El Reto Powerade

Last week I threatened to write another blog, and unlike my threats to discipline my daughter, I’m actually going to follow through on this one.  This week, I wanted to write about my most recent half marathon, which took place in Costa Rica about a month ago.  In professional running, you can sometimes find a competition that turns into something more than a race.  It becomes one of your life highlights – something you’ll eventually tell your kids about some day.  These experiences are extremely important for runners that don’t make Olympic teams because without them, your running tale is pretty much: “I ran a lot when I was younger, was really skinny, and ignored personal hygiene occasionally.”  These highlights come in many forms.  They can either be a PR, a victory, or some other set of unforgettable circumstances.  Everyone who runs knows what I’m talking about because everyone has had at least one of these experiences.  It’s why we keep running.

This past month, I took part in one of those lifetime highlight races.  The event was the Reto Powerade Half Marathon, and it took place in the capital of Costa Rica.  I was initially approached to run this race because a friend, Jeff Egglestein, was invited but instead chose to run some race in Russia (World Marathon Champs).  His gain turned out to be mine as well since I jumped immediately at the chance to race down south.  My wife then threatened to leave me if I didn’t take her along so the table was set for a nice Burrell outing to Costa Rica. 

I knew this race was different when I arrived at a pre-race press conference and was swarmed by folks in the media wanting an interview.  You could tell immediately that the public was interested in the elite race.  Now I’ve run in some huge races in the States with outstanding elite fields.  Races with long histories and importance in the communities that hold them.  Races with substantial buzz surrounding the event.  This was different.  The headline story of the Reto Powerade was on the potential winners of the race, whereas the headlines of U.S. races are centered on the event itself – the competitive race is a nice side story, but most participants and spectators aren’t really interested in who wins.  I’m not saying one is better than the other, but as a professional runner, the “cheeseball” in me enjoyed being the story of the race.  It was a ton of fun to live in the shoes of what I imagine a soccer or basketball player lives.  Where people don’t just enjoy you being out there.  They want you to win.

My initial impressions were confirmed during the race.  Throughout the 13.1 miles, I was accompanied by cars, bikes, motorcycles, and a helicopter all with cameras filming each step.  It was pretty amazing.  The downside was of course was being constantly filmed while having Tourrette Syndrome (a disorder I have that is characterized by involuntary facial tics).  When you have Tourettes, you eventually make some really strange looking faces and all of my great expressions were captured by Costa Rican media.  I ended up winning the race in a modest time (which I’m not going to divulge), and spent the next hour taking pictures with other finishers of the race.  Again, I can’t describe how fun it was to be treated like an actual athlete. 

After the race, my wife and I spent another week in the country with the elite coordinator and took pictures like this.  

It was definitely enough to keep me motivated to run for at least another year or so.  And for any Costa Rican runners that are reading this: You guys are simply the best.  I can’t wait to get back down there and run with you again.  Puravida.  

Adios BOOST

Many years ago Adidas consulted with Haile Gebrselassie, arguably the greatest distance runner ever, about a racing shoe. The result was the Adios, which would go on to hold numerous world records, world championships and major titles. The Adios graced the fast feet of some of the best runners in history, taking care of each stride and every step. It was the fastest shoe in the world. And it was only the beginning. 

Now, the whispers are getting louder. It’s time. Stories are floating around like lullabies about the arrival of what we believed to be a fictional shoe, a technology so advanced, it couldn’t possible exist in our lifetime. It’s time. Like the Second Coming of Christ, anticipation looms as the world prepares for the sun to get brighter, and the roads to get hotter.

The world’s fastest shoe, The Adios, just got a Boost.

Echoes down the dusty trails and roads are that the Adios Boost contains bubbles of joy and woe infused into the sole to insure that every step is fueled with Desire. Tears of Haile’s greatness, his sweat, and his Determination compacted into a shoe to be distributed to the world as the world’s fastest shoe. Don’t get left behind.

People thought the Adios was fast, and the Boost was faster. Like any good marriage, coupled together, The Adios + Boost = Greatness. Mixing two good things elevates them beyond measurements, beyond limits, and into the realm of Greatness. In a world where nothing compares, nothing can keep up, The Adios Boost has surpassed comprehension, as magic has been transformed into a shoe.  

And don’t be fooled. Don’t think this is coincidence. There’s a reason behind it all. There’s a reason they call it the “Adios”, and that it’s followed by “Boost”. There’s a reason the Road Runner beeps before he takes off down the road, the same way there’s a reason you say “GOODBYE!” before BOOST, you take off.

Now, everyone can get the chance to run in Greatness, and feel what it’s like to really have a Boost in your step. We all want to feel the joy of a Gold medal around our neck, the glimmer in the stadium lights after a hard fought Victory. We all want to feel the satisfaction of achieving our goals, and making our dreams become reality. We all want to sprint down the final straight in a 7.7oz Adios Boost across the finish line, light as a feather and strong as a bull. Michael Johnson had his Gold spikes in 96’, now the world has the Adios Boost. Now we all get to taste Gold, it’s not chocolate, and we all get to see the olive wreath up close. Just like Haile, we can run with wings at our feet and Desire in our heart. 

Because now with the Adios Boost, we get to run in Greatness. 

Reflections of a Scholar

It’s been years since my last blog, and since I’ve graduated, taken the bar and don’t have a job, I have a little time on my hands to write.  Now that I have a moment, I can’t help but reflect on my running career during these past 3 years of law school.  There were some incredible highs – making a World Half Team, placing 15^th at the Olympic Trials in a debut marathon and setting personal records in the 10k, 10 Mile, Half Marathon and Marathon.  However, I also dropped out of more races in the past 3 years than in my entire running career combined.  For the most part though, I feel I’ve enjoyed mostly success since I made the choice to leave the professional running scene in Flagstaff, AZ.  It is this decision that I’ve begun to analyze a bit deeper.

For those of you that didn’t know (which is probably all of you because, let’s face it, distance running updates aren’t really covered by ESPN), I began my professional running career in Flagstaff, AZ.  I relocated to the sleepy mountain town right after finishing my undergraduate at the University of Georgia.  Coming out of college, I felt I had a ton of room to improve and it was only a matter of time until I became one of the top distance runners in the world (ha).  For 2 years, I put all of my efforts into running.  That was my sole purpose.  I had a small job on the side, but I was there to run and run fast.  I had some pretty positive results – setting a 3k pr of 7:52 (about an 8:24 2-mile), finishing in the top 5 in the 5k US Championships, and competing for the U.S. in Japan.  However, much of my time in Flagstaff was not enjoyable.  There were many months of dealing with sickness, breathing problems, fatigue and other running related issues.  I found myself unhappy frequently. 

Looking back, the problem was rather simple.  My sole source of happiness was derived from running.  If I wasn’t running well, there was nothing else I was pursuing that could give me that feeling of accomplishment.  This is a huge problem because athletes in endurance sports can’t be in top physical form for very long (unless you’re a freak or doped out of your mind).  So if you can’t enjoy yourself during periods of poor running, you need to find something to fill that void.  At least that’s what I needed.  I think some of the best advice I’ve heard for running is to not let your highs be too high and your lows be too low. 

It was during a rough stretch in 2009 that I decided I needed to find something else to focus on besides running.  I had just dropped out of the Boston Indoor 5k and was quite downtrodden.  When you’re a “running serf” like I am, you only get a handful of chances to make it in this sport.  That was my chance, and for whatever reason, God told me right then (in an awesome southern accent) “Burrell, son, you’re probably not going to make a living as a professional athlete.”  So I started getting my stuff together to enroll in law school – it had always been my intention to go to law school, but I was hoping it would be after a couple Olympic trips.  No such luck. 

The decision to go back to school turned out to be the best one I ever made for my running career.  Aside from running in Adidas shoes of course – seriously, I do like Adidas running shoes.  School provided an outlet for when I wasn’t running well.  If I didn’t have a good work out, I’d concentrate on school a little harder.  I didn’t have to worry about performing in races because it wasn’t my primary purpose in life anymore.  Of course, I never lost my competitiveness and always put forth my best effort, but things were a little different nevertheless.  If the race didn’t go well, I didn’t have that sense of panic I did in Flagstaff.  Eventually, I started having some of the best races of my life.   

So I guess the overall message I wanted to convey to other runners with similar personalities is to not let running be your sole source of happiness.  Now I do want to acknowledge that I do know people that are perfectly happy with sleeping and breathing only running, which is perfectly fine if you’re wired that way.  However, if you’re similar to my personality and you’re feeling stale and depressed with your running, take that opportunity to find something else to pursue.  You don’t necessarily have to give running up, but make sure to take a mental break to succeed at something else.  When you turn your focus back to running, I think you’ll find a new, invigorated attitude towards the sport. 

I actually have a lot more to say about the past three years and my overall running career, but the blog is already too damn long and I’m not nearly as entertaining as Bill Simmons (pre-Grantland of course).  So I’ll save my other sweet insights for another day.    

Off the Grid

Who would've ever thought that the advent of social media could make running feel so...complicated sometimes. I didn't really think all that much about it until I listened to a little spiel that one of our very own local (well, technically he's not local...he's British) Olympians, Gary Staines, gave to a group of kids at a running camp last week. He talked about a lot of stuff, some of which was about how competitive running today is so much more stressful--at every level--than it ever used to be, partly because everyone knows what everyone else is doing, whereas back in the day you just kind of trained and found out what you should and shouldn't do through trial and error. He didn't ever directly mention the social media and Instant-Access-to-All-Things-Running aspect of things, but when you think about it, that's sort of what really shrunk the running world. Well, and the actual world too.

I'm pretty thankful the whole Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Letsrun era didn't really exist when I first started running in high school. At that early stage, I had no idea how much I would have to do to improve on my 30-odd minute 5k times, I didn't even know what a good 5k time was, or where I actually stacked up against anyone. I just knew in my naive 14 year old brain that I went from being so far behind the race that people didn't know I was in the race, to actually being a mid-packer (in the JV race! Wooo!) in a single cross country season, and boy was I pumped. I thought I was improving in leaps and bounds, and I guess I was, but to be fair the improvement curve is bound to be huge when you have nowhere to go but um...waaaaaay up. But on paper it sure as heck wasn't impressive by any stretch of imagination. 25-28 minute 5k's certainly don't turn any heads anywhere. Heck, 10 minutes faster than that and it still wouldn't turn heads. Had I gone and looked up Colorado rankings on Milesplit.com (it didn't exist then) or checked out Footlocker (isn't that just a store?) rankings on Letsrun (never heard of it) or whatever, I probably would have given up just looking at the crazy fast nationally-ranked times girls ran. What I'm trying to say is that to be blunt, I was terrible, but I had no idea just how terrible, I was just having fun and getting better and that was all I knew and it was GREAT. You couldn't just access a million running stats at the effortless click of a mouse and compare yourself to everyone. And thank goodness. Complete ignorance really can be bliss.

That following summer, when I decided I really wanted to be better because I was on fire after my oh-so-successful track season when I had managed to break, nay, DESTROY the 7 minute mile barrier (6:56 baby! And I didn't know that was not even kind of fast), I decided to bust my a** all that summer and just knock out those 15 mile weeks like a boss. In my defense, our school was big on wrestling and football, definitely not running, and I trained by myself because for the most part, no one really knew what "training in the off-season" meant, much less that you should actually do it. And I didn't know that you should do it either, I just liked doing it. So I made my long runs a whopping 40 minutes, I never ran on the weekends, and I certainly never ran--or had even heard of running--twice a day. Who does that? Probably the entire Smoky Hill cross country team did, and they were a total powerhouse. But I had no way of knowing that because I wasn't reading any of their blogs because there were no blogs. Come to think of it, "blog" was not even a word then. Anyway, by the time my senior year rolled around, I won our league and region, placed 19th at State in cross country, and broke 5:20 for a mile in track, I credited it to moving up to those insane 25-30 mile weeks, and I thought that's what people meant when they talked about "high mileage," aaaand....I still didn't run on the weekends unless we had a race. At that time, nobody was Tweeting or Facebooking about their huge workouts or their splits or how many miles they hit that week, but if they would have been, I probably would have been trying to do the same thing just because I was competitive and liked the idea of outworking everyone, but thanks to my completely blissful ignorance I didn't know what "outworking" would actually entail. And who knows? Maybe I would have been better had I known any, well, better, but since I didn't even know what I didn't know, I thought I was doing stuff right and there was no comparing or self-doubting going on because that just isn't really possible when you're living in your own little vacuum. I got better because I had no way of knowing what all I wasn't doing. Really, it was so simple.

Fast-foward to the present, now it's like constant bombardment. You don't really even have to go looking for it. Just log onto Twitter and you'll probably see no less than 20 peoples' workouts pop up in less than about 30 seconds. It's definitely not all bad though, especially if you're a nerd and you take interest in these things. Sometimes you can learn some interesting stuff, plus this sport could certainly use more popularity. It's great to see so much social media all over the place promoting runners and races and rankings and workouts and times. And it's impressive to hear about this runner doing X amazing workout and how they run (insert enormous triple-digit number here) miles a week with X number of super-complicated interval sessions to attain such-and-such a standard for so-and-so race. And if they're not doing all of the above listed things, they're doing this YouTubed core workout in the weight room (make sure to flex those abs in that Facebook pic), or doing plyometrics that some other runner blogged about, or Instagramming their Olympic-caliber dinner, or maybe supplementing (and Tweeting) on the Alter-G before Facebooking a photo of their legs in the ice bath. Oh, and don't forget to take a selfie with the track in the background, and make sure you have a nice sheen of sweat on your face for that one.
Sometimes it gets a tad over the top.

But again, it's all great to a point. Most runners have a lot of passion for what they do and when you have a good day, it feels great to not be the only one who knows about it. On top of that, it's pretty human and perfectly acceptable to want other people to take an interest in what we ourselves are interested in. But on the other end of the spectrum, sometimes you have to get away from all that...noise--for lack of a better word--or you get to wondering if you're doing anything right or if everyone else knows all these magical secrets that you don't, and do they ever have a bad day? By the tone of their Tweets it sure doesn't sound like it.

Running's already competitive enough on the actual race-course without being competitive in the virtual "world" on top of that. Every time I've ever started to go backwards with it all, it was because rather than staying any actual course, I was trying to emulate what I heard that somebody else was doing, because they seemed to be having more success, so surely it must be "right." Had I not known about it, I wouldn't have felt compelled to compete with it. Kinda makes me miss not knowing any better, because maybe it was better that way. Sometimes "ignorance" and simplicity can really be the way to go. Sometimes you gotta get off the grid.

And now in a final twist of irony, I'm going to post this on my Facebook!

"Real" Life

It sort of gives me a chuckle when I remember my little-kid-self: being like 7 years old and envisioning myself by the time I was 20 or 25 (because back then that seemed like a very old and adult-like age) and how by then I would be oh-so mature and wearing like, pencil skirts and carrying a briefcase and a latte' to my real job while talking on a cell phone the size of Derek Zoolander's, and having a husband and 3 kids (specifically 3, because see with 2 kids you run the risk of them having a falling-out in the future and no other siblings to fall back on, and only-children are sort of hit or miss as far as how they turn out) because I thought that was just what grown-ups did and by the time I was 20-25 I would be a GROWN UP. Granted, 20-plus years later I know that the aforementioned lifestyle would be tremendously ill-suited to my personality, so I'm thankful I was a little off in my predictions.

But at the same time it does kind of amaze me how myself and many others that I know more or less use running as an excuse to avoid moving on with "real life", and how it seems completely normal, and actually that it seems so normal that I'm not really sure if it's not normal. I guess if you're making a legitimate living at this sport, that's a totally understandable approach; it pays the bills, and it is a career, a temporary career, but still a career. But that's not most runners, that's hardly even some runners, such is the somewhat sad state of this sport at the professional level. For the rest of us however, the Not-Really-Pros-But-Trying-Really-Damn-Hard-To-Be-Pros, I'm not really sure if it's just a selfish pursuit that may or may not ever go anywhere, and even if it does go anywhere, is "anywhere" even a real accomplishment? Even if you medal at the Olympics are you actually doing anything for humanity? Probably not, but in the athlete-mind whether you do something huge like that or you run a PR in a rinky-dink race, it feels pretty freakin' good, and it feels like a real accomplishment even though 7 billion-odd other people don't care about it. And realistically since those running accomplishments are not accomplishments that you will be physically able to attain for your entire life, that's when putting Life on the back-burner in order to pursue those accomplishments--however modest they may be on the grand stage--starts to feel completely legitimate. If anyone caught the last Oatmeal, The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances (specifically Part 3: Selfishness and Krakens) it articulates this feeling with absolute flawlessness. This pretty much sums it up spot-on:

(For a more complete and thoroughly amusing explanation of this, follow http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running3).

Anyway, so we have this Fun Run at the BRC every Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., (shameless plug), and this past week one of the kids there, a TWELVE year old no less, was making fun of us. She was telling us we're like a bunch of little kids. To be fair, at the moment Birdsong was juggling massage balls and Tommy was...well, being Tommy. And the argument at the moment was over who was a bigger "jerkface" (for the record, she decided I'm the least of a jerkface between the three of us). So really, her assesment of us was completely justified and quite astute. In any case, a twelve year old basically just called us immature.

"YEAH SO WHAT? WE'RE LIKE LITTLE KIDS AND WE NEVER GROW UP AND WE SPENT THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON COLLEGE DEGREES THAT WE AREN'T EVEN USING," was Tommy's comeback (it's in all caps because he's loud). Sad. But so true. And I'm pretty sure we're all using running to make it feel more acceptable.

I do have a few friends though who are kicking ass on the running scene and they have jobs that they can make a career out of and that they can retire doing, and they have Masters' degrees or PhD's, and they pay mortgages instead of rent, and they're married, and they have kids, and they're going to the Trials every four years and running A-standards and such. It's amazing. I admire the heck out of that. But also I have absolutely no idea how they pulled all of that off. There's a million things I like doing...I really like running, but that won't buy food or pay bills because you certainly don't see me at the Olympics. And I really like writing too, but most of it makes little sense to anybody except for me (case in point: this post) and I'm not banking on the idea that anybody is actually going to pay me money to read entire books' worth of this stuff. So the long in the short is I have no idea what I really want to do, except that I do, but realistically all of my brilliant ideas are not really all that do-able unless I want to live in a lean-to made from a cardboard box behind 8th Street Wal-Mart, and I'm 27 entire years old, and that freaks me out.

And then your parents think you're wasting your life, and then every time you see people you haven't seen in a while (usually at other friends' weddings, because while you were out running they were out finding their soul-mates) and they've gotten married or had a family or have a 6-figure job now, or they've gone overseas and saved thousands of orphans in Rwanda and you're just like, "Um I PR'ed in the 5k last spring, and also I transitioned to a more minimal shoe," And you feel satisfied and, more importantly, happy with that, and they're looking at you and nodding and smiling just to humor you. And you know this. So then in a last-ditch effort to save yourself you start talking about your (imaginary) plans for graduate school, but then your ship is sunk when they ask you what you want to study and you don't have a ready answer. And sometimes you walk away feeling somewhat inadequate and like you're still that 7 year old envisioning yourself someday with pencil skirts and latte's and Derek Zoolander's phone. But at the same time you don't feel truly inadequate because you got better at something you really care about, even if it doesn't effect anybody else, and plus that "other" life just sounds so...blah. Yet on some level, you know you should feel inadequate. It's very confusing.

Then again, even the people who have made it to the top of the sport and have a truly legitimate reason to use running as an excuse to avoid so-called "real life" because it HAS been their job, seem to have some of the same worries. I'm not a huge blog-follower, but Molly Pritz wrote a fabulous bit about the less wonderful aspects of what it's like to put everything on hold for running and pursue it as an actual career, and the anxiety that comes with trying to figure out where to go after it's over one day:
http://asicsmolly.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-unfortunate-fallout-of-when-your.html#more

Running as a job is a very tiny basket in which to put all of your eggs. So as dream-like and glamorous as it seems from afar, I have to admit that I'm not sure how jealous I truly am.

I suppose when it all comes down to it then, choosing to feel "inadequate" because you haven't got it all figured out, and for the time being your pursuit of running is doubling as both something that you love doing, yet also as a salve of sorts to dull that feeling of cluelessness and to put off the inevitable Figure-It-Out part of life, because after all you ARE trying to go to the Trials one of these days. Important buisiness! So I guess inadequacy is a chosen feeling. I guess at the end of the day if you are getting a wee bit better--even if you're the only one who will ever know or hear about it--at something you absolutely love, and it makes you happy, then it's not completely aimless or pointless. But then again, I could just be making excuses.

No one said it would be easy but EVERYONE said it would be worth it

Well a lot has happened since my last post. I've started to learn how to race again and had a few respectable, if not exactly what I wanted, showings.

*Bolder Boulder 10k 36? Maybe and 4th female
*USA 25k champs 1:28:52 good for 6th. My highest USA champs placing.
*new York mini 10k 34:03
*USAhalf champs 1:13:17
*USA 10k champs 34:21 for 13th american (24th overall)

I am going to be the first to tell you that coming back from injury was not all rainbows and sunshine. I think I thought that since I got injured in the best shape of my life I'd come back fast. I cannot tell you the amount of time I spent on my Elliptigo in the rain, sun, snow and ice plus the hours I spent at the gym and PT. I had this crazy thought that I would come off of injury and be right back to my old self. Ha! It was ugly. A 30 minute run felt like death. I felt like a seriously over weight, out of shape, near never gotten off the couch with my bag of potato chips and beer woman. I am not gonna lie to you. I was weak minded at the time, which is my biggest annoyance, I thought more than once of quitting. I had the "well really I'm just a mom who did ok mixing it up with the big dogs. Why not just walk away now and know you did ok". Luckily my mom raised me to not ever quit before you have give it every damn thing you had and even than you keep fighting. So I kept slugging along. Honestly I had no business toeing the line in DC. My workouts had been mediocre at best and I was just afraid to run. All I can say is I'm glad I had a coach to push me to do it. Had not done that race I'd still be slugging along scared. So I owe a big thanks to Scott,for so many things, but most of all right now for making me stop being a damn cry baby!

What's changed since the 10 mile? Well I made the decision to start heading to the Springs for a workout a week. Trust me when my alarm goes off at 3:30am on those days I really contemplate my sanity, but it's what's right for me. Don't know if you have noticed or not but my two teammates Brianne and Mattie have been killing it on the roads. I figured if I head down to do speed work with them it would give me no choice but to do it and do it fast or get left in the dust. Plus it has proved invaluable to have Scott on hand for workouts. One of the biggest challenges I've noticed post injury is remembering how to hurt. In races and workouts I'd get to a point that if it was uncomfortable I'd just slow down I mean I was injured forever really I should be going slower. Well that thinking doesn't work when you are with Mattie, Scott and even Curtis (Mattie's hubby). While I'm sure if Kevin were out on a workout yelling at me to go faster or telling me to get up with Mattie I may punch him, with Curtis it actually helps and makes me do it. Hmmm......maybe that's why Kevin won't take up running :) Anyway working out with my team has helped a lot. While my great workouts haven't really shown up completely in a race I know eventually it will. I am just really happy right now to be mixing it up with some great ladies again. I just keep going out with the pack and hoping one of these days soon I won't get shot off the back!

What's next? Well guess what? It's marathon training time and I am SO damn excited I can't control myself. I have to be totally honest I do not enjoy most of the speed training stuff. It hurts, I'm old and I do not have good fast twitch muscles. BUT I know the 10k training will make me a faster marathoner so I do it and don't complain (ok I did complain when I had to do mile repeats on the track) but this marathon stuff....now THAT is fun. I am ready for the long grueling workouts that make me contemplate my sanity. I'm ready to see what my body can do. I'm ready to get a new marathon PR and really race the whole marathon without being terrified. There are a lot of amazing options in the Fall. Part of me really really wanted to go back to NYC and do what I had set out to do last year, part of me wanted to try Chicago since so many ran so great there last year but ultimately I love doing the USA championship circuit so I will head to Twin Cities this year. Hopefully I'll be running marathons again and again and will have my shot at going back to the always wonderful NYC marathon as it is for sure a must do! This time around I want to do all the little things even if I don't feel like I have time. I want to make time to get to the gym and lift to keep those hips strong and healthy, I should probably start doing core again instead of choosing the glass of wine over it! I really want to incorporate my Elliptigo in for extra training.

Wendy

Running in (lots of) circles...

Runners are often characterized as being a touch eccentric, and admittedly, that reputation is sometimes well deserved. For example, just a few days ago I was preparing to race 10K at the Portland Track Festival and my thoughts were something along the lines of “it’s only 25 laps, that doesn’t sound very long, I bet it will go by really fast.” That’s a perfectly sane perspective, right?

This weekend marked a lot of firsts for me—first outdoor track race outside the state of Colorado, first 10K on a track, first time getting to starting line after my usual bedtime. In running, as in life, every new experience comes with equal measures of potential and risk. It’s exciting to try something new, to have the opportunity to achieve at a new level; at the same time, the unfamiliarity of new challenges can sometimes mean that you don’t get it right the first time and leave unsatisfied. But you have to risk failure to find out what’s possible…

And so I found myself in the middle of the Portland Track Festival 10K on Friday night wondering how I deluded myself into thinking that 25 laps would go by quickly—the first few weren’t too bad, but after the initial early-race excitement wore off, I realized that running 10K on track is an exercise of persistent focus. It’s not as simple as just setting out at a certain effort and spacing out for 25 laps; a difference in pace of 1 second per lap adds up quickly when you’re running 25 of them. Every lap was an intentional effort to fight for every second, or every tenth of a second, that I could manage. One thing I didn’t have to focus on was keeping track of my progress circling the track—between the lap counter (which was great for such encouraging mid-race thoughts as “great, 5 laps down, only 20 to go”) and the announcer (who updated entire stadium on our progress every 200m—“they’ve got 8 laps in the bank, they’ll come around 17 more times this evening”), at least I had that covered.  

The end result of this mental and physical battle? The Portland Track Festival was a fantastic meet, and I was fortunate this weekend to leave with a feeling that this debut was an overall success. I set a new 10K PR (in total, this spring I’ve improved my 10K time by over 2 minutes) and even managed an unofficial PR in the 5K at the halfway mark. Despite this exciting result, I left feeling that there were a few things I would do differently next time and that I have room for more improvement in this event. It is this state of simultaneous satisfaction and dissatisfaction that drives me to keep training, to constantly push the limits of what I can do. While I am still waiting to regain normal feeling in my calf muscles (25 laps in spikes—enough said), I am excited to get back to training and to start chasing new goals, no matter how distant they seem at first.  

Snow, family, and return to "racing"

The last two months have been a bit of a roller coaster, mainly due to my annoying IT band. At the worst I was down to 15 miles a week and was afraid to run more than a mile away from my house in case the IT band tightened up and sent me walking home. Boo.

But enough of the bad, here's some good things that happened:
My family came to visit! They brought my new snazzy Subaru Outback to Colorado and we spent a few days in Winter park. I did some snow shoeing instead of skiing because of the IT band.

Andy had a great race at the Colorado 5 mile championships. He was so fast that they weren't ready for him at the finish and he had to do a pretend finish for pictures. Here's Andy being goofy and a yummy waffle from Walnut cafe. Mmmmm.


I had a little climbing mishap when my belayer slipped, pulling me off the wall and slamming my foot into the rock...But it's not broken!...but 5 weeks later I can still feel it...silly bone bruise. Thank god for the Adidas energy BOOST shoes! Seriously, it's the only thing that has been cushioned/responsive enough to run in since my foot injury.

I got to go home! First time since Christmas. Bye bye snow, hello eternal Houston summer. The Texas sun felt SO good after all this snow in Boulder. I did make a tiny mistake by trying to do some barefoot strides, but after a little ibprofen and a rest day everything is looking up again.

My mom put on a race to benefit camps for teens in foster care. Run for Hope was a huge success and a really fun race. Check out Love Fosters Hope if you want to donate or help out with providing hope to teens in foster care. It's an incredible camp and a very worthy cause to be involved in. I'm so glad I was able to go home and be a part of it. Side note, it was my first time to do a workout in 2 months and first time running in the new bright yellow Adidas uni. Time to race my way back to shape, one 5k at a time. Oh, and winning is always fun too. While I was yogging the 5k, Andy was actually kicking butt at Mt. SAC....running crazy fast in the 5k: 13:41 fast to be exact.

It also happened to be the weekend of the J Fred Duckett Rice Meet. I miss this blue track, my coach and old teammates so much! Doing a "workout" ...10 x 100m strides... at the Rice track with the girls was just what I needed. It definitely made me realize I need to find a group to train with here. Running is a social thing for me and I find I am pushed much more when I'm training with others.

I wasn't kidding about racing my way back into shape. I did another 5k a week later. The Boulder Distance Classic! As usual, my teammates rocked it. Way to go BRC Adidas! The race shirts had a tribute to the Boston victims and Henry gave a nice speech encouraging everyone to live without fear. So, I toed the start line in support of Boston and my teammates and later laced up my climbing shoes for an afternoon in Eldorado Canyon. Of course, it would have been nice to be racing at Stanford that weekend, but it was still a fun day and I'm getting healthy bit by bit.

Finally, the warm weather has arrived! To Cooper's dismay, it hit 80 degrees one day last week. We ran out 3 miles to a park which did not have a working water fountain. Let's just say it was a long 3 miles home for this pup and it made me actually consider getting a hobby jogger water belt. On second thought, I'll just run him by the Boulder creek. In typical Boulder fashion, two days later the snow came again! I am so over the cold. Bring on sport bra weather!

And for the final picture... I chopped off my hair! No more pink/blonde ends...for now.


So now I'm heading into May with a new car, recovered bum foot, pain-free IT band, stronger glutes and a lot less hair. Ok May, bring on my 25th bday (yikes, I feel old), the Bolder Boulder 10k and (please please please) more sunshine!
Nicole M.

Time for an update....

Hello folks,  sorry to have to put Shannon's famous Chicking blog underneath mine, as it is certainly more entertaining, but as usual it has been too long since my last post and there have definitely been changes.  First, of course being that we had our baby boy on March 1st, and he is now over 9 weeks old!  Crazy how fast time flies.  Other then that, I took a new job at a physical therapy clinic in Loveland which has been fun, and I have finally managed to start getting back in shape.

I am still being coached by Jon Sinclair, who has gradually been increasing the intensity of the workouts while trying to keep me healthy.  Always an arduous task with my nagging achilles, but so far so good.  This past weekend I was out in Indianapolis for the Mini-Marathon and ran a 1:06:48.  The course is fast but the wind played a major part in the slower times.  I was lucky enough to finish 6th by outkicking the guy in seventh by .15.  It felt like I was in one of those bike races where someone just keeps waiting for the sprint to start, and when it finally did, it was an all out dash for the line.  Races like that is what keeps me coming back for more!

It was great seeing all of you who made it out to the Boulder distance classic, it's always fun doing a team race where we can take it to the BTC.  And of course free beer after the race is always worth the pain.  Next up for me will be another race in boulder, the Boulder Boulder.  Hope to see lots of BRC runners out there so we can make another yellow train of awesomeness! Till then...

"Chick Fil-A"

I feel as though it is time to address the topic of "Chicking." Recently, we have started referring to it as being "Chick Fil-a'ed" because it just sounds cooler. Plus, there was a joke to go along with it but that's a story for another day. In any case, it seems to be a sort of recurring theme in running life right now.

I started thinking about it a few weeks ago when, during an especially slow span of time at the shoe store, one of the guys I work with brought up this little game called "Make It or Break It." Yeah I know. I didn't know what it was either and I felt totally un-hip and totally un-cool, but apparently these young people of today have invented some of their own games that are total knock-off's of the ones that MY generation came up with. This one is similar to Truth or Dare or Would You Rather, but entails one person presenting to another person an imaginary scenario that is made up of all of the ideal circumstances, but one aspect within those circumstances totally throws the whole thing off. For instance, would you want to live to be 150 years old, live in a Utopian society and never age, BUT you are blind for your entire life. Does the blindness break it or would you accept the situation in spite of it? Lame example but you get the point.

So I presented to this kid a scenario in which he met the PERFECT girl. I mean, Imaginary Girl was flawless: all the right personality traits, super attractive and so on. Oh, but wait, there's a catch...she's faster than him, sooo Make It or Break It, kiddo?
He looked shocked that I even had to ask. "BREAKS IT," he answered, without hesitation.
Seriously dude? Really? You just met your perfect soul mate but because she can out-run you, that's a deal-breaker?
Yes, apparently it is.

Then I think back a several years ago. I had this coach tell me un-jokingly that if I ever beat him in a race, he'd quit running. In thinking back, it made me feel kinda crummy because in my much younger brain it was comparable to having my coach tell me, "If you are ever more successful than me at this sport, I'll quit," I knew he'd have never dreamed of saying this to any guy, but who says that to their athlete anyway, regardless? You aren't competing against your coach for crap sake. Not to mention, I took it as a stab directed straight at me owing to the fact that while he may be a decent runner, he is no Olympian, and there are numerous women that I know who could easily outrun him. But then again, this guy, good person in daily life though he may be, seemed to harbor a very bizarre revulsion toward coaching females (apprently we are terribly frightening and may corner you and force you to talk about feelings), much less getting beat by them, so maybe I shouldn't have taken it so personally, but I did.

I don't get it.

And then I recall some of the many post-collegiate races over the last few years. There was this Turkey Trot in Wash Park a few years ago where Cassie was way up front, busy winning the women's race by about a half mile, and I was in second, running with this group of guys. This is a pretty big race every year, so there were plenty of guys to run with and tons of spectators. But from the sidelines, I heard a lot of:

"Don't let her catch you!"
"Don't let that girl beat you!"
"Hurry up she's right behind you!"

These were always accompanied by one of the guys putting on some crazy surge that lasted all of like 10 meters. I just thought it was great to have people to race with, way better than being in no-(wo)man's land. They, on the other hand, seemed to be fighting for their very lives. It's weird. I mean, WHY? Why is it so important to them? Help me out here.

Kind of like last weekend racing a 5k up at "The Rez" in Boulder. I was running with Nicole Feest, and there was this guy with us who kept passing us, then we'd pass him, then he'd come surging back, then we'd catch him, and I accidentally flat-tired him once and almost just straight-up took him out of action, and it went like this the whole. Freakin'. Way. If his breathing was anything to gauge off of, the poor guy--bless his little hypermasculine heart--was pretty close to having a stroke, so desperate was he to stay ahead. The final 200 meters, a spectator from the sidelines yelled, "STAY AHEAD! YOU CAN'T LET THOSE GIRLS BEAT YOU!" I might have given him a grumpy look had he not been, well, my boss's boss. So I didn't. But I still wanted to yell back, "YO BRO! HE'S ALREADY GETTING OWNED BY TWO OTHER ONES (Ellie Keyser and Rachel G-Ryan way up in front) SO WHAT'S TWO MORE?!" Ah, but there wasn't energy to spare at that time, so I refrained. But he beat us both by a wee hair anyway so I guess he'll survive another day...although he didn't really look like it at the finish line.

Now all of this isn't to say that I'm going to go all femi-Nazi and crazy and start protesting unequal treatment of women or whatever, I just want to say that I don't get it. I really don't. It's like men think that getting beat by a woman at anything is the equivalent of being neutered and I really want to know why this is. I even asked Make It or Break It kid the reasoning behind this and he didn't know either. I was hoping for some genuine insight into the male psyche to better understand this strange phenomenon. But he didn't know. Or maybe he's just not very good at self-psychoanalysis. Either way, being female, I can honestly say that while there is a certain satisfaction in out-running or keeping up with a person who has numerous physiological advantages over you, it pretty much ends there. It doesn't come with a feeling of superiority or anything, it's just more like, "Oh good, I worked hard enough to outrun some guys," and that's that. Whereas a guy who gets outrun by a girl acts like he's been totally emasculated for LIFE and cannot face another day in this cold, cruel, dark world. Like if you gave him the option of getting beat by a girl versus being swallowed alive and fully conscious by a Great Leatherback Turtle, whose mouth and esophagus looks like this...

...he'd take the turtle.
I can't be the only one who finds this to be strange. And it's not offensive really--to a certain degree it's even comical--just impossible to not notice. And I do wonder if men would be a bit more at ease with "chicking" if said chicks gave them a swift, healthy, slap on the rump upon passing. I think yes.

Welp, on that note, I haven't really got any other running-related things to say other than congrats to everyone who killed it up in Boulder and to everyone who took to the track at Stanford--big PR's for Bri and Mattie, yeeahhh buddy!!! Keep up the good work everyone.