Warrior 4 Miler this weekend!

The 22nd annual Warrior 4 miler will be this weekend.

Start time: 8:30 a.m. (not 7:00 p.m. as state in the VW TIMES BULLETIN)

Registration begins at 7:00 a.m.

Cost $15 race day registration. (pre-registration closed)

Prize money to Top 3 Male/Female overall and Top Male/Female Masters

T-shirts to Tope 3 in each age group.

Results will be posted on Sunday!

Quickie

Both my guys and girls 4 x 800R got out of their respective district last night. My guys ran 8:25 and some change while my girls ran 10:10. Both teams will be sitting somewhere between 10-16 in the Lexington Region next week, but if we went all on times there would be no reason to run the races.

I love this time of year from a coaching standpoint. Got rid of some of the athletes that are out for track for the social aspect of things. Don't get me wrong, there is room for everybody on the team regardless of ability, but with me being the competitive jerk that I am, I really look forward to tournament time. The do or die mentality/attitude fall right in line with my competitive nature.

I also have several athletes with legit shots of punching their tickets to the Regional Meet. They will be competing Friday in the 1600-800-3200m events. Our sprinters are also sitting well going in to the semi's/finals on Friday. Our sprint relays have podium potential here in two weeks if we keep the stick off of the track.

*my running has taken back seat to life in the past two-three weeks.

Van Wert County Meet

For the 11th year in a row on the guys side, VW took home top honors at the VW Country Meet. The girls won for the 10th time in 11 years.

Courtesy of the Van Wert Times Bulletin

Cold weather creature

I wanted to extend and congratulation to former VWHS runner and current Youngstown State Penguin, Justin Dickman for getting accepted into law school at Ohio Northern University. In honor of Justin's accomplishment I felt it was only fitting to bust his chops a little bit with a blackmail photo of him from 5th or 6th grade.

I thought it was fitting that he was front and center. He always does want to be the center of attention so here's to you Mr. All-American Cross Country Runner. You are a Real American Hero. This Dickman's for you!

Congrats Justin and I look forward to being able to watch you run in the Polar Bear uniform. I'm sure Coach Maus and ONU are happy to add to their already deep team. You'll make a great 6th man! :)

Recap

The weekend that wasn't????

Going in to the weekend I was very excited to get the opportunity to run the Boston Marathon. I know that it has been around for a long time (113 years) and won't be going anywhere, anytime soon, but it has been a goal of mine to race in Boston. With that being said...

Kylee and I started out Friday night after work leaving the kids behind due to illness. It sucked b/c this was going to be our first "family" vacation/getaway with the kids, but with Brynleigh and Myles both fighting what I would eventually get, we left them with grandma and grandpa for the weekend. We stopped for dinner at about 8:00 just on the other side of Cleveland at an Applebees, which we proceeded to talk about how much we missed the kids already and how weird it was to be able to eat a meal without picking food up off the floor or cleaning up messes. Those with kids understand. After supper we drove another couple of hours until we got to Clarion, PA, where we checked into our hotel for the evening.

After a brief 6-7 hours of well needed/non-kid-interrupted sleep we got up b/c I couldn't wait to get on the road. We made great time from Clarion-Boston and arrived a little after 3:00 on Sat. afternoon. Once we checked in, we immediately took public transportation down to the Hynes Convention Center for packet pick-up. We then walked around the downtown area looking for some food. After not having too much success in finding what we wanted to eat we decided to go back to the hotel and order pizza from "The Upper Crust" very good food had I been feeling up to eating it.

This was the start to me not feeling well. I had two bites of pizza and a couple of bites of Cesar salad, took a shower covered our bed with multiple blankets due to my decreasing/rising body temp. depending on the min. I was up a couple of times throughout the night to use the restroom, as things were not staying in me very long.

About 6 a.m Sunday, Kylee and I got up so she could get ready for the 5k. I had a granola bar and a cup of coffee, hoping to settle my stomach, but by the time we got downtown for the 5k I was in dire need of a Port-o-john. I did my pre-race while she warmed up, then I was able to watch her race- 21:37 and she was battling through a crowed field the entire time. Not what she had wanted, but considering illness for two weeks, she ran very well.

After the race we went back to the hotel, got cleaned up, checked out, and then drove back downtown for church at St. Cecilia's Parish, as we were coming in, I saw Allen Hemmelgarn from St. Henry, OH coming out of the 9:30 mass at the same church. He would be running the next day(2:48 and some change, nice job Allen). From Church we went and got some lunch, of which I had a bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup. This whole time, Kylee keeps telling me that it is nerves and I'm not getting sick. I'm eating Tums/Rolaids like their tic-tacs!!!

After lunch we checked in to our hotel for Sunday night since it was a little bit closer to the finish line. The Hotel Commonwealth lived up to every bit of the price we paid for it, but it is too bad that I had to mess their bathroom as bad as I did. From check-in at two-o'clock on Sunday until 5:30 Monday Race Morning, the only time I was out of bed was to go use the restroom. Unfortunately that was about every 20-40 minutes. The frequency of my bowel movements was so often that on Monday morning I was very dehydrated and had severe cotton mouth. As much as I wanted to race, I knew that it was probably not a safe thing to do entering in to the race dehydrated???? At the point of deciding not to run, we packed up shop and got on the road home. As much as I wanted to see Goucher and Hall contend for a title, it would have hurt to much to know that I should have been running that day. We hit the road by 6:30 Monday morning and we arrived back in VW by 8:00 p.m. early enough to tuck the kids in to bed.

Options from here:
1) race Glass City Marathon on Sun.
2)take time off to mentally recover from this let down
3) refocus on running fast in Alaska

I've actually decided that I will try to run fast in Alaska on June 20. I will also not be running a whole lot between today and May 1 as originally planned. Although I know I'm fit and could run well this weekend in Toledo (possibly score some $$$) I don't think mentally I want to race. The goal was to run fast in Boston, not Toledo. Did I waste a taper? Maybe? I will deal with that in my own way.

Alaska Watch Out! 114th Boston Marathon 2010 is already on the racing schedule for next year, because I have some unfinished business to take care of in Bean-town.

Boston Bust

For those wondering what happened, I didn't run. Sorry to disappoint those who were tracking online, but I was not able to get to the starting line due to a stand of the flu and some dehydration. It was a very expensive weekend and very disappointing one as well. When I'm feeling up to talking more about this sore subject I will give a recap. Thanks for all that called/texted/emailed with concerns.

This to shall pass!

Two weeks

Two weeks out from Boston and I'm starting to get sick. I hope it's allergies and not illness. I fel like a medicine-head right now. The past 7-8 days since Knox"hill" have not been good.

My legs were pretty much trashed from 13.1 miles of "hill"-asious fun. I didn't race all that well, running 1:14 and some change. I think I was 9th overall, I haven't checked exact results b/c it doesn't really matter since I was out of the $ and not close to a PR. The guy that won it has some serious stones to run 1:07 high on that course. My estimate is that he is a legit 1:04-1:05 guy?

I ran Mon, and Tues. of last week. Hind-sight says I should have taken a day off right after the race, but I didn't, so I wound up taking Wed. off, then cross training on Thurs. Fri. I ran with my girls team, which felt good, Sat. I did 9 with Ed and I still felt like poo! I got out for 12 on Sunday and it was the first time I felt decent all week.

I'm looking forward to racing in Boston, the mystique behind the course, not to mention all the studs that will be there. I hope that my down week last week won't ruin my taper, but it is what it is.