Back in Feburary I bought plane tickets back to Eastern Illinois University to open up the outdoor track season back in my old stomping grounds, with some old friends.

EIU's Track, Hosting State Meet 2007

For a mid-major DI school EIU actually has a sweet track.  One of the benefits of being a mid-major is we get to share the track and football stadium together, so we have huge stands surround 1/2 the track (one problem with tons of stands is a 100 fans doesn't go very far). 

Then, as everyone can relate, the memories that come with racing on the old track you trained on back in the day.  My memories are limited to giving or taking splits as I was always injured, and I found myself back in the same place again.  I'm so good with a watch by now that I rival FAT systems.  Though, that's not something to brag about, I'd like to say I won a ton of races on that track.

I shouldn't sound negative though, because that's not the point of this post.  I was blessed enought to be around most of my close friends that don't care if I ran a 2:05 marathon or a 4:05 marathon.  Well, that's not true, I guess they would want me to run a 2:05 but good company is much more important.  So, there I was watching some of my post collegiate friends, race the young undergrads, both out there competing for the joy and challenge that come with toeing the line and hurting.  Motivation isn't lacking and being back at EIU fired me up more.  I think being out in Oregon in an Olympic year, working at Nike around stud athletes, has caused me to lose perspective.  Too much pressure can actually be hinderance.  Distance running is such an individual sport, it is so hard not to get caught up in what other athletes are doing and try to match everyone else in the hardest training methods. 

I was talking with a older runner today about how back just 8 years ago you wouldn't know what the results of race were unless you saw another runner the next week at different race, or checked the paper.  My freshman year in college we had no idea what other teams did for training, now we can watch Ryan Hall's entire tempo run with splits and we get real time results on the Internet.  This connection is a good thing for American distance running.  Every level of running from high school, NCAA to Pro's has improved, but when I am struggling this connection is like heavy fridge on my back.  For example, I just got done with my second track workout yesterday and I was so frustrated with my times that I lost perspective.  Just 5 weeks ago I couldn't run 5 minute pace for any type of repeat, and I just did 4:30 pace.  Not world beater, RunnerSpace won't be knocking on my door anytime soon to tape my workouts (and if they did, no one would watch!), but for my little individual world it's a positive.  Sometimes that's all we have, or need to keep going.

Hanging in a Pack Early in 08' Trials