Hills

I hate hills. Running up them is awful. Running down them hurts. Frank Shorter may have said that hills were “speedwork in disguise,” but they aren’t nearly as fun as speedwork.

And I should preface this with the fact that my road mile this weekend was not nearly as fast a course as it should have been. And this is because from 100 to 900 meters, the course was an uphill through Lafayette, Calif.

Overall, I had a very solid race, and was able to take home 4th place and 250 dollars. Especially in comparison to 5th Avenue, I am very pleased with how it went. After doing a 6xMile workout on Tuesday I was able to chill a little bit before the race, but I definitely was not race sharp for something like this.

The weekend itself was a blast. With friends and other runners to hang out with all weekend, we had an amazing time. The race director, Priscilla Bailey, who is married to Tim Bailey (2nd place finisher in the race), proved to be a great host and I definitely plan on going back next year.

After the race sunday we made our way into San Francisco for the afternoon. I hate to say it, but San Fran is a pretty cool city. It is also hilly as hell, but it made for some good times.

And there is so much more news to put on here for this week, but most of the news will have to wait until next week.
1. A few of us have started wearing Phiten necklaces, these things are loaded with titanium and I feel recovered at all times.
2. I have barely passed my brother in terms of who has made more money as a professional runner, this is embarrassing to say the least.

So until next week, this is all I’ve got.

Skyline Time

You get yourself some hot dogs. You warm yourself up some chili. Find yourself some buns. Cut up a little onion. Grate a lot of Cheese. You put those things together, you got yourself a meal.

And I’m not talking any meal, I’m talking the best meal you could ever think of. I’m talking Skyline Chili and their cheese coneys. I love Skyline. It is probably my favorite food of all time. If you’ve read my previous entry about nicknames, REEESE’S is a little more acceptable of a nickname than CHILI DAWWGGGGG! But boy do I love ‘em.

Thankfully, I am in a town where chili is plentiful. Sadly, I am an idiot and have yet to have been to the most famous chili place in DC: Ben’s Chili Bowl. I have been to Hard Times Chili out in Clarendon, Va, but I need to make my way to Ben’s. The thing that I worry about, is that nothing can really live up to Skyline for me.

Skyline is a Boylan family delicacy, I remember young trips to Cincinnati to visit my Uncle Mike or Aunt Barb and the massive amounts of skyline we would consume. Even my cousin Connor, who doesn’t eat meat, found something on the menu when he would get the vegetarian chili on noodles.

One summer, my brother and I spent five days at my Uncle’s house. He gave us a lunch allowance for the week. Every day we went to Skyline. Every day we ordered the same thing: 4 Cheese coneys, onions, no mustard and a Dr. Pepper. Well, except for the last day, we ordered 5 dogs. Mmmmmm. Five days = 42 Cheese Coneys and 10 Dr. Peppers.

My love of Skyline has in no way dwindled. A birthday present of cans of skyline let me know that one friend was a legit one, and I have been reaping the benefits since. Sadly, I am down to my last can, and I am hoping to celebrate a good race by popping it open to enjoy a few chili dogs next week.

That’s right, even with all of this eating of chili dogs, I have been doing some running. Adding on the miles will make this road mile out in California interesting, but I am pumped for a chance to race after all of the slower (yet incredibly harder) base training I have been doing.

I’m heading out this Friday and then racing early Sunday morning. The field will most likely be pretty good, and I’ll just try to put forth a much better showing than my 5th Avenue performance. Wish me luck, because right now I am less of a professional runner than my brother, who made $300 at his marathon last weekend where he ran 2:28 (impressive indeed).

Racing Trains

“We might not be the best people” – Jack
“But we’re not the worst!” – Liz
“Graduate students are the worst.” – Jack and Liz
-30 Rock

Now not all graduate students are the worst. But we certainly aren’t the best either. Sometimes grad school can get a little tedious and boring. But other times it can be great.

One course has really stood out. “The Reported Memoir” has allowed me to write about my favorite subject: myself! But in all honesty, it has been fun to try to write a story that you think you know so much about, but end up finding that you really didn’t know a thing.

Back in my freshman year at Columbia, I raced the subway. It is this topic that acts as the driving force of my first official memoir. Here is an excerpt from the still unfinished story, but enjoy…
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Choo, Choo, Choo. Smack, Smack, Smack. The six-car train barrels forward carrying its’ passengers to their destinations.

Stomp, Stomp, Stomp. Gah, Gah, Gah. My feet and exhale breaths carry me along, unwavering.

At about 12 feet tall and 227 tons, the R62A rushes forward unrelenting, ready to smash anything in its path.

At about 5-foot-10 and 135 pounds, I delicately glide over the sidewalk, avoiding even dips in the sidewalk that could falter my stride.

Dreadfully, the green lights begin to turn against me as their hues turn a yellowish orange. The signal men who were smiling at me earlier saying, “Oh go ahead, you’re fine,” have turned into a red, blinking hand warning me, “Stop you idiot, you’re going to kill yourself.”

Idiot I may be, I am going to beat this subway. My cadence quickens, light feet, clear mind.

Nearing the intersection at 113th, I see a car raring to cross Broadway. A quick glance left; the light is green. A quick glance ahead; the driver is looking down. A quick decision; I’m going for it.

“Oh shit,” I realize as I cross in front of the car and see that the driver has just looked up. My right arm extends, my hand in the same position as the one in the walk signal that had warned me against continuing. I Heisman pose my way across the street, the driver slams his foot back onto the brake, and I continue on as a honk from behind rings in my ears.
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In running news, it was an alright week. Struggled through a mile repeat workout, which reminded me how much I hate mile repeat workouts. Now, off for another week of running and only 2 weeks away from the race out in the Bay Area. Gonna be fun.

miles and miles

I am going to be very tired for the next three months of my life. I am going to run a lot of miles. And then I am going to run a lot more.

A meeting with Coach Henner after 5th Avenue put things into perspective for me. He didn’t even mention the race in particular, but instead focused on things that I need to be doing now so that the same thing doesn’t happen this year that happened last. I need to be a stronger runner. And that means that 70 miles a week doesn’t quite do it any more. It means that my 3k and 5k workouts need to be stronger. It means that I need to Man Up. Which is exactly what I’ll try to do.
In good news, to break up the monotony of running cross country-esque workouts the rest of the fall, I will be flying out to the Bay Area at the end of October to run another road mile. Since I am now down to a 1-2 record on the street, hopefully I can even out the score.

And now, since this week wasn’t the most eventful for me, I’ll leave you with a treat. My senior year at Columbia I had the brilliant idea of making a fake running news website a la the “Onion” and I called it the “Runion.” Although the writing was spot on and the humor hilarious, the “Runion” has ceased to exist after a catastrophic event involving Tiger Woods (a story that is for another time). But now, in weeks that I am more of a boring person, I will post a “Runion” story or two to pass the time. This one was written by my good friend, Mike Smith, and, grotesque it may be, it makes me laugh the most of them all…
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Runner Achieves Mythical “Running Boner”, Has Brush With Teammates
ATHENS, OH – Will Tremble felt the first stir around mile five. He was on a long steady run with a tight pack of his teammates when it began. “At first I thought nothing of it,” Tremble told The RUNion in a phone conversation. “This type of thing just isn’t supposed to happen on a run.”

But what began as a stir quickly developed into a full erection. “At first I didn’t say anything…It all happened so fast. I was confused,” he continued. “I mean it went from limp to half-mast to full-out boner in something like a minute.” The silence then turned to recognition and then commotion.

Junior Heanly Adams described his first reaction in a personal interview at the University food court: “At first I didn’t believe it was real. [Pointing to salad bar] I thought he stuffed a pickle or a stick in his shorts…When I found out it was real, I suddenly felt as if ‘the pack was closing in’ as we normally say, but in a much different way.”

Most runners believe that getting an erection on a run is impossible. Nevertheless, stories circulate, rumors pulse, and contests, popularly called “the boner race”, are held nationwide to see who can achieve the mythical feat. It’s rumored, even, that one team held a pot of $200 dollars that would go to the first to produce a “persuasive boner.” When asked how he finally managed the feat, Tremble couldn’t give a definite answer. “I can’t say for sure. I wasn’t trying to get one or anything. I don’t even remember what I was thinking about at the time.”

But some of Tremble’s teamates are beginning to speculate on how he did it. Ray Haystacker, a redshirt freshman, suggested that Tremble flooded his thoughts with “sexy fantasies” to force himself into getting an erection. “Orgies even” Hackstacker goes on “…girls’ team, guys’ team, pin-ups, farm animals…candles and hot wax, lace pillows everywhere…That kid’s got a dirty mind.” Others on the team think it was “something else”, suggesting that Tremble got a lift from substances that are banned in the so-called “boner race.”

“Will wants so bad to be the first [to get a running boner],” Senior Kent Halloway wrote in an e-mail, adding, “He would do anything: raid his dad’s Viagra stash, chew hand-fulls of Spanish fly gulped down with ginseng tea…I even heard he was touring all the local truck stops looking for goatweed. He would just stuff his pockets with quarters, hop in his car, and come back with all sorts of brown bags that he would stash in his locker.” Epimedium, or “horny goatweed”, is a plant species that is believed to be a highly potent aphrodisiac, and carries with it legends of its mythical power to increase virility and sensitivity. Its use in the boner race has therefore been controversial at best.

The allegations of cheating have caused discord between Tremble and some members of the team. Runners from around the country have stepped in to take sides, flooding discussion boards online with heated debates on the issue. Meanwhile, Tremble denies the allegations, calling them “baseless and rooted in jealousy.”

“I would never take a lift,” he issued as a final plea, “I’m a simple, honest guy whose head just so happened to pop into famedom.”