A trip I can never forget

By Tyler Mayforth
Daily Record Sports

March 08, 2008 04:02 pm

— Have you ever done something and knew you weren’t going to live it down? One of those moments that you knew as long as you were in shouting distance of your friends, it’ll come back to bite you?
It could be when you were in class and it got all quiet when you professed your love for your high school crush.
It could be when you were walking in a group and when you turned around, you slam directly into an open door.
Well, at least you didn’t have that moment caught on camera. My claim to fame can be found on YouTube — just type in the words “Greatest Steeplechase Fall Ever”.
It happened during my sophomore year of college. Many people have those college nights they wish would wash under the bridge along with the copious amounts of alcohol that caused the events. I was completely sober, entirely aware and thoroughly soaked.
I ran cross-country and track during my four years at the University of Delaware and at the end of each track season, our coach would allow us to pick events which we normally didn’t run.
Several distance runners chose the 100 or 200-meter dash, but the ones whose oranges were coated in bronze picked the steeplechase.
Three-thousand meters of unadulterated, all-out pain. Twelve-and-a-half laps of pushing the human body to its limits over five three-foot tall barriers and two-foot deep water pits.
The steeplechase is generally reserved for horses. A human isn’t supposed to leap over barriers on the run unless chased by another human or an animal.
Yeah, that idea lasted for one lap, until I found myself approaching the first obstacle. I cleared it fine, even though the only hurdle race in which I ever competed was in middle school, and well, let’s say the track got the best of it.
Crowds gather around the water pit for one reason — to watch the runners bite it. They hope just once they can see a slip, a fall, a runner make a complete idiot out of himself.
Two laps remained in the race and I was feeling as good as you can after 10 laps. I cleared the last obstacle before the water barrier and then it happened.
My feet began to feel like cinder blocks and the upcoming impediment looked as if was six-feet tall. With a teammate nipping at my heels, I sped up for the water jump.
The barriers were about as old as the track and once my spikes dug into the wood, it splintered. I didn’t have the necessary force to propel myself over the obstacle and went plunging into the water.
My teammate, who didn’t want to land on top of me, slowed up, but it was too late for him as well. He fell in the deep end, literally, submerging himself in the three-foot pit.
I powered through the rest of the race, finishing second in 10 minutes and 11 seconds. As soon as I toweled myself off, a friend came racing up to me — “You have got to see this. You just have to see this.”
So I walked over to where our team set up camp and looked at the screen of her digital camera. Sure enough, in plain sight, there it was — in all of its wet glory.
“Go Mayforth. Ohhhhh. Are you OK? Ohhhhh. Yeah, Harrell, you champ (muffled laughter). I got in all on video. I got it on video.”
She sure did — now I can live it over and over and over again on YouTube.

Tyler Mayforth is a sports writer for the San Marcos Daily Record. Contact him at tmayforth@sanmarcosrecord.com