What does it feel like to stand on the starting line, size up the rest of the field and know full well you have absolutely no chance to win?

It’s hard to describe, but it’s not exactly the best thing to have swirling in your head when you’re about to run two miles against one of the most accomplished distance runners in the state, and you’re only hope is to finish without a cardiac episode.

To trained athletes, surely that thought never enters their heads.

But I’m not a trained athlete. I’m a sportswriter who exercises half as much as I should.

So how is it that on a recent Thursday afternoon I stood on the track at Apex High and had the gumption to believe that I could hang with Andie Cozzarelli for two miles?

It’s not machismo, because I’m a sissy.

It’s not pride, because I have very little.

Essentially, it’s because I’m just not that smart.

In three-plus years at Apex, Cozzarelli has compiled an impressive running resume. As she enters the indoor track season, she has to her credit four runner-up finishes in the NCHSAA 4-A state championship cross country race, two straight outdoor 3,200-meter state titles and an indoor 3,200-meter championship.

In short, she’s awfully good.

Me?

I watched her finish second in the state cross country meet once and was at the track when she won her first outdoor 3,200 title.

But I wanted to know what so many runners have felt when they lined up against her.

I’ve always been fascinated by distance runners. Running is one of the most boring things to do. It’s tedious and tiresome. And it takes tremendous dedication in order to excel.

To watch the top runners, really, is amazing. They’re so graceful, and they only show fatigue when they cross the finish line and collapse.

Cozzarelli started running in middle school, she said, because she wanted to beat her sister.

When she got to Apex, she had no plans to continue. She was going to focus just on soccer. But a few weeks into her freshman year, Apex coach Roy Cooper talked her into joining the cross country team.

“It turned out good,” she said.

She’s going to run at the Division I college level, though she hasn’t yet decided where.

What fascinates me about cross country and track, and swimming for that matter, is that everyone knows everyone else’s time. You know if you’re 10 seconds off the best time, or if you have a 10-second advantage over the rest of the field.

In a sport that’s measured by time and not points, upsets are rare. A runner just doesn’t make up 10 or 15 seconds in one race. If he or she does, their drug test comes back positive.

What a monumental edge that is for the top runner, or so it would seem. Cozzarelli said she doesn’t follow that type of logic.

“When I get to the line, I’m not thinking that,” she said. “I’m thinking anybody can win it, so I’m just going to make sure that I do.”

After my post-race interview with Cozzarelli at the cross country championships Nov. 3, I told her I’d like to run two miles with her. She was very receptive.

Then I told Cooper what I had in mind.

His face went blank for a second. He called over Cary High’s coach, Jerry Dotson, who was standing nearby. Cooper told Dotson what I had in mind, and Dotson doubled over in laughter.

The original plan was to run closer to Christmas, which would give me a few weeks to try and get my legs under me.

But Cooper called the following week and asked if Nov. 15 would work for me. Cozzarelli was going to run a time trial in preparation for the Foot Locker Southeast Region race at Charlotte’s McAlpine Park, so he thought it’d be better if I ran against her when she had something more than just obliterating me to run for. (On Saturday, Cozzarelli finished 47th in 18:33 in the field that featured the top 144 runners from 11 states).

My initial goal was to not get lapped. Then I looked up her times in the 3,200. She usually runs it between 11 minutes and 11:30. I decided I didn’t want to get lapped twice. The thought of beating her never once crossed my mind. I am super competitive, but I don’t have a problem losing when I know full well I have no chance of winning.

After we went through her warm-ups — running two laps, a series of stretches, then a couple sprints — we were ready to go.

By the end of the first 100 meters, I was leading. I maintained that lead throughout the first lap.

When we completed the first 400 meters, we were right next to each other. As we crossed the starting line, I blinked, and she was gone. It seemed like in that fraction of a second, she’d opened up a 50-meter lead. And it just kept getting bigger.

She lapped me just before I completed the first mile, then she got me again around the 2,300-meter mark. Knowing she was 100 meters from being done, while I had two more laps to go, I gave a passing thought to pulling up lame. But that sliver of pride I cling to wouldn’t let me.

As I approached my last lap, she jumped back on the track and ran the last 400 meters with me stride for stride.

Around the 300-meter mark, she told me to start my kick.

I laughed at her. If I went all out on the backstretch, she was going to have to carry me down the homestretch.

I finished in a respectable 15:40, more than four minutes behind Cozzarelli.

“Not bad,” she said.

I’ll take that as a compliment.