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Embarrassingly enough, when driving around town or watching vh1, there are a few songs that I leave on to get the full listen. While I don’t call myself a Pop music aficionado, I do find myself bobbing my head to some catchy tunes. Recently in Pop music, there has been a trend of making a song for your city. Jay-Z started things off with the classy “Empire State of Mind” and things seemed to be going in the right direction. Then, Katy Perry decided to make a response to Jay-Z by putting out “California Gurls.” While catchy as can be, California Gurls as a response to Jay-Z would be like Blink-182 writing a response to Tupac back in the 90s. It just doesn’t work that way. Tupac’s “California Love” ranks as one of the best “city songs” of all time. However, some white guy back in the 80s tops the standings.

So through Sinatra’s song, I’d like to announce that I will be moving back to New York, New York to pursue my running career under famed coach, Frank Gagliano.

After meeting with Coach Gags, as he is referred to by most, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to be coached by such a great mind. He has coached multiple Olympians and Team USA members, and I believe that he is my best chance to become exactly that.

I never thought that I would be moving back to New York unless I was done running, but Central Park and I have 2 more years left in us. I am going to be living near Columbia U. and will be living the life of a runner in the city that never sleeps.

I’m hoping the bright lights get brighter in 2011 and 2012, and I can’t wait to get out there and get training towards becoming the best middle distance runner that I can be.

Let’s Go!

Thanks to Dan Leyh for the pic...

Moving On

New York...

...or Michigan?

Falmouth was disappointing to say the least. The Friday shakeout for the Saturday race left my left foot feeling sore and flared up. I had a stress fracture on the 4th metatarsal of this foot as a senior at Columbia, so I have always been extremely careful with that area for the past 3 years. But I decided to ice it a bunch and figured that I could race one more mile on it and then call it a season. However, as soon as the spikes went on for the race on Saturday I knew I was in trouble.

The race had a money bonus if you got under 4, so the racers had decided to split up the pacing duties. I offered to take the first lap just for the chance that my foot wasn’t going to allow anymore. Turns out 600 meters was all that I would make it. The foot was getting worse so I decided to pull the plug, dropping out of a race for the first time since being a sophomore in high school trying to complete the 16, 8, 3200 double and not being ready for the heat and pace of the 2 mile. It’s not fun to drop out of a race, but hopefully I kept my foot from getting too bad. About to see a specialist to try to figure it all out as we speak.

The other big news in my little world is that I am leaving Washington, DC. I loved the city, loved the Georgetown team and really appreciated all that Coach Henner did for me both as a Georgetown runner and after. He has been an amazing coach and really will do anything for his athletes. However, we both decided that if I am going to run at the level that I want to, I needed a little bit more than a college coach.

I have narrowed down my choices to 2 different yet similar places/coaches/groups. I will either be moving back to my home state to train with Olympic Silver Medalist and his coach, Ron Warhurst, or will be moving back to New York City to train with Coach Gagliano. Both coaches are legends and really know how to coach middle distance runners.

I have been given a great opportunity and I am really excited about either group that I join. The next 2 years of my life are going to be all about running, and I am really looking forward to making a push towards my goal of making an Olympic Team (It is funny to say that out loud considering how long the odds are, but that’s the goal, and I’m going to make a run at it).

I was thinking of contacting ESPN to see if they wanted to show “The Decision Part II: LBP to Ann Arbor or NYC?” but I’m not sure they’re interested. Flotrack maybe?

Look out for the decision sometime this weekend or early next week….as always, Let’s Go!

Aunts and Trips

Halifax Track...Blue!

I think everyone has an Aunt Sue (I guess unless their Mom is Sue, then they have an Aunt Barb (I’m lucky enough to have both…boo yah, double parenthesis)). I bring this up, because this summer brought back a ton of my Aunt Sue memories.

I went on two long (there were plenty of other short ones that included her teaching us how to throw up on the tilt-a-whirl at Boblo Island and other amusement parks) trips with Aunt Sue. One was to Ireland and the other was to Nova Scotia.

On a kayaking/canoe trip in Ireland, Aunt Sue informed my brother and I that she had once been on a river excursion through Colorado with rock star Alice Cooper. On said trip, Cooper tried a backflip off a cliff and ended up with a serious concussion. Aunt Sue then stayed up with him to make sure he wouldn’t fall asleep. To this day I have no idea whether 0% or 100% of that story is true.

Then in Nova Scotia we found ourselves driving along some seriously steep cliffs along the ocean. Aunt Sue was a little afraid of heights. “LEAN!” she would yell at us as the rental van veered and steered along the curving road. Through the laughter, we would lean, as at that point we were 95% sure she was being serious.

The trips were a little different this year. When we were driving from the airport to Halifax for the race last Tuesday, I saw some cliffs near the ocean. I started chuckling. The other runners in the car with me looked at me. I almost told them to “LEAN!”
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The race in Nova Scotia was an odd one. I won 300 Canadian bucks. However, I only ran 3:47. It was an odd race where I got out pretty hard and by 800-meters in I was in 2nd place and ahead by about 25-meters from 3rd. We were out pretty quick but then both the leader and I started to rig. The problem for me was that he rigged less.

I didn’t live a great week leading up to the race, and I think it finally caught up to me with 300 to go. Having slept in the Atlanta airport the Wednesday before and then moving out of my apartment and missing a day of training didn’t equal a great race. But 300 bones, what can you do?

I am hoping for one more race this year. Still waiting to hear back from a few people to see if I can get into one. As always, Let’s Go!

ps - the meet was the Aileen Meagher Invitational. It was about a Canadian sprinter who was an Olympian in the 30s. I was reading the bio of her beforehand and started cracking up at this sentence... “By 1932 she was part of the Canadian contingent at the Los Angeles Olympics. Unfortunately, a leg injury (charley horse) prevented her from competing.”
AHAH...now injuries aren’t funny, but charley horse?? Come on.

Ireland and Ryan Shay Mile Recaps

Finishing up the Ryan Shay Mile.

A lot has happened since I left Dublin. Almost all of it has gone unreported on runLBP. What follows will be a lengthy (extremely lengthy…save it for work on Monday) recap of the end of my European racing season, a recap of the Ryan Shay Mile race, and what to expect coming up. Please excuse the lack of cohesiveness to the post…it will be in a bulleted format.

• The Dublin race left a lot to be desired. It was nice to know that breaking 4 wasn’t a fluke as I was able to get under the barrier for the second time. However, I once again didn’t race the way I would have liked. I found myself mid-pack the entire way in a slower race. Thus my 57point last lap didn’t help as I was too far away from the real race to really take care of business. Bumbi was half a second ahead of me and felt similar to me as we both realized we couldn’t be that upset with our races but couldn’t be that happy either. We resolved the issue by listening to Rage Against The Machine…
• Speaking of music. My newest jam is straight Euro. Bumbi and I were loving it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTJSt4wP2ME
• Got the hell out of Ireland the morning after the race. It’s funny how I get to travel the world, but a lot of times I stay at an airport hotel and run at a track near said hotel. Needless to say, I didn’t get to see much of Dublin. I did, however, make it back to the good ol’ USA. Not without a hitch though. The Chicago airport failed to get my bag to the Detroit airport with me. Thankfully, due to forgetting this on the way to USAs and getting a stern talking to from Coach Henner, I had my flats in my carry on luggage. Thus, the lack of clothing/actual running shoes wasn’t as big of a deal leading up to Ryan Shay as one would think. And thankfully Will is the same size and had some running shorts I could wear. Oddly, I don’t think he followed my “bring two extra pairs of underwear rule” as I was relegated to one pair for most of the weekend up north. It was nice to be back on Michigan soil and racing for only the second time in my home state since high school. Also, my uncles cabin that he let us stay in is an amazing house on Lake Michigan. So we had a star treatment for the race.
• Ryan Shay Mile: the race itself was awesome. I was singlet-less and was almost forced to wear a way too tight women’s jersey that Christine brought along, but thankfully Rob Novak came through with an extra NYAC singlet. (Rob ended up taking 3rd in the race for a big what would be PR, but road miles don’t count officially.) It was a pretty cool experience. They announced us in front of the finish line crowd and then drove all of the competitors up to the start line in the back of a truck. Crammed next to the rest of the runners the drive seemed to be taking a really long time. I made eye contact with a Kenyan runner and nervously said: “damn, this seems like more than a mile.” He nervously laughed.
• There was an arbitrary start line and they sent us off with the blow of a horn. There was a $250 bounty for being the leader at the half-mile. Some people were serious about getting that cash money. I didn’t see the quarter mile mark, but we were supposedly through in 55 seconds. Approaching the ½, I looked up at the clock and saw 1:47…I was sitting on Jeff See’s shoulder at this point and somehow calmly said, “if that time is true we’re f!*#ed.” Rumor has it we were through in 1:53 and I was in around 6th place (it is also worth mentioning that one of the runners was clearly trying to get the $250 bounty because he dropped out before the half realizing he wasn’t going to get it).
• The next quarter things slowed down. I started to relax and realized that I had a shot at this thing. The runners ahead of me had gone out a little too hard and were starting to come back to me. I remained on See’s shoulder. With 400 to go there was a hill. I straight sprinted down it. Flattening out, I found myself right next to the leader and decided I might as well make a run for it. I probably went too soon. But when you go you gotta go…so I started rolling.
• The finish line seemed like a ways away, so I was charging and trying to avoid locking up. It didn’t quite work. With probably 100 to go, See went by me. I tried to find an extra gear, but probably wasted it on the downhill. I still fought hard and See only barely pulled away from me. I crossed the finish line in 2nd, with a 3:56 to my name and 500 bones in my bank account. And I was happy with how I raced. One of my mantras that Coach Wood passed on to me (and bear with the language, Coach Wood even said he doesn’t like to swear while telling us) is sometimes you just have to say, “F-word it.” Nothing is ever going to go perfectly, so you have to go out there and run. And that’s what I did that weekend. No luggage, no problem. Don’t feel good on the warm up? Who cares. Leading up to Penn last year, John Maloy told me that he didn’t feel that good. I looked at him, told him, “you don’t have to feel good to run fast,” then smacked his but and did a strider. He split 1:48 twice that weekend and was on a 7:16 4x8 team.
• Also…it was great to run in the Ryan Shay Mile. For those of you who don’t know, Ryan was a legend in Michigan running. He is the only person who has ever won 4 individual state cross country championships (he even won as a freshman!). I ran against his younger brother Stephan in high school (Stephan is also trying to pursue a running career right now…we don’t race much any more as he is more of a distance guy) and always had to bring my A-game if he was going to be around. Tragically, Ryan Shay died while running the 2008 Olympic Trials Marathon in Central Park. I was watching in the park that day and was shocked to hear of the terrible news. This was the 3rd year of the Ryan Shay Mile and they really put on a great race. The Shay parents were in attendance and it was great to be part of a race that remembers a great competitor like Ryan.
• Since the mile, life has been a little hectic. My flight back to DC was less than ideal as I ended up staying the night in the Atlanta airport. I then moved out of my DC house and don’t really know where I’m going to live. That will all figure itself out soon enough. I head to Nova Scotia on Monday for a Tuesday night 1500…I am extremely excited. The end of the season is approaching and last week wasn’t perfect. But you don’t have to feel good to run fast.

Let’s Go!

Dublin Track for the Morton Mile.

Climbing up the Sleeping Bear Dune.

Shay Mile Awards Stand

Beautiful Lake Michigan...