A Trip to the DC Area

So although the season is winding down I’m still trying to visit some schools.  I schedule to make a trip out to the nations capital and to its neighboring state of Maryland.  My first visit was to Georgetown Day School in DC.  This visit was awesome, once I figured out how to get my truck to the school.  Located off of Wisconsin ave GDS is one of the premiere academic schools in the country.  In fact, I was recently informed that the Obama’s are considering enrolling their children one President Elect Obama takes office.  There’s a fun fact for you.  It was obvious from the get go that the team was smart.  GDS’s coach asked me to come after practice, as we are getting to the end of the season a lot of coaches don’t want any distractions during the actual workouts, and I totally understand.  As the kids finished up there run the gathered and walked over to my truck.  I had pulled off on a side street, put on the hazard lights and worked out of the side of the street so the kids didn’t have to stand in the road.  Welcome to running in DC, I guess.  Anyways, we did the trivia thing, hen we rocked some Q and A.  It was sweet, and like I said, the kids were smart.  I had to occasionally actually use my biology degree (who would have thought?)

Tangent:  This has actually happened a couple of time, so even if you guys go to college and get a degree in one field, then begin working in another field, it is easier then you think to incorporate your degree into whatever you end up doing.

Ok, back to high school xc.

Anyways, after I answered some questions and gave away a ton of posters and some other stuff I had to move about 45 mins to Zadock Magruder High.  These guys and girls were traveling to the course they were racing a week later, and they invited me to come along.  I accepted.  Once I figure out how to get my truck back around behind the school (are you noticing a theme by now of me having trouble getting my big truck into tight places?  Yeah, it can be a pain) I watch the kids do a combination workout of a hard first mile of the course, followed by some hill repeats on the courses bigger hill, followed by some 400’s run on the last 400 of the course.  It was a good workout and the kids felt so afterwards.  They finished up the workout and walked up the hill (I’m sure they loved that) to my truck, did the usual routine and hung out for a while.  I feel like I am being repetitive when I say it was a great visit and the kids were awesome, but they were.  That’s one of my favorite parts of the job.  It’s cool to see the country and hang out with pro athletes, but at the same time the best part of what I get to do might be seeing how appreciative these kids are and realize some of the great aspects of our sport is that anyone who can run that many miles in a week and make the sacrifices that we have to make to be good has a lot of respect for the sport and the people around the sport.  It is so cool to see.  Anyways, that’s my last tangent for the day.  Next up, championship season.