My experience on the actual race day, during the last 14 miles, of the 2008 Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials was the worst experience I have had on two legs. Much like other runners, I have dropped some bombs before during races. The one difference in the past was usually I had injuries, illness….basically lack of preparation that caused my overzealous mind to put my out-of-shape body in situations where I set myself up for failing expectations. Not on November 3rd, this was a different experience.

I should talk briefly about the past, since that is what sets the table for the future. In high school, I never missed one day of practice in 4 years, I actually didn’t miss one day of school.Well, I lied, I ditched school on senior ditch day and lost the free Cubs tickets given out to the “cool” seniors whom never missed school once in 4 years. I still made practice that day though.There is an anomaly of a trail system right near where I went to Andrew High School in the south suburbs of Chicago. No one believes me when I talk about those beautiful healing trails but they rival Colorado and Oregon’s best running trails. You probably think I’m lying too? Check them out…….

BullFrog Lake Trail system Palos Hills, IL

Anyway, I trained on those about 35-45 miles a week in high school. At Eastern Illinois University, where I went to undergrad, I think the injury gods got their revenge. By the time I graduated from EIU there was 26 times were I had missed at least 3 weeks of training (about half of those were over a month, some as long as 9 months). The spectrum of problems is an entire story in itself…..but long story short….I got a 6th year of eligibility from the NCAA and was injured that year (of course). My last race in college was a 16 min 5k at the conference meet, I’m not sure if I got last place in that final but it really wouldn’t matter now.

EIU’s Old Main, Charleston, IL

The frustrations in running influenced me to make a career/education shift and apply to graduate programs in exercise physiology/biomechanics. I wanted to become a coach and understand the scientific foundations of our bodies relating to performance.Coaching is an art form, but I don’t think you can be a good coach unless you spend a shit ton of time and learn the science first. For some reason Colorado State University accepted me (I was a business major, biology minor in undergrad and was short on prequites, plus CSU is one the best programs in the country) but I got in. So, I Moved out to Colorado and in another random twist of luck, I moved in with 3 stud runners that so happened to have an extra room. Again those 3 guys, is entire discussion in itself, but they are talented and worked their asses off. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention showed up to Colorado about 15 lbs overweight.

Grad school was nuts, by far the hardest 2 years of my life. I was teaching 5 classes for the school, coaching the track and XC teams, and working at a running store.All the while my roommates were raking me over the hot coals to get the fat off my back. There was some random injuries here and there, which should make sense given I was running 10 x’s what I ever did before, but overall I was turning back into a runner.That last summer I was working on research to defend my Master’s thesis, so for unknown reasons I decide to run the 2006 US champs marathon at Twin Cities. My justification was I needed to force myself to run, and hopefully set up a big base for track in 2007. You see track is the enigma, my body either broke down in the months of March to June, school got real busy, or in 2006 my fiancé’ at the time, up and left a before the wedding date. That last one was really rough for my life, let alone trying to run miles fast. So when I say picking that marathon would force me to get out the door in 2006 there was some self therapy on those trails in Colorado…….

BlueSky Trail, Fort Collins, CO