Runs Gone Wrong #2

Welcome to Richmond

I worked myself silly the summer of 2002. I was excited for a chance to run on a Division I cross country team, even if it meant sitting out another semester because I transferred. I knew it would be a big leap from a bad Division III team, even moreso with a year off in the meantime.

I woke up at 5 am to do my long runs before it got too hot.

I dropped my 5k PR to 16:12 from 16:50. I competed well in road races and fought hard. None of that prepared me for what awaited in Richmond.

The first practice of the season was a chance for everyone to show off how much they had worked in the summer. Our initial run, I don't even remember how long it was, or how fast it really was, but it felt like the fastest run of my life. It didn't help that Kevin Rhue was trying to show all of us how fast he was. I'm going to go ahead and blame him. Trying to show everyone that I belonged, I tried to stick in there, but it rarely worked that well. The heat and humidity of our post-dawn workouts was getting to me.

I started dropping from the workouts, sooner and sooner each day. When I fell back during a long run in Pocohontas State Park, I wound up being the guy who got lost that year. It would have been one thing had I trained in Virginia all summer, so I would at least be used to the climate, but stepping up my game while also rearranging my schedule to train before dawn meant a bigger leap when I got to school.

Every morning, I felt like I had fallen down the stairs when I woke up, yet came back for more. In the middle of the second week, we ran to the field hockey field and football practice fields for a workout- 2x15 minutes hard, with five minutes rest, I think. The first interval took all of my strength to stick with the pack, by the time the second started, I was a human wasteland. I kept slowing, my feet soaked in sweat. I kept pushing, because I knew giving wouldn't help anything. I worked on the assertion that I should be pushing my body to the limit. I hadn't, however, put myself in a position where I could grow from each workout. I severely underestimated the amount I sweated, which is a lot on a normal basis, but in the new humid summer, I was killing myself by not forcing myself to drink water.

I ran my afternoon runs like the confused boy I was, trying to prove to anyone who saw me, and myself, that I belonged, hammering away. When Pat Barkhuff saw me, he implored me to slow down, but I didn't have a year of DI running under my belt to tell me that, or the firsthand knowledge of what it takes to compete at that level.

As the second 15 minutes progressed, I slowed down, yet I couldn't force myself to go any faster, which is amazing because I was going so slowly, it would normally be easier to go faster than to go slower. At some point, I got dizzy. Then I was on the ground, then Steve had run over to me, yelling to never give myself a way out, that I was ruining the workout for everyone who was still running, and probably some other things that I couldn't understand because I was so out of it.

I'm not sure if embarassed describes how I felt. Demoralized, not with the verbal lashing- it wasn't even a lashing- everything he said was meant to teach, not punish me. I was more confused than anything. How could I work so hard yet regress to far? I stumbled to finish the 15 minutes, I don't even remember how I felt when I finished, but I dragged myself back on a cooldown. I came across the then-injured Jon Lauder near the pier. I don't remember much of what he said besides "what's happening?" I kept him up-to-date on my training over the summer, so he knew what kind of work I had put in. He told me later that he thought Steve was going to cut me, and at that point, I would have agreed. I was pathetic.

The worst part was that my neglect had put me in that position. I wasn't drinking enough water, or fruit juices, so I was constantly dehydrated. I had suffered from dehydration once in high school, so I already knew it was a problem, but I didn't address it vigorously. I got on that immediately and I showed immediate improvement, which I will detail in a later post.

Runs Gone Wrong #3

Carnegie (November 1996)

This was early on in my running career, right after the state championships my freshman year of high school. We didn't do particularly well, though we at least made the state meet that year, but I myself was terrible. My first season of cross country alternated between excruciating shin splits and bizarre injuries, like a twisted knee. I managed to get some consistency toward the end of October, and after the state meet, I was pretty pumped about continuing the scant progress I had made.

I woke up on a cold morning and decided to go out exploring while running. That was my first mistake.

My second mistake was heading west into Scott Township and Carnegie, neighborhoods I knew only in the context of passing through to get somewhere else, the secondary streets of which I was totally unfamiliar, except for Carouthers Street, where I took trumpet lessons.
To be quite honest, I'm not sure where I went or how I got lost. All that I know is that I was somewhere between I-79, I-376 and Greentree Road. I also know it was really cold. Looking back now, I don't think I would have been able to spend as much time in such a pretty limited area without getting bored, but I wasn't running as fast back then.

My sense of direction has always been pretty good, but my fatigue and hunger probably conspired to keep me from finding my way back.

I remember coming across 79 and having absolutely no idea where I was, and I somehow ended up under a highway.

I managed to find my way to the bottom of Greentree Road and then climbed a long hill to get back to Cochran Road. I probably ended up running 13 miles or so. This is my best guess as to where I might have gone.

Runs Gone Wrong #4

The uphill, four miles in. Pretty steep.

First WPIAL alumni run (December 2000)
I stumbled upon this when I came to visit Coach A during my first Christmas break as a college freshman. Scott Sehon was also stopping by, and he invited me to join him and some other gents from the WPIAL for a jaunt the next morning. I readily accepted, not too concerned that I had barely been running for the last month, even at my then-sedate Division III level.

Then next morning brought 10 degrees and heavy snow and strong winds, weather my thin nylon pants, part of my high school warmup suit, were not equipped to handle. As I met up with a group of 15 or so runners, all of whom were far, far more accomplished and at the most basic level able than I, I didn't really seem that intimidated. Chris Dugan, a several-time All-American in cross country and track at NC State and several-time state champion at Southmoreland High School, offered me a pair of his pants. My legs have never felt faster than when they were on those pants. However fast they felt, however, they didn't stay that way. The brutal climate, coupled with an increasing pace and hilly route, crushed me on the way back down the hill from Nevillewood, and on my way back on Scrubgrass, by feet had gigantic blisters on my arches. I managed to limp back to the Mt. Lebanon track and join the gang for breakfast at Gab 'n Eat, but I didn't run for days after.

Sehon agreed with the foolishness of the run nine years later. "The most absurd thing about that run was not that we did 13+ uphill to Nevillewood, but that we did it in sub-0 windchill temperatures. It was brutally cold that day," he said.

Despite how awful the run was, I gained a lot from the endeavor. It was the first time in months I remember running with someone else at a decent pace in a non-race environment, given my weak team at Hampden-Sydney. I had a chance to hear a lot from Division I runners and I realized that with a real training program, teammates and a competent coach, I could enjoy collegiate running. I also had a chance to talk to Roch for the first time, and he made quite an impression on me. A few of us discussed a shared acquaintance, who acted pretty spazzy and oafish, but Roch implored us to give him another chance. It was that simple gesture that won me over and motivated me to seek him out at races then after and eventually get involved in promoting the race held in his memory.

The downhill where I actually fell back, 8.25 miles in

Runs Gone Wrong #5

Before my trip to the Richmond Marathon - November 2009
Just four weeks into my renewed running routine, I didn't have much pressure to pile on mileage, but I also wanted to just get things moving along. I had a 7 pm train ride to Richmond to watch the marathon, and with two hours to spare after work I decided to make a trip to the bank and a run around the Mall, a total of six miles. I made it a little more than two miles. Once I reached the Mall, I started to feel woozy. My heartrate picked up, and I slowed to a jog, then a walk, then I sat down on a bench, then a curb, then the ground. I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't going to make the full six miles, so I started to trot back to the office, but soon that too was too much effort. As I caught my breath, the mid-November chill got to me, and I faced the dilemma -- whether to get back to the office fast and possibly pass out or walk and be really cold. I compromised and slowed my gallop when I got dizzy. I had eaten lunch at noon, so I didn't think that was a factor, but I realized I had my debit card in my pocket from my trip to the bank, so I stopped at Au Bon Pain and bought a danish, which helped a little, but then I saw a McDonald's and reduced myself to buying a meal there. It was terrible, but I made it back to the office, showered and got on the train, where I waited for an hour and a half past the departure time for a replacement engine to be attached.