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...

Quick Hiatus

Back in Michigan after a long day of travel. Don’t have my bags, but thanks to Coach Henner quietly yelling at Bumbi and I for not bringing our spikes carry on, I have some flats to race in tomorrow for Shay! It’s nice to be back, and I’m a little jet-lagged, but going to be ready to roll tomorrow.

The race in Dublin was alright, it’s hard to complain about a sub-4 mile, but was disappointed with the race. Still trying to get a big one, but sometimes you have to wait a long time for them. (Bumbi and I did spend some time listening to Rage Against the Machine after the race to get over it.)

For those of you have enjoyed the daily posts during July, I’m going to take a little break. I’m going to be up north and not check internet all weekend. I’ll post a recap of the entire trip sometime next week once I get back. Happy summer.

Let’s Go!

The Gouchers and Amsterdam Musings

Amsterdam...

It came to my attention recently that the Columbia Track Team adoringly called my brother, Will, Adam Goucher. For the non-runner out there, this is in reference to a running couple, the Gouchers (Adam and Kara), who are fairly prominent faces on the USA running circuit. The thing is, Kara is WAAYYYYY better than Adam. She’s a World Championship Bronze Medalist, an amazing marathoner, and, as it turns out, extremely good looking. Nothing against Adam, but Kara is definitely the bread winner in terms of being the better runner. As you can guess, Will was referred to as Adam Goucher due to Delilah being a legit runner. It’s not really fair because Will isn’t trying to be a professional runner, but I thought it a fairly funny nickname nonetheless. Then something terrible happened. I became an Adam Goucher as well.

My girlfriend was a pretty damn good runner, but then she had to go and place higher at NCAAs than I did the year before. I was watching the race in Indianapolis with my brother and Jeff Moriarty (Columbia’s runner who has taken all my school records). We watched nervously – me especially – as Christine rounded the turn and passed two runners to place 5th in the 800 at the National Championships. Pretty cool. I was pumped. Sent her the usual text. Then Moriarty called me Adam Goucher. It was like a knife in the heart.

Christine called and I forgot about it for a sec. Then she said this: “Wait a second…what place did you take at NCs last year?” as she realized that she had placed higher than me and laughed…Classic Kara, always rubbing it in.
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Now just a few musings about Amsterdam…

1. There must be no problem with stage fright here. They have a lot of co-ed bathrooms and also have public urinals that are just out in the middle of the street. I am terrified of them.

2. The street names here are insane and when someone tells me to go towards one, I have no idea where to go. These are some of the street names: We are on Karthuizersstraat, next to us is Lijnbaansgracht, the Ann Frank Huis is on Prinsengracht, and I almost had an accident on Poopinmypantsinstraat. (ahahahaha. Elizabeth has told me I’m funny on more than one occasion on this trip. I always remind her that I’m trying really hard.)

That’s all for today. Had a nice workout with Bumbi and now relaxing on this nice Sunday evening. Last full day in Amsterdam tomorrow, I’ll have a treat on runLBP because of it…Let’s Go!

And for those of you holding your breath in anticipation...I did eat a Pizza Dog. It was awesome/awful all at once.

LBP Cribs

Short post today...but you get a movie to go along with it!

I didn’t get to edit the cribs of LBP Eurotrip, but check it out and you can see what the apartment looks like. Bumbi is coming up to visit today, and I’m supposed to meet him in like 15 minutes, so that’s why there’s not much going on for this post.

I did a little 4x800 workout tomorrow. There isn’t much of a point to do that much more working out...all the hay’s in the barn already. Now you just have to out there and give a good effort and hop something good comes out of it.

The only thing bumbi and I aren’t going to do today is hit up the red light district....NOT.

Alright, that’s all for now, maybe on some downtime later today there will be another post.

Race day getting closer, can’t wait!

Let’s Go!

PANCAKE SUNDAES

I’ve mentioned before how when you run a lot, you get to eat some things that don’t seem very helpful (see Mike Krisch pounding a 5Guys Bacon Burger with a cream cheese slice inserted between the patties). Yesterday was one of those days. We have been hitting up cafés pretty much daily and yesterday we came upon a pancake house. I had been there before but didn’t see the greatest listing on their menu: the pancake with ice cream, strawberries, and whip cream. Mmmmmmm. Delicious.

So Elizabeth and I got that pancake (Maggie opted for tomato soup, rookie mistake), and then proceeded to scarf them down. I don’t think that Amsterdam is really known for their pancakes (more of a crepe to me, but a little thicker I guess), but it was some delicious stuff. As seen from the sequence of photos that follow, I powered through mine much quicker than Elizabeth and then was extremely disappointed when it was done. My Uncle David out in Cali has a food column that he writes called “Lick the Plate”. I desperately wanted to do so yeseterday.

About to head up to the track for some 300s, it should be a nice little Wednesday. Let’s Go!

Ps – Andrew Bumbi got a PR in the 3k last night in a meet in Liege – 7:51. Hopefully I can get him to come up to Amsterdam now because I’m starting to get bored.

View from Liz's camera. Started off even...

I take a commanding lead (don't think she knew we were racing...I didn't either, just was EATING)...

Dundee...

depressed...

Meltdowns and Comebacks

There was a sweaty train ride, there were a few breakdowns, and then there were some races yesterday in Brasschaat, Belgium. All in all, things ended up okay, but not before they started off miserably.

We trained from Amsterdam to Antwerp. Antwerp was about 10 kilometers from Brasschaat. The train ride was awful. I guess they don’t believe in AC over here, because I was sweating like a pig. Then some lady sat right across from Maggie with two huge bags and wouldn’t move them up to the overhead compartments, it was a disaster. There was supposed to be someone from the meet in Antwerp to pick us up and take us to the track. Sadly/predictably, there was not. After minor freaking out, we found the 640 bus. It dropped us off about a ½ mile from the track around 1 hour after we were expecting to get to the track. Maggie had to warm up immediately. Turned out, we didn’t care about all that jazz and ended up racing our butts off: Maggie PR’d in the 8 in 2:03.6, Elizabeth PR’d in the 15 with a 4:09 (5 second best!), and then I finally raced instead of time trialing and it worked out pretty well.

So I ran 3:41.39 for 5th place in the race. It was supposed to go out in 2:23 through the 1k, but the rabbit only made it to about 700 and the leaders passed the 1k mark in 2:29 or so…leaving me somewhere in around 2:30. It should also be noted that I was an idiot at the start and let myself get shoved around like crazy and found myself in last place 100 meters into the race (they put like 14 or 15 people on the start line of a 6 lane track, it was chaos). But even with all the shoving and everything, I stayed pretty calm and just moved myself up throughout the race. At 400 to go Bumbi took the lead (which he would end up not being happy about), and then we started picking it up. There was still a pack of people because it wasn’t too fastly (I know that’s not a word but it sounds right) paced and it was very crowded on the back straight and around the final curve. I tried to bide my time, but found myself with really nowhere to go even though I had a lot left the last 100. I was able to pass some people, but not quite as many as I would have liked. I wish I would have tried going wide around the turn just to see what could have happened. But you live and you learn and I was pleased with how it went. 3:41 with a 55-56 last lap, gotta like that!

Also, I remembered that it was fun to beat people. I set out wanting to win the race, but I was able to beat some people that I really wanted to. I was finally focused on that for the first time all year instead of trying to run a fast time so that I could get a shoe contract. I sometimes forget that competing is the best part of this whole thing, and yesterday it felt good to beat some of the people that I did. Too bad 4 guys got me, but next time I’ll be coming for them.

Enjoy the pictures, still trying to figure out one more race in between now and the mile I am running in Dublin on the 21st…hopefully it can work out. Gonna be a tourist for a little this week, too bad the Dutch couldn’t win the game last night.

Let’s Go!

The track as we were getting ready to leave

A belgium beer waiting for the bus home.

Brasschaat Race Day

Just woke up and about to have some breakfast before departing for Antwerp Central Station in Belgium for the second race of my tour de europa. After a long week of preparing, its nice to finally get ready for race day.

Will have a pretty big breakfast today and then pack some sandwiches and snacks for the road. I race around 18:05 - they do military time over here - that’s around noon for you folks back on the east coast.

Not much else to report really. We went out to dinner last night at a pizza place to make it feel more like a track meet. For Dutch pizza, I was pretty pleased, but its still no Bee-Pizza, that’s for sure.

Short post today...here’s a link to the race:

http://www.acbreak.be/

On the left hand side click on the “FC/International Meeting” button and you’ll be able to find start lists and later on, I presume, results. A bunch of Americans flew 3000 miles to race in a different country. Pretty awesome. Bumbi, my training partner throughout the year, will be there, so i’m pretty pumped about that. Someone to warm up and cool down with is always nice.

Let’s Go!

Bees?

Beads?

oh, bees.

(they were all over at the track last year)

Will Run For Food - Mike Krisch Edition

NCAA Cross Country Nationals were today. I never had any experience with this event because every one of my cross country seasons were gross under-achievements. I love XC, it is the only place where there is just one champion, and it is done in the most true way, through a race.

This edition of runLBP is a straight dedication to Andrew Bumbalough and Mike Krisch for winning All-American certificates with their 8th and 32nd place finishes at the NCAA meet. Since Krisch is my current roommate, he gets even more of a shout out.

What follows is the video I directed, produced, edited and starred in for a journalism class I took last spring. It features myself, and my two current roommates Mike Krisch and Alex Mason. The first couple of minutes are boring, but once the eating contest starts, things start getting pretty exciting. Enjoy…