Patience...Patience...Patience...My 2011 Slippery Rock XC season Reflection: Part Deux

"Good things come slow - especially in distance running."

- Bill Dellinger, former University of Oregon coach

Throughout my entire running career, one of my biggest problems was not being able to relax and slow down on recovery days in the middle of the season. Back in high school, my teammates and coaches always yelled at me for pushing the pace and killing the recovery day runs. At the time I was insecure of my abilities. I wanted to prove how hard I was training to everyone every day. The thought of being seen shuffling through an easy run because I was tired would never cross my mind. But this season, I finally learned to relax on recovery days. I found out quickly through running 100 mile weeks, that if I didn’t respect my easy days, I would be destined for burn out. I trusted my training and abilities enough that a few times this season I was in the back of the pack on runs and would pretty much shuffle through a Hines 8-miler. Relaxation was what my body wanted and finally listening paid dividends. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to crush runs, but I saved those for the offseason ;)

The week of training before the Lock Haven invitational was very beneficial. It was a down week my body needed and the 18 mile long run out on Hungarian was amazing. The Lock Haven invitational was supposed to be a simulation of the PSAC course out in Mansfield. Both courses are flat as a pancake so starting out strong in this race was crucial. We got out very strong and Koksal, Morgan, and I ran together in a pack in 2,3,4 right behind James McBride from Millersville. With 3000 meters to go, Koksal made a courageous move and went for the lead. Morgan went with him and I tried to go to with them, but my legs weren’t ready for the gear change so I manned the fort in 4^th. McBride outkicked Koksal, but he still got a huge PR and ran (again) the best race of his life. Morgan ran a solid race to get 3^rd, along with Beegle and Chris Groom’s great efforts plus the season debut of Eric Geddis; we won the invite over Lock Haven! It was a great confidence builder and it looked like all of our work was paying dividends.

The next 2 weeks of training was some of the best of my life! We crushed the soul crusher on Cooper’s, had some great XL’s and had some strong tempo sessions. We got to Saturday’s home invitational and it was hot…the weather and the competition. East Stroudsburg, who we were battling with from afar all season, was here. It was time to put the fear of God in them. It would also be the last time we would race on the home course before regionals. It was dress rehearsal time. It was also cool to have one of my High School coaches, Jeff Gibson, there watching the race as he is now helping out with Robert Morris’s program. It brought back a lot of memories hearing him yell for me during the race. At the start of the race, I executed a race plan opposite to the last race we had here. I relaxed the 800 meters and sat mid-pack. When we got to the half mile mark, I grabbed the lead and never looked back. Even though I was in the midst of back-to-back 100+ mile weeks, I felt stronger than ever on the hills. The new plan resulted in my first career collegiate win by 12 seconds! In the team battle, we got whipped by East Stroudsburg by 33 points. It seemed like everyone was pretty tired from the past 2 week’s work load and no one was near fresh. Morgan had a great race and finished 3^rd, then Geddis had a strong race on the hills and finished 15^th, Beegle ran decent in 17^th, and Koksal had an off day in 19^th.

Even though we were beat badly, we still had a lot of confidence on our side and knew we were nowhere near our best that day. We knew that with a good taper, we could significantly close that gap and surprise everyone. We finally learned patience, not to blow our load on one regular season meet.

November 5^th was approaching faster than ever. All of a sudden, the time is NOW. Patient time…so we thought…was over…

Patience...Patience...Patience...My 2011 Slippery Rock XC season Reflection: Part 1

The laps were longer, my strides were shorter, and my face was getting redder. The worst 33 minutes of my life had been completed as I sit in the empty locker room with my head low and my lungs in pain. I was a failure to myself and to my whole team. I dug in my brain for excuses and I looked in my heart for God. My soul had been left out on that track for everyone to see that I was souless. I had given up and there was no looking back now. What was in the past was in the past, only thing I could change was what was my future. At the PSAC conference championship 10000 meters that night, I found my motivation and my solace. I was motivated in that, I never wanted to run that bad again and that I have to prove to my opponents, teammates, coach, and myself that I can run with the best in the conference and I can be a leader, even in my sinus infected state, and run through adversity, even when my body was screaming NO. My solace was in that, God does not care if you run good or bad, only if you run in his glory. He also has a plan, and apparently his plan was not for me to break records that night, but to have the worst race of my life.
PATIENCE...patience...patience....
On our 1st day of cross country practice on a humid and hot August day, we stood outside Coach Papa's office, and we gathered as a team for the first time. I saw a team that lacked muscular strength, height, an abudance of facial hair, or chisled chins. We were a young group, naive of our potential, BUT a young group with alot of heart and alot to prove.
That first week we proved we were in shape, we proved that great things were coming in the future...But the question was "Could we go to Nationals this year or next year?"
I'm not going to lie, at the beginning of the season, I was very scepticle if we were ready. Edinboro, Lock Haven, and Shippensburg have tradition on their side, and they were recruiting machines with money to spare...and only one member of our team has any athletic money at all...thanks Title IX!...
But we ran all those miles that summer to beat the sceptics and hope that, if everything fell together on November 5th, we could get trip to Spokane, WA! Then, as I was running with my teammate Morgan Elliott early in the season, he showed no fear in those teams and no scepticle thoughts, he knew we could make it this year and no statistic was going to tell him otherwise. From that moment forward, I turned from a Doubting Thomas into a believer. We didn't run all those miles this summer to "hope" but rather "to DO".
For our first meet, we traveled all the way to Anchorage, Alaska. There I experienced a few things for the first time. It was my first time in a plane (which wasn't that bad at all), it was the first time I ever saw a moose (as Alex Koksal and I dropped a 5 minute mile in the middle of our run to get away from it, still one of the scariest moments of my life lol). We climbed flattop mountain and saw the beautiful sights of Alaska and then proceed to get our butts kicked by the University of Alaska Anchorage, who at the time was ranked below, Boro, Ship and Haven. The defeat was very humbling but the goal was still eteched in our brains (it was ONLY September 1st).
PATIENCE...Patience...patience...
After a couple great weeks of training, we had our next race on our home course at Cooper's Lake. This race was the 1st of 2 practice races on that course before we would race on it to determine whether on not we would make it to Nationals. Everyone, went out conservative...except me...I was the first up the hill and I never reliquished the lead...until I got out kicked by two guys in the last 200 meters. Koksal had "the best race of his life", Morgan kicked well at the end, Beegle, Hickey, and Buddy had a solid races, and a host of freshmen had postive 8k debuts. As we took our 2nd place trophy and shook Carnegie Mellon's hand (as they beat us by 3 points), I learned that being "King of the Hill" was not a great game plan, and that the energy I used up the hill could've been used in the last 200 meters. Still it was a PR, and any PR is a good PR. Again...
PATIENCE...Patience...patience