“You never step in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and you are not the same man.” -Heraclitus
You never step on the same track twice
Directed by RJ McNichols
Whenever a racer steps onto the track, they are faced with a different field with varying strengths and designs on how they will employ those strengths against the other competitors. A good racer is compelled to take stock of the field, speculate on how and where the biggest threats will come from and then formulate a game plan that best utilizes their own unique skills to flow with and against them. Yes, you must ‘run your own race’, but that race doesn’t exist in a vacuum and the primary objective, like any game is to win.
Nick Willis has arguably stepped into more races than any miler currently on the circuit. He’s the Grand Old Man of the rings, schmoozing with the other runners, calmly shaking hands and telling jokes in the nerve-wracked environment that surrounds the track. The 38-year-old first broke 4 minutes for the mile in 2003 and has done so every year since. He competed in his first Olympic Games in 2004, won silver in ’08 and bronze in ’16. He’s set foot on thousands of tracks, but every time the gun goes off, even if the names of the competitors on the heat sheet are the exact same as the preceding race, it is different. Fitness levels are different, plans of attack are different, there is no script to follow, and just as his competition is different, so is he. That is what keeps a competitor of the highest order coming back to The Game time and time again. Even for the man that everyone expects to have seen it all, the thrill is in the chase.
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