Scott Radley: Mac races to windy, wet — and painful — cross country gold

He had just won his first national cross country championship and his teammates were in the process of claiming McMaster's first team title since 1963. So how did Max Turek celebrate?

I was just wallowing in pain on the ground," he says.

From the extreme effort required to win in brutal conditions, he means? From the exertion of covering eight kilometres in just over 24 minutes? Nope.

From the dislocated shoulder.

We'd better explain.

The course in Halifax was rather treacherous on Saturday. The 16-degree temperature was ideal for running the USport championship but everything else wasn't.

It was rainy and super windy," head coach Paula Schnurr says.

The water had saturated the grass leading to a sloppy and splashy track. There was fog. The winds were touching 40 kilometres an hour with strong-enough gusts that spectators' umbrellas were being turned inside out.

Worst of all, Turek says, was the layout.

It was a pretty dangerous course," he says.

On the first of four laps, he was among the leaders when he reached a sharp turn where the ground was slanted. Suddenly he was on the ground. No damage done. He was back up quickly. Still, it was tricky. And he wasn't the only one to taste turf.

Nonetheless, as the race took shape, he was out front with teammate Andrew Davies. Feeling like it was just another training run in Hamilton. Not far behind them were Alex Drover, Dylan Alick and Sam Nusselder. The other Macs chasing Max.

As Turek poured it on and eventually crossed the finish line in the gold-medal position with a comfortable lead over a runner from Laval - completing a perfect season for the 23-year-old mechatronics student who won all four races he ran - he collapsed. The effects of exhaustion, everyone assumed.

Not exactly.

I slipped at the end," he says. And dislocated my shoulder."

Yup. At the moment of his greatest triumph - with his teammates crossing the line one after the other after the other after the other in rapid succession - he was in a world of discomfort.

Fortunately, he'd fallen at the feet of his fiancee's mother who recognized what was going on. She was able to help him and prevent a bunch of folks from congratulating him too vigorously. Nothing like a tight hug to make an out-of-joint shoulder feel really good.

Of course, as this is all happening, the race is still going on. Team results in cross country work on a simple scale. First place earns one point, second gets two, third gets three and so on. You need five runners to qualify. Lowest combined score wins.

Within 45 seconds of his finishing, the other four necessary Marauders had crossed the line - Davies in third, Drover in fifth, Alick in 13th and Nusselder in 15th - clinching the title. And not by a little. Mac had a skimpy 37 points. Second-place Laval had 115. Third-place Queen's was at 130. It was a demolition.

Did Turek know this?

Not really," he laughs.

Yes, by the time he was able to talk about it, chuckling was possible. Especially since this isn't the first time. He first dislocated the same shoulder three years ago on a slip'n'slide. Since then it's happened three or four more times.

Before he went off to the medical tent 20 minutes later to have it popped back into place once again, he'd learned his side had won. McMaster's first cross country title in almost 60 years and the school's first national championship of any kind since women's basketball won in 2019.

Did that really make it feel better?

Believe it or not, he says, yes. It truly does.

Celebrating with your teammates is so much better than celebrating on your own."

Even if it's only with one arm.

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com