The Bet

The 10K-Dub-L: Dan Nunn

I made a bet with Dan Nunn six months ago. There is some serious money going to the winner ($250, or 1000 chicken nuggs) and a long time period to decide who said winner is (4 years). But before I get to what the bet is, a brief history of Dan Nunn and I is necessary…

(And by brief, I mean long, but enjoy.)

Dan Nunn did not want me to go to Georgetown. I visited Gtown in December of 2007, and I did not make a great impression on the PAJC (Dan Nunn is a man of many nicknames: His freshman year, he was the Pan-Am Junior Champ in the 10k – “PAJC”. His 5th-year, he ran a 28:24 to win the Stanford 10k and was the World Leader for a week – “10-K-Dub-L”. When I was there, he ate a lot of Bacon – “Bacon”. And then he was weird and twitter-named himself “La-La” (perhaps he likes the old mtv v-j)). But I digress, because D-Nunn (there’s another) did not like that I was joining the team.

According to him: “Liam came in when I was watching a movie, it was Anne Hathaway’s great film The Princess Diaries 2, I believe, and he just would not stop talking! I told him to quiet down so I could enjoy the wonderful acting of Julie Andrews, but he just wouldn’t shut up. So I figured he was just a talker.

“So then, a bunch of people are over on his last night here and they’re watching The Shining, and I ask a question. Liam shushes me. The guy has the nerve to do that. He tells me to quiet down so he can watch a movie. Can you believe it? So yeah, that’s why I didn’t like Liam and didn’t want him on my team. He was an asshole.”

Whoah, whoah, whoah, Dan…an asshole? Isn’t that a little strong on choice of a word?

“Nope, I meant it.”

The problem for Dan was that I was going to be his roommate. So we were going to spend way more time together than he would have liked.

You always view yourself as a littler cooler than you actually are, but I think I did a fairly good job of being cool at Georgetown my first semester there. Overall, I was pretty liked by most guys on the team. As right or wrong as it is, I was doing well in workouts, so respect was there, and I tried not to step on any toes, so most of the guys were at least alright with me.

Dan took a little more work. We would start to bond over him cooking bacon when I would get home from class around 10pm. We would talk about girls and how Dan wanted to weigh 300 pounds at least once in his life but I could tell something about me still irked him. Then, a movie brought us together for good.

There was a party during the offseason that the whole team was at. It was right next door to our house, which was great for us. We both took the 10 foot walk home at separate times but found ourselves in our living room as Zoolander blared on TBS at 2am. But we didn’t even really watch the movie. Instead, we talked.

And a mutual respect was born. Talking during movies could make Dan hate me, but in a twist of fate, it also made him my friend.

From there, we were cool. We did workouts together…if he ran a 400 in 55, I would run it in 54.9 (granted he beat me by 8 seconds on the 1200 leg of the ladder). We hung out…we were roommates at NCAAs in Fayetteville. And we even met up when I was in the Bay Area last year, where Dan is now that he’s done with Georgetown.

So there you have it: Dan Nunn and I from the start.

And now, to the bet. Dan stopped running competitively last fall. He is in school in the Bay Area to become a 2nd Grade Teacher, but I was able to see him last May for the Payton-Jordan Invite at Stanford.

At dinner, the conversation turned to one we used to often have:

“Dude, I am going to get up to 300 pounds at some point in my life,” Dan said to a group of us at dinner.

“No way in hell,” I called him out. “How much do you weigh right now?”

“I was 160 at the doctor’s office, but I had a bunch of stuff in my pockets.” He laughed. “But, dude, I’ll get up to 300.”

“Guaranteed you wont. I’ll bet you anything that you don’t.”

“Fine, 250 bucks.”

“Deal.” And we shook hands.

Dan and I have a $250 bet as to whether or not he will ever top 300 pounds. I couldn’t give him his entire life, because at that point $250 wont be anything. But I gave him four years, and he accepted. So by May 5th, 2014, if Dan Nunn hasn’t weighed in at 300 lbs or more, he will owe me the money. If any time before then he does, I will owe him 1000 chicken nuggs because he will need them to sustain his diet.

D-Nunn and I at some banquet...Classy.

**UPDATE** Dan Nunn is reportedly training for a marathon. Things are looking good on my end.

Anne Frank Huis

Normally, runLBP finds itself more on the fun-loving, light-hearted scale of the web-journal-sphere (I hate the word blog, and even more hate the word blogosphere), but today we went to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and things were put a little more into perspective.

This wont put things down in the dumps either. The Anne Frank Museum was really something everyone should see. You get to walk through the entire office that they were on top of and then past the moving bookcase and into the “apartment.” At first, you think, oh this wasn’t too bad…there are 2 rooms on the bottom floor…then you walk up a ladder-type staircase that leads to the living room/kitchen/bedroom. Then there’s the attic of the attic where you can actually look out and see the blue sky and a chestnut tree. It seems spacious and nice. Then it’s realized that the people were stuck in there. They couldn’t move during the day, had to have blackout shades up in the windows so that no one could see in. It is really intense to be in the spot and look out the window that Anne Frank looked out 60 years ago. It was an important part of history, and I was glad to have seen it.

Check out http://www.annefrank.org/ and you can see a little more about the Frank’s “Secret Annex.”
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I am officially entered in Sunday’s Brasschaat Meeting. I will be running the 1500, and it looks to be a pretty good field. It will be interesting to see how it all goes and hopefully I find myself in the mix. Will head up to a track today to get in some striders and then take it pretty easy tomorrow before heading to the meet on Sunday. I’ll put up a link to coverage of the meet once I find it…Let’s Go!

Top of the Anne Frank House

Shrimp Nuggs, Chicken Nuggs, Macadosh, mmmm.

4x4s

I have been reading Bill Simmon's The Book of Basketball. It has been an entertaining read, especially in his ranking of the top 96 NBA basketball players of all time (even if it was completely Boston skewed and he either berates a really good player for his fallbacks - Kobe doesn't seem all that great - or praises him as the greatest ever - Kevin McHale is written as being astoundingly good). One thing that Simmons keeps on bringing up is his Mt. Rushmore's. So, as Mt. Rushmore is home to the faces of four of our nations greatest presidents, Simmons has Mt. Rushmore's for fast food, sports movies, and so on.

The track world has an equivalent to a Mt. Rushmore hypothetical game, only way better. Ours is the 4x4.

The 4x4 is the most exciting race in track. Even back in middle school people loved the 4x4. I remember lining the fence to watch the high schoolers run the 4x4 when I was in middle school. And in hypothetical games (of which runners are very familiar due to spending hours with one another on trails, roads and tracks), it adds a fun layer.

The great part of your very own 4x4 is that it also allows you to analyze your four favorites of something by the order you run them in your relay. So say I was going to do a 4x4 of my favorite fast food chains, it would go as follows:
Lead-off: Wendy's
Second: Taco Bell
Third: In N' Out Burger
Anchor: McDonalds
An analysis: Wendy's leads off my relay because it is a reliable fast food chain that isn't going to knock you out of the park but it always going to produce some nice solid food (no one can complain with a 5 piece chicken nugg and a frosty). As with a lead-off leg, your team is just looking for a solid racer who isn't going to mess up, but just hand off near the front of the pack. The second leg is when things usually heat up, most of the time the legs are going to be fast, and you have to be able to put a fast runner out there for the sake of staying in the race. Taco Bell is your second leg due to its ability to put forth fast times (crunchwrap supremes) and go. Then you go In N' Out, even though I have only been there a few times, because it is going to do pretty much the same thing for you every time, which is exactly what you want out of a third leg. It is going to keep you in position leading into your anchor leg. And the anchor leg is where you definitely put your big gun. Some teams put their big-gun second, but that is a way of hiding your strongest runner, and it ultimately means that you're a little frightened of what to do with that fast leg. McDonalds never backs down. The place is fast food royalty. It can run a race any way (McDonalds reference: cheeseburgers, big macs, chicken sandwiches, McNuggs, fries, salads and fruit for healthy options) and it closes hard no matter what the case (McFlurrys).

So, next time you're out for a run (or just bored sitting around) try to develop some of your own 4x4s. And for those of you new to the site, I usually end each article and then do a summary of my training for the week, here is that summary.
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Had a nice week with my first day off where I didn't actually feel like I needed a day off on Saturday. It was nice being back in DC with some higher quality weather and got in some good training for the week. I put up 65 miles in 6 days with a long run of 13. The workouts worked both some aerobic and anaerobic capacities as Tuesday I did some 1ks and then Friday saw Bumbi, Krisch and I running some hills and then 400s and 200s on a snow covered track. 9x1k is not a fun workout, even if it isn't super fast, but its one of those things I need to work on. And then the 400s were at a faster 3k pace while I got to run some 200s at mile pace on the hills and track combined workout. I like that stuff so much more than 1ks.

The racing schedule is still up in the air, but I do know that I am going to be opening up next weekend at Penn State! Not exactly sure what I will be racing, but definitely looking forward to getting out there and getting the competitive juices flowing again.

I hope you enjoy the site, check everything out and email me if you have any comments or suggestions. Let's Go!