By Joseph Hoyt
On Friday night, in preparation for his 15th and final Prefontaine Classic, 41-year-old Bernard Lagat pulled out a small spiral notebook and documented his Hayward Field history. He wrote down the date of each meet, the race, how he placed and his time.
But when Lagat got down to the space reserved for 2016, he left it blank. He had one more race to record.
“Now I have to fill it,” Lagat said, “and I’m obligated to write DNF.”
Lagat — the American record holder in the 1,500, the 3,000 and the 5,000 — dropped off the track eight minutes into the 5,000 after fighting a cold since Monday. Ethiopia’s Muktar Edris ran 54.10 on the final lap to win in 12 minutes, 59.43 seconds, edging Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor.
On Monday, Lagat said his coach told him that he was too sick to compete. But the sentimental value of the Pre kept Lagat’s focus on the race. He dropped coffee, hydrated “like crazy” and ate as much fruit as possible. By Wednesday, Lagat had cemented his decision.
“I told my coach, ‘This is my last one, and I want to make sure I end doing a good job,’” Lagat said.
Two days before the race, Lagat visited a doctor. The doctor advised Lagat to play it by ear and be smart. After a mile, Lagat made the best move for him moving forward and pulled out of the race.
“I had to listen to my body,” he said. “I didn’t want to finish it and feel so sick that might hurt my chances of making the team in a month – I had to be smart, as well.”
Before the race, the crowd at Hayward Field gave Lagat a standing ovation. He knew why he fought through his cold to line up at the starting line.
“The Prefontaine is not just another meet for me,” Lagat said. “It means a lot. I have history here.”
But after the first mile, Lagat felt the side effects of distance running with a cold. He had trouble breathing and his chest felt like it was on fire. He dropped out about eight minutes later.
While he was recuperating, Lagat looked up at the race. On the last lap, he saw Edris slingshot all the way from fourth place to first. The victory gives Edris his second win in as many Diamond League races – he won the 5,000 in Shanghai two weeks ago with a time of 12:59.96.
“That last 400 meters, that’s what wins championships,” Lagat said of Edris. “That wins Olympics. I was watching it, and he made it look so easy.”
At the bottom of the page in Lagat’s spiral notebook, below all of the results during his career at the Prefontaine Classic, he wrote “The end of the journey!” In that time, he won the mile twice, the two-mile twice and the 3,000 once. The one race he never won, after competing in it the last three times, was the 5,000. His best result was a fourth-place finish last year.
His journey at the Prefontaine Classic may be over, and though he never won a 5,000, Lagat walks away from Hayward Field on Saturday satisfied.
“I’m OK with that,” Lagat said. “I’ve had a good share of coming close in the 5,000, but I wanted to make sure my blank on No. 15 was a good time, and it was a finish. It wasn’t, but I can live with that.”
