Monumental Achievements

Hello there ITA follower,

I have had two monumental achievements since my last visit to the blogosphere: Ran in my first race since surgery, and coached my first track meet!

We have been helping out with the Middle School track team in Hanover and this past weekend they had a meet at Fall Mountain High School in Langdon, NH – about an hour South of Hanover. The head coach was out of town, and all of my fellow teammates were racing at Stanford so it was up to me and the jumps coach to coach the team! I had an incredible time. It was awesome to see kids that are so new to the sport of track and field compete. There are emotions there that you just don’t see at the collegiate and professional level. Everyone is nervous, they didn’t know what events they were running until they got there, and it makes you realize why it is such a cool sport to begin with… People competing, socializing, and having fun!! I also have to admit it’s pretty cool to be called “coach.”

My favorite part of the meet was trying to put together a 4x800m relay… There was only one kid who really wanted to run an 800, and the other three spots I had to fill out with people who were terrified to run two laps around the track. But – afterwards one of the kids came up to me and said “coach, I’m really happy you put me in the 800 because I think I’m really good at it.” It was totally awesome realizing that I helped someone discover something new and changed their perspective from fearing a distance race to wanting to run it again. That right there made my day.

As far as my running is going – things are great. I am running 90+ miles a week, training hard, and like I said earlier I ran my first race since surgery – a 5k at Princeton. Even though Broe told me to run in flats, just get out there towards the back and have fun, I was actually a little bit nervous! I haven’t had that feeling in a while and it was odd because it was supposed to be such a relaxed effort. It’s just totally different when you put yourself out there on the line in front of people. When the gun went off I settled into the middle of the pack and just held on running 68s as long as I could. I felt surprisingly well and thoughts of winning the race even crept into my head until the last 1200m! I ended up running 14:13 and was extremely happy considering my training to that point. It had been 10 months since my last time racing and I almost forgot how much fun it is! Now it is back to the grind until mid-June and I cannot wait to get on the roads!

-Lex