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Sometimes there are races where everything seems to go your way. Other times, there are races that you seem to run as well as you could, despite everything not going your way. At the Miles of Trials Kansas City Qualifier on May 3rd, we did a family road trip from Fort Collins to Kansas City for a 5,000m on the track. My personal best was 14:03 from the rabbit5000 in June 2018, so I was excited for an opportunity to try and break 14 minutes. When I got to the track, I was super nervous. This race distance was far outside my comfort zone and it was quite hot and very windy at the track. At the start line, they announced who the pacers were, and someone I’ve competed against for a decade, Joe Moore, was going to be pacing the group towards 13:50. I gave him a fist pound and a thank you, and less than 30 seconds later the gun went off to start the race. I got out quickly, tucked right behind Joe and started clicking off 66 second laps. As each lap went on, I built more and more confidence and positive momentum. Splitting about 4:26 through the 1600, and 8:53 through 3200 were spot on and way ahead of my PR pace. Joe even kept pacing until almost 4k. When he pulled off, the lead group had fallen apart and after being 13th at the mile and 9th at 2 miles, I had a large group of guys coming back towards me. I told myself to catch them over the next lap and a half, which I did, and then ripped a final lap in 61 seconds to end up finishing 4th place in a massive PR of 13:48. Sure, the weather could have been better but the race was perfectly set-up for me and I executed my race plan of settling in behind the pacemaker and being competitive in the last mile. This was a big confidence builder before the race I really wanted to compete well at, the Portland Track Festival 10,000m. The goal I set with my coach Steve Jones at the start of the year was to give myself a chance to qualify for the Olympic Track Trials in the 10,000m. Historically, it’s taken about 28:20 to get to the trials but this year it was going to require hitting the automatic standard of 28:00 or faster. The race was going to be paced for 28:00, so it was another opportunity to ride the train to a fast time and be competitive towards the end.  Well, there were 32 guys in the field and my 10,000m PR of 28:54 from a couple of years ago did not rank very high in the field. At the starting line I was in the second row in lane 2. Being in the 2nd row is hard because it makes it nearly impossible to get out and get a good position. The gun goes off and no surprise it’s a mess (no fault of anyone, just what happens when you get 30 guys all trying to run similar times). I have to shove a couple of people that tripped in front of me to keep them and myself on our feet. By the end of the first lap I’m close to the back of the pack and hit a slow 69 second first lap. Second lap isn’t much better and I spend a bit of time in lane 2 getting around people with another slightly slow 68 second lap.  Then, I’m settled in on the train of people in probably 25th place and we’re cruising along hitting splits of 66 and 67 seconds. But, the bizarre thing was for some reason it felt like we kept surging faster on the straights and jogging the turns. We’d slow down so much as we entered the turns that I stumbled over my own feet slowing down on three straight laps. I’m assuming the pace was consistent up front, but people wanting to move up on the straights rather than the turns led the back of the back to essentially be doing a fartlek to maintain contact with the group. I’d split the next 3200m in 8:58 and I hit the 5k in 14:06, which was within 3 seconds of my 5k PR before this season...but I started to lose contact with the group and my pace slowed even though I had passed several people. My second 5k was significantly slower in 14:44, yet I still managed to get a 4 second personal best and a 13th place finish. This race felt like I never got in a rhythm and wasted significant energy in the first half, and ultimately it just didn’t work out for me to have a big run over 10,000m.
I really wanted to get out of my comfort zone this spring and race a few track meets to set new PRs, and I successfully went 3 for 3 on PRs in the 1500, 5k and 10k. But, this also reiterated the lesson of how much experience matters. Looking back at the 10k, I should have moved wide and moved up in the field early to get in a better position that would have enabled me to run a more steady pace. With having raced only 3 track 10ks since 2010, I am certainly a little rusty on race tactics on the track! That said, all of this track work and faster paces will translate well to improving my road races especially this fall. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy some summer races in Colorado and hope to take another crack at running a faster 10,000m on the track later this summer!
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64.6. That was my first 400m of a 16x400m workout this week. Usually, I’d be happy with a 64 second 400m to finish a workout, but here I was starting the workout that (relatively) fast. After that rep I thought,…well, now that I started in 64 I may as well keep it going. 14 reps later, all within a half a second of 64.6, and closing with a final rep of 61 seconds, I had my hands on my knees with the best track workout of my life.  On a small scale, this was momentum in action. I got the first rep rolling and there was no looking back. As each rep tallied another 64 second lap on my watch, it became easier and easier even though the effort was certainly getting tougher and tougher. It’s amazing what the power of momentum can do. “Momentum” was a word was repeated at many practices and team meetings by my college coach at Penn State, Beth Alford Sullivan. Coach Sullivan was really good at getting the team to believe in ourselves and believe in everyone on the team, and to build off everyone’s successes. Once you had positive momentum going as a team, it was really hard to stop. However, momentum is much easier to keep going than it is to start. When you’re seemingly on fire and everything is going smooth, you just need to keep that figurative ball rolling downhill. But, when you’re trying to get it started, sometimes you need to look outward to build that momentum. At The Marathon Project this fall, I had a very disappointing race, but I knew where my fitness was at. However, Ian Butler, my training partner under our coach Steve Jones of our group the Boulder Harriers, had a monster breakthrough running 2:09 for the marathon and competing with great tenacity and confidence. Together, Ian and I have done thousands of miles of hard running and his success was inspirational to our entire Boulder Harriers team. All of us now starting thinking, how good can we all be? Jonesy is always very positive and encouraging and kept us thinking big going into race day and thinking even bigger after the race - regardless of outcome. Ian’s performance not only elevated his confidence, it elevated everyone to the next level in the group. After a break over the holidays, I grabbed on to that momentum Ian started and now my figurative ball is rolling downhill with a lot of positive momentum. Similarly, Boulder Harriers teammate Maor Tiyouri ran the Cheshire Elite Marathon in Great Britain at the end of April. Maor was planning to compete at The Marathon Project but was unable to, and pivoted to compete at this elite-only race. Building on Ian’s momentum, Maor ran a stellar 2:29:04 and achieved the Olympic Games Qualifying mark for Israel. This is what teammates do – they build off each other’s success, find positives and have a contagious positive mojo. I’m thankful I’ve had great coaches in college (Coach Sullivan – Penn State) and post-collegiately (Steve Jones – Boulder Harriers) who’ve fostered a team culture, built on positivity, not setting limits and sharing lots of positive mojo and momentum.
Wherever you are at – whether that’s in life, athletics, academics, etc – if you’re not enjoying a time where your momentum is rolling (positively) downhill, look to teammates or colleagues or other inspirational people in your life and find some positive momentum to get a hold of. Once you get that momentum started, let it build and build and build. Share it with others. Remember, there’s no cap on the amount of success that can be earned so try to bring others along with you when your momentum is rolling!
News Network for uplifting stories, it was also a very challenging time without too much hope for the near future.
This March is different. We’re now on the opposite side of the curve and things are improving. Absolutely incredible to think that not only have scientists created multiple successful COVID vaccinations, but that a good percentage of people are getting vaccinations and within the next 5 weeks it should be open to all people. We’re seeing races come back with modifications for COVID safety and fall marathons are now being put on calendars rather than removed. It’s truly a March filled with much more hope. In listening to The Morning Shakeout with Mario Fraoli interviewing Shalane Flanagan, she described the sense with her athletes as “hopes and dreams becoming more tangible now. Getting closer to thriving rather than surviving.” While we’re not back to normal yet, there were some moments of normalcy in the last month. I competed in the Spring Equinox 4-Mile that happened in Fort Collins. There were many options for wave starts so I was able to select a wave start time that was after Levi’s nap so he and Kristin could come watch. It was so fun to be at an event, hear the band playing, go rip 4 miles as fast as I could and hug Kristin and Levi at the finish. I ended up running 18:37 for a course that was around 200m short of 4 miles, so close to 4:50/mi pace for 3.86 miles. A really great sign of solid fitness that’s improving each week. The next month will be a blend of time trials, virtual running events and hopefully another in-person race. The first week of April I plan to do a one mile time-trial on the track to get out of my comfort zone and then plan to do a 10K time trial and hopefully another in-person local track meet towards the end of April. It’s hopeful and exciting to be back competing again! If you’re looking to help bridge the gap to in-.person racing, check out The Kauai Marathon’s “Stride for Kauai – 100 Mile Challenge.” It’s a fun virtual way to tour the island on foot between April 1st and July 31st and be inspired to get out and run! Hope you’re finding more hope and inspiration as we move into April with warmer days, more sunshine and races on the horizon!
forest, a great view and incredible peace and quiet. Sure, the home had pink carpet in bathrooms, a lot of floral wallpaper, 26 tropical fish themed decor items, nearly 30 year old major appliances with many that didn’t work and a windy steep dirt road to get there. But, it was truly perfect. Only a few months after moving in, I met Kristin and we started dating. We got engaged and married in the two years following. Together, we turned that house into a home for us and it was truly very special. When we were done with literally replacing every major appliance, every piece of flooring, every inch of paint, it was a home we were immensely proud of and a dream come true through an incredible amount of patience and hard work. When I first visited Colorado in 2008 and spent a day exploring the mountains with a run on Magnolia Road, I knew I wanted to live in the foothills someday. I dreamed of this for many years and after a lot of hard work and planning, I bought a home that was absolutely perfect for me. I had singletrack dirt trails outside my log cabin that bordered national forest, a great view and incredible peace and quiet. Sure, the home had pink carpet in bathrooms, a lot of floral wallpaper, 26 tropical fish themed decor items, nearly 30 year old major appliances with many that didn’t work and a windy steep dirt road to get there. But, it was truly perfect. Only a few months after moving in, I met Kristin and we started dating. We got engaged and married in the two years following. Together, we turned that house into a home for us and it was truly very special. When we were done with literally replacing every major appliance, every piece of flooring, every inch of paint, it was a home we were immensely proud of and a dream come true through an incredible amount of patience and hard work.
One of the biggest realizations for me in this process is that goals and dreams can change... and that’s a good thing. In fact, if my goals and dreams are not changing from time to time, there’s probably a good chance I’m just going through the motions. I still have big hairy audacious goals with running - I want to be a fighting contender at bigger road races and marathons, to be a contender at the 2024 Olympic Trials, try to win a national championship and make a US team. But in the shorter term, I’ve also shifted my goals in running. Rather than trying to figure out the next marathon I can do, I really want to work on getting outside my comfort zone in shorter intervals, workouts, and disciplines. I want to get on the track, try to improve my 5k and 10k PRs this year, and not set limits on my 1500m, mile or 3K PR even if it’s a time trial in practice. I’m excited for these different goals in the first half of 2021 and excited for an opportunity to challenge myself in a different way...and explore some new neighborhood trails while I’m at it!
That phase lasted several months and I got in great shape running PRs in time trials and putting in base mileage work. I did several virtual road race events including forming a team with Nick Willis, Reid Coolaset and Mason Ferlic to run the MA RA TH ON virtual marathon relay, the Bolder Boulder virtuALL 10k and Stride for Kauai Half Marathon.
After these virtual events in the summer, a few groups turned into small event organizers and I had two opportunities to race in person - The Las Vegas Gold Elite Half Marathon in October and The Marathon Project in December. While I didn’t achieve my goals in either the Olympic Trials Marathon or the Marathon Project, I did have a great year in other events with PRs in 1500m, mile, 3k, 15k and ran two half marathons in 1:03:48 (Naples) and 1:04:04 (Vegas). The fall was actually my best marathon build-up in terms of training with impressive consistency, some of my best workouts and time trials, including a 29:38 10K on the roads. Enter 2021. Here we are nearly a year later and for the past months the running community has seen race cancelations posted on nearly a daily basis. Without an upcoming race to look forward to, running simply hasn’t been as much as a focus and I truly miss having that high level of gumption for working really hard towards a goal. I’m hopeful, and I think that most of us are, that fall races will be back. However, it’s been hard to not feel like I have just been going through the motions over the past 10 weeks. Mario Fraioli’s morning shakeout was in my inbox this morning. His first paragraph was the exact opposite of how my January and February had been: “The last 7-8 weeks have been without a doubt the most consistent and enjoyable stretch of intentional running I’ve experienced in quite some time. No pressure, only possibility.” Perspective. While I’ve been struggling with the lack of races, Mario looked at it as a positive with no pressure, only possibility. Maybe it’s time to reframe this season of life to one of hope and possibility. When I feel like I even tend to over-race because my motivational fire is always burning hot, the last few months felt more like I just had the pilot light on. Mario’s words just turned up the dial on that motivational fire. After moving in the next couple weeks, I’m really excited to take the time to find the right goals that internally have me roaring. Possibilities…
2020 has been a year very similar to a marathon…or maybe many marathons…to say the very least. One thing this year has done is given each of us a little more time to reflect and internalize our thoughts. For me, 2020 made me realize that I want to share the ups and downs, the lessons learned and the questions asked in the marathon training and racing process. When I was in college, I remember reading Brian Sell’s training logs (that guy was the definition of hard, consistent work that resulted in an Olympic team). I remember reading every interview that was online and every book ever written about elite running that I could find. I’m pretty sure I read Running with the Legends half a dozen times and idolized guys like Bill Rodgers or Steve Jones (who has now been my coach for over 8 years).
I always appreciated the athletes that shared not only successes, but also the failures and the times in between. Social media can be a really positive outlet to share that journey, but it can also be limiting on sharing some of the bigger lessons learned. With the help of my amazing wife Kristin, I now have a website and blog that I plan to write fairly regular updates where I hope you follow my journey, draw some inspiration from it and help you achieve your goals. I may have been humbled in my last few marathons, but I’m learning, growing and excited for sharing the journey to the next marathon with you all. |
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