What an Eventful Week!!!

First off, a big congrats to Ben True for placing second in the USA 10 mile championship and winning the individual USARC title for the year.  Ben has had a great season, and I am excited to begin training with him soon.

I would also like to give a shout out to my home team, the St. Louis Cardinals, for making the playoffs.  They had a great September to get to this point and hopefully the streak continues.  Now I realize the Upper Valley is all about the Red Sox but look at it this way, there is always next year.  J

The Lebanon Middle School cross country team had another race this Saturday, and the kids all ran fantastic.  The weather was cold and the rain was relentless!  The course was completely soaked and muddy, but the conditions did not put a damper on our kids’ mentality.  This meet at Thetford was much more competitive than the Thetford race two weeks ago.  There was two middle school races and ten high school races total.  Even with over 2200 kids at this race, our young runners were able to keep their cool and stay focus on their race.  I have been in racing situations where it is very easy to get overwhelmed by such a large and competitive event.  For these young kids to stay focus the way they did was great testament to their courage.  The t-shirts from Adidas came in, and we were able to get them printed and distributed to the kids before the race.  All of the kids really loved them, and they were already talking about how they were going to wear them to school the following Monday.  It is amazing how just a simple uniform can really ignite pride in one’s team!

Before the race.

After the race.

As for me, running is still going great!  <Knock on wood>  With all the miles and workouts, I have been able to stay healthy, and I am still feeling good physically.  I am extremely excited for racing season to get here as that is really the only way to get a good sense of how all this training is paying off.

-Jeff

Fall is here!

Hello all,
It may still be warm but the leaves are already starting to change and everyone knows what that means! Pumpkin spiced coffee at Dunkin Donuts!! I'm personally not a fan of coffee but I cant get enough of the pumpkin spice. I must say coach Broe and Bekah planned the perfect date for their wedding. It ended up being a beautiful ceremony and the foliage in the background of the ceremony couldn't of painted a better picture. I just want to wish Coach and his lovely wife Bekah a long and happy life together. But just because coach is on his honeymoon doesn't mean things slow down here. The past two weeks I have hit 70 miles (7days) and 67 miles (6 days) and have had long runs of 14 and 15 miles (The morning after coaches wedding). So needless to say I am working hard. This week I'm looking to hit 70 miles in 7 days. My weeks are set up with a fartlek/hill workout, a mid week longish run (10), a tempo run, and then a Long run(15). Its been working very well and I have already started to see improvements in my fitness over the last three weeks. I will have another week of the same type of schedule and then start a new phase in my fall training. Needless to say I'm very excited to be consistently hitting the higher mileage.

On another note, Leb XC is doing great. Our kids are running great and are very enthusiastic about the sport. They all want to run more then they did they day before and they are always asking for more core work. I hope they keep this attitude up as they grow up because if they do they will be very successful in whatever they choose to do. We have a big race up in Thetford on saturday Oct. 1st. We hope that if you are in the area you will stop in and watch the races. The girls middle school race starts at 10:30 and the boys start at 10:50. We are hoping to improve on are times from earlier this month. Also if you get a chance pick up the valley news tomorrow. There should be a very good article about our XC programs in the sports section.

Cheers,
Gags

End of Season, Busy Week, and XC!

The last race of my summer season was last week at the CVS Downtown 5k in Providence, RI. The race also happened to be the US Championship for 5k. I came in 16^th overall, was the 11^th American and ran 14:14. I was hoping to run a few clicks faster, but was not entirely disappointed with it. The race went out hard, then I lost contact with the lead pack around 1.5-2 miles as Ben pushed the pace up front. With about 800 to go I got caught by another small group and was able to put in a surge of my own with 600 to go, just before the final hill. One American beat me to the line in the final 150 meters, but I was also able to distance myself from the small pack that caught me just a half mile before. That was really the first time I felt like I had the ability to put in a move of my own this season, and even though it was not up in the lead pack, I feel like I’m ending my year on a positive. I’ve already taken a few days off, get a bit of an easy week here, and am hopping right into my fall training block after that. I am really looking forward to putting in the work and having a healthy year of training behind me going into 2012.

ITA looking good for the Broe Wedding.

Aside from the excitement of ending one year and beginning another, this past week was full of events. We took a team trip to Fenway Park last Wednesday. I’ve run by the park before, but that was my first time watching a game. It reminded me a lot of the old Tiger’s Stadium in Detroit. You can feel the tradition in old ballparks like that and it was a cool thing to be able to do as a group. The other big event of the week was Broe’s Wedding! Tim and Bekah got married yesterday and the wedding was a ton of fun. We had a couple friends stay at our house and my coach from Michigan, Ron Warhurst and family, were here for the ceremony. My parents also came in this weekend to visit and attend the wedding. My parents and I hiked up to an old fire tower in Norwich, VT with incredible 360 degree views, and today went to Burligton, VT for a tour of the Ben & Jerry’s factory and dinner with a view of the sunset over Lake Champlain.  It’s been great seeing all of these people from Michigan out here in New Hampshire!

Fenway under the lights.

Sunset in Burlington... Not Bad

Finally, Coaching Indian River School XC is getting more and more fun every week. We’ve been working the kids hard and they are improving in every race they run.  It is also exciting for me to share my passion with kids that are new to running and see them not only be successful and meet their goals, but also enjoy what they are doing every day. We’ve got a big race in Thetford next Saturday on a course that we’ve already run once this season. It will be interesting to see how much better all of the kids run the second time around on the Thetford course after having 3-4 races under their belts.

Until Next Time,

-Lex

From Thetford to Fenway and back again

Last week we saw witness to our first middle school cross-country race.  Held on the challenging trails of Thetford Academy, my fifth through eighth graders raced around a hilly three kilometer course and displayed mighty pluck and vigor for their first trail race of the season.  We had many great results, including our ferocious little sixth grader leading most of the way, all awhile giving two eighth graders a run for their money, and a dynamic duo of sisters finishing an astounding third and fourth in the women’s race.  It has been great to see the kids get nervous and anxious for races, fidgeting and fluttering over their own pent up excitement.  The sense of accomplishment from finishing the race seen on their faces is as rewarding as it comes.  Practices have been going great and our program which started with only a few runners has blossomed to nearly thirty kids, all of whom only become more and more zealous to run by the day.

And it has not only been my middle schoolers who have been putting in the miles and flying around a race course.  I recently ran my own race amongst a fervor of activity.  Last weekend, after traveling down to Boston to join my family at Fenway Park and watching the Red Sox garner a rare win, I myself continued down the east coast to Rhode Island for the USA 5km road Championships.  Luckily enough after watching the Red Sox post a win, I was able to follow in their footsteps and cross the line first, giving myself my second National road title of the year.  And with only one more race on the docket, I am hoping to be able to continue my good fortune before ending my season.  So if watching the Red Sox helped fuel my winning drive last weekend, hopefully driving back down to Fenway to watch another game with the team tonight will aid me in my last race of the season.  At least it’s worth a try right?

Until next time,

Ben

Ben True Representing!!!

I want to start by saying congratulations to Ben True for following up his USA 10K Championship win with a USA 5K win!  For all of you who watched online, I am sure you witnessed how gutsy of a race it was.  To not only lead a large share of the race but to save enough in the tank for a mean kick up a hill was very impressive indeed.  Also, congratulations to Lex Williams who finished as the 11^th American overall.  Now that Lex is finished training for races this summer, we will finally begin training together on the same schedule; something I am looking forward to as he is a very talented runner and will definitely help me to improve as an athlete.

On a more personal level… last week was one of many milestones to come in my career here at ITA.  When I moved to the upper valley, I told myself that I would start taking care of all the small details for the first time in my running career.  I want to see just how good I am capable of becoming, and I realize that in order to accomplish this goal it is those details that will inevitably shape the results.   It has now been 18 days since I arrived in Hanover, and I have definitely made some big strides in the right direction, though there are many more to go.  Not only did I reach 70 miles last week for the first time ever, I am now paying much more attention to the things that I put in my body as well.  Training is going great (knock on wood).  I feel as though I am in the best shape of my life; probably due to the much improved diet.  J  I am already beginning to get excited for the track season to arrive and have set some very high standards for myself and looking forward to the challenge.

-Jeff

And so it begins

Hello all,
So not much to report on at the moment. Training is going very well. I just had my meeting with Coach to talk about the fall training and we have something really good cooking up! But for right now I am just working on getting up to 70 miles a week and feeling comfortable doing it. In about a month we will start our first phase of this years training and I couldn't be more excited about it. I will be racing some XC this fall too, which really excites me. I always like running a few XC meets in the fall so this year that's exactly what I'm going to do. I know for a fact that I will be running the Mayors Cup in Boston followed by USATF New Englands. I plan on breaking my 8k pr of 25:42 so I guess you can say that's one of my short term goals!

On another note,

Yesterday was our first middle school XC meet and it went very well. The kids went out an ran great even though we only had two practices leading up to the meet. But that didn't stop two of our boys from placing 8th and 12th respectively. It also didn't stop the rest of the team (Boys and Girls) from getting out there and racing. Everyone had fun and the kids are really looking forward to our next practice. They are even asking to run hills!! These kids are great and I'm really looking forward to working with them for the next two months. The only issue we had was  one of our kids got sick and couldn't make it to the race. Hopefully we will have our entire team for the next race! Speaking of that our next race is in Norwich on Thursday @4pm so if you are in the area you should stop by and check it out.


Brian

Fall Is Upon Us!

As many of you know by now, Ben and I have started coaching cross-country at Indian River Middle School in Canaan, NH. We've got 29 kids on our roster and have been having a great time coaching. I think my favorite moment so far early this season was putting the kids through a hill workout last week. That's the first time I've ever been on the other side of the workout - from the coach's perspective and not the athlete's.

The highlight of the workout was all of the complaints coming from the kids.  "I can not do any more." "My legs are dead." "This is the hardest thing I've ever done!" All of those came straight out of the kids mouths. So you must think that I'm a sick and twisted coach for liking to hear those things...! But I'm not. You see it's the challenge of turning comments like those around that makes coaching kids so rewarding. One kid in particular was having an especially difficult time on the hills - so I asked him - are you going to be able to walk away from this workout proud of yourself, able to say you gave your very best? I told him I thought he had one more in him. After making the choice to do one more, he comes down the hill with his arms raised and proclaims "I did it! I believed in myself and I did it!" And the best part about that was he continued to do 2 more. It was awesome.

My own training has been going well lately and I'm feeling ready to roll going into the US Road 5k Champs/CVS 5k on Saturday in Providence, RI. For those of you interested in checking out results - or live video on Saturday - here is a link:

http://www.runnerspace.com/USA-5km

Race Time 11:15AM EST.

I hope you tune in and watch as both Ben and I are running. Also - if any of you have been following the standings in the US Road Running circuit, Ben is currently 2nd overall and trying to make a push for the lead this weekend. Just one more cool reason to watch!

Until next time,

-Lex