Gone is 60 Minutes...

After a very long and heart breaking week, I somehow found the mental and physical strength to achieve the greatest goal of my long running career.  I have toed the line on Broad Street right past Somerville Ave seven times, and each time I had one thought in my head, “Please allow me to do this in one hour.”  Every year from 2005 to 2012 I would run down Broad Street staring up at William Penn with one thought in my head, “Please allow me to do this in one hour.”  The closest I had come was within two minutes last year that was until this year.  This year has been an impressive year for my running, setting PB’s in many races, in many distances, and even putting up a PB in the running backward category (thanks Rod).  But, none of them compare to finally achieving crossing the finish line in the Navy Yard within one hour.  Granted the clock read 1:00:58 when I crossed, but it didn’t read 1:01 so in my opinion it counts.  I was so locked in to beating that clock that I never heard, Allyson, the Schaal’s, and others screaming for me as I approached the finish line.  Allyson was waiting for me all smiles when I finally staggered through the finish chute.  All she said was so…and I replied I did it, I finally did it.  She hugged me, congratulated me and then followed that happy moment up with “maybe next year you can break one hour”… Well that was short lived.   The lesson here is that as long as you keep at IT, IT can happen.  I didn’t get the chance to see as many of you as I had hoped, but I did look up some of your times and it looks like many of you had stellar times today as well, congratulations all. We will be back at it Tuesday at Maple Point Middle School at 6PM.  I hope to see you there.

Till we run into each other again…

Tailgate tomorrow

After your done racing tomorrow and are looking for a place to relax and have a bite to eat and a cold drink, join us in Citizen Bank Park's parking lot. If you have any questions contact me via my email or by leaving a comment here.  Either way good luck tomorrow, I'm hoping the wind is at our backs the entire way down Broad Street.

Hill Workout Recap

Tonight we did our first shuttle run type workout, we did this a lot up Bertha during the winter months.  We did not run up Bertha tonight, but the hill we did run was challenging enough.  With the majority of us doing Broad Street Sunday, the workout was more relaxed tonight.  Joining me tonight:

Tim, John, Harris, Kevin, Brian, Steve, Rod, Maria, Denise, Mike, and Haydee.   We did have one new runner who got lost finding the high school, and showed up when we had finished.  Better luck next week.  Thank you to everyone that came out and to all Speedsters doing Broad Street I hope the day cooperates and everything comes together for you and don't forget to Dig Deep.

There will be a workout tonight

Just to let everyone know that there will be a workout tonight meeting at 6PM at Council Rock North (parking lot closest to the softball fields).  I feel at liberty to state that this workout and any other workout is at your own risk and that I nor BCRR can be held liable for any injuries that may occur during one of these workouts.  I hope this does not discourage you to come out tonight or any time there is a group run. 

No Body Puts Baby In A Corner

I’m really not sure how my last Blog post got misunderstood or where this idea that I’m burned out, and have too much on my plate came from.  But, I’m not burned out far from it and I have a huge plate that can take on tons.  I’m balancing my full load of classes exceptionally well (the transition was challenging at first, but once I settled in everything was all good), my running has been going very well, FedEx is fine, and Allyson and I are has golden as when we were first dating.  My biggest issue is that I care immensely about what I’m involved with including this running club.  Caring too much may be my biggest flaw.  I get giddy as a school boy before each of the Tuesday and Thursday workouts, only to be disappointed when I arrive and the turnout is small.  I want terribly for this club to improve and for this reason and this reason alone I took on this position proudly.  As for the misinterpretation of my latest Blog post, I thought I was clear when I stated that April sucked and was holding out hope for a better month in May.  The point of the post was to show how poor attendance was in April in hopes that more will put forth the effort to come out and participate in May.  I wasn’t asking for comments from the peanut gallery, but should have known better when I post anything it is fair game.  The only issue is I was feeling like I was being pushed into a corner and ganged up on once the responses started coming in.  “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” I’m really quick to jump on the defensive when I feel like I’m being attacked.  I hope this clears this issue up and I will be meeting whomever shows up for the hill workout tomorrow.

Track Recap

Our first day on Maple Point's track gave us rush hour type traffic on the gravel surfaced track.  Many walkers taking advantage of the warm temperatures mixed with 12-15 middle school soccer players running around out there (some with head phones).  The traffic did clear up to give us the opportunity to get a solid workout in.  We ran 12x300's under the first of many warm conditions.  Joining me for this workout was:

Bob Powell (fresh from running in the Penn Relays, where he ran a 61.8 400 meter leg for a relay team! Nice Job!), Mary, Dennis, Tim, Jimbo, Kevin, Joe, Maria, Haydee, Charlotte, Brian, John, Cory, Rod Message in a Bottle (Perfect attendance for April! Nice Work!), Eric, Steve, Denise, Glenn (Perfect attendance for April! Nice Work!), and making his first appearance this season (even if he didn't do my workout) was Mike Gross welcome back.

Thank you for coming out and I hope to see you all and then some Thursday at Council Rock North at 6PM.

April is over and May has begun

As the old saying goes “April showers brings May flowers.” I’m hoping that this holds true for the attendance for the Speedster workouts.  When 7 runners came out for the hill workout and 10 came out for the speed workout the first week of April, I told the runners that the numbers are not strong enough for me to keep putting forth my time and effort.  I followed this comment up with I will give the attendance numbers the entire month of April before I pull the plug on the program, in hopes that they will improve.  Well aside from 2 workouts (when the numbers reached 20 & 22 respectively) we averaged a sad number of 14 runners.  To shine light on these numbers even further, we averaged 18 runners for the month of April in 2010 and 24 last season.  I know a couple of people have made comments that 14 is a good number, these same people rarely come out and most likely don’t realize all that is involved with these workouts. 

Looking at the numbers tells me that there is not as much interest any more.  My goal was to have us averaging close to 40 runners, and before you say anything about that number being too high, I would like to share that we were averaging 31 runners a workout for the last three months of the program last season.  When I took this thing over and gave it life, I did it to make this club better.  I wanted to give you all the opportunity to become greater, faster, stronger, runners.  I swear by these type workouts, and feel strongly that once implemented into a runners training regimen there will be improvement.  The countless amounts of past testimonials from you the runners prove this.  I’m just frustrated that the numbers are not improving and it saddens me to think that I’ve made numerous sacrifices for this program to only see it begin to fade away. 

With that all said and off my chest for one last attempt at saving this thing, I would like to say that I will give this thing one more month.  As I’ve stated, I have worked too hard, sacrificed way too much, and believe strongly in the Speedster program to allow one month to end it.  We have a total of 10 Speedster workouts taking place this month, nine more after yesterdays.  If we’re able to get the average number up to at least 20 for the month of May, I’m still all in.  So get up off your asses, balance your schedules, do whatever you have to do and take advantage of what is being presented to you.  If this thing dies, it’s not because I didn’t try it’s because you didn’t.