S.A.D. -- See Ya!

It was a gloomy few months in Washington, DC. However as winter turns to spring and gray clouds disappear I have noticed a hitch in my step that seemed to lay dormant all winter. I don’t want to say I actually had Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I was pissed off about all the snow coming down.

After a week full of 70 degree days and runs with shorts and tees, I really can’t complain. Today I even sat in a park and read outside for a good 30 minutes (my Mom the Librarian will be so proud). And things seem to be looking up in terms of weather regarding my outdoor schedule as well.

We did some mapping out of the season and I am going to be traveling across the country plenty to get a scent of the fresh California air. It will all start next weekend with a trip to Stanford where I will be running the 15…From there I will stay put Easter Weekend and run an 8 at William & Mary. Then I will travel back out to Cali for Mt. Sac and the PUMA mile and its $10,000 contract (who wouldn’t run in a race with a possibility of $10k?). Then I may run at Penn before heading back out to Stanford for a hopefully moving 15 at the beginning of May. It’s all pretty exciting and that’s just the first part of the season. We’re trying to get as ready as possible for USAs in Des Moines, so a racing we will go. I’m pretty pumped.

Stay tuned to Flotrack next week because I think they’re providing some coverage of the Stanford meet.
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Meanwhile, training has been going extremely well. I have been doing some of the best strength stuff of my life and even popped 4 miles in under 20 for one of the few times and did it feeling pretty easy. Then later that day ran a 53 quarter as part of the workout and felt pretty relaxed and quick on that. Things are starting to come together and I’m definitely jacked for what is possible this outdoor season. I hit a good 73 miles this week with a solid long run of 13 with some faster paced stuff in there and definitely am ready to get out there and race.

Also, I hope Michigan State somehow wins today so that I don’t develop M.B.T.S.A.D. (My Basketball Team Sucks Association Disorder)…LET’S GOO!!!!!

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!

Pay It Back

My perusing of Let’sRun.com’s “World Famous Message Board” depends on how well I have run. Yes, as vein as that is, it is true. I check the message boards if I’ve run well so that I can see what people are saying about me. If I’ve run poorly, I stay the hell away from it. It is not a confident booster to read that you don’t have what it takes. But I’m not solely self-centered, I actually check the message board if a teammate or friend has done well too.

So when Kyle Merber broke 4 last night in a race I rabbitted, I made sure to check out Let’sRun. While he was receiving his due praises, there were also some notes that mentioned breaking 4 doesn’t mean anything anymore. That too many Americans are doing it. That it has become too easy.

I beg to differ.

While the University of Washington may be excused, where sub-4 miles seem to come a dime a dozen, the mystique is still there. The problem with Washington is that no one races. Everyone sets one another up in a line and then runs accordingly to a really fast time. And don’t get me wrong, the fact that people run that fast is just amazing, I am jealous that I haven’t run a 3:57. But then watch Kyle Merber’s race from Friday night and tell me that it isn’t a little different running 3:58 for the win than running 3:59 to take 8th place in your race. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pitqexSNLcQ)

What happened at the Armory on Friday night was a sight to see. Kyle was able to accomplish a goal that he most likely set when he was in 6th grade when he first laced up his running shoes, and he was able to do it in front of and with people that mean the world to him. If he had run 3:58 at UW he would have been able to hug Coach Wood at the finish line and that would have been it. Instead, he was able to share it with his entire team.

So congrats Kyle, and congrats to anyone who ever breaks 4. A Syracuse coach came up to me after I rabbitted and thanked me. I asked him what Brad Miller ran. “4-flat,” he replied. I apologized. He said I didn’t need to, I did my job. I went on my way. But I hadn’t apologized because of my job, I apologized because I know what it feels like to break 4, and I wish that the Syracuse kid who I have talked to maybe twice in my life could have done the same.
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There are more stories from last night, but they are ones that may be kept secret for a while, ones to be told later when they make more sense. My training is going well. I am pretty excited to see what can happen this outdoor season. I have begun my training block and am discussing what my outdoor season will look like with coach. I’ll post up what I know as soon as I do. But I’m going to hit 73 miles this week and got in a nice tempo run of 7 miles on Tuesday before this pacing job last night. It’s going to be fun come April, May, June and July.

Let’s Go!!

Ps – check out two added LBPjams…BOO YAHHH.

Disappointments

(editor’s note: please excuse this if any of it is odd, namely the picture...I wrote this entry while lying on the floor of the Denver airport really hoping that my plane would skip its layover in Detroit and fly us straight back to DC...alas, it didn’t.)

They don’t always work the way you draw them up. That seemed to be my indoor season. As I mentioned last week, I hate almosts. This indoor season was full of almosts.

I flew into Albuquerque with the main goal of making the final of the 800. It was a doable goal, but nonetheless a tough one. Then I found out that they only took 6 runners into the final. Making the final was going to be tough, but why fly 2000 miles across the country just for one day of racing? Especially after seeing my heat was full of guys that I could beat on a good day.

The only goal was to win the heat, regardless of how fast or slow it was so that I was guaranteed a spot for Sunday. Discussing the race beforehand with Coach, we decided that we would count on what has worked for me so many times in the past: my kick. It’s a gamble a lot of times, to rely completely on a kick, but sometimes what makes it fun is also what bites you in the ass.

That’s what happened on Saturday. I found myself in a pretty good position with 200 to go, but come 100, the gamble hadn’t paid off and my kick wasn’t what it can sometimes be. Hernandez and Gagnon pulled away and I just didn’t have the pop to stick with them.

It was disappointing for sure, as was the indoor season as a whole. Penn State almost worked out with me finding a kick but I got tripped up and slowed down, New York was almost quick enough, but turned out to be a jog, Boston I almost felt good but felt terrible instead, and USA’s turned out to be a struggle in the thin air of New Mexico.

Now, it’s back on the grindstone and I am hungry for what is to come Outdoors. I’ll finally get to run some fast 1500s after the year of six 3:41s and hopefully dip below that solid yet un-phenomenal times.

(And yes, that picture may not make sense, however, I cannot wait until it is warm again and the snow in DC is gone, so just go with it and enjoy the setting Oregon Sun.)
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It was a down week of training, but over the next five or six weeks of pure training I will keep you updated on what I’m doing with some nice descriptions of the workouts.

Hopefully we can see the progress that gets me nice and ready to pop some nasty ones on the 400-meter oval. Let’s Go!

Conference Meets

The video below, albeit shaky and blurry, is proof of why I love Heps. It is video of my first Heps Title. It was junior year and a 4:08 mile beat out Princeton’s Michael Maag. Yes, I love it because I win. Yes, I love it because the “LBP” chant and nickname was born. But more than that, I love it because this video is Heps.

How can an athlete not get up for a competition with that kind of atmosphere? I brought it that day because it was impossible not to. Other than Penn Relays, there isn’t a place I would rather race (sorry Heps, the 46,000 strong on the Saturday of Penn is unparalleled). Heps was the spot to go. If you didn’t have it that day, I don’t know when you would. I would win two more Heps titles, and both were great, but that first one, with chants filling the Armory, that one is extra sweet.

Bear with me while I relive the glory days. Understand that my sense of self-splendor shuts down when I remember other Heps races: The fall in the prelims of the mile sophomore year followed by a dismal DMR where I stupidly allowed everyone back into the race after Erison ran one of his patented Pass Everyone In The Field relay legs at Dartmouth; sophomore and junior year failing to pass Ben True in the final straightaway of the 1500; or senior year when I failed to anchor a 4x800 relay team to victory and give a surely deserving Jonah Rathbun a Heps Title.

“Almost” – the worst word in sports. I almost had a second gear after getting myself into the race after falling; I almost still outkicked the field to win the DMR; I almost caught True; I almost pulled myself together in the 4x8 to put up a fight.

Even though I no longer have a Heps to run in, even though I hopefully have bigger things on the horizon, I think about these races. They, along with many others, are the reason I’m still chasing.

I am haunted by almosts.

(Video shot by Colin Pile, Columbia ’03)
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USA Indoors are next weekend. I am entered in the 800 and am looking forward to it. After three weeks of travel and racing I finally was able to have a good week of solid training and a weekend at home. On a snow shoveled track (with banks the same height as me) I was able to pound out some quick 150s and 300s on Friday to hopefully have me sharpened up a bit for some quick 800s this weekend. Still hit 68 miles for the week and I’ll back off this week in order to get nice and rested for the weekend. As always, Let’s Go!

State College, New York, Boston

Race, Race, Race. That was the point of the last three weeks. So we traveled, and we raced. While none of the performances were great, a lot of progress was made.

The week before my debut for the 2010 season I was thrust into a workout with Andrew Bumbalough (aka, Bumbi). We were doing 500s and 300s with the 5s at 3k pace and the 3s at mile pace. I was nervous about the 500s and Bumbi was nervous about the 3s (both of us scared of the other’s prowess at longer (him) and shorter (me) distances). The problem was, I wasn’t ready for either. Sandy Roberts jumped in with us (no slouch himself being a 4:01 miler) and we got right after it coming through the first 4 of the 500 in 63 and then running the 300 in 43high. Heavy breathing commenced, and I knew I was in for it. I struggled through the first 3 sets before being dropped like a bag of rocks in the 4th. I watched helplessly and cursing at myself as Bumbi and Sandy glided through their final 300 in 42low. How the hell was I going to race when I couldn’t finish a workout? Especially against a kid who just ran 2:19 for 1k from Penn State in an 800?

Coach mentioned jumping into the 1k so I could be in a little more relaxed first race. I half-heartedly agreed and then went home to get my mind off the terrible workout. In all honesty I was pretty worried about the entire season.

But then I remembered something. If you want to get good, you have to go out and race people. Even when you’re not ready. Last fall after I struggled through the 5th Avenue Mile, Coach sat me down in his office and told me: “If you really want to do this, you have to be ready to race at all times. If there’s a race, we’re going to run it, and we’re going to do the best we can that day.”

I emailed coach that night after the workout: “I want to run the 8 next weekend. If I rig, I rig, but let’s get out there and race some people, it’s the only way I know how.”

So that’s where we are. I haven’t popped a great one yet, but after having never cracked 1:51 in the 800 indoors I have two sub 1:50s under my belt this year. Now I’m going to get back on the block and get ready to race my ass of at USAs. The altitude is going to suck, the race is going to be hard as hell, but its go time, and whether I’m ready or not, I better get out and get after it.
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Training has stayed consistent even with the racing and the buttload of snow that has been dumped on DC. Definitely did some treadmill running and definitely got stuck in Georgetown (away from my Columbia Heights home) for a few nights, but snow running makes you tougher, at least that’s what I keep telling myself. The race up in Boston didn’t go exactly as planned…The UConn guys (Rutt and Gagnon) worked me and pulled away from me the last 200 meters. I just couldn’t find that extra gear, but the plan is for it to be there in 2 weeks in New Mexico.

68 miles on the week and planning to hit 70 next week before backing it off a little bit for USAs…Let’s Go!

Road Racers

I ran two races this weekend. One was the more conventional route, being on a track with the set distance of a mile (I won in the easiest 4:04 I’ve ever run) and the other was on the warm-up for the actual race against some old man who drafted behind me as I slogged through my 7-minute paced jog.

Going up the hill on riverside drive back up towards NYC’s Armory the dude legitimately locked in behind me and let me block the wind without humor or malice. I continually shook my head and laughed out loud to try to send the dude a hint, but he didn’t get it. He was unrelenting and remained tucked in, void of any wind, behind me. Around the crest of the hill he moved beside me, but clearly wasn’t still running with me as he was about 3 feet to my left. He got a few feet ahead then cut right in front of me. So I moved to my left and remained on the constant pace I had been at for the entire warm-up. Now I was catching up to him and his breathing cadence quickened and loudened (no, loudened is not a word). Then all of a sudden, he was gone. The dude turned around with no word or hint.

The only thing that bothers me is that I’m not sure who won and who lost our race, since I think only he knew the finish line.

And it is fun to challenge the weekend warrior once in a while, but I really wanted to tell this dude to come in and try to race me in a mile in 20 minutes if he was going to bother me so much on this workout. I’m pretty sure that he ended up throwing up somewhere because of the hard effort. At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.
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Training for the week was great. Ran a 4:04 mile on top of doing a little tempo and stride action on Tuesday and still getting in 69 miles for the week. I’ll keep the mileage up in that area for the next couple of weeks and then cut it back some for USA Indoors, which is still remaining the main goal. I’m probably heading up to Boston this week and hopefully popping a quick 800…Enjoy the interview from Flotrack…Let’s Go!

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack