The Beginnings of Addiction

My last post left off with me about to start my college running career at the beginning of my sophomore year. Since my debacle of a race in Salem back in June, I had trained much harder and also built some consistency, so I was anxious to see where all this had gotten me but at the same time nervous that I just wouldn’t be good enough. We gathered in the Bast Center for our first practice that late August day and I met my new teammates, the most significant of whom was J.J. Maybury from Virginia Beach. Brad Reeves got me started back running, but he more or less seemed like he did it for fun, which I guess is why you should do it. J.J., however, was serious. He was “in it to win it” as they say and his objective was to run fast. He was also quite talented, and talent and motivation make for a fast runner.

For our first run, Brad led us out on the Wildwood loop. Now this loop is only a little over 7 miles long, but keep in mind that was still about as far as any run I had ever done, plus that area of Salem wasn’t nearly as grown up then as it is now. About halfway into the loop, the pace was getting pretty hot and we were still running away from the college and appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. I started to get concerned about just how far we were going and whether or not Brad was taking us out into the wilderness where he could kill us and dispose of the bodies – ha, ha. We only had 7 guys that started out that year, and by the end it was down to me, Brad, and J.J. I had managed to hang, but definitely wondered what I had gotten myself into. This definitely wasn’t high school.

I got even ruder awakening just a few days later when we traveled to Lynchburg College for our first meet. Lynchburg’s course back then was a beast, and unbeknownst to us, their team was a national qualifier and the best in the conference. The gun fired, and J.J., Brad, and I all proceeded to go out with the lead pack of Lynchburg guys, which included a couple of All-Americans who would go on to run mid-14’s for 5k and under 31-min for 10k on the track. We all hung together through the first mile of the five-mile course, but needless to say we were in well over our heads and began to drop off from there, some (me) worse than others. The course only got harder as it went too. I have no idea where I finished overall, but I remember the last couple miles were horrible and J.J. and Brad were well ahead of me. Still, I finished third of the seven guys on the Roanoke team and in the top half of the overall field, so I didn’t feel too bad. I also ran more than 2 min faster than I had in my previous five mile race, so I felt pretty good about that as well. We all got a nice lecture from Coach Pincus about the importance of smart pacing early in races then headed back to Roanoke.

At this point, I knew what I needed to do and was more than willing to do it. I’m obviously not going to go into a race-by-race recap of the rest of my college career as that would be even more boring than this already is, but the point is you can see how my career has now developed. I definitely had the bug, and while I said I wasn’t going to run track that spring because I wasn’t fast enough for it, I found myself toeing the line for a 3k that winter and just got more addicted from there. I had found a sport that fit my personality perfectly. The harder you worked, the better you got, and I could see the progress. I didn’t have much talent, but I had enough to keep it interesting, and I spent the rest of my college career seeing how far I could take it. I also discovered road racing in the summers and started to collect a few age group medals for added incentive. I’ll pick up my next post my senior year when a couple other developments happened that propelled me forward once again.