Don’t tell Todd Farbiak running isn’t a contact sport.
Don’t tell the Huntley senior there’s no such thing as bad racing luck either.
As a junior, Farbiak had all the good fortune of Charles Barkley at a blackjack table or the Cubs in the postseason. Worst of all, that little black cloud appeared over his head at the most inopportune moments.
The first occasion was during the 2006 Class AA cross-country sectionals, when an unfriendly encounter with a post ended his chances of qualifying for the state meet. Then last May a spill likely cost him a medal in the 800 meters at the Class AA state track meet at Eastern Illinois.
Farbiak will return to Eastern on Friday, hoping to make up for lost time and grab that elusive hardware on his last try.
“I just wanted to make it back and get a medal out of state,” he said.
Farbiak started his running career in 7th-grade track, and it was marked by little more than a steady progression until October 2006, when he competed in the St. Charles North cross-country sectional.
He was in good shape to qualify for the state meet until a runner just in front of him suddenly cut to avoid a post on a turn late in the race, giving Farbiak no time to react before he slammed into it himself. The impact knocked the breath and momentum out of him, and he failed to qualify.
Last spring Farbiak ran a personal best 1 minute 54.51 seconds in the state track meet preliminaries to advance to the 12-man final as the third-fastest qualifier.
Medals would go to the top nine finishers, and with 200 meters to go he was poised to be one of them. Then an opponent right behind him stumbled, hitting Farbiak’s right foot with one of his own feet, and Farbiak went down like the stock market after an oil price hike.
“I completely just flew into the track,” he said. “I hit and kind of slid across it and rolled.
“It all happened so fast. It was pretty bad.”
He eventually arrived at the finish line in 11th place and a bit of a mess. Another runner’s spike had left him with a cut near his left eye, and his fall had caused abrasions on his face and back and a bruised knee. It took a trainer more than a half-hour to clean him up.
A meet official offered him a chance to run alone against the clock to see if he could get a medal and the team points. Farbiak — exhausted, battered and in shock — declined.
“I was mad about it for the first week,” he said of his fall. “Then I realized there was nothing I could do.
“I kind of got over it.”
Still, he admits there is that one loose end that bothers him: Where would he have finished if he hadn’t gone down?
“I think about that every day,” he said. “I was in about third place right before it happened, and it was taken away in the blink of an eye.”
On the other hand, he’s thankful he wasn’t a senior in his last high school race.
“That would have been the worst thing ever,” he said.
Farbiak mostly avoids thinking about his mishaps. He says he has nothing to prove this week and harbors no simmering resentment, just a fierce desire to leave Eastern Illinois with that 800 medal.
Huntley coach Jim Rolando admires his star’s approach.
“I think he is more interested in doing well for the sake of doing well and not for the sake of redemption,” Rolando said. “There is no, ‘I’m owed this’ idea at all.
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“He just looked at this season as its own thing because you just never know from one year to the next.”
Rolando also admires Farbiak’s desire to help establish Huntley as a player in Chicago-area track. The school never had scored at state until last year, when then-freshman Marcus Popenfoose finished eighth in the discus for two points.
Last week Huntley edged Jacobs 58-57 at Rockton Hononegah to win its first sectional title. Besides Farbiak, who won the 800, Popenfoose qualified in the discus and shot put; and Huntley’s 3,200 relay, with Farbiak a member, also punched its ticket to Eastern Illinois.
That’s not bad for a program that didn’t send one athlete to the 2005 state meet.
“I don’t think anyone ever expected this,” said Farbiak, who signed with Western Illinois in February and will compete in cross-country and track. “The school has come a long way since we were freshmen.”
That, of course, includes him. He reached one big goal last fall by qualifying for the Class 3A state cross-country meet, where he placed 56th.
He is optimistic he’ll reach his ultimate track goal Saturday, changing his luck by utilizing strategy he learned last season the hard way.
“I kind of got boxed in where it happened and had nowhere to go,” he said of his fall. “This year I stay outside, closer to Lane 2, and just stay out of trouble.”
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