the old guy out there

I laced up my cross country spikes and ran an collegiate 8k for the first time since Oct 2003 yesterday. Man have I changed a lot. I went out nice and conservative. I was being passed by what felt like everyone in the race. I kept telling myself to stay calm, be patient and run my race. Just before the mile I peeked at my watch 4:50. I knew it was going to be a quick mile. It ended up being 5:09, I proceeded to say out loud, “man there are going to be a lot of people coming back.” I then started to pass and I was never passed again for the rest of the race. Looking back at the splits I could have ran harder during mile 4, I was really hoping to have a solid last two miles. I also felt that I was not willing to hurt enough the last 1000, 800, 400 meters. I picked it up but could have gone harder. All in all I am very happy with the effort and it was even a little quicker than I thought I would run. I feel like training is going very well and if I can stay healthy it could be very exciting. Time to move on. Lots of work left to do.

The next wave of running media???

I am going to preface this with I think flotrack and runnerspace are doing invaluable things for our sport and we have come a long way from mensracing and fast-women, run-insight, letsrun or heck even chasing tradition. Would love to see someone take it to the next level. An online TVesque network. What do most guys do first thing in the morning, yep that’s right turn on sports center. It would be great to be able to turn on a running network with live shows or tape delayed morning shows
in the morning while I get ready to go to work and hear the latest updates on the running world. For example yesterday, there would have been a ton of things to talk about with all of the races that happened this past weekend. Giving the run down on all of those, who ran well, who didn’t, who didn’t run at all. Maybe talk about the regional polls. Today it would have been interesting to hear about people opinions on the national polls. I feel like with twitter, blogs etc that all the athletes do there would be plenty of stories as the week goes on. Plus it doesn't need to be limited to NCAA, could be road racing, High School, shoot they can talk about the BCS bowls and Super Bowl for weeks on end. With conference meets coming up that would be plenty to talk about. I feel like Run Junkies/runners space live is on the right track but its only scratching the surface of what could happen. You could sell or use the adds that are between videos as commercials during the show, you could sell a subscription, ie. chasing tradition.....

Something I feel that flotrack has gotten away from is the longer sit down interviews with coaches and athletes in between the meets. This is kind of what the site originally started with, Don’t get me wrong I love the interviews after the races, but would love to see more of these types of interviews come back.

BREAKING NEWS!!! I felt flotrack did a great job with the Alan Webb/Salazar break when it first happened but never really followed up on the story, where is he now, how is training going? Now Goucher and Yoder Begley have left as well. This is the point and time when you have to ask, what would ESPN do?

Conference mix-ups affect Cross Country and Track & Field too, find out what’s going on report about it and how it will change things up in our sport.

You may say, this is all fine and good Joe but there are only so many people working at FloTrack and they already spend a ton of time, how can they do more? They are located in a city with a major university. Maybe they could hire on interns to help with video audio and a lot of the behind the scenes work that would go on.

So these are my ideas, this is where I would love to see the next great breakthrough come from whether it be flotrack, runnerspace or a new motivated group of creative track/cross/running enthusiast. Thoughts???

toughness and focus

Learning to run while being uncomfortable is the number one thing that a runner needs to learn. Because when it comes down to it, whoever is willing to hurt the most during a race is the one with the best chance to win. Each workout and or run is going to take a different level of focus and elicit a different type of pain, all of which as just as important as the next. Your long runs and tempo runs are going to be long grind where concentration becomes more important the longer you go. This is very important for being able to focus in the middle of the race, being consistent and grinding away at the task at hand. On the flip side V02 type work or short intervals is more of a sharp pain. The type of pain you deal with in the later stages of a race, when it comes time to take it up that extra notch and really make it hurt. I believe that when putting together a training program your different phases are going to have different goals and focus on different types of workouts, but you cant ever stray too far away from any one type of workout. Physiologically this is bad but also from a mental stand point you need to remember what it feels like to go though the different types of workouts. This is the main focus. Because as a runner you get better by running. Now if you want to get to the next level... you need to not only do the little things, but do them well. So yes you have to be able to hurt during tempos, long runs, intervals, and speed work but you also need to focus during what may seem like a menial task such warmup, drills, lifting, core etc... Now I feel that doing warm up etc are very very important and as i have stated in previous posts help make runners better athletes, but if you are going to spend the time doing it you better pay attention and focus, if you cant focus during seemingly simple tasks how will you be able to focus in the critical half way to 3/4 of a way though a race when it is so easy to fall asleep. This is a time where it is so easy to go through the motions and not focus on what you are doing, but the truly great ones do and can get that extra little bit from doing it.

Half Marathon

Sunday I raced my first half marathon. It was more of a glorified training run, but I definitely was getting after it. I had a bit of a quick start and back it off a little on mile two. I then proceeded to fall asleep in mile three. For the next few miles I felt like I got into a good rhythm and was clipping off some good miles. Unfortunately when it came time to get after it and start cutting it down I started running out of gas. The last 4 or so miles hurt and I was trying to throw in surges to get back on pace, it just wasn't happening. Overall I was pleased with the race and felt it was a good step forward. There is still a lot of work to be done but i feel that I am on the right path and if I can stay healthy big things are just around the corner.

coaching on line

A few weeks back I had a chat with a long time friend Tim Budic who suggested I start an on line training service. Charge a fee and write up programs for people looking for a coach. I think that this is a great idea. I love coaching, I write up workouts anyways, even if I don't have people to write them for, why not see if there are people out there who would be interested. Tim sent me a few examples of people that he knew for me to take a look at. It seemed easy enough, but i have yet to pull the trigger on this project. So I am asking you the readers of my blog, if there are any of you out there. Should I do this. Is there a market for this, do you think people would want me to coach them? Would love some feed back.

Dellinger Invite

For any track and cross country fan getting to travel to Track Town USA is always a great trip, and for me getting to go back was very exciting. Our day started very early, 5:15, where we meet at WSU to load up the vans to head to the airport for our 7 am flight. Our travels to Portland included a layover in Denver was very uneventful, which is always the best way to travel. Once we arrived in Portland we drove to Eugene and checked into the hotel. We were located less than a half mile away from Pre’s trail and Hayward field., prime location We had a little down time to relax before getting our run in, during that time coach Hunter and I drove out to Springfield to do a test drive to the course. We made a few wrong turns so it was good to figure out where we were going. After arriving back at the hotel we headed out for our run. We jogged over and got a run in on Pre’s trail. I took the guys on the parts I remembered running on while in Eugune for the Olympic Trials in 2008. It took me a few wrong turns but it all started to come back to me. We got a great run in. One of the best parts for me was that there were all sorts of people out hiking, biking and running. We even had a few elite sightings. Jordan Hasay and the women of Oregon and Sam Chelanga both ran by on the runs. It is cool getting to see those type of people out putting in the daily miles, just like all of us do everyday. We finished up our night with some dinner at Track Town Pizza, which was delicious and a walk down to Hayward Field to take some pictures and do some touristy stuff.

As I said earlier Track town is a unique place. Friday morning after my run on Pre’s trail I sat down to breakfast and opened up the sports page and on the front page is a picture of Luke Peskedra and an article about the race and who would be running for the Ducks the next day. There are not many places in the country where a Friday morning Cross Country is the front page news in the local paper, although I wish it was, but that is a post for another time. After breakfast Coach Hunter and I meet up with Jenny Ashcroft a former Wichita State Assistant whom is now an assistant coach at Oregon and was nice enough to give Coach Hunter and me a tour of some of there athletic facilities. It was a very interesting experience and amazing what the backing of a company like Nike can do for your school. Later that afternoon we continued our sight seeing with some of the kids from the team by taking them to Pre’s rock on Skyline Dr. I have only been there twice and both times it has had an impact. How different would the world be if Pre would have made it around that narrow turn on the road about the city of Eugene and what impact could he have continued to have on the sport if he was still here today.

Later that afternoon it was time to get down to business. We drove out to Springfield to preview the course. There was a great atmosphere even the day before. I guess it helps when you have NCAA national champs and High School record holders doing workouts on the course. The course was in great shaped was marked very well and had a ton of signage. The team was very excited to be in this type of environment. I just hoped that they could take all that excitement and turn it into positive energy and race well the next day. Both teams finished up their easy run and did some strides followed by some stretching. As we drove back I felt that the team was ready to go and I started getting excited about the race the next day.

When we arrived at the course in Springfield the meet atmosphere was electric. They had upbeat music playing and the announcer was doing trivia with the crowd before and between races and keeping the fans entertained. They even had the man himself, Bill Dellinger as the honorary co starter of the meet along with Matt Centrowitz who just picked up a bronze medal at the world champs in the 1500.
After watching both races I felt that our kids stepped up to the challenge of the day and raced like they belonged. While both teams ran well this was a huge step forward for our guys team. This was the type of meet that was a great prep for our conference meet and regional’s. On both sides we had people in there mixing it up with some of the best runners in the nation and the world, you cant ask for much more than that. If we can continue down the path we are on we are going to have a very good November.

After the meet we made the 2 hour drive back to Portland because of an early flight the next day, and boy was it an early morning and a long day of travel, 4 am rolls around very quick. We arrived back in Wichita about 2 pm safe and sound and ready to get back to work with a great experience and a nice step forward toward the goal of winning MVC championship in Terre Haute in November.

writers block

I am supposed to write a blog entry for Wichita State track blog, but I am having some serious writers block. I have not had not had issues with this in a very long time. Not very fun. I get a chance to write for something outside of my own blog and help the program and nothing.