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.  

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. 

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. 

Next stop Virginia.