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.

When I last left you I was in Warwick Rhode Island visiting the Bishop Hendricken team and getting ready for the Brown University Invitational.  I went to Brown, and this is the first year that the Brown meet was a Nike event.  I got to the course Friday morning and the coaches and I began setting up snow fencing and making the shoot and all of the other fun things that go into making a meet.  I normally just come to the meet and set up my truck and the rest of my gear, and I didn’t realize how long it takes to get everything ready.  It gave me a new appreciation for meet directors, and it was also foreshadowing for my trip to Indiana.  More on that later.

The morning after set up we head out to the course nice and early.  My trucks in a prime position near the retail truck and a tight old tree.  As people start filling in I meet an unexpected guest.  It seems the Shalane Flanagan’s mother runs a website, prettysporty.com, that is taking pictures at the meet.  In exchange for her setting up next to my truck she gives me a couple of autographed posters of her daughter.  I now realize I have a pretty sweet prize to give away. What’s the best way to give out prizes?  Dance off of course.  I go up and talk to the DJ, he loves the idea, so we tart promoting it all day. 

After the championship races finish up and before the awards ceremony a group of, and I’m not kidding you, a couple hundred kids gather for the dance off.  The other judges and I decide for the first round we are each going to pick 3 boys and 3 girls we think should advance to the next round.  For the second round we are each going to pick 1 girl and 1 boy, then we will have the crowd determine by a round of applause who the winner is.  The three rounds finish up, and it is a very close competition, but the crowd makes the winners clear and the prizes are distributed appropriately. 

After the dance off I got to present the awards to the top 3 teams and top 15 individuals in each race.  It was a cool way to end a pretty exciting day of racing.  

So it's been a while since I have been back in Rhode Island.  Since graduation I have only been back for 2 days and it was over the summer.  My trip back this time, however, was for twice as long and right in the heart of cross country season.  You know how cross country has its own feel?  Its own smell?  Well I am sure that everyone who runs has their own nostalgic senses associated with cross country season.  Mine happen to be the feelings you get in late fall in Rhode Island.

Anyways, my first order of business while back was to visit Bishop Hendricken High.  I've know about BH for a while since we would run past their kids while I was training at Brown from time to time.  I also had the privilege to run with and against some of Hendricken's alums with mixed results.  So needless to say, I was excited to get out their and see what makes them tick.  

My first order of business was driving out to Warwick RI and meeting the team.  I got a little nervous at first, though, because as I pulled into the parking lot the team had me park my truck right in front of a Dell's frozen lemonade truck.  Now for those of you not familiar with Dells, as I was unfamiliar when I went to school, people from Rhody really like this stuff.  It is exactly what it it claims to be.  Frozen lemonade.  It isn't like lemonade flavored slush with too much sugar or anything, it is like mostly frozen lemonade.  Anyways, what I am trying to say is, this was some stiff competition.  Lucky for me I had some, metaphorically speaking, big guns to break out and show/give to the kids.  Nike had just delivered to me several hundred posters with the intention of giving me something to give out so that every kid from this point on that I visit gets at least something.  Giving away bags and stuff for trivia was still cool, but no one child is left behind from free schwag.  

After the butterflies in my stomach from the narrowly avoided battle with the Dell's guy settle the team hammers, and I mean hammers, me on a 7 mile run.  The team has been doing this thing every thursday where they negative split their runs.  "Cool," I say.  It was the longest short 7 miler I have ever run in my life.  We went out pretty chill then closed in close to my 5k pr.  It was stellar.  After I attempted to regain some of my pride watching the guys do abbs we went back to my truck and watched some old NTN footage and did some trivia.  All in all it was a great day.  I didn't get shown up by the Dell's guy, I gave out tons of free stuff and I got in a good hard run.  Very productive.  

Now back to Providence to start setting up for the Brown Invite. 

So while at the Glory days Invitational I noticed a few things that should be pointed out.  

1st) People in the greater D.C. area are pretty knowledgeable about cross country/track and field.

2nd) People in the greater D.C. area love Alan Webb.

3rd) People all over the world love free stuff.

So naturally when Mile American Record Holder Alan Webb starts throwing free stuff into a crowd just waiting to explode, things get crazy.

Now, a line had been forming to see Alan for about an hour before he was supposed to arrive.  Alan showed up about 15 minutes late.  Something about a random drug test.  I think he was just trying to build hype, because thats exactly what happened.  When he walked up to the front of my truck, where I had set up a couple of tables and some chairs he was carrying a couple of backpacks and a shoe box.  While, he just looked at the assembled crowd (which had previously chanting his name) and said "You guys like free Nike stuff?"  People began screaming and rushing the truck as Alan started laughing and emptying the contents of his bag into the now ragging mass of people.  My job during all this? Pushing back on the table dividing Alan and myself from the near riot across from us.  Check out the "Riot" video in misc videos for more info.  

Anyways, after the police were called in to break up the riot and put out the truck fire (just kidding, people calmed down on their own and no trucks were damaged during the making of this blog post) and then Alan got down to signing autographs and taking pictures.  Oh yeah, and on top off all of this, there was a pretty sweet meet going on with a ton of great runners on a gorgeous looking course.

Next stop the smallest continental state, and also the state with the longest name.  Or for those of you who didn't go to school there: The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. 

So from Florida I had to make my way back up the east coast to get to the Glory Days Invitational in Virginia.  On my way up I decide to visit Watuaga High School in Boone North Carolina.  Lets keep track here, I just visited Brian Deals old high school, lived with his family and now I am visiting a high school just down the road (although a very mountainous road) from Appalachian State, where Brian went to college.  Needless to say this is starting to get a little creepy.  Needless to say it is easy to see why someone would want to go to school up in Boone.  The entire place was out of a Monet gallery, it was insane.  When I stopped at Watuga it was cold (very very cold compared to Florida) and raining, but I was still taken aback at how this high school was just nestled up in the mountains with the trees changing colors and the fog setting in.  My pictures don't do it justice.  Oh yeah, the team was cool too.  Ha, but seriously, these kids were awesome.  I rolled up and had no idea where to park my truck but once I got situated the kids came and helped me move stuff up to the school where we set up shop overlooking the track.  Th kids were doing an up tempo 400m workout based on a variation of a workout the Queens college coach has his training group do.  The kids run 400m reps with every 3 or 4 400's being all out.  It was a lot of fun to watch and seemed like a baller workout all around.  After (and a little bit before) the workout the kids hung out and talked to me about their goals and their training.  We had to bring my stuff up to them to show off because I didn't want them standing out in the cold rain before their workout, but once we got all set up it was great.  The team was great to talk to and we had an awesome time.

Next stop Virginia.

My last stop in Florida was to the Holy Trinity Academy.  Located just outside of Orlando in Melbourne Florida the Holy Trinity team gets up to run every morning to beat the heat.  This is great, and I am sure more schools do it then I would have ever expected, being from the north east where beating the heat is rarely a big problem.  It also required me to get up at about 4 in the morning to drive from my hotel to practice.  It did give me an excuse to bust out my huge external light.  It was really cool to turn the truck into a dark parking lot and shine the lights on a bunch of runners putting in some work before most people are even thinking about going to school.

Once the team finished up with their run we hung out at my truck pulled off to the side of the baseball field where the busses wouldn't hit it.  We did the normal routine; watched some dvd's, answered and asked some questions, won some prizes.  Then I got to interview the teams captains as the sun was rising.  It was surreal.  

From here I head up north to Boone North Carolina then on to the Glory Days Invite in Virginia.

So my adventure in Florida begins in Jacksonville where I visit Episcopal High. I visited The Golden Eagles the day before the FLRunners Invite. They were doing an easy run to shake out before the race, so I jumped in not worrying about the fact that the run I had done by myself the day before ended very poorly (Note, if you have lived in the Northeast your whole life and just started running with long sleeve shirts don't expect your first run in hot and humid Florida to be a walk in the park, even if you actually end up walking through a park. Which I didn't, but still, it is a fair analogy.) Anyways, the girls and I went for a 2 mile jog and then did some stretching and some strides. It was great. Afterwards we hung out around the truck and watched some videos and talked some trivia, with a little bit of show and tell to go along with it. The team was great and they seemed really pumped for the rest of the season.

That night, after practice I got to drive over to Orlando to prepare for the next two days of races. FLRunners was the first 2 day meet I have done, and I was a bit nervous about such a spectacle. What I wasn't nervous about was working with my first athlete of the season. Anna Willard, US Steeple Champion, is not only an awesome runner but also an awesome person and was exceptionally easy to work with. The night after the first day FLRunners and Nike put on a presentation where our Pacer, Jason 8.0, gave a talk about Nike and innovation followed by a Q and A session with Anna. It was great to see kids responses when Anna said she runs upwards of 90 miles a week and that she was "only" a 5:15ish miler in high school. She preached that hard work and belief in yourself can go along way, and clearly in her case she was right.

Day two of the meet allowed Anna to sign some autographs and she was such a hit with the kids that she actually ran out of posters to sign and had to start signing bibs and shirts and shoes, and all sorts of other stuff. It was great to see the kids reaction as they got their picture taken or got an autograph with Anna. The meet itself was great too with several exceptionally close finishes and some very fast times. All in all my first 2 day meet was even better then I had expected going in, and thats saying something. Several thousand kids plus a great few days plus a great course plus a lot of Nike cowbells equals a good time in most places, and Orlando was no exception.

So my trip down the Eastern Sea Board begins outside of Atlanta Georgia at South Forsyth High.  You might know South Forsyth as the high school that brought you the one and only Brian Deal, our own West Coast Driver.  Being my first trip south of the Mason-Dixon line other then to race, I wasn't sure of what to expect, but the team and parents at South Forsyth certainaly showed me a great time.  My one gripe would be that there are exactly 15356435 Peachtree lanes in Atlanta (Give or take 15356400).  Of course the school was located on one such road and of course my GPS sent me to another.  Once I realized my error I got on track and headed to the correct Peachtree lane where the team waited with open mouths.  We had ordered pizza, obviously.  After the run and some pizza we hung out and talked about NXN, watching a DVD about it and doing a Q and A section.  The kids were pretty well educated and I was impressed with how well the kids fared during our trivia contest.

After practice I went back to the Deal's home and stayed with Brian's family.  I found a sweet picture of him from his Appalachian State days, which I then took a picture of and which I will post now for you.  Next stop Immaculate High in Jacksonville Florida.

Hey Ya'll (Note, I don't know how to spell "Ya'll," but you get the idea). So sorry for the hiatus from blogging. I have been driving back up the east coast and for the last few days I have been without internet, but I'm back! So lets see, where was I? Ok, so since I am driving back up the east coast, I have quite a bit to catch up on! So before I left for Florida I did one more high school visit and one more meet in New York.

The visit I did was to both Central Hunterdon and Hillsboro in New Jersey. It actually worked out to be pretty easy getting to visit both teams as that they, and some other local teams, all practice at the same park. I pulled my truck up in the parking lot, next to the port-a-johns and school busses. I saw a bunch of different kids running and knew I was in the right place. As I was saying in a previous post I love the idea of visiting multiple schools at the same time. It gives the kids a chance to interact and it makes the likely hood of people asking good questions and answering my questions correctly higher. The kids were great and it was exciting because this was the first visit I got to do after receiving some national team jerseys from Nike and it was awesome to see the kids react to them and try them on. It was also the debut of the new nike knee socks. I think they are the natural replacement for half shirts in my lineup. It is nice that the demise of the half shirts directly coincided with the introduction of the knee socks. It was like poetry in motion!

After the meet I met up with my friend, and fellow Nike driver, Jon Phillips. We moved his shoes into my truck and went up to the Warwick Valley Invitational in slightly upstate New York. The invitational was great, even with the scattered rain and intense fog! We held a dance off for some shirts, and also I had the opportunity to film the WV modified team sing the national anthem before the meet (which I will add to misc. videos shortly). The meet was supremely well run considering the weather was forecasted as being so bad that the music crew didn't show at first. It was alright, though, because the truck picked up the music slack.

The day after the meet I proceeded to head out for my epic road trip to Florida and the FLRunners Invitational, where I would be working with Anna Willard. But, that is a story for another time. Thanks for welcoming me back with open arms!

Preface:

This is going to be one of my longer blog posts of the season and it will give you a real, no holds barred look at the life of a long hauler.  This may not be for people who lack testicular fortitude.  Or who can't read, because then it would be harder then normal to figure out what I am saying.

So a little while back I found out that Nike had decided to make a short internal video about being a long haul truck driver.  As it turns out they chose to use me as the protagonist of this piece.  Why did they choose me?  Maybe because I was so hard working.  Maybe because I was so good looking.  Or maybe because I had a 1 in 3 chance and I just happened to live 1 city block away from the documentor.  The world may never know.

All decision making aside the film starts like most of my days start.  With me walking out of my apartment and down the street to the bus station.  Zach, the film maker, and myself then got on a bus to take up to Ridgewood NJ and my alter home, the truck.  We get off the bus about an hour after we got on and then proceed to walk about a mile to my friends house, where my precious is parked waiting for me.  Zach and I get in, and then wait like 15 minutes for the engine to warm up and my GPS to figure out how to get to Norwich CT.  Once both of those have been accomplished we hit the road.  

Now a few weeks before this I emailed my friend, and coach of Griswold High, Mike Flynn about doing a visit with his team.  He thought it was a good idea, but he also thought it would be a better idea for us to gather some local teams and do an even bigger visit with a bunch of teams.  He had me at "Yo, Wiz.  Lets add some other teams."  I was in love with the idea.

Coach Flynn and got in touch with the Norwich Free Academy and Plainsfield High teams and our baby was born.  Kevin Clendennin, the NFA coach, reserved the auditorium and when I showed up I had over 150 kids seated and waiting with baited breath to here me talk.  After my talk and some Q&A we headed out for our run.  Now normally a run with the NFA girls team would be great.  On this day it was exceptionally wonderful.  Not only did we get to talk about the team and the upcoming championship season, but we got to do it all while Zach had to sprint forward and backwards carrying a 20 or so pound camera.  It must have a been a great fartlik/weight session.  We asked how hard it was, expecting him to say brutal.  Instead he informed us that when he was filming his movie Born to Run: a Tale of Endurance, about the 2008 Olympic Trials marathon he filmed a run with Jason Hatman and Ritz where he had to do the same thing, only at about 2 minutes faster a mile.  Needless to say, it was impressive.

Our run was over and we headed out to the truck for some trivia and DVD watching.  ll of this kids were great, and the whole setting had a great vibe.  

Aside:  Part of what makes NXN so great is that it gives all of the different kids from all over the country the opportunity to meet and hang out with each other.  Isn't that a big part of what XC is all about?  I mean, when I used to play soccer my coach basically told us to hate the other teams, and you know what?  We did.  Thats not xc, though.  You can hate your race, the course, the weather or whatever.  But most of the time even if you don't love your opponents you will respect them because they are out there everyday doing the same thing you are.

Anyways, getting a couple of different teams together was great, thanks for initiating this one  Coach Flynn and I would like to try and do this more in the future.

After Zach and I packed up our respective equipment we hit the road for our next destination.  Belmont Plateau in the Iladelph Pa and the Briarwood Invite.  When we get there the next morning we drive up over the curb and under a huge tree next to some food/awards tents and a local RSG tent to set up.  We get the music blasting, the DVD's playing and the shoes, well, sitting there for kids to look at and pick up.

The meet was great, with the highlight coming when two runners, Joe Rossa and Phil Wood broke the course record handily in the same race.  Another personal highlight was seeing how many schools from different camps this summer remembered the truck and wanted me to come and visit their schools.  It is always cool to work meets where kids remember you and tell their friends "Hey, thats the guy who was at camp!  Maybe he still has some half shirts we can get!"

Note:  Sorry, but I am officially 100% out of half shirts.  It has been a good run, to quote the timeless Nelly Furtado, featuring Chris Martin and Danja while being produced by Timberland, "Flames to dust, lovers to friends.  Why do all good things come to an end.  Flames to dust.  Lovers to friends.  Why do all good things come to an end, come to an end, come to an, Why do all good things come to an end, come to an end, come to an, Why do all good things com to an end?"

Speaking of ends, at the end of the meet we picked up, went for a run around the course (Which is really tough, thus making Rossa's winning time of 15:33 all the more impressive.) and hit the road back to Ridgewood and a eventually the upper west side.

Being videotaped while I worked was really cool, and I hope made me raise my game to a whole new level.  You know what else will be a great experience, though?  Road trip to Florida!  I have one more school visit and one more meet, with another friend of mine Jon Phillips of NYU fame, and then I hit the road for Hotlanta, Jacksonville and Orlando, before heading back up to Virginia, Providence and who knows where else!

Epilogue:  Thanks for reading all that, it was an abridged version of a typical few days in my life, except with out details about driving for about 16 hours in 2 days and sleeping at my girlfriends parents house and eating way too much fast food.  By the way, it was the longest blog entry I have ever written at 1156 words.