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…

Phitens and Heps and Peanut Butter Cups

It is rumored that Gilbert Arenas, the NBA star, tried out an altitude tent in order to help in get in shape for b-ball season. He decided that it was working too well, and that it felt like he was “cheating,” so he stopped using it. This is exactly how I feel about my new Phiten Titanium Necklace.

You may recognize the Phiten Necklace from Major League Baseball. A lot of guys use the thing that supposedly aids in recovery of muscles by increasing your circulation. I was pretty skeptical about the things, but then my roommates and I decided that we should start a new fad. And recovery necklaces were the route we chose.

Let’s just say that before I got my Phiten, my body ached at all times, and now I sometimes don’t even realize that I was just running for 20 miles at 6 minute pace. The thing just makes you feel great and recovered at all times.

And the fad has taken off. Will and Delilah up in New York have joined in. Kevin up in New Hampshire and Renee in D.C. have donned the necklaces. Hell, even Alan in Columbus has decided to join in on the Phiten Phun! And we all feel great. And yes, it is all in our heads.

And on top of that, my fastball has improved drastically since I started wearing Phiten.

If you do check my web journal often enough, then you saw that Columbia won HEPS this weekend in dramatic fashion. HEPS is an indescribable meet filled with emotion and heart. Somehow, men and women become heroes on this day only to return to their normal selves very soon after.

For an Ivy League runner HEPS has everything to do with it. It is a double sided sword, but the sharper side shines brightest. What I mean by that is this: Sometimes we put too much emotional energy into something like the Ivy League Championship that the rest of our season is compromised. However, I wouldn’t change a thing. HEPS is where you compete your balls off and nothing else matters. Times don’t matter, weather doesn’t matter, place is the only thing that counts.

HEPS is where every Ivy League school hates each other. HEPS is where every Ivy League school respects one another. HEPS is where Jimmy Wyner was DQ’d for celebrating. HEPS is where I became LBP as the chants roared through the Armory in 2007 when I won my first Heptagonal Crown.

In the end, I have supposedly moved on to bigger and better things, but HEPS will always have a special place in my heart.
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Just so I have a reason for the title of my entry…instead of dressing up for Halloween last night since all of my friends were getting back late from Big East XC, I spent the night eating REESE’S Peanut Butter cups…I have no complaints.

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.”