meters tonight here in Knoxville.”
The producer ran the video of Diana’s break from the pack – it was more impressive with each viewing.
“There goes Bailey to open an insurmountable lead. We have her here at trackside, folks. Diana, what made you decide to sprint like that with three whole laps to go?”
“Well, Mr. Javitts . . .”
“H. R. – you can call me H.R.”
“Okay, Mr. H. R.,” she grinned impishly. “We planned to attack at that point in the race.”
“And who is ‘we’?”
“My coach, Calvin Benlehr. Together we decided that waiting for a last-lap kick played to the strengths of the girls who are 1500- and 3000-meter specialists. From our special fartlek training in Colorado, I knew I could incur an oxygen debt, back off slightly to recover, then hold a hard pace to the finish.”
“You sure did, Diana! Carolyn Marsh and Amy Golden join you on the team in the 5,000. We have them here with us. Step over here, in front of the camera, ladies.
“Carolyn, congratulations on making the team. What did you think when Diana took off like that?”
“We all thought it was too early. None of us knew Diana’s abilities, so we expected her to fade. There were two other places up for grabs, chasing her would have been foolish.”
“Amy, congratulations to you, too. Did you think you would make the Olympic team when you lined up this evening?”
“I’m just so happy. I can’t believe it,” she said, bouncing. “I hoped I’d have a chance. Diana is so awesome! I’m just amazed at her. Hi, Mom!”
Diana stood in the center of the three runners, her tiny arms raised to the shoulders of her much-taller rivals. Her eyes were dark. Though only twenty-three, her weathered face looked fifty.
“Here’s Jesse Weeks’ winning effort in the men’s triple jump, as he bounded 57 feet, 10 inches. And this is the winning heave in the women’s shot put, 63 feet, 3 inches, by Patricia Windmueller of Milwaukee.”
“That’s it from the Olympic Trials in Knoxville, Tennessee. Back to you in the studio, Deborah.”
Calvin prescribed a trip to the Appalachian Trail on Diana’s recovery day. At dawn, Patty drove them away from the sticky city to Watauga Dam. Diana and Cal chugged a half-gallon of orange juice, then broke into an easy trot.
Silence embraced the pair over mile after mile of shaded trail. Steep descents led to gurgling creeks; steep ascents took them to the Appalachian ridge. Nature lavished them with emotional sustenance. Mountain laurel bloomed. Squirrels leaped for the sheer joy of leaping.
In eleven miles of light jogging and purposeful hiking, they spoke only once.
“Coach?”
“Yes, Diana?”
“Thank you for everything.”
Those seven words filled the perfect summer morning. Four hours later, Patty retrieved them as they crossed Service Road 50 in Cherokee National Forest.
In Roan Mountain, Tennessee, they gorged on barbecue, corn on the cob, and biscuits at Mountain Mama’s Restaurant. By late afternoon, the 5,000 was a distant memory. Anxiety for the upcoming 10,000 was non-existent. As planned, the challenging hike restored Diana’s spirit and energized her body. She was ready.
THIS VIEW OF SPORT
By Ken Davis
In her second Olympic appearance in 1992, Lynn Jennings of the USA won the bronze medal in the 10,000-meter run. She ran an American Record that day in Barcelona, 31:19.89.
Twenty years earlier, I had watched Secretariat, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, dominate the Belmont Stakes by an amazing thirty-one lengths. That equine athlete established a track record that still stands – 2:24 flat. His performance was magnificent. The other horses in the race were galloping flat-out but Secretariat just pulled farther and farther away. Recalling that race raises the hair on my arms.
Diana Bailey raised the hair on my arms again last night. The diminutive long-distance runner from California, Notre Dame, and currently, the mountains of Colorado, raced 10,000 meters at the Olympic Trials with the courage and dominance of Secretariat.
Those who consider the 25-lapper tedious or boring may be incapable of understanding genuine excellence. When the Lakers basketball team defeats an NBA rival by 34 points, no one can know how fiercely the winners were defensed, or how many lucky bounces led to rebounds, baskets, or free throws.
In contrast, when Diana Bailey dominates a ten-kilometer track championship by 280 meters and obliterates Lynn Jennings’ American record by 29 seconds, there can be no doubt about the quality of the performance.
Bailey zipped to the front of the 24-woman field and ran with an elegance rarely seen. She opened with a brisk first kilometer – 3:10 – and that was her slowest of the race.
I’ve witnessed hundreds of track meets and thousands of races. Certain athletes are consistently strong performers. Others prevail in head-to-head battles. But this reporter cannot recall watching a race where perfection was so apparent.
Many athletes in Olympic Trials finals run conservatively. They gather themselves for an all-out effort over the closing meters, fearful of committing too soon their accumulated strength and speed that endless training has created.
Bailey had every reason to simply run for the win – or just settle for a place in the Top Three.
After all, a courageous race in the 5,000 meters two days before had already secured her an Olympic team berth. The 10,000 was her third race in five days.
The stadium was oppressively warm, the crowd restless and inattentive – at first. Fifteen laps into the race, I watched a transformation of the 27,545 people at the arena, from track meet attendees into Diana Bailey supporters.
The announcer droned on about event results while athletes lazed on the high jump apron or cooled their feet in the steeplechase water jump. Idle officials and newsmen took a break. But a handful of athletes at trackside began to cheer Bailey’s effort. The enthusiasm spread like contagion. The last four kilometers were a love-fest.
Men in the stands whipped off their T-shirts and waved them around their heads. Applause was constant and sincere. When Diana found a way to sprint the last hundred meters, a final roar of approval erupted.
Bailey’s time, 30:50.05, is just a number to me. But her effort on the track, last night in Knoxville, will be a life-long highlight. Excellence has a name this week – it is Diana Bailey.
_____
No training.
Visited Sarah in hospital.