It's not a sacrifice if it's what you want to do

Workout today: 1 mile with Lindsey in 4:38 (64, 75, 75, 63) then 600, 400, 300, 200, 100. 600 was 1:32, 400 in 58, 300 in 44, 200 in 30.

The workout today wasn't anything that difficult, but if anything it helped me realize that I've come a long way in four months. I've got a better sense of pace than I have ever had in the past. I've got a sense of confidence with my running that I don't think I've really had since high school.

I think a lot of times people look at runners and think about how much they sacrifice. Granted, trying to run fast requires a significant portion of your time to be dedicated to that one thing in your life. It also means that sometimes you have to be selfish and sometimes you can't just do the easy thing. It generally means that you do a lot of work for what seems like very little tangible reward. But, I would argue that running isn't a sacrifice at all. Sure it sucks that sometimes you're not going to be able to go on that trip to Vegas five days before you race. But that's a choice you're making, because you realize that ultimately you only have so many races and so many chances to see the results of the work that you've put into running.

I'm 23 years old right now. I've got such a minuscule chance of ever making it big in running that a bookie wouldn't even take a bet on it. At the same time, if I'm ever going to do anything with running, now is the time. I'd rather not look back at this point in my life and say why the hell did I not try to do everything I could to see what would happen? I've got one of the best coaches in the world trying to help me, I've got a job that will be more understanding than most in terms of running and I've got a group of guys to train with. So, while I'm not going to be showing up on Wall Street anytime soon, at least at the end of this I'll know. I'll know that I wasn't scared to give it a shot.

Say whatever you want because I can laugh it off...

I don't know how to start this post...so I'm going to ramble for a little bit and just go with it.

Things that are going on right now:

1. One of my mom's best friends from when I was a kid just had surgery for cancer and is going into chemotherapy in the next couple weeks. I haven't seen her in four years. Yet, you know what she asked of my mom? She asked if she could have a picture of what my brother and I look like now. I've known Myra since I was literally one year old and its sort of sad that I haven't seen her in such a long time. Its funny too, my brother and I spent a lot of time with her but the two biggest things I can remember about those times we spent together are peanut butter cookies and stamps. As a kid I loved peanut butter but for some reason the idea of peanut butter cookies sounded awful to me. I mean how can you say that peanut butter is going to beat chocolate in a cookie? But Myra always managed to make the best peanut butter cookies. The ones she made are probably the only ones I've ever liked. The stamp thing had to do with Myra making any card she ever sent from scratch using a bunch of different stamping techniques. My brother and I went through a stage where we loved to collect random different rubber stamps to make up these crazy cards and pictures. We did it because it was just fun and we probably got taught some pretty cool stuff by Myra. But when I look back on things like that I realize how lucky I was to have people in my life who supported me being creative, even if it wasn't very good stuff. My parents were always supportive of that, but having people besides your parents supporting you being creative just adds to your ability to push your imagination. I don't think everyone gets that growing up. Having that basis in being creative doesn't just restrict it to being artistic, but also not being afraid to look at things from different angles. Anyway, I hope that I can someday thank Myra for that, and that she has the quickest recovery possible.

2. Chris Sr. (Chris' Father) had a kidney transplant last week. He and the entire family had been waiting for this for a long time, so it was great to hear he was finally getting it. He's struggled through dialysis and its good to know that he's not going to have to go through that anymore. Times like that make you realize how close everyone at Pacers is, they were relying on the rest of us who couldn't be up there with Chris Sr. to take care of their family business. I know Wade and I definitely took that very seriously, we just care about the store. We show it in different ways for sure, I mean he's completely taken ownership of that store. It is his and he's going to do everything he can to make it better. I don't think the things I do are as visible (and I'm perfectly fine with that), work is never going to be a thing that is all about me and what I did. If I did something that helped something work more efficiently or created a situation for the business to improve then that's good enough.

3. The frickin' hip. More of an annoyance than anything, its still tight but I think I'm going to be good to do some workouts on it and keep my fitness up. Its actually felt a lot better the last couple days. But all I can think about is racing. I want to race. I want to look back at running 3:55 and say that was a start but I've come a long way. BUT...as I keep saying, that doesn't happen overnight. If running was easy, or if all you had to do was make sure you ran everyday and showed up to practice then there would be tons of people doing it. Running isn't easy. It's never going to be. I'm usually not a big one for quotes (unless they're coming from song lyrics but that's just because I listen to way too much music) but there has been one that has stuck with me in regards to the mile. The guy who said it probably had no intention of having it apply to running but I think it sticks pretty well. "Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt"
I don't think it just applies to the physical pain of running either. You've got to want to run, (not saying you're not going to wake up most mornings and say "I'm definitely the luckiest person in the world to be going for a run right now, forget the fact that I haven't had a day off in however many months and my body is saying eff you right now). There just has to be a part of you that thinks you can do better, that you can still put more effort in than you already have. Otherwise, whats the point? If you just barely go sub 4 in the mile, do you sit back and say "Look at me, I ran 3:59"..no, no way. You probably show up to practice the next day and try to figure out what the plan is going to be to run 3:57.

I know this post has been all over the place, but I think what I'm getting at is; there are millions of things in life that are going to trip you up. Plenty more that are going to knock you on your ass and then continue to step on you. But every time you think you have it the worst, I guarantee there is someone else in the world that is having a rougher time than you. Life, like running, is never going to be easy. At some point hopefully you get to create a situation where finances aren't a major worry, but there's always something else. I mean even when you become financially sound you still have kids and family to take care of and worry about. The point is, sometimes you have to look around outside your own little cares and worries and realize that maybe you don't have it so bad. Maybe you're putting in a little bit of effort each day that might get you somewhere someday. Maybe you're luckier than you think.

Alright, alright, slow down...

Went up to Philly to race an 800 yesterday. Didn't go exactly to plan...ran 1:57 which is better than I've done in the past but I know I'm faster than that right now. Race went out slow, about 58-59, so I decided to make a move with 300 to go. I think in retrospect I could've waited another 50m before making the move but at the time I wanted to be aggressive.

Continuing with the hindsight aspect I probably shouldn't have even raced on Monday. It didn't really have to do with the race on Thursday, I felt recovered from that on Saturday. It was more having to work both days of the weekend, plus working the Pacers Running Festival on Sunday before working the store just wiped me out. Then on the drive up my hip started to bug me and felt a little tight before the race. I decided to shrug it off and figured it would warm up as the race went on. Well when I went for that move at 300, it felt a like it tweaked a bit, then when I went to go a little harder the last 100 it really messed it up. I basically limped around the rest of the time up in Philly. The 3 hour drive back didn't help it any, had a rough night of sleep. Was still limping this morning, luckily, Julie (who I probably should have listened to in the first place and just not raced) got me in to see Dr. Beck.

My hip probably popped about 15 different ways while I was there. It definitely felt better after he was done but it's something I'm going to have to be very diligent about. I took today off just to rest it. I'll take it fairly easy this week and just make sure I'm 100% for my next race.

3:55 was a big step, and I think I let it affect my decision making on this race. I should have been comfortable enough knowing I'm in good shape now and that if my body is telling me its tired, beat up and hurting, then I shouldn't be lining up to race. I also need to make sure I'm setting myself up to do well by doing more of the little things to improve my running. Getting more rest, creating less stressful situations for myself, and being a little more selfish. Selfish doesn't mean being an ass to people, but more aware that if I'm racing, I can't be doing a million different things for people the day before the race.

Thanks to Heather for letting me borrow her car to get up there, and to Wade for setting the work schedule up so that I could go up for the race. Next time I travel for a meet I'm definitely coming home with a better result than this one.

It's a start

I know taking a week in between blogs must have been really hard for everyone (all 2 people). But no worries, I'll make up for it in this post.

Part of the reason I didn't post right after last Saturday's race (the Pacers Mile in the middle of the Draper Invitational) was, I had managed to PR in the mile by 10 seconds but I felt like I didn't lay it out there. I was in shape to run faster and it just didn't happen and I think it was more mental than physical. After being pretty terrible for four years at GW, it became more of a mental barrier to have the confidence to run fast rather than being in the physical shape to do so. I think more people were impressed with that mile than I was, I knew I could break 4:20, I just didn't take any chances which was the bigger problem.

Five days later I planned on running the 1500m at the Maryland Twilight meet. In the past I definitely would have freaked, knowing I had done a lot of hard work in the last 2 weeks without any taper. But the one thing that I've started to notice working with Coach is; even when my legs feel like absolute shit before a workout, or even between intervals, I can still run hard. All Coach had my do on Tuesday was 8 by 200 all around 30 (a few were 28-29). So I felt fairly sharp for Thursday's race.

However, the morning of the race, while I was on my shakeout I felt like my hip was really out of place. All the time I was at work it just felt wrong and my back started to bother me. Julie finally convinced me to try to get Dr. Beck to see me(I guess every now and then its a good idea to listen to her). I honestly thought he wouldn't be able to squeeze me in, but luckily he saw me and popped everything back into place. Drove up with Lindsey (big thank you to her for constantly putting up with driving me to practice and this meet). Drive up was a little hectic but it all worked out and we got up there with plenty of time for Lindsey to relax and then warm up before her race. It was just an 800m race to bust some of the rust off her legs, and she definitely did that. She sat back in the pack until about 500m to go and then started moving up. With 250m to go she blasted by everyone and then lead it all the way to the tape. She looked really smooth and ran even splits for a 2:07. It was really cool to see her race even though it wasn't a big one for her or anything.

I knew one of the other guys in my race, Ryan Murphy, he runs for George Mason now and he also works part time in Pacers Fairfax. Ryan is a real chill guy but also a very good runner. Four months ago there is no way I would have been able to hang with him or probably even be seeded in the same heat. But this time we were in the same heat and he told me that he was going to have some guys rabbit him through to try and go sub 3:50. I got a little nervous at this point but it was a little different from how I've felt in the past couple years before a race. It wasn't so much "Holy $H!T, I'm going to get burned", more just a feeling of excitement. Anyway, I go on the warm up, don't feel great but that's nothing new at this point. While I'm doing strides my hip still feels tight but I put it out of my mind and just think that its going to loosen up as the race goes on. We line up and the starter lets us know that we're going to have two rabbits, one will go through 800 at 2:01 and the 2nd will try to get through 1200 at 3:03. I get out the first 100m but settle in somewhere mid pack through the first 400m. I move up a couple spots going into 800m and probably come through around 2:05. I'm in about 5th or 6th coming into 1200m, with 300m to go I start trying to move on people. I close the gap on the guy in third (one of the guys I train with incidentally) and with a 100m to go I almost doubt I can catch him. Somehow I find a way to surge and come third. I ended up running 3:55.11. It was a good 10 second PR, and definitely something that had to happen. So while I'm psyched to break 4 minutes, I've still got a lot of work to do. I've got to work even harder now, because I've got at least another 10 seconds to drop.

I didn't call Coach after the race because I didn't think it was a big deal. I think he knew I could do that and he might even think I can go a good bit faster than that. He called me tonight and gave out to me a little bit for not calling. The big things he pointed out to me was I need to start doing everything I can to make my life less stressful. The cool thing is it seems like he thinks I could be a 3:45 guy, but I know that's going to take a ton of work. Until I do it, it's nothing. But I'm going to do everything I can to run that fast.

*sidenote...it felt really cool to have people there that I knew, it had been a longtime since I'd raced in front of people who weren't just my teammates.