Warming Up the Turkey

Before dawn, the sky black at the edges, stars number enough to reveal individual leaves' outlines in trees.  As the star quilted sky sweeps into view from above the house’s eaves, a meteor tears across the southern sky, extinguished and then reignited briefly, insane speed and energy dissipated mutely.  Orion hunts, slowly arcing from horizon to horizon.  The time before the beginning of a day.

Several hundred cubic fathoms of beer, immeasurable megawatt-hours worth of sun exposure, inundation in two each of ocean and great lake, multiple minor non-running related injuries involving jellyfish, rope swings, sidewalks, waterfalls, and physical feats a by definition athletically one-dimensional distance runner generally just shouldn’t be attempting, and 14 additional pounds of baggage later, I'm back to running after a cathartic six week break. I needed it. I sort of limped through the outdoor track season on a crutch of ibuprofen, running on a hip with internal workings that just, well, couldn't even. 

Motivating my recent demotivation were two people: the great Kenyan marathoner Paul Tergat, who purportedly took several years off every fall and gained innumerable kilograms, returning to running just rarin to rip heads off. His running career lasted at an international level well into his thirties.  And Pete, our coach at Zap Fitness, who told me I needed to finally let my usually pretty not-injury-prone physique actually rest for more ten days for once, for crying out loud. He had good reason.

Lucky enough to never have suffered from anything worse than achilles tendinitis (knocks on skull), I've never taken a break from training of more than twelve days since high school. Many runners would kill a fly for that kind of durability, but those long term injuries replenish your physical and mental energy stores.   Beside allowing the soft tissue in my hip to heal, pure off time would let the head scratching inducing symptoms of long-term overtraining subside.  I imagine fatigue from one season rolling over to the next season across relatively short ten to fourteen day breaks and compounding a runner to death later on.   Simulating a major injury and taking several weeks off could be the change in training I needed having spent several seasons on a plateau running similar track and road performances.  So Pete applied a jackhammer to my shins.

Just kidding. But for 42 days I wasn't a runner, or even an active human except for some hiking and canoeing.  And Pokemon Go.  Sue me.  Going cold turkey is hard, but I reminded myself that even though my lifestyle closely matched that of Jaba the Hut, minus the weird frog things he heats, the runner within was being given a breather for the work and competition to come.  Whenever thoughts of training started leaking in, I'd reach for another beer.  At two weeks the strangeness of not running faded as hormones stabilized, the metabolism slowed down, and my body got used to not being stressed each morning and afternoon with a run.  At a month I was the one shouting run Forest run.  But in the third trimester of my training holiday, with the Olympics on full blast and inspired by the hugely successful US distance and middle distance olympic teams, I was ready to return to running like I never have been before.  

Week one was rough.  “left, right, left, right, port, starboard” I told my legs, ambulating at greater than three m.p.h. for the first time since early July.  It made me respect the fitness I’ve retained continually for over a decade.  In fits and starts my legs have come around since the break ended.  As uncomfortable as the first few runs were, being “out of shape” provides a good point of reference.  It’s kind of fun to feel the tangible gains made almost daily when you’re starting from a lower point: sure, you have a long way to go, but runners are happiest when we’re climbing.*

Last month’s Cameron Bean Memorial 5k and Magnum Mile in Chattanooga, Tennessee provided a timely mental and spiritual boost for the return to being a runner.  Normally we wouldn’t race or work out so soon after returning to training, but I couldn’t miss Cam’s run.  It’s been almost a year since our Zap teammate Cameron died, and getting to run that morning with Zap team mates past and present, Zap campers, and over 650 people who knew Cameron and to hear how he inspired them in life completely reassured me I’m doing the right thing by working to achieve the kind of goals Cameron set and lived by.  Despite it being so early in training, I ran the evening’s very well put on Magnum Mile event balls to the wall because Cam would have done the same.  I was pretty happy with a 4:25 road mile off no training, although my legs were not pleased the next day.

Aaron, Brandon, and I running a 7-6-5-4-3 fartlek
on Bass Lake in Blowing Rock last week

Team at Zap Fitness has been another big source of energy and inspiration for me in the early stages of this new buildup.  Running after college is a hard road/trail/track, and the team has changed a lot since I started running for Zap over three years ago.  I have a good relationship with everyone who’s run here and moved on, and I draw on the young energy we now have on the roster.  Like Count Trackcula.  Johnny Crain, Matt McClintock, Brandon Doughty, and Aaron Nelson all moved into our facility and campus on Blackberry Road late this summer, and their excitement for training at this level and competing on the professional circuit spreads to the seasoned members of the team, keeping things fresh and in perspective.  When you live, run, eat, cut the grass, and sleep together†, good interaction within the group begets good living and effective training.  

This was a natural transition year between being an early post collegiate runner and being a better experienced and hungrier athlete not afraid to set lofty goals.  The best running is ahead.  For now I’m training until November, when I’ll run two road races, including (my favorite) the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving morning.  In December we’ll begin our cross country campaign with Zap as we run for the team title at the USATF Club Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee.  In January we’ll compete in several cross country meets across Scotland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal in preparation for February’s US Cross Country Championships held in Bend, Oregon.  With lots of cross country on the schedule, I’ll enter the outdoor track season strong and prepared to race into the end of the summer.

So we move into one of my favorite times of the year: when the smell of leaves and decay on the dry breeze and chilly mornings bring on olfactory nostalgia and mean hard, long training runs on dirt and grass and other rustic surfaces‡, and when those first anxious memories of competitive running formed for a high school freshman who didn’t know where this after school activity would take him.  You fall§ in love with the tired, sore feeling in your legs that pervades your days.  The feeling of accomplishment as you train for those short and rare moments when your goals are at their most vulnerable, ripe for breaking.  The trail to those days is long and full of switchbacks, manticores, man, a lot of core, and as I’ve said, many Coors.  Our objective is to run faster times, qualify for bigger meets, and win championships, but you can’t forget who climbs the trail with you, and even those who conspire to beat you to the top, because they have a funny way of becoming your friends too.  Without them, there’s no one to share the glory of running with.

Thanks for reading.  Here's my upcoming race schedule:

Date	Race Name	Location	Venue / Distance
November 12	HCA 8k	Richmond, VA	Road 8k
November 24	Manchester Road Race	Manchester, CT	Road 4.748 miles
December 10	USATF Club Cross Country Championships	Tallahassee, FL	Cross Country 10k
January 7	Great Edinburgh XCountry ‖	Edinburgh, Scotland	Cross Country 8k
February 4	USATF Cross Country Championships	Bend, OR	Cross Country 12k

- - - - - - -
Digressions

* The derivative of my fitness with respect to time is positive and large, and right now I might even venture to say that its second derivative is positive, meaning my fitness is increasing at an increasing rate.  All of this provides good momentum against the inevitable cooling off the second derivative into negative territory and the slowing of my fitness increase to zero hopefully exactly when I want it to, say next summer at an important competition, again ideally at an absolute value of fitness greater than I’ve ever reached before.
† In extended stay hotels and European dorm rooms
‡ How to say 'soft surfaces' with class

§ Pun premeditated
‖ Qualification required

I'm Not a Tree

How would being a tree be. 

Over there, that tree. 

I'm not a tree.  

Maybe it would be nice to be one. 

To stand there in the wind, or maybe 

Not, on a windless day.  

You don't have to eat,

Rather you soak in food with your toes.  

And you breath through your leafy arms.  

But you wouldn't know that, would you, 

Because you're a tree.  

No thinking.  No sorrow.  

No boredom, even.

At least I think, 

But how would I know?  

I'm not a tree.

I am, however very tired.  Although I'm in Colorado, it's the runner's high I'm drenched in, sprawled out on the grass and reveling in the sweet, sick exhaustion that twelve kilometers of cross country at altitude just beat into me, or rather, I beat into myself.  It's weird, the things that pop into your brain when it's deoxygenated.  On race cool-downs I can be reduced to a babbling Shakespearian-esque clown, s-wordplay drawn, in my mind brilliant but in truth muddled to the ears of those bothering to listen.  Hypoglycemia and endorphins steep into a soup of post-nervous energy expenditure elation until I find some kilocalories and lite beer and bring myself back to the normal world.  Especially amplified by a good long race, these feelings put the addiction in running.

Saturday's US Cross Country Championships involved six laps of a two kilometer loop on Boulder's Flatiron golf course.  Though the sun, seventy degree temperatures, and accurate venue name made for nice conditions, the 5200 feet of elevation made it a little harder for lowland-lubbers like me.  Unlike a mile or even 5k, my (hardtack and lard) this race was long enough that it's come to rest in my memory not unlike some Homeric epic with defeats and victories preceding the final result.  It was war out there, and there was definitely carnage.

In the first 2k lap, everyone's nervous energy burned hotly around sharp fenced off turns and through the small rocky ditch about 1800 meters into each loop.  By the first pass by the start/finish area, the major contenders had roughly sorted themselves into a contingent near the front.  Andrew and I were close together in about 25th place.  In fact I almost fell shortly into the second lap and his body helped catch me. (That is team work) Soon after my comfort level began declining rapidly and I knew this wouldn't be a "relax and roll" kind of race.  Every passing minute would require focus.

I began drifting away from the main pack from 3k to 6k into the race.  In the moment I was fighting off negative thoughts, trying not to think about the distance remaining.  I started thinking "Damn it, this is it.  I'm going backwards and the next 25 minutes are going to be helltitude."  But I hung in, and midway into the fourth lap, somewhere around 5k to go, I began making passes around some highly credentialed guys slipping backwards.  Each gave me a small confidence boost and my focus sharpened.  I promised myself I wouldn't save much for a spectacular kick and instead started moving far  out from the tape.

In the hurt box, but my eyes are up.  The course had a nice view of the mountains.
Thanks to Aric Van Halen for the photo

One last challenge remained: the all-of-six-foot sand bunker decline with 600 meters to go.  My legs were so dead that they got tangled in themselves and I hit the deck.  Muscle memory from my skateboarding days took over and I combat rolled and popped right up, hardly losing any time.  Ian Burell was on my tail and I couldn't afford to lay in the dirt.  Shaken up, I "took off" (which probably meant a blazing five minute pace at this point) with another runner in my sights ahead.  In the finishing chute I just missed getting him for a fifteenth place finish in 38:14.

I wasn't going to let myself be disappointed in fifteenth, not after how low I sunk mentally and how hard I fought back.  Though I missed my goal of making the world cross country team, which required a top-six showing, I realize that sometimes you have to be pleased with a bloody guts and little glory result.  If you can't be alright with missing goals sometimes, you'll never have the gas to get them.  This mentality counterweights complacency, but I'll save being hard on myself for other days and (shorter) races.

I felt a bit of a pang looking at the 2k loop splits published post race day.  Let's just say my fastest loop was only two seconds faster than the winner's slowest.  But I'm not a tree, and I'm also not a pure cross country guy.  As an aside, this years field was high quality, which is a good thing for American distance running.  I'd argue (as C. Derrick has) that greater participation in cross country by our pros improves our Olympic chances on the track.  Many guys are going straight to the track post collegiately, perhaps excessively.  Either way, these results represent a vast improvement in my ability over hill and dale. (but not sand bunker) In high school I finished only as high as fifth at the Wisconsin state cross country meet and was never an All American in NCAA cross country.  Doing "pretty good" this weekend translates to exciting prognostications for track, and that has been the plan all along since September.

Now the plan shifts toward the oval via the roads.  Next week I'll be running a road 5k in Armagh, Ireland.  On π day is the Gate River Run / US road championships 15k in Jacksonville.  A rest week precedes the buildup into outdoor track season and lots of fun races.  I apologize in advance if I meet you on a cool down.

A preliminary schedule of my upcoming races:

Date	Race Name	Location	Venue / Distance
February 17	Armagh Road 5k	Armagh, Ireland	Road 5k
March 14	Gate River Run	Jacksonville, FL	Road 15k
April 11	Blue Shoes Mile	Greenville, SC	Track mile
May 2	Payton Jordan Invitational	Palo Alto, CA	Track 5000

Going Fast and Taking it Slow

On an unseasonably warm late September 2011 day in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania I'm trying to prove myself.  A mile into the Paul Short Invite gold 8k race, I navigate slime slicked grassy spots, the course softened by prior races as if masticated by some giant possessing thousands of half inch spikes for teeth.  My thighs are already beginning to burn and I begin to think, not again.

That summer in Park City, Utah the Princeton Tigers had trained hard.  Some of us older guys put in multiple triple digit mile weeks at between 6000 and 8000 feet, constantly on hills.  We were running 10 mile tempo runs and 20+ mile long runs in August, and to me they often felt nearly like races.  I'd wake up and need several minutes to get myself out of bed, fighting through the desire to just fall back into the pillow.  But I viewed it as typical training fatigue, and believed all the work would cash out during an epic senior cross country campaign.  That fell into doubt when the races started.  First a no-finish on the Bronx's Van Cortlandt Park's course in early September.  Then at Paul Short I faded from that 4:51 opening muddy mile all the way to a disheartening 26:01 clocking, totally disengaging from the race.  Some moments in practice were promising: I'd be able to hang with my workout group for shorter bouts of fast running.   But I couldn't string together five consecutive miles without rest in a race.

I watched the snowy and muddy 2011 Heps Championship from courseside in Princeton, not having broken into the top twelve on the team - the year before I had been in our top five for much of the season.  I was working hard and injury free: my performances didn't make sense.  The not knowing why bothered me - I would almost rather be totally injured for the knowledge of it.

That is until a blood test showed I had a ferritin level of seven.  Coaches, trainers, and doctors cite various numbers for appropriate ferritin levels, but they'll all agree that seven is extremely low.  Most likely the deficiency came on during the summer while I was potentially overtraining at altitude.  I began taking ferrous sulfate supplements - I hadn't ever before, and just 17 days later things turned around.  We held a 5k track time trial for the guys not on the Nationals cross country team.  As planned, we ran 70 second laps to two miles in 9:20, at which point I knew my red blood cells were back.  I ratcheted down the pace to 66s laps, closed with a 4:21 mile, and ran 14:12, a new PB.  The next weekend I and Princeton won the IC4A Cross Championships, getting revenge on Van Cortland Park.

The late fall turnaround continued into spring.  I obliterated every personal mark from 1500 to 5k, broke four, won Penn Relays titles, and had success at the conference, regional, and national levels.  I learned that year that every inch of work you put in helps you somewhere down the line, even if years later.  Through 7/8 of college I trained at a much higher level than races indicated, but it fortunately showed in the end.  I ran a lot of miles probably too fast and too tired, but they weren't for nothing.  They stayed in my legs, waiting for health to return.  When it did, I became a totally different runner with a different perspective.  I formed an altered point of view of the unwanted and unexpected.  

Label failure differently.  Make the good times models and the bad times lessons.  What was once failure - a godawful race, a bad workout, an injury ridden season - becomes success.  You successfully failed the race.  You learned something.  That terrible race is a part of You now.  You can think back to it, hate it, laugh at it, but whatever you do, make the future better.  You define what losing really is for yourself.  When you finally do win, it's only because you've lost many times on the way there.  Training is a microcosm of this:   A calculated series of blows to the body in pursuit of the triumphant gain in fitness.

I may be older and wiser (probably not, I just got carded twice in half an hour even though I'm 25) but running never stops challenging me.  This fall has been about learning to be patient.  Our training has focused on aerobic base building: lots of fartleks, hill climbing, tempos, and surges on long runs, to a degree I sometimes have been uncomfortable with.  At times I feel the need for some faster, more specific workouts in practice in order to execute well in races.  The week after a bombed race in Boston in October, I brought this up to Pete in a pretty uncharacteristically demanding way.  He just looked at me and said, "I need you to be patient.  I know you are going to run fast this year."  Something as simple as that calmed me down.

Your 2014 USATF Club Cross Country team champions, Zap Fitness.  L-R Andrew Colley, Cole Atkins, Joe Stilin, Tyler Pennel, Chris Moen, John Simons, Griff Graves.  Not pictured are assistants to the assistant regional manger George Alex and Cameron Bean.  Photo credit Michael Scott.

On Saturday I was back in Bethlehem on Lehigh's cross country course for the first time since that race in 2011.  I finished tenth and the team won in probably the deepest Club Cross Country Championships in history, showing I could run cross country without necessarily needing the battery acid intervals and repeats I adore so much.  I was reminded how sometimes I need to just shut my mind off, pull the plow in training, not ask so many questions, and run.  If you stay in it long enough, things have a way of working themselves out.  And many times, turnarounds happen when you least expect them.

Input the Output

Stress is a killer.  Tensions do cause neurosis.  Uneasiness of the heart can lead to despair.  But without them, we remain inferior to our true selves.  Live if you will a life without risk .  Avoid the forge, the fire, the flame.  But know that joy and happiness and the good life come only as unexpected interludes in the endless, stressful, tense and restless journey to become who you are.  There is no easy way.
       - George Sheehan, Dr. Sheehan On Running

August marked ten years since my running career began.  On that first muggy summer day, I got out of my dad's Toyota pickup in jeans and Vans, unsure whether showing up in shorts to captain's practice was, well, cool.  Once past that barrier of freshman terror, I left the jeans in a bush and went running for the first time.  Before, I'd known running in more playful terms: short sprints on the beach, races against my uncle for quarters, and the mile in gym class.  But this was the first time I'd run: crossed street after street, deliberately continuing miles after I wanted to stop.  Going on runs would end up sculpting the next decade of my life.  It's been a distraction, a social outlet, a high, an ego booster, and a way of living.  Once it stood squire to engineering school, often beaten by it, and my life still followed an (oval made of rubber with lines painted on it) typical of many American students.  Now that Zap Fitness and Reebok have given me the ability to train full time I'm unusual, pursuing my dreams in a way many people, runners or otherwise, cannot.  So what happens in a one dimensional environment in which focus is paramount and results are key?  What does running become when you remove the distractions?

August 2008, on another hot and humid afternoon.  In the first workout of the season, the Princeton men's cross country team was setting out on a ten mile progression run.  Coach Steve Dolan instructed us to run together for the first four or so miles before the older, more experienced runners were allowed to accelerate .  We ambled down the hill from campus to the cross country course, and I started to feel feisty, like I could run with anyone.  We looped the course and hit the tow path, u-turning around wood bridge to the other side of the canal.  And then we started rolling.  Back west along Lake Carnegie, gathering speed and testing each other's summer fitness.  I saw my first year class boldly rallying near the front of the pack next to All American senior Michael Maag.  Six miles in we turned off the tow path towards legendary bean fields and I began to notice the cicadas buzzing.  The heat.  The acid started filling my legs and as we re-entered the forest, I was a dropped fly.  Eight miles into the run Dolan was waiting in the Institute Woods, giving me and a few others the option to stop early, which I shamefully but thankfully did.

My version of the classic freshman wakeup call, the workout humbled me.  In high school, running had been easier.  Winning came often.  I was driven by outer confirmations of greatness: state rankings, news articles, medals, records, our team's success.  Feedback was immediate and running followed a more clear input equals output pattern.  But now I had to find a way to run from the bottom of the totem pole.  For all the work I put in, the most glory I felt came in moving up a workout group or making a travel squad.  Motivation needed to shift its source from outer sources to internal ones.  In the first couple years of college I didn't make an impact, but inside I was learning more than I could have when things were easy in high school.  I learned how to manage time, how to lose, how to be a team mate, and how to keep coming back no matter what.  During that drought of outer verification I came to think of running in more simple terms.  I began to put less pressure on myself.  I thought less and less about pace on training runs, and I started truly taking easy days easy.  I spent less energy preparing mentally for races and allowed instinct to guide me.  I was running because I actually loved running itself.  When during senior year the wins and records returned, it was that much easier to run. 

Now treading the atypical path of full time American runner, I know I won't last if I frame running as a trophy hunt.  There are no distractions like school or work to fall back on during times lacking positive feedback.  Instead I invest confidently in long term training, enjoy the process, and celebrate even the smallest victories.  This mentality might come more naturally for some people, but I'd wager that for most, "running wisdom" comes with time.  For the average runner, and even for the pros, it boils down to you.  And running.  You and running, exactly like it was on the first day, when you were afraid to show your skinny legs to the world.

- - - - - - - - 

Back to ground level and a little update on what I'm up to:

After my last track race in August I took two weeks totally off from running, gained ten pounds, and regrouped a bit.  I'm now a couple weeks into a volume ramp consisting of only once a day running.  Last week was 87 miles in singles, and this week I'll see my first real workout back in the form of a 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 minute piece Fartlek before heading to Providence, RI for the CVS 5k / USARC 5k Championships on Sunday.  I'm training through this race and relying on residual track fitness, but the minimum goal is top 10 so I can qualify for the .US 12k Championships in November.  After CVS the next race will be the Izumo Ekiden in Japan in October.

Many of my goals for this fall are process-oriented.  I will race several times, but the overarching design is to build strength for track season.  Most of them are simple, back-to-basics reminders of things I got away from during track: consistently longer long runs, fewer double days (more singles), weekly medium long runs, and more frequent tempo runs.  I've done a solid job with drills, strides, core/stability and hill running and I'll continue those routines.  I'm engaged in an all-out assault on my iron levels (which have caused me problems before) involving daily ferrous sulfate doses in both liquid and solid forms along with eating red meat every other day.  There is hard training in the months ahead and I'm excited to be better than I ever have been.

Fall Racing Schedule:

Date	Race Name	Location	Venue / Distance
September 21	CVS Downtown 5k / USARC 5k Champs	Providence, RI	Road 5k
October 13	Izumo Ekiden Relay	Izumo, Japan	Road 8k Relay
November 16	.US 12k Championships	Alexandria, VA	Road 12k
November 27	Manchester Road Race	Manchester, CT	Road 4.748 miler
December 13	USATF Club Cross Country	Bethlehem, PA	Cross Country 10k

Smileage Addiction

Being a relatively injury resistant runner, (always knock on wood when you say something like that) I've had the ability to run "pretty high volume" (mileage per week) throughout my career.  Injury  proneness places a definite upper bound on volume depending on the person, but there's a gray area just underneath where an athlete is made or betrayed.  By themselves.

For me, volume has always been somewhat of a question mark - I'm still experimenting with how much feels best.  And when you try to isolate variables for results that take seasons and years to produce, the process is not simple.

Sometimes you just gotta do less, Pepiopi.

One problem with running high volume is that it can be addicting.  Finishing a 100+ smile week makes you feel badass when you write those three digits in your running log.  But when it comes time to reduce volume during race season, the heavy volume mindset can be difficult to get out of. There's a temptation to lose confidence in training while lowering mileage.  When you rely on confirmation of your fitness through training benchmarks like weekly mileage, the lengths of your long run, and paces you are able to sustain on hard runs, finding it in other ways can be difficult.

It was during my senior year at Princeton (2011 - 2012) that I really started taking advantage of my potential by being smarter with smileage.  During the summer prior to cross country, I trained hard at altitude in Park City, Utah, running hundred mile weeks beginning in late July.  During the season I ran three awful races, barely breaking 26:00 for 8k in each and finishing far back in the field.  I didn't change anything, believing that a breakthrough was around the corner.  It wasn't.  In late October, when we found that I was anemic, I finally gave my body a chance.  I took a few days off, began taking iron, and decided my mileage would not exceed 80 mpw for the rest of the season.

This is Smileage.

Some combination of the iron, the smileage, and most importantly the refreshed mindset I had after learning there was a reason for my struggles jump started my running.  Just three weeks after slugging through a 25:53 for 8k at the Princeton Invite, I ran a personal best 14:13 5000 in an intersquad time trial on the track, closing in 4:20 over the final mile.  Two weeks later, I won the IC4A meet at Van Cortlandt in the Bronx.   Although my health during the season forced me to watch from the sidelines in Terre Haute at nationals later that weekend, I was riding a huge wave of confidence and momentum into the new year.

I had a lot of fun during the next track season.  Non stop personal bests, tapping into speed in the 1500, breaking school and Ivy records, winning two Penn Relays wheels, qualifying for outdoor nationals and nearly the Olympic trials all indicated that I had figured something out.  The increased amount of iron in my diet probably played a substantial role, but being more savvy with when to train hard and when to recover is what I think really caused the breakthrough.

Nigel knows about volume

When it comes time, I let myself just run, doing what feels natural.  Lifting the burden of having to maintain a certain amount of smiles every day is enormously relieving.  I put the displaced effort into workouts and races, using distance runs for recovery more than for aerobic benefit, their purpose in the base phase.  I forget about mileage goals - the miles runs themselves and just add up appropriately.  I do everything with the singular goal of feeling good.

I think some people forget that the point of competitive running is racing.  They focus so intently on training that they eventually prefer it to competition, in the worst cases developing a fear of racing because they feel more in control while training.  The worst thing to do after a poor race performance is go home and amp up the volume or intensity in an attempt to 'get better'.  The instinct should be the opposite.  Amongst athletes who naturally harbor extremely hard work ethics and competitive tendencies, freshness is totally underrated.  Smile : )

The term "smileage" copyright Tommy D., 2009

Getting Ready for a 5k

We are now in Thanksgiving week!  In high school that meant trying not to eat too much on Thursday before Footlocker Regionals on Saturday, and in college it means a nice break week for everyone after the NCAA national meet.  This year, my Thanksgiving week is a little different.  I won't be eating half a pumpkin pie or lying on the couch watching football all day this weekend, and I won't be jogging around like I have the past several years.  Instead, I'm in the middle an intense training block, preparing for a hot 5k in Bloomington on December 7th.

After Diego Estrada famously got his indoor 5000 auto qualifying time last year (13:39.54) at the Hoosier Invite in Indiana, I think a few others have caught on to the great idea he had: extend your cross country fitness a few extra weeks (in this case, 20 days) and use it to get your 5k qualifying race out of the way.  I've heard rumors that top runners from Oklahoma State, Indiana, NC State and others will toe the line on December 7th to go for a time.  Unlike them, I didn't run cross country this season, but I'm planning on hitching a ride with the goal of running 13:45.  There isn't an auto time anymore; starting this year the NCAA will simply take the top 16 athletes in each event, but we figure the time required will wind up being about the same anyway, especially for the 5k, a slightly less popular event indoors.

If the race goes as planned, I'll have a more diverse set of options when it comes time to declare for the national meet.  My favorite indoor event is the 3000, but if things at other meets don't go as planned, I'll potentially have that 5000 time in my pocket.  It's a nice bit of insurance.

Doing some threshold work at camp Mabry in Austin, TX

Training hard for a meet in early December involves a delicate balance between getting prepared to race and making sure I save my legs for the spring and summer.  My ultimate goal of reaching peak fitness in July and August means my fall training has been strength based, but lately I've been doing some mixed workouts that additionally develop the anaerobic and speed systems.  A 7 mile tempo followed shortly by a 2k at 5k pace, or three sets of 3 x 800 with 1 minute rest at 5k pace w/ three minutes between sets are tough workouts that simulate the final minutes of a 5000.  Most runners don't do these kinds of workouts in the fall, but I'm not worried about overworking myself: I'm doing things my body has done before.

Most of all, I'm excited to finally pull on the Texas uniform, spike up, psych up, and roll around the track with a great field of athletes.  After all these years of being a runner, I've realized that it's really all about enjoying training and competing.  No need to be absolutely amazing every day: since that isn't sustainable.  It's about being good every day to become great.  I call this the "happiness theorem", and I could write a book about it, but I'll start with just a future blog...

By the way, I finally have a bio on the Texas athletics site, pretty excited about that.  Check it out here!

Home

Right now I'm sitting in the living room of our house here in Austin.  It's a lot quieter than usual, giving me time to reflect on some things.  Of the seven Longhorn runners living here, four have left for the NCAA cross country meet in Louisville this weekend, meaning we make up most of the #5 ranked Texas team that we'll field on Saturday.  Our crew in the house consists of four grad students and three younger guys.  Between us graduate students and sophomore transfer Blake Williams from UNC, our house alone diversifies the team in terms of home states, age, and running experience.  I bring some of the midwest to the table in my cooking and Milwaukee accent.   Kyle Merber's savvy driving reflects his New York City street habits.  Blake uses every chance he can to barbecue any meat in sight, North Carolina style.  Trevor Van Ackeran's friendship and good cooking makes our house as comfortable as the one he grew up in in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  Austin Bussing ("The Bus") is freshly graduated from Kansas U. and brings a quirky, well, indescribable flair to the house.  Then there's the star of Texas running past and present Craig Lutz, who brings a lot of talent to the team (and improves our batting average with girls).  Last but not least is Ryan Dohner, the skinny stallion and 10k All American, the one responsible for organizing this ship and its crew in the first place.

We're a rambunctious bunch, but we've got one collective goal in mind: running fast and putting ourselves and Texas on the map.  While our place shares a lot of the qualities commonly seen in any college track house (read: old shoes, socks, various rehab equipment, ice packs, sex doll named Patty), we try to do things a little differently.  Several nights a week are family dinners sometimes planned in advance but often whipped up last minute.   We hang out on our roof, watching the nearby freeway and listening to the occasional rumbling freight train while the Bus serenades us with his lovely voice and guitar skills - he does a lot of Blink 182 which I like (I was [and still am] in a Blink cover band at Princeton).  Aside from bickering about cleaning the dishes and paying the bills, we all get along surprisingly well.  I sense a bit of underlying competition between us all once in a while, but I know that's what's brought us all to this point in the first place.

The Roof.

I could think of nothing better than living with six other people who understand my running lifestyle and who share many of the goals I have.  A year ago I had no idea I was going to be in graduate school, let along Texas.  Right now I'm living life as it comes and loving it.  I'm super excited for the race this weekend.  I wish I could be there, but I'm busy getting ready for my lone indoor season.  Thats our thing: every guy in this house, doing what he needs to do to make the team the best, together.