Preseason, Day 1: "The Three Mile"

Back-t0-School checklist:

Box of No. 2 pencils.....check.
Folders and notebooks......check.
Barf bag for track......check.

If there is one thing that is synonymous with "Brown Soccer Preseason," it is the three-mile run, and the accompanying feeling of nausea. The three-mile is a simple enough concept: Go run around the track twelve times, and do it in under eighteen minutes. But it's a lot easier to describe than it is to run, as anyone who has attempted "The Tre" can tell you. Just how bad is it? Mention the words "three" and "mile" to any recent graduate and you'll see them shift uncomfortably in their chair, brow furrowing over their ashen face, a guttural "uuooghh" escaping them. It is the look of remembered suffering.

Well, if last year's three-mile run was Windows XP, then this year's run was Windows Vista - a newer version of a futile, mentally anguishing product. Rather than starting together, the players began at different times, according to predicted (or known) handicaps. As the clock counted down, each player had to push himself to his own physical limitations to finish on time. If done to perfection, the entire group would finish together, in Blue Angel-like formation, to Chariots of Fire.

Though they didn't achieve the picture perfect finish hoped for, the boys fared pretty well. Most made their goal, or went sub-eighteen minutes, or both. Combined with good height, weight and body fat averages (aided, no doubt, by the loss of several members of the Class of '07) the team seems to have the physical baseline necessary for success. A scrimmage, a practice, some set pieces, and a tactical meeting later, and it's on to Day 2.

Sorry for the unnecessary fat joke, Class of '07.