Michael Rand takes his turn in Canterbury Park's announcer's booth

As a big fan of experiencing a story as a means of writing about it, I quickly agreed a month or so ago to an opportunity presented by folks at Canterbury Park to be a guest caller at a race.

We settled on a date — which ended up being this past Thursday — and for much of the time leading up to it, the general feeling was one of excitement. And then, about 36 hours before the actual event, the reality of it set in.

Suddenly, there was a feeling of sheer panic and internal questions like, "Why did they ask me to do this?" and "Why did I agree to do this?" and "If the forecast says 80 percent chance of rain, is there any way I can get out of this?"

Because even though I've been to racetracks enough times over the years to know what's generally going on, the language of horse racing is not a native tongue in the same way that, say, baseball or football are. I had never really paid close attention to how an announcer called a race, let alone called one myself.

Agreeing to this was like agreeing to do a triathlon when you don't really know how to swim (another thing I did for a story, back in 2012).

But Thursday arrived … and the evening turned out to be much nicer than advertised … and what looked like a million cars in the Canterbury parking lot — folks perhaps lured by $1 admission and other discounts — proved this was not only happening but would be heard by a large audience. It was sink or swim time again — not literally in this case, but still.

I went up to meet KFAN's Paul Allen, the regular track announcer who was graciously lending me the microphone for one of the night's nine races. I already had done a marginal amount of prep work, trying to learn the horse's names and basic terminology.

I watched him call a couple of races — he's a pro who makes it look easy. Allen could tell I was nervous, and he gave me some excellent pointers. The best thing he said came about two minutes before race time: Just look out on the track and describe what you see.

It sounds basic — yes, that's the job — but it had a calming influence. When you stop building something up to be bigger than it is, you actually can do the thing you're supposed to do.

The funny thing is, when the race started I grew immeasurably calmer. It lasted barely more than a minute — a blur I barely remember — but by most accounts I at least didn't embarrass myself or my employer. Maybe a couple of spots were even good or funny?

I didn't scream at the top of my lungs when it was over — as I did when I got out of the water during the triathlon — but it was both good to have done it and good to be done.

You can judge for yourself. There's video evidence of my complete call on startribune.com. Regardless, it was incredibly fun while also offering an appreciation of what goes into a truly good call from a pro.