RUNNING THE 100--COUNT ME IN (February 6, 2002)

In his recent Bell Lap, Craig Masback claimed we'd all run the 100 if we could. "Whatever joy each of us has found through distance running," he insisted, "I believe that given the chance, we'd all be sprinters."

Talk about a scary thought.

Don't get me wrong; I think sprinting is plenty exciting. I'd love to be on the 100-meter starting line for a major showdown between me and the rest of the world's fastest. After days of tightening nerves and verbal jabs in the media, then a morning of extreme agitation, I'd endure the steady tick-tick-tick to the big moment when I would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt--assuming, of course, that I got a passing grade on the post-race urine test--that I was the fastest human on the planet.

Yes, that would be fine. Except that it'd all be over in a lousy ten seconds. Not enough time to work up a sweat.

So move me up. Give me at least the better part of a minute to show my stuff. I want all that same tension and buildup, but a 400-meter oval to draw it out. Full speed ahead--almost--saving just enough to hold first place down the homestretch. Wanta know what the hour after death feels like? Try doing the first half of a 400 a hair too fast.

In fact, that felt so sweet, love me two times. Give me 800. Once around to rev the engine, then a second lap to really grind away at the other guys' mettle. Put me in back, all the way back, and watch me fly. Past one, two, three...all the way to the front. That's what I'd like to be, Dave Wottle at Munich. Was any race ever more beautifully suited to athletic orchestration than the 800?

Well, maybe the mile. Where else on the track has the public--even the thick-skulled American public--allowed its imagination to be riveted? Four laps, four minutes (not counting that metric nonsense)--I get it! We understood it at the dawn of track and field, we cherished it when Bannister broke through, we love it all over again in Alan Webb's embrace. A miler, that's what I'd like to be. Even if my name were Masback.

Of course if a mile is a carefully controlled, then wildly out-of-control masterpiece, what would three in a row be like? The 5000, that's the race. Dart to the lead, find a spot close to red line where you can smell the lactic acid, then endure those dagger-in-the-gut final laps to prove who's really got chutzpah.

And finer still the 10,000, with miles of testing and cruising, midrace feints and surges, the moan of lesser men dropping out the backside of the pack, and then just two of us, me and Gebrselassie, duking it out like boxers. Nearly a half hour of this, and I'd reach deep, deep down, beneath layers of pain, to a very dark spot where a small fire still burned. Then, teeth clenched, I'd will myself ahead.

That fire, by the way, is what drives marathoners, which is why people who never toed the line on a rubberized oval find a worthy adversary in the distance. 20 miles to peel away life's illusions, leaving just a staggering body and a passel of doubts. Then 10 more kilometers through hell. I like this. A lot.

The longer the better. And that brings me to the 100. Hours and hours to find out who I am and whether, in fact, I can rally the stuff of greatness that cowers inside. A whole day stumbling through the wilderness attempting the impossible, and afterwards a book of adventures to share with the grandchildren, with no guarantee of a happy ending. Sweet, stinging sorrow, and a chance at redemption.

So yes, I'd run the 100 if I could. 100 miles, that is.

-Don