My HS in Oregon had a minority of Vietnamese kids who were pretty, as they said, fresh off the boat. These were the kids who left right after the war. One medium-large wrestler was picking on this very small Vietnamese kid who let loose with a real high kick on the side of the bully’s head and the fight was over.
Of course all that occurred to any of us was these kids all know Karate or something, but something else was that that kid had probably been through shit that none of us could imagine that made a HS bully look like nothing.
Glad it ended there because usually wrestlers are the last people you want to fight outside of someone who legit trains to fight. Getting taken down and beat up is rough.
So I read some of the twitter comments and apparently the badass is not just some random with MMA experience, but he has his own extremely long wikipedia page detailing all of the awards he has won for various styles of fighitng.
Anyone know if that is confirmed?
Also which one is the guy who got his eye socked fucked up. Brown jacket or light blue jacket?
I ran mid-distance at track (800m) so I usually trained with all the long distance guys who were also cross country. Can confirm, definitely a random, weird bunch, myself included. We had two guys who were legit mentally handicapped, who loved getting out there competing and breaking their PRs despite finishing close to last, which was pretty cool. The best was that half the practices were us just going for runs unsupervised and dicking around, which usually involved putting rocks on the train tracks and other dumb stuff. One winter a kid ran out on the ice and fell in and could have died. We told the coach he tripped in a puddle. Good old HS.
haha yea we definitely had some practices especially when i was a freshman with some guys who didn’t really give a fuck about training where we fucked off, cuz it was basically coach saying hey go run for an hour in the park or whatever.
Yea we had an old coach that was about the retire, so he didn’t care. When he stepped down we got a new, young, super fit coach who felt more like Ben Stiller/Tony Perkis from Heavyweights. The splits definitely went down that year!
Every sprinter’s least favorite race! I also ran the 400 too, so I shoulda spent more time with the sprinters, but it was much different jock vibe with that crew.
My hs was different. We had 3 milers who ran sub 4:15, so we had a rep for being a distance school and they thought they were hot shit (they were). Our sprinters generally sucked.
Fucking hated the 400, and track in general. Ruined my love of running. Quit after my sophomore year. Was by far my best event though.
The training for CC was definitely a lot more relaxed and more jovial than any of the other sports I did. We never strictly goofed off but kind of ran as a pack cracking jokes and speeding and slowing down as people needed.
We were definitely a weird group kind of bonded by our weirdness and also that CC was a lot more painful sport than a lot of others. I guess with a lot of time on our hands we invented elaborate mythologies like an unseen portal to hell opened up when the starter pistol went off and we were really running through hell where time moved much more slowly and our football coach converted our pain to money for more funds for the football team. Running in the heat & humidity absolutely sucked though. I remember finishing a run and hopping under the shower and turning the pure cold water on and just sitting under the nozzle for a good 15 to 30 minutes until my body temp got back to normal.
haha yea, it’s pretty intense. I still remember some of those really tough track workout days just killing ourselves out there. I didn’t mind the 400 simply because 1 lap of pain >>> 2 laps of pain. I mostly liked track cuz I was the top 800 guy, and when you’re not the super athletic/coordinated type (suck at basketball/baseball etc) it’s kinda cool to be the stud in something, even if it’s a sport nobody cares about!
But I definitely never understood the guys who went on to run like D3 track in college. F that!
There is something kinda cool about that home stretch sprint where you feel like your body is dead, you think you’ve got nothing left, and just kinda close your eyes and kick and finish it out strong somehow. (or not!)
But yea on our team everyone had stupid nicknames and there were too many inside jokes to count, and most of the kids were kinda dorky so it was like endless material to make fun of everyone. Good times.
800m is such a great race to run. I disliked all the other distances. Ran a 2:12 one time. Never cracked 2:20 other than that. Probably because I just loved the kick of the stretch run and reserved too much energy or didn’t maintain enough early pace.
Because Minnesota we’d have snow falling during at least one track meet every year, and cross country sectionals and state almost always had snow on the ground.
