In the spring of 2011, Edward Cheserek hadn’t quite become the household name he is today, mostly because he was, like, 15 or 16 years old and a high school student in New Jersey.

Me? I was an even lesser known college sophomore, whose name recognition has not really changed since.

On the evening of April, 22nd, he only beat me in a 5,000 meter race in Princeton, NJ, by five seconds, during the fastest 5,000m I’ve ever run and probably most objectively impressive athletic feat I’ve ever accomplished. Naturally, this makes me an expert on dethroning the King, ya know?

The first rule for beating Ches, is to go out slightly faster than your current PR pace and focus only on clicking off even splits. With 800 meters to go, begin your long, drawn-out kick. Since Cheserek is six years older and faster than he was when I didn’t lose to him by that much, you’ll then have to rely on two things: the first being that you are much better than I was, which shouldn’t be hard; the second is that you need a weakened Edward.

Through deceit and trickery, try luring him through some sort of warp in the spacetime continuum before the race, from which he will emerge a meek, teenage version of himself. That or have a bunch of friends leave favorable Yelp reviews for a College Station restaurant that almost assuredly gives most of its patrons botulism, then hope that the Oregon team selects its pre-meet dinner based on the strength of an institutions online reviews. For best results, try to artificially inflate the reputation for a place whose name follows the formula: Health Condition + Name + Household Location + Cuisine, i.e., One-eyed Larry’s Basement BBQ.

Godspeed.

• By Paul Snyder
• In FEATURES, NCAA