A week after his dad passed away from a sudden heart attack in January 2006 at age 44, Justin Harbor was back on the track, doing what makes him happy.
Running.
“After my dad died, I wasn’t motivated, I hadn’t run for like four days in a row, and I wasn’t going to run in that Boston race,” Harbor said. “But it was like a big Boston pro meet against the fastest assembled high school boys in the country, they’d already paid for my plane ticket, and they told me I didn’t even have to race if I didn’t want to. So I went.
“And when I got out there and went to the track, I was like ‘I have to race.’ I ran well, I was in second-to-last place the entire race. Then at the end I closed, and I went from fifteenth to sixth in like 200m.”
Now a freshman on the Oregon track team, Harbor says that he’s never regretted his decision to run at the Boston Indoor Games.
The period that he spent pounding out the yards on the track in that mile race that day in Boston acted as a temporary reprieve from his emotional turmoil. For a just a few minutes, running made the world feel normal again.
“I think I did the right thing by racing. And it’s funny because when I finished the race, I was kinda thinking my dad was with me that last 400m,” Harbor said. “It didn’t fill the place of my dad, but I just felt like that was a equalizer.
“As runners, we’re kinda like our own shrinks. Running is what soothes us and calms us. So after the race, I felt great. I was happy. I was kinda normal for an hour.”
This ability to derive that sort of satisfaction and completeness from running is what sets distance runners aside from the rest of the pack.
Unlike sprinters who can unleash months of preparation into a single, channeled 10-second burst, distance runners are on the track for sustained periods of time. They have to enjoy doing it.
“It’s a different kind of mindset,” Harbor said. “Anybody can be a runner, but not anybody can be a competitive distance runner. We enjoy it. We like it. We always feel good when we run. That’s what makes us kinda different from everybody else.”
Harbor ran his first race when he was in third grade in Pensacola, Fla. and had no trouble beating everyone in his age group. By the time he reached fifth grade, he’d won his age division at both state and nationals and set the state record for his age division in the 1,500m.
During his senior year of high school, he ended up choosing Oregon over Florida State even though he’d trained with the Florida State team and had a good relationship with the coach.
Harbor suffered a stress fracture in his right femur at the beginning of this season and will not be able to compete this year, but he’s just one man in a lineup of talented distance runners out that Oregon has amassed over the years.
The gifts of a distance runner
Junior distance sensation Galen Rupp holds the school record for the 10,000m, recently defeated the national champion in the 5,000m, and is frequently touted as the successor to the legacy of Oregon distance legend Steve Prefontaine.
Oregon Director of Track and Field Vin Lananna says that while it’s not possible to pinpoint a specific prototype that would embody the perfect distance athlete, Rupp comes close in terms of his natural ability and work ethic.
“At the end of the day, we just look for good athleticism,” Lananna said. “Galen has some natural ability obviously, but he works tremendously hard, he’s disciplined, competitive, and he’s not one of the geeky kind of distance runners obsessed with studying every one of his competitors.”
Rupp thinks the most important attribute a distance runner can develop is proper form. Of course, in his case, his easy gait is aided by the fact that for his age and height, his lung capacity is 130 percent of the average person’s, meaning that he takes in oxygen much more easily and efficiently.
Harbor believes that the proportion of fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers that a person possesses also plays a part in the development of a good distance runner.
“For me, I have a pretty even amount of fast and slow twitch,” Harbor said. “Everybody’s body has a different amount of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fiber. It’s what you’re born with, and you just have to take what you have and find your strengths and weaknesses.”
Turning a science into an art
But natural attributes are only one part of the equation. The general consensus is that while distance runners are typically lanky, long-legged and sinewy, there is no exact physique that guarantees performance either.
“When I got here, Coach Lannana and I were just joking around, and he was looking at my legs – I’ve got scrawny calves and decent quads – and he was like, “I’ve seen better legs on a chair!” Harbor said, laughing.
At 6 feet 5 inches tall and about 175 pounds, freshman Andrew Wheating says that while long legs make for a bigger stride, his height sometimes also puts him at a disadvantage, even when he’s running behind the leader who’s supposed to break the wind for him.
“I’m so tall that I kind of stick out over the top of everyone else and catch the wind anyway,” Wheating said.
Instead of trying to cultivate the elusive “perfect” runner’s body, Harbor thinks the best thing a runner can do for himself is take control of his mind.
“There’s tons of different body types and not an exact type is perfect. But you’ve got to have a mental toughness. In this sport, determination is key,” Harbor said.
Rupp agreed.
“I think the mental aspect is the most important part and the most neglected part of the sport,” he said. “It’s about learning to deal with discomfort, and you need mental toughness to stay in there. That’s what separates the good from the great.”
The athletes say that running is all about pushing your body to its absolute limits, and that can hurt. A lot.
During his senior year in high school, Harbor ran a 5,000m race that he hadn’t any speed preparation for, and while he ended up winning, what he remembers the most from that race was just how much it hurt at the end.
With two miles remaining in the race, Harbor made the decision to kick early. He took off with a 4:52 split and drove the rest of the way until he’d isolated himself and one other runner from the rest of the pack as they embarked on the final portion of the race.
“The last part is a 700 – 800m hill climb. I’m at the base of the hill, my legs feel like they’re gonna snap, my lungs are bursting, it’s 98 degrees, humid Dade County heat,” Harbor said. “I remember going up that hill. Everything got blurry, everybody’s yelling. I thought my chest was gonna explode. I was just hurting because I hadn’t done anything to prep for that race.
That’s when his mental edge kicked in and helped to override his body’s approaching limit.
“I told myself, ‘Justin you will not fall. You’re gonna finish this race, you’re gonna run fast and you’re gonna win and you’re not gonna fall off or pass out before you cross the line,’” Harbor said. “Right when my body crossed the line, it was lights out. I fell down and passed out. When I woke up, I started throwing up. That was the most I’ve ever hurt in my life.”
Zoning into the ‘Runner’s High’
Yet racing doesn’t always end in sheer vomit-inducing pain. Distance runners run because they enjoy it. But they stand divided over the issue of the mythical “runner’s high.”
“I’ve never had a runner’s high,” Harbor said, “I don’t know what people are talking about; that’s sounds crazy to me. I’ve never had one, and I run a lot. So if there’s one out there, I want one.
“I just enjoy running. Maybe the runner’s high if for people who don’t enjoy running, and for just that one moment they feel great about running?”
Wheating disagrees, though. He’s a firm believer in the existence of the runner’s high because unlike Harbor, running isn’t a natural source of exuberance for him.
Wheating, a former soccer player, says
there are times when running all the time gets boring and he misses the variety and dynamic nature of soccer.
“There are days where I come to practice and it’s like I dread running, like, ‘I really do not want to run,’” Wheating said. “If I feel really good, I can’t wait to get going.
“When I finish a race, I feel up in the clouds, all floaty. If you run hard and you run far, you get this feeling of just happiness, and I think that’s the true runner’s high.”
For Rupp, it’s a state of intense concentration, when everything else suddenly ceases to exist.
“Sometimes you’re racing, you’re in the moment, it seems like time slows down,” he said. “I’ve been in a few races when things are all going right and you’re just so zoned in, you’re so focused on what you’re doing, you’re not paying attention to what’s around you, and you just know you’re going to do something special.”
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