Liquid Gold

Footage of the race at Gtown last week...(I'm the guy in the headband.)

I walked out of my room holding a jug of Pure Michigan Maple Syrup, looked each of my roommates in the eyes and said: "If either of you even think about taking any of my Pure Michigan Maple Syrup, I'll **expletives deleted** and then I'll **more expletives deleted**!" Then I walked out of the room.

It was at that point that I knew I had a problem with sugar in liquid form.

It started with my dad being an entomologist. Growing up, there were bees everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. Colonies in the backs had swarms of buzzing drones. At yearly intervals there would be a huge silver spinning vat in the house that was used to extract the honey. I was lucky if I didn't step on a dead bee at some point with the stinger still in tact.

But oh that sweet nectar that my Dad got from those bees. While most kids pulled PB&J sandwiches out of their brown paper lunch bags, I ate PB&Honey. Some kids put brown sugar on their maple syrup, I doused my morning breakfast with silky smooth honey.

On top of my love of honey, my high school's mascot was a Fighting Bee. Everywhere I looked, there was a connection to honey. It was awesome.

Now, my love of liquid sugar goes beyond honey and extends to delicious maple syrup. For a while I was on a Safeway Brand butter flavored syrup craze, but I realized that may be detrimental to my health, so I've gone the good for you sugar route (if there is such a thing).

There is somewhat of a point to this nonsensical post about honey on my "running blog". I look at honey as a healing food. One coach (I won't mention names) I know used to tell his runners that whiskey was a healing power: "Constipated? Take a shot of whiskey...Diarrhea? Take a shot of whiskey." That's how I look at honey. So, if you're a runner and feeling sick, have a squirt of honey...if you're a runner and you're feeling awesome, slurp a little honey.

Bees? Beads!? Beeeees!!! Bzzzzzzz.

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I'm running a 1500 this weekend at the Armory. Hopefully after last week's race I'll be ready to go for it. I think it's going to be a pretty good field, although I'm unsure who is in it. I go off at 1:40pm EST and I think ArmoryTrack.com usually has a video feed of the races going, so if you're not in NY you can check it out there. Haven't said it in a while, but....LET'S GO!!

Leslie Nielsen: A Tribute

Frank Drebin, Police Squad

Every other Sunday, my Dad would take my brother and I on his Sunday morning errands. This meant a trip to the Lake Lansing Rd. Meijers. With milk, lunch meat, and other essentials in the shopping cart along with twine, a screw driver or any other home fixing gadget he needed, we would pull up to the in-store video rental section.

Like any good father, he wanted to impart his wisdom of amazing movies on his two sons. So, one week it was The Pink Panther or The Naked Gun, the next it was Police Academy or Monty Python. Like other 5- and 8-year-olds, we laughed at the classics, albeit with some complaining here and there about not being able to watch Terminator.

We finally reached the end of the list of movies my Dad wanted us to watch, but a funny thing happened the next time we were in the rental aisle: “Let’s get The Naked Gun again!” My brother and I agreed.

We laughed at the cheesy: “It's fourth and fifteen and you're looking at a full-court press.” The oddball: “Doctors say that Nordberg has a 50/50 chance of living, though there's only a 10 percent chance of that.” Even the way-over-our-heads:
“[Jane climbs a ladder]
Frank: Nice beaver!
Jane: [producing a stuffed beaver] Thank you. I just had it stuffed.”
But we loved that movie.

It didn’t stop then. As two sequels to the movie came out, we couldn’t have been more excited. The Naked Gun 2 1/2 had us peeing our pants, The Naked Gun 33 1/3 left us in side stitches (although it wasn’t as good as the first two). Frank Drebin of Police Squad was one of the funniest people I knew.

Even in high school, 16 years after the first film had been made, I loved the movie. I was one of our schools valedictorians, and while some left my classmates with words of wisdom from the likes of famous Americans, I left them with the great advice of Frank Drebin: “Like a midget at a urinal, you have to be on your toes.” (There is rumor that some in the community didn’t appreciate my speech).

Still today I go back to those movies. I have somehow convinced myself that the girls I like need to like my favorite trilogy of movies. I force them to watch it with me, and then repeat the quotes right after they play in the movie as if to reinforce how hilarious they are (looking at this now, clearly not a way to pick up the ladies…).

The Naked Gun acts as a comfort for me. If I need a laugh, I pop the DVD in, if I just got dumped by one of the girls who I made watch the movie with me, I watch it again with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s by my side. Yeah, The Naked Gun is awesome.

Leslie Nielsen was the one who played Lieutenant Frank Drebin of Police Squad. He did it so perfectly that I still chuckle as I read these quotes as the scene plays out in my mind. He passed away last night. This isn’t sad for me in the way it is sad for me when someone I know passes, but instead it reminded me that a hilarious movie can brighten a day. So, thank you Leslie Nielsen. Your acting will be missed, but your movies will not.

That's Where That Came From!

I have told Headband Origin Stories before (something about the Charlotte Hornets), but it turns out I was wrong all along.

Like a lot of good things in this life, the LBP Headband came from, as it turns out, my Dad. Yup, that’s him rocking the headband back in the day during a Kalamzoo Klassic 5k Run circa 1978. There was only a 23 year drought, but I kept the fad going my sophomore year of high school. Thankfully, my Dad had the right idea back in his running heyday.

A Happy Father’s Day to all!
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Training this week was pretty fun. I did some easy aerobic stuff on Tuesday and then came back on Friday for some 1500 pace stuff doing two sets of 1,2,3,4,4 all at 58 pace but with the second 400 on each set getting faster each 100, so going 16,15,14,13 (although on the last set Bumbi led me through in 14.4, 14.4, 13.4, 12.8 for a little under the suggested 58 pace). It was a fun workout and hopefully let me know that I’ll be ready to trounce out some 58 second laps come USAs and the summer season.

As of now, it looks like I’ll be heading to Vancouver for the Harry Jerome Track Classic on July 5th to kick off my summer season…I’m pretty excited about it, and am really excited to check out the city. From there, who knows what will happen, but I am definitely going to be ready to run some good races this summer, so I’m pretty syked to get going.

Prelims of the 1500 are Friday night in Des Moines…wish me luck, its go time now; the race I’ve been looking forward to all year. Can’t wait.

LET’S GO!!!!!!!

Family Records

The spiked shoes on the runner in front of him gripped the cinders and then tossed them out behind. His Chuck Taylors failed to have the same effect as they slid across the black surface. With “FRASER T&F” stitched onto his singlet in blue and gold, and a budding pony-tail flowing in the wind behind him, the runner in the Chucky T’s labored past the spiked runner and crossed the finish line in first place.

His time for the ½-mile: 2:00.0

And with that a family record was born. It was the late 60s, and 2-flat for a freshman was promising to say the least. That runner was my Dad, and as a freshman in high school, the guy could run.

Walter Pett decided to stop running after that year (he claims he hated the coach), but his two-minute half would live on for years to come.

My brother and I have encyclopedic minds when it comes to our track times. (My mile PR’s from 7th grade on: 5:20, 4:54, 4:38, 4:21, 4:17, 4:10, 4:09, 4:08, 4:06, 4:04, 3:59, 4:00.) And because of this, we have a set of family records. Call it the Boylan-Pett Record Book. We have categories for each age group. There’s seventh grade 800, which Will has at 2:19, and 12th grade 3200, which Will has at 9:31. Then there’s every other age group and record ranging from 800-3200, which I have. Juust kidding, Will has freshman year 1600 and most 3200s as well.

Will and I dominate the record books. Only one record didn’t have the name Will or Liam next to it. It was the 800 (or half-mile, since that’s what they ran back in the 60s) for 9th grade: and the 2:00 remained the record after I was only able to run a 2:01 as a relay split.

But this week, there were some changes made to the record book, which is now titled the Boylan-Pett/Pett/Fanta Records. That’s because Annie, my little sister, decided to drop a 63.7 one-lapper as a seventh grader! Yiikes that is moving! Congrats to Annie for moving her skinny little self around the track so quick. I’m looking forward to see what her and her teammates can do the rest of the track season as they have some fast girls rocking the Mid-Michigan track circuit.
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Training went well this week. I’m looking forward to heading out to Minneapolis to run a road mile on Thursday night. Back to some good old fashioned street racing, and I really can’t complain about that. It is shaping up to be a really good field, and I’m starting to get pretty jacked up for it.

Got to actually run some fast stuff in practice on Friday as I did 3x600 with the first two at 1:26.6 and then 1:26.4. Then ran the last one in 1:21 after coming through the first 200 in 28high. Nice to get back to some 800 paced stuff and starting to get sharp for some racing...

That’s all for this week: the picture is in honor of Mother’s Day and my favorite Mom quote of all: “She just shown on me like the sun.” Happy Mother’s Day!

Let’s GO!!

The Perks of Being a Distance Runner

The above picture was taken circa 1991, making me 6 years old and rocking my first 5k road race. It also makes my dad about 19 years younger and in his prime for the East Lansing Road Racing Circuit. Apparently I didn’t really run much of that race instead stopping to check out all the cool houses we were running by. Not a great thing to do in a cold Michigan winter…my dad remembers being freezing.

Sadly, this was just the beginning of me running races. I now have done hundreds to thousands more, and they have been both good and bad. And I may complain every once in a while about having to go for a morning run or pouring out 14 miles on a Sunday instead of sleeping in, but there are also some major perks to being a distance runner. Take the Travel Channel for instance.

I love food and cooking shows. If you haven’t noticed, my Will Run For Food idea was based on Man V. Food on the Travel Channel. The Food Network and Top Chef are also two of my favorites.

I was watching something along the lines of best places to pig out in America on Wednesday night when my roommate Krisch walked in. They were at a burger joint. One of the burgers had a nice slice of cream cheese placed on it. It looked divine. Krisch agreed. He agreed so much that he walked not only to 5 Guys (a great burger place in DC) but also the grocery store so that he could grab a slab of cream cheese. He then proceeded to imitate the tv burger as best he could and then made it disappear with ease.

“But what does this have to do with being a runner?” You may ask.

Well it has everything to do with being a runner. Krisch runs at least 80 miles a week, and the boy was craving a burger with cream cheese that night. Yeah he probably added 1500 extra calories into his diet that day, but a runner gets to binge every once in a while. In fact, while he was walking to the door I polished off 16 Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookies…and they were delicious. So if you ever hear me complaining about something to do with running, tell me to go eat a burger and I’ll remember that I can. I probably will eat a REESES instead (yeah, the nickname is about to come back).
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Training went really well last week. I put in 71 miles with some good workouts that were a little on the longer side (1k,2k,3k,1600??) and a 14 mile long run with some tempo stuff worked in there. We’re figuring out my outdoor schedule but it looks like I’m going to be making some trips out to Cali for some fast racing. I can’t wait. As always…LET’S GO!

That's The Midwest For Ya...

The above picture is my Dad’s camper (legitimately called a Scamp) that has gotten him some mileage throughout the years. My Dad knows how to bargain; he once traded $60 and two jars of salsa for an old Toyota truck…his salsa is really good. This picture of the camper was last year’s Xmas card for Walt.

I finally made it back to Michigan, and it was just in time for a Christmas filled with gusting winds and accompanying rainfall that wiped all the snow away. I think DC and Michigan decided to switch their normal weather patterns for the past week.

Not to worry, last night the snow returned and its back to me sliding my way through my runs. I like snow running though. I try not to even look at my watch and just go out for the mile markers that I know in Bath, of which there are plenty. I feel like more of a badass with snow running, maybe it’s because the air seems thinner due to the cold or the small steps I take so carefully so as not to fall (not to say I haven’t bitten the dust a few too many times on these roads.)

But, the show must go on, especially in Man Month, so I continue to go out in weather like the picture that follows (although this pic is from last year, the snow is almost at this height already):

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The running went pretty well last week. Was able to do a 4 mile tempo and then got in some 200s yesterday after getting a day off this week because of the holidays. Yesterday, thanks to the rain, I got up to the old high school track and pounded out 12×200 with a 200 jog. It was meant to be a get used to your pace type workout so they were each supposed to be in the 30 second range.

Thanks to the gusting winds, I was a little varied on the times hitting anything from 30point high to 28point low. Overall it was a good workout, and even in the sub-freezing temperatures I was able to get in a solid workout.

My racing schedule is still non-existent for the sole reason that we don’t know what races I will be able to get into. Hopefully I’m in good enough shape to get into some of the bigger US indoor meets. I will be sure to keep everyone updated.

And in great news, expect an announcement sometime after the new year about an update to runLBP…it’s exciting stuff.

Let’s Go!