How about that ride in! :)

Well hello Hanover, NH and to all the followers of the ITA blog.  My name is Jeff Schirmer and I am the newest addition to this great up and coming post collegiate team.  This is my first attempt at blogging so for all you pros out there, please be patient I’m sure it will take a little practice for me to get this down.  These past few weeks have been a little crazy for me so I will just begin with my trip to the Upper Valley.

Let me start with a warning for all of you.  Never attempt to move halfway across the country with all your possessions in a compact two door car.  After hours of packing every little inch of space in my car I still ended up throwing a good amount of things away or giving them to my SIU teammates including my bed, furniture, and TV.  Driving 20 hours from Illinois to New Hampshire is no easy task by itself; now add to that only being able to see out your left mirror and the car almost grinding on the back tires because of all the weight.  It was pretty scary at points where there was heavy traffic.  Finally, on the second day of traveling my GPS was down to just 50 miles to go and I thought to myself the worst is behind me and I will be there in an hour.  Well let’s just say that hurricane Irene was not to kind to Vermont.  On top of all the curvy mountainous roads, the last 50 miles Mother Nature had decided to completely wipe out many of the roads in Vermont, including two of which my GPS was telling me to take to get to Hanover.  To sum this up, the last 50 miles took roughly two and half hours.

Well that’s enough with the bad, now let me get on with the good news.  I am loving everything about Hanover so far.  Though I have only been here for four days I am excited for this up and coming year of training.  The running around here is very hilly but that will only add to the fitness I hope to gain here.  Ben, Brian, and Lex have welcomed me with open arms and are great teammates to have.  I’m looking forward to training with and getting to know them better.  I am also extremely excited to begin coaching Lebanon Middle School with Brian this week.  There has always been a part of me that has wanted to coach and give back some of the knowledge I have gained over the past years during my running career.  Running was always an outlet for me when times were rough in my life and has opened so many doors for me.  If I can give that back to just one kid on this team I will feel like I was successful.  The main thing however will be to let these kids know that running can and should be a fun, social, and healthy lifestyle.

-Jeff