East Coast Enemies

All Black Outfits are a Must for the East Coast Criminals

After struggling through last year’s 5th Avenue Mile, it was great to be a spectator at this year’s event. It also was a somewhat upsetting event as last year I remember sucking air through a 1:55 first half mile and this year they crawled through in a pedestrian 2:02 that I would have been much more capable of running last year at the time. Alas, I wasn’t out there, and was viewing from the sidelines this year knowing that I will be out there next year giving it a go.

Instead, I continued my trend of exercising inside all last week. I get in an hour on the elliptical before work and then 30 minutes to an hour afterwards. Once the orthotics make their way to my antsy feet, I’ll be out and about in the parks of New York and working my mileage up. While I’ve been a 70 per week guy the last two years I’ll be going in 3 week stints at 70-70-60. Working in that “recovery” week will keep me nice and fresh and fast for the upcoming races.

But the big news from last week was the introduction of our yet-unnamed team. Let’sRun had this up on its site:

“Gags (Frank Gagliano) Has Started Another Training Group--From the Reebok Enclave to the Farm Team to OTC and now an unnamed team in New Jersey. It seems like every prominent East Coast grad is in the group, including Erin Donohue, Rob Novak, Julie Culley, LBP and Max Smith.”

I had to like the call out…especially that the running community does recognize my LBP self-proclaimed nickname (although it wasn’t really self proclaimed, they are my initials and all). Here’s a link to the article that Walt Murphy put together with a roster line-up of our team: http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=290&Itemid=115

Practice on Friday had us all thinking of names for the group. Gags liked “No Money Track Club” and the boring—yet most likely actual name—“New York/New Jersey Track Club”…but Delilah had my personal favorite: “East Coast Enemies.” We would wear all black or gold and purple. My Jordan Brand headband wouldn’t seem out of place in the least.

Any suggested team names would be great. As always, Let’s Go!

State of the Union Address

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Coach, Members of the Training group, and the Family of the Runner:

I gather you all here tonight to speak not only to the great readers of this web-journal, but to speak frankly and directly to the running public.

And with that, begins my first State of the Union address from New York. Essentially every one of these blog posts is a state of the union type affair, but I am going to go over a few of the standards in my life with a report on each of them. An address like this can be expected every once in a while. Especially when I can’t think of anything else to write and can use this gimmick to get by.

Things are finally settling down in New York…as much as they can settle down in this city. I am getting into my routine and it’s nice to be on a schedule where I’m doing basically the same thing every day with a few new things mixed in here and there. What follows are the four topics that will be covered in every state of the union address:

- DIET: As you can tell from my tweets, I have a love of disgusting/awesome foods and I prefer to post pictures and mention putting it down my pants. Lately, the move to NY has halted my diet of fun-ness. A lack of funding has left me eating fairly healthily minus the odd Koronets run every once in a while. Currently, I am saving up for this in a call back to my REEESE’S nickname.

- MORALE: Currently morale is a mixed bag. I am waiting in the wings for my orthotics to come in. Sometimes people are afraid of getting orthotics, but two stress-fractures (the latest injury wasn’t quite a stress-fracture) in the same spot did enough convincing for me. Once they get in I’ll start up my running.

- IN SHAPE-NESS: aside from adding “ness” to a ton of words in this entry, my “in shape-ness” isn’t bad for not being able to actually run. Every day I spend an hour and a half on an elliptical machine. It is painstakingly boring, but I think it is pretty darn good for re-teaching yourself how to focus…I have imagined about a million possible race scenarios and what I would do in them the past 3 weeks. I also have listened to a lot of music.

- JAM OF THE MOMENT: indoor exercising can get boring. So there has been a lot of music listened to. In the search for the best exercise song ever I went through a lot of different options. From pop music to obvious ones, it took me listening to my top 50 songs of all time to really get jacked up on the elliptical machine: PEARL JAM – ALIVE

There you have it. The first runLBP State of the Union Address. Expect many more…or none at all if no one likes it. As always, Let’s Go!

Mad Man

HamDel...it's good to be back.

“You’re only as good as your last 800.” That’s what we used to say as part of the Columbia Mid-D Crew. I liked the sentiment. It didn’t matter if you were a 1:48 guy, if you were dropping 1:51s, then it wasn’t quite cutting it. Sure it was nice that you had the faster one under your belt, but you couldn’t rest on your laurels. Sadly for me, my last 800 the summer before my 5th year was a 1:57 rig-fest that was one of the worst things I had ever been a part of.

According to our maxim, for almost a full year I was a 1:57 guy. It was discouraging to say the least. Surprisingly it ended up being my best year. I split 1:46.00 and didn’t lose an 8 all year (in retrospect I should have run the 8 at NCAAs and tried to do some damage there). But those parentheses are the problem right there and the problem with Columbia’s Mid-D Rule in general. I’m not looking back at the past anymore (unless I’m looking at the 2007 Penn 4x8 to get myself jacked up).

This year, I am changing that motto. Instead: “You’re only as good as your next 800.” Play with it if you please and insert your event here, but that’s what it’s gonna be for the upcoming track career of yours truly…time to get going and run your ass off.

My last year at Georgetown was a little stale, and now that I’m up in NY, the intensity is back and it’s going to be a fun year. There are real goals now, and I’m ready to make some noise again. You can also look out for me in quite a few more 800s…time to turn myself back into a sprinter type. Boo. Yah.

The move to New York went smoothly. I am packed into a tiny room in an apartment with two assistant coaches at Columbia on 118th and Amsterdam. It’s nice to be close to Columbia and as a volunteer assistant coach I get to use the gym for cross training and stuff like that.

I started up working a part time job on Madison Avenue. It is exactly like the show “Mad Men.” Well, except for the whiskey drinking and the infidelity. Plus, I probably smoke more cigarettes than Don Draper, so that’s a plus (maybe not actually).

I am getting some orthotics, and as soon as they come in I’ll be up and running. It’s still a lot of time on the elliptical machine and in the pool, but I’m feeling pretty in shape so I won’t be too far behind once I get out on the roads, trails and tracks.

And in terms of housekeeping, sorry for taking a week off from the posting...because of it, there will be a Wednesday post with a recap and state of the season report.

Let’s Go!

The Humbling of a Middle Distance Runner

The bikes in Amsterdam...

Yesterday was the first time I had exercised outside in about 3 weeks. It was a crisp, autumn-esque morning in Bath, and I took my Dad’s road bike out for a spin. My foot feels great, but going to avoid running on it until I see the Doc once I get back to New York. Enjoying the fresh air compared to my now accustomed to chlorine tainted oxygen, I approached the corner of Chandler and Clark to take a left and head back towards my Dad’s house to finish up the ride.

At the same time, a biker with some serious gear was taking a right onto Clark coming from the opposite way on Chandler. I beat him to the turn and settled into my 15mph tempo that I had gotten so used to. Then disaster struck.

The dude BLEW by me. I thought about trying to go with him, and picked up the tempo for a moment, but when I looked up he was already 50 meters ahead of me and drifting further away every second. I shook my head in disgust and settled into my tempo trying to avoid looking up to see how terribly I was being beaten.

I need to stick to running.

After getting my ass kicked daily in the pool I was biking my own pace and thought I was doing pretty well until this joker rocked my world. It is a humbling thing to get beaten so soundly so many days a week. Especially to women who are clearly just better swimmers than I am. I tell myself I’m staying in shape, but I am getting antsy to getting out and running so I can show the weekend warriors what’s up. Man it sucks.

The one glimpse of light I’ve seen has been the improvement of my swimming. If I was 10-years-old I would have the Haslett Community Pool records from 25 to 200-meters. Boo. Yah.

Moving up to New York on the 12th…can’t wait. Let’s Go!

Brand Spanking New!

Falmouth right before dropping out. I am sitting behind my new training partner, Rob Novak...

New Month, New City, New Look. Same old idea. As you can see, some changes have been made to runLBP.com, hopefully for the better. It was starting to look a little cluttered on here and it was confusing with what was the blog—err, I mean web journal—and what wasn’t. So now, it should be pretty easy to navigate and the blog is all at the blogspot site just because it’s easier to post there even if I don’t have my computer. The first paragraph of each new post will be on the front page of the site, but you’ll have to head to the blog to read the rest…

There’s the house cleaning. Sadly, there isn’t much else to report. I am at home in Bath still and enjoying my time with nothing to do. Boredom is setting in, but that’s part of it. I found out at the end of the season that I had a stress reaction, so I have been in a boot and getting healthy. I probably could start running now, but we’re making sure that I get as healthy as possible before I start training so that I can go un-interrupted the next two years.

I am going to be living near Columbia U. in NY, but it is going to be a lot different than when I was at school. It will be a different experience, but I am looking forward to what’s ahead. But what that means for the frequenters of “runLBP.com” is that there will be a new arena for more LBPjams! Boo. Yah.

Coach Gags keeps emailing me telling me to be patient, and lord knows I am, but I am starting to get antsy, I want to get out there and run again. Soon enough, I know. For now it is the swimming pool and getting worked by the same girl every day who is a much better swimmer than I. I work my balls off to swim 25 meters in 30 seconds. It’s awful.

I’m getting there. Let’s Go!