But in the case of Mike LeBaron, an exception will be made on Saturday morning when his son, Nolan, competes in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at Bill Race Field at Falconer Central School.

In fact, the married father of three knows exactly where he’ll be as he watches the athletes navigate the grueling race.

“I’m going to be on the track at the finish line when he crosses,” Mike said earlier this week. ” … Saturday is the day that we’ve dreamed of, that we always hoped would come.”

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Nolan LeBaron, second from left, is pictured with his family, from left: brother Andrew, sister Mikaela, mother Andrea and father Michael. Submitted photo

Two years ago, Nolan ran in the first heat of the 400-meter preliminaries at the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Athletic Association Championships, also at Bill Race Field.

Then a sophomore at Frewsburg Central School, Nolan finished last among seven runners, completing the race in 1 minute, 57.21 seconds, which was more than 60 seconds slower than the top qualifier.

Yet as Nolan slowly, but surely made his way around the track, his peers waited at the finish line, cheering him on as if he was on pace to set a record. Their celebration had nothing to do with the time he posted or where he placed, though. Just being there was enough, because nine months earlier Nolan had been diagnosed with leukemia and had been receiving treatment at Oishei Children’s Hospital and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, a regimen that would ultimately total an estimated 300 trips to Buffalo over the course of 29 months.

“I felt really accomplished after that,” Nolan said. “I was kind of surprised I could do that after everything I’d been through. I know it inspired a lot of people.”

Mike admitted that his family, which also includes his wife, Andrea, and their oldest children, Mikaela and Andrew, has learned plenty during that time, too.

“It’s a quote we live by,” he said, “and that quote is, ‘You never know how strong you are until strength is your only choice.’

“A lot of times when you’re going (to treatments), you’re at rock bottom, but you look at those buildings and, for me, you always saw halos above them and I knew when we got there the help was there.”

And it was that help that led Nolan, now 18, to be declared cancer-free last December. He’ll graduate from Frewsburg in a couple weeks and he plans to attend Alfred State in the fall where he will also run on the cross-country team.

“We went from running 100 meters on our road in the dark (in November 2022) and it was all we could do to finish it, and here he is. Saturday he’s going to run the steeplechase. It’s not an easy race, (but) it’s in the sectionals and it’s kind of nifty that it’s at Falconer.”

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Mike was the Lady Golden Falcons track & field coach for years, so he has plenty of fond memories of his team’s successes at Bill Race Field.

But Saturday will be an entirely different experience.

“Wearing my coaching hat, we never walk into a race without a goal,” Mike said. “(Nolan’s) best time in the race is 11:02, so his goal is to beat 11 minutes. We’ve trained for that, and we’ve strategized for that and how he can maybe pull that off.”

Added Nolan: “It will be awesome. He’s been such a big help in the past three years. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He helps me so much (with my running).”

That’s the technical side, of course, but what about the emotions that father and son will undoubtedly experience?

“Who knows?” Mike said. “Nolan knows when he’s coming down that last 100 meters, he’s going to look up and he’s going to see me standing on the other side of the finish line.”

As for what he’ll say as they share an embrace that was nearly three years in the making, Mike didn’t hesitate to answer.

“That’s an easy one,” he said. “I’ll tell him, ‘You’re my Superman,’ because he is.”