Femezy Round 2

Wow, it seems the name game has really vaulted to new heights since my latest post. I'll update you with a few that I've deemed worthy momentarily. But first, an update on the season as we approach the US Champs.

We're 10 days out from the first day of the meet of the year and everyone is getting their ducks in a row. The spring has brought us several great performances, none of which were mine personally but nevertheless, they were great. Heidi, being Australian, will unfortunately miss out on the opportunity to compete at our nation's biggest race, so I'll get her "progress" out of the way so we can then focus on the Red White and Blue.

Heidi came to Furman looking for a change and a chance to really hone her focus on training, and it's shown. She's set 3 PRs and an Australian national record in 4 of her 5 races this spring. She will be focusing her efforts toward this Wednesdays' meet in Indianapolis to cap off a great block of races and then its a long summer of kitty-cuddling before she re-emerges in August for the Falmouth Mile.

So anyway, back to us, or US (elbow nudge). We have 4 athletes qualified for the US Championships that take place next week in Des Moines, Iowa. We have two steeplechasers, Nicole and Cory, and two in the 1500m, myself and the Jack.

Nicole's progress since January has been equivalent to that of the butterfly. It started out slow, like ridiculously slow and lethargic in the worst way. But as the weather warmed and the sun shined the Bag Lady emerged as a deadly and poisonous threat in the women's steeplechase (butterflies are venomous right?). Nicole is one of only a handful of women who've shown the capacity to dip under 9:40, look for her to be in the mix with 6 other women for the top 3 on Saturday the 22nd at 4:20 pm.

Jack's been here before, a 7th place finisher in 2010, Jack knows the ropes of championship races and has, in this writer's opinion, never been one to count out. One thing I've learned from training with Jack is that in his preparations he's very particular. His anxiety is soothed by efficient planning so Jack likes things his way. We will make every effort to accommodate "Princess Jacqueline" (That's from Heidi) so that we can assure a strong performance next week. The men's 1500m is a strong field as usual, but Jack's been progressing nicely, he'll be in the mix. Round 1 is Thursday at 5 pm with the final on Saturday at 5:50 pm.

Cory heads in to the Championships with the number 2 time in the country. Showing huge improvements last year, Cory worked his way into the final at the Olympic Trials, finishing 9th. Having graduated from The Ohio State University last spring, Leslie is no longer bound by the rigorous curriculum of a state-school communications major. This has translated to an estimated 100,000 hours of extra nap time, which in turn has translated to a new level of fitness. Cory's shown no sign of slowing down and has been crushing his latest workouts. His final will be on Sunday the 23rd at 3:55 pm where he'll be one of only 3 men with the A-standard.

And as for me.... Game of Thrones season finale is about to start so you'll have to tune in to NBC Sports at 5:40 pm on Saturday the 22nd to see what happens. Editor's Note: Can you believe what happened in the last GoT episode??? OMG.

And now, back to the nicknames given to me over the last couple of weeks:
The Librarian - From Nicole after having moved roughly half of her 10,000 lb. book collection up 4 flights of stairs.
Sledgehammer - From Cory after burying him in mile repeats last week.
Perfect Angel Bunny-Dove - <Private>
Captain - From everyone, always.
Big Thunder - From Coach after I ripped through a filthy quarter workout.

TKO

It took me a while to write this post; it’s hard to write consecutive blogs about disappointment, but sidestepping it or ignoring it outright seemed wrongheaded, so I’ve given it some thought and revisited what I originally wrote last week. Before I do, I should mention that I can’t wait to watch Furman Elite chase some standards at Indy tomorrow before taking on the nation’s best at the USATF Championships, and I wish that I were able to join them on their road to Des Moines and hopefully to Moscow.  It’s been a privilege to train with such motivated and accomplished athletes.Here's my account of June 1st and 2nd.

  

I lay in an unfamiliar bed watching the digital clock shift shapes in the early hours of the morning, the diodes blinking like an insomniac’s distress beacon presaging the depression sure to dawn beyond the coming sunrise. Though motionless, my heart thumped away, burning a potent blend of caffeine and anxiety that fueled the racing thoughts keeping me awake. Casting a grimace to the ceiling, I hoped that I might forget that the time read 3:54, the closest I’d come to seeing sub-4 all season, a season coming to an abrupt and unceremonious end.

Some performances are simply so awful that everything starts to acquire an air of unreality, the time and place on a results sheet only comprehensible through contortions of dream logic. They are the shadows at the edge of a runner’s mind, the ugliest manifestations of failure, and they covered the Vanderbilt track that late Saturday night in Nashville.  It was all I could do to limp through the line in a woeful 4:11, but it might as well have been an eternity over those four excruciating laps.  

              

            I cooled down along the downtown perimeter, peering out of my wreckage toward the bright skyline and wondering, like so many before me, what had gone so horribly wrong; Nashville is the place where dreams are made, but no one likes to talk about the legion of faltering voices and broken strings lighting out on I-40 or burning out in dive bars. As I continued my patrol, I couldn’t stop ruminating on a bar fight from a novel I read recently, William Gay’s The Long Home, where we find the young protagonist reeling from a beating at the hands of the sinister proprietor’s bouncer: 

“Mark him up a little. Mess them smooth jaws up,” Hardin said.
“Then let him get up,” Jiminiz said. “I don’t like hittin’ a man already down, and I don’t like hittin’ a man already out on his feet and don’t know when he’s whipped.”
“He’ll get up,” Hardin said contemptuously. “You couldn’t keep him down with a logchain. He ain’t got sense enough to lay down and quit.”

“You getting’ up or stayin’ down?” Jiminiz asked.
The price he paid was dear, but Nathan got up.

            I  can now say without a doubt that there were times when I shouldn’t have gotten back up this year. I took a pummeling and hid my wounds pretty well—unfortunately, overtraining is bloodless, and you’re the only one who can call the fight. I paid dearly for my pride, and now instead of blazing through the most competitive month of the post-collegiate season, I’m taking my weeks off to regroup and reassess, to learn the painful lessons that sometimes only self-inflicted wounds can teach.

But I have more than just the scars. Uninjured and in by far the best shape of my life, I made it over 250 days without missing a run, and, for good or ill, completed workouts I never thought imaginable; I can breathe easy for a few weeks, catch up on LSAT prep, reading, concerts and fishing. Sometimes it takes getting your ass kicked to find out how much something means to you. You learn the most from the fights you lose, and I intend to come back swinging in the fall.

                Sincerely,

                Lee

Dear Mr. Henshaw v.2.0

Well hello world and stuff -
Quick update: This weekend 'bout half of us are heading to Nashville for the Music City Distance Carnival. We'll run somewhere from 800 to 1500m. So go ahead and look forward to that post. Here is a link to the meet's website!

Music City Distance Carnival:
http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=3656

While the guys were racing at Oxy a couple weekends ago, I went to Puerto Rico for the Ponce Grand Prix and ran a steeple. I PR'd by .02 running 9:39.36. Which was also under the IAAF World "A". This has been a long time coming is very much because of the support of Furman Elite and coach Robert Gary.

But enough about that, here's a video:

Lifestyle of the (not) rich and (almost) Famous

Chapter 2

Let me start my saying I set an alarm for today’s nap (which is the worst) to ensure I had my blog completed by the given deadline that some of my FE mates have deterred from in recent weeks.

I’ve done some traveling since last we chatted.  コリー・レスリー    Cory Leslie?  That was the name on the start list at my race in Tokyo, Japan.  It could really say tired boy (13 hour time difference) or big white boy (I definitely was taller and heavier than most people I encountered) or “who’s he?” or Greenville’s most eligible bachelor (more on this a little later).   No matter, I enjoyed the culture and the race.  I’ve been asked if they review the start instructions before a race (how do I know when to “go”).  The simple answer – you just know. Since the Kenyans went out fast and furious I had to hold back and be patient as the race progressed.  All in all Tokyo was a good experience and coming back with the World Championships A-standard made the trip home a little better. I was also able to do some exploring and find a mother’s day gift while I was there. So I without a doubt retained my status as the favorite child. I wasn’t able to take in a movie, however, I got into the show Sons of Anarchy and that more than filled that void.

After finally getting back into a normal sleeping schedule it was time to head to L.A. with Bolas and See for the

Oxy High Performance meet.  Besides the three of us, there were no encounters with any movie stars.  Smog season is just getting started so I did not find that to have an impact on the running. We had a day to kill so we were able to take in a movie. I chose The Great Gatsby while Jeff and Jack decided on Star Trek (I know, dumb right?).  They say the book on The Gatsby is good – I probably used Cliff Notes when I was supposed to read that in high school, so I have nothing to compare it with there.  I enjoyed it and would like to think it bears some sort of resemblance to the life my roommates and I lived at 1137 Summit. On to race day, I spent a lot of time napping and continuing my assault through the 5 seasons of SoA (any questions on biker gangs I can undoubtedly answer for you now). We all managed to get into different heats of the 1500m. Jeff was in heat 2, Jack 3, and me 4. The fastest time of the 4 sections got a check for $2,500 and a crown. With 3:36 being the time to beat as I toed the line all I could think about was getting that crown. While the three of us had good races none of us was able to win the money, but more importantly we missed out on that gold bejeweled crown.

Next on the agenda, (and certainly not least) why haven’t I been contacted by the producers of ‘The Bachelor’ for a possible lead in an upcoming season?  I have heard that Nick Symmonds (who I’m 1-0 against in my career) has stated to Race Results Weekly that his publicist (that could be my first roadblock – need a publicist…. Mamma Kitty?) had contacted him to possibly be the next bachelor on ABC.  Hello – I was just in L.A. I thought I had exposure covered.  Single Ö Charm  Ö   Personality  Ö   Looks Ö   Nothing holding me back.  ABC hit me up – you can catch me on twitter or Facebook.  And just remember Greenville – that would no doubt mean airtime for all of you too!

Curtains. -CJ

Mama Kitty's Back, This Time With a New PR.

During my life I have been faced many times with the daunting task of convincing others I am good enough – to get jobs, to receive scholarships, to keep friendships, to run. I’ve promised future achievements and boasted of success in my past, but this demand to ‘sell yourself’ has always been a particularly difficult concept for me to grasp. Unless of course there is the opportunity for sarcasm, then all of a sudden I am the world’s greatest.

As a child I was told to be modest and fair. “Don’t be conceited, too vain or too proud,” my dad would say. “Be good at what you do, but do it humbly.” As an impressionable child, this advice was well received. But now, with “an elite athlete” being my ambiguous profession, people come to expect a little bit more ‘show pony’ from you.

There is one major problem with this though…

 I could never be a show pony.

A show kitty maybe, but never a show pony.

Although this sounds like a frivolous comment, it really made me think about what things in my life I am most proud of. But lets be honest, anybody that knows me knows that I’ve had far too many triumphs for me to list in just one blog post. So instead I will share with you the story of “The Battle of the 1500m Barrier”, staring Four Minutes and Twenty Seconds.

In March 2005, I ran 4.20.30 in the 1500m at the Sydney Track Classic. I was 15 years old. Before last weekend at UVA, that race in Sydney was the second fastest 1500m I had ever run (the fastest was in 2010 in 4.19.17 – a one time pathetic taste of what it might be like to run under 4.20).

For eight years I had been stuck. Literally, stuck between a two second span of 4.20.1 and 4.21.9. Whether I was tired, excited, anxious, confident, scared, sick, under-trained, or over-trained I would somehow find a way to produce the same result.

This weekend I finally ended this agony - Four minutes. Thirteen seconds. Bout. Bloody. Time.  I ran a second faster for almost every year I had been stuck, and the first thing I felt when I heard my time was relief. For a brief second I thought that moment couldn’t get any better, until I looked up in the sky and saw a double rainbow, and heard Taylor Swift feeling 22 through the speakers of the stadium.

The ups and downs of being an athlete can be ruthless. Deciding to continue to pursue this dream beyond college and putting off a “real job” only makes things more complicated, producing more and more situations for me to explain my worthiness. We can feel pressured to impress in fear of being swept aside by those who are naturally arrogant and egotistical. Nonetheless, I will continue to resist this pressure, and just do my best to let my results do all the talking.

Besides, real kitties don’t talk smack… they just purr.

Meow.

You Don't Know... Bolas

Part II: Furman Elit(ist)

Six weeks have passed and with it, six unique perspectives on Furman Elite life. A collaboration of incoherent ramblings and character studies that have hopefully provided our audience with some loose connections to each of FU Elite’s athletes. Six weeks later and I must follow in the footsteps of each of my comrades, giving you all something fresh, hip, and at the very least, something to distract you from your vexatious (that’s right, I said it. Where’s my hundred dollars?) lives for four to seven minutes, depending on your reading level.

Six weeks have seen FU Elite start up our outdoor track season at various meets around this big, beautiful world. And even with much excitement already in the books, things are only really now getting rolling. The schedule of a post-collegiate runner is a bizarre one. Months of training and preparation, with a few races tossed in, from October to about April, at which point the real competitive season actually commences. And even then, and now speaking a little more personally, everything I do, each workout, each core session, each race, lays the foundation for my real focus—the National Championships in June. This might be a bit of an oversimplification. I’ll certainly spend much of this season chasing a time, specifically the World A-standard. But the motivation to hit that time lies in the power that it carries—the opportunity to compete at the World Championships if, and only if, I can qualify at the USA championships. All the mileage and strides, the ice baths and kettlebell lifts, all that just for 3 minutes and, hopefully one day, 35 seconds of running.

And it certainly doesn’t end with the National Championships. Summer has a different meaning for a runner. We don’t associate the Summer with vacation time, with all night benders or, for the PG-crowd, with family trips to the OBX. The Summer is a season, yes, but not in the traditional sense. It’s the competitive season. It’s the season of the runner. The USA Championships, races scattered across Europe, road miles up and down the East Coast, those few, rare opportunities for an elite runner to try and win a couple of Benjamins so that he/she can afford one’s own health insurance after having been ostracized by one’s parents and left to fend for oneself on the streets of Greenville, dumpster diving for a mattress, or a worn Starter jacket, or maybe a kitty for some company… could just be a personal problem, but I think you get the point. So while you and your buddies take a week’s paid vacation to Myrtle Beach in hopes to relive high school spring break with a perpetual hangover and a bunch of stories no one will remember, know that FU Elite is on the track under the heat of the Summer sun, grinding through a set of 400s in preparation for the next race, for one more coveted chance at greatness.

So where does that leave us? Reading this, I feel like I might come off as somewhat pretentious when it comes to running. And I want to take this chance to justify that by saying simply, it’s because I am and I can be (pretentious). I swear I’m a good guy. Just ask my numerous ex-girlfriends. But I guess when running is on the table, manners are forgotten and I’ll tell it as I see it. So hopefully, after reading this, all we have is a deeper understanding for one another’s passions. I don’t judge you for your exotic vacations and lavish summer lifestyles (I may or may not be a bit jealous) and you can respect an elite runner’s definition of “Summer.” The Myrtle Beach hooligans, however, are exempt from this agreement. You know who you are. Consider yourself judged.

For more fun tidbits expressed in 140 characters or less, follow me on twitter @jackbolas87

Femezy

I've been told that I'm a man who needs no introduction, and am only recently realizing that's just what people say when they can't remember my name. I've also come up against a barrage of horrid nicknames which I can only assume are a feeble attempt at making me more memorable in the minds of others. They most often consist of a last-name pun or a take on my terribly short femurs, but no matter what, they don't seem to stick. In this Game of Names I've decided to take on a new name for every post, this weeks obviously referring to my limb discrepancy, but hopefully as the weeks wear on someone stumbles across a name as ingenious as Bag Lady.

It's that time again, another week, another blog,  two days late, don't hate. Nevertheless, I digress. Without further ado, here's what we're up to...

Heidi broke a national record at the Penn Relays, Jack lost to his sister in cribbage, Nicole ran faster than she has in 2 years and also drove me somewhere for the first time ever, I got crushed in the 5K but also had a huge PR, Lee read Wikipedia all weekend, and Cory is likely sleeping. Now lets talk more about me...

So about this 5K... the experience was not one of the more inspirational memories of my track career despite an 11-second improvement to my PR. Having only a slight idea of what my goal should have been, I told myself that I'd be ok with anything under 13:30 and very happy with a 13:20. I made a Jeff See Guarantee to coach that I'd roll through 3k at around 13:25 pace and "go from there". Phase 1 of the plan went smoothly, but to quote Lee who once quoted the great Mike Tyson in saying, "Everybody's got a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth", I got punched in the mouth as I entered Phase 2 and there was no "going from there". Things got ugly, I fell off the pace and just barely rallied on the last lap to make the race good enough. Nevertheless, the conclusion of this weekend meant that it was time to narrow the focus for the 1500m and concentrate on being ready for the US Championships in June, so no matter what it was a good weekend.

I love the weeks leading up to the US Championships because it's the culmination of all that we've done to this point. We get to spend more time on the track and see the fruits of our labor a little bit at a time. The hope is that in a little over 7 weeks we will all be toeing the line for our respective events in the best shape of our lives (save for the Aussie). So much can happen from now until then and its pretty amazing how quickly it will all be over. BUT WAIT, what if you could see what happens every step of the way as if you were a fly on the wall here at Furman Elite?! Read on little birds, and see why you're in for a wild ride...

This first year in Greenville has been an amazing opportunity and we owe so many people our thanks for the privilege of being able to train at Furman University. We've all come here because we think it has something special that the world of elite running isn't typically privy to, and we'd like to do our best to show what exactly that entails. So without further ado (two ado's in one post - sorry), I'd like to announce that we will be documenting our progress towards what is hopefully a special showing at the US Championships in Des Moines. Here's what you can count on from the future Greenville Film Festival Documentary of the Year:

Riveting interviews
Some beautiful Carolina scenery
Gut-busting workouts
Tan bodies
Frail bodies
A trip to Japan
Shoe-tying 101
LeeLee Lemon Factoids
And full disclosure: There will be an inordinate amount of kitty-cat footage included in this documentary, it will be posted to YouTube after all.

So in case you didn't already have enough reasons to stay up on the happenings here at RunFurman, there's another one for you. See you in 5 and 1/2 weeks (Follow me on Twitter @JCSee for an equally sporadic posting schedule).