Crossroads

Ok, back to the series I'm doing on my running "career." Two or three more posts, and I’ll have this thing wrapped up. As I mentioned in the last entry, this one is going to pick up my senior year, when a couple things happened that propelled me forward once again. However, before I get to those, I should probably do a brief recap on how my running had gone up to that point. Basically I had given it everything I had and then some and gotten decent, albeit far from great, results.

One of my biggest challenges is I felt like I was behind from the beginning. Most of the guys I was competing against had been running for 4 or 5 years (some even longer) than I had, so I was at a significant disadvantage when it came to base mileage, race experience, etc. This made me work extra hard, which led to quite a few injuries and lots of races where I was less than 100%. I probably did pretty well based on what I had to work with (I placed in several conference meets in cross-country and indoor/outdoor track), but I was sort of a second team type guy who wanted desperately to be a first teamer.

That said, senior year was my final chance to prove myself and I worked extra hard that summer to come into the season as fit as possible. Early returns were very positive too. I had run the Commonwealth Games Five Miler that July against what I still feel like was one of the most competitive fields ever assembled in a Roanoke road race (I have the results to prove it) and beaten some very good runners. When late August rolled around, I was fit and confident. We also had a good team thanks to the addition of a couple freshmen by the names of David Angell and Jason McNicholl. The friendship I would form with those guys, Dave in particular, would be one of the things that would eventually boost my running to a whole new level. However, for the time being, my senior year was another disappointment. It started out well with a couple good early results, but within a matter of just a few weeks, I was hurting once again, this time with what turned out to be a stress fracture in my tibia. I hobbled through the season but got sub-par results and was extremely disappointed and frustrated. After suffering through the conference and regional meets, I contemplated giving it all up.

I didn’t want to go out on such a low note, though, so after taking a few weeks off to heal, by mid-December I was back at it. A couple months later, my motivation would be changed for all time when I accompanied Coach Pincus to Charlotte to watch the 1996 Olympic Trials Marathon. We actually biked 23 of the 26 miles, riding alongside the top runners throughout the race (I still can’t believe they let us do that and how close we were able to get). I should probably do a whole separate post sometime about just this day because it truly was a game changer for me. In any event, I got to witness what elite level running was all about, and it was all the more exciting because a couple guys I kinda knew at the time (and would become friends with later), Steve Taylor and Howard Nippert, were in the race.

When I got back from Charlotte, I knew I wanted to continue running, and while I knew the Olympic Trials would always be out of my reach, I also knew I wanted to be darned good at it! Along about that same time, I met my future wife, who supported my running from the get go and has always been one of the major reasons I’ve been able to do this for so long and do as well as I have. It was truly a great time in my life and I felt like the sky was the limit in every respect (not just running). Next up, the Running Journal Grand Prix Series and the Parkersburg Half Marathon, the things that would change my outlook and approach one final time and define the rest of my running career right up through today.