World Cross Country Championship

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Journal Day 7 April 2 (Race day, post race Party, ending thoughts) – Now I’m nervous. Just a little bit. Not more than usual, but I am nervous. Like I said, no pressure today so I shouldn’t be any more nervous than for most races, heck I get nervous before workouts. I think it helps prep my body for a hard effort or something.

Got up after 6.5 hrs of sleep feeling pretty good because of the time change. Didn’t have to drag myself out like usual before a race. There was a light rain last night that dampened everything and a warm front that came in making a little warmer, quite a bit more humid, and brought with it 30mph gusts of wind. A short jog and stretch then settled in to a quite corner of the hotel with a comfortable chair so I could enjoy my powerbar and read for a while. It was a little early before the race to be eating but I figured I’d just eat a little more later.

We headed to the course on the 11:30 bus for our 2:30 race. Relaxed for a bit before my usually short walk with the soothing tones of Linkin Park at full volume to really get the adrenaline flowing. Man, that is an unbelievable feeling. As soon as that courses through my veins I feel more alive than at any other time. It’s hard to describe but I think it’s that feeling that lets athletes believe, even for a moment, that they could take down the best in the world...too bad it can’t stick around for twelve thousand meters or Bekele might be in trouble.

Went through a normal warm-up feeling pretty good and confident of a good race. The wind had picked up to a pretty constant 30mph. “Tuck in” would be the name of the game today. The check in procedure for World XC races is a little different than I’m used to. You have to proceed through a call room where they put your front number on that has a timing chip attached. This takes a few minutes so you have to set aside time for that. Once you get through you aren’t allowed to use the starting area for striders so they have a small area cordoned off that gets crowded in a hurry for strides. They call you to the line about 1min before the start. Get settled in the stalls, no striders, you stand in your gates like a team of caged horses ready to rip across the field. The starter toys with you for an interminably long time after the “Set” and then, “Snap”, we’re off…into our 30mph headwind. Due to the wind the race went out rather slow. I managed a great start, right up front after about 500m and pretty relaxed. As soon as we turned the corner away from the wind the pack took off. I was able to stay with them for two laps. Ryan got 4 or 5. Going into the wind I tried to tuck in behind someone. For such a flat course that was supposed to be like a track that wouldn’t break your rhythm there was an awful lot of pace changes. Sprint to get on the back of someone just before going into the wind. Try to surge by someone as the wind was at your back. Stuff like that. And the crowds were awesome. At least a couple hundred people lining the whole course. I know that’s small by some standards but that’s pretty good for an XC race. Everybody banning together to beat the Kenyans and Ethiopians. I had Aussies yelling for me, Canadians, Brits, and a large contingent of Americans running around the spectator friendly course.

Well, you know the results. It didn’t go exactly as planned but I really can’t be disappointed. I thought I raced hard, I don’t have any excuses, and it was a great first experience. I was tired and I know I’ll be sore tomorrow, and that’s all I can ask for. A hot shower back at the hotel felt good. Waiting around for dinner seemed like an eternity and later in the evening I was wishing that I had decided to take a short nap. But alas I did not and I would suffer for it later. To steal a saying from the “great” Bode Miller, we got to party on an Olympic level. Maybe not quite Olympic but just World XC level. I don’t have anything to compare it too but most of the other veterans said they had possibly one of the best post race parties. It was pretty incredible. The New Jersey banquet hall became a disco hall with lights, stage, band and some decent dancing out of our bold neighbors to the north. The Canadians had to get things started but then everybody joined in and it turned out to be a great time. The dancing ended and we (the English speaking contingent of Aussies, Brits, Cunucks, and Yanks, funny how everyone has a nickname isn’t it) all headed up to the hotel bar where David Bedford was buying drinks…for everyone. It was rowdy, kind of a tame version of an old Cornell Track party. Lots of fun. Got to meet a lot of the other runners from Canada and Great Britain that I didn’t know before.

Eight of us ended the evening with a friendly game of bowling just down the block. I know what you’re saying, what a dork, bowling? Yeah I know, but give me a chance. It was fun. It’s my idea of a better time than sitting in a bar trying in vain to make small talk with the dude sitting next to me. Then to bed.

Sorry I’m late on this one. I could say that I was reflecting on my race and thinking about what to say, but really I was out all night and didn’t have a chance to write this.

So as this comes to an end one thing I can say is that I am blessed to be one of the few that get to experience an event that brings the best athletes in the world together. A crowd of people that relate, if for nothing else but because we each go through exactly the same physical motions and emotions when we pour our sweat out on miles/kilometers of earth. We may have different training methods but we all have to put one foot in front of the other, every day, a lot. It was an amazing trip and I can tell, even if this was my only one so far, that each world championship, no matter how many you go on, is special in it’s own way. This one won’t be my last. I learned a lot and I now have a lot more experience that I can draw from next year.

On a final note, thanks to everyone helping me to get here. XO. Footzone. Rebound. Jim. Dylan and the other BBC regulars. Parents and Grandparents. And most of all my wife for putting up with everything.

Journal Day 6 April 1 (The day before the race) - First day of racing. Slept in a bit today to get a good night of sleep two nights before the race. Pretty standard. Hobbled down to breakfast and lunch. I decided that since I was going to the course and wouldn’t get lunch that I’d just eat both. So I had a light breakfast, waited about 20 min, (nothing else to do) then had a light lunch…spaghetti. Worked pretty well. Called the wife. Went over to the course to watch the races. Got my 30min run, striders and stretch in before they started then took it easy. It was an almost perfect day for racing; overcast, cool, with a slight breeze. Overall it was a pretty good day for us. Everybody ran pretty well and Goucher had a great race. That kid is on fire. 6th place for those who haven’t seen results. That’s phenomenal. So we were all pretty happy about that.

The course is fast and not quite as crowded as I thought it would be. Some of the guys said it also didn’t go out quite as fast as they were expecting. So that’s a good sign. I was kind of worried about the first 800m and getting into position. So the race goes out flat for about 300m then heads up the first small hill, levels off for about 10m then back down and almost immediately into the sharpest corner of the course, a horseshoe 120 degree U-turn. I’m worried about being in the middle of the pack and having a huge bottleneck right at that turn and letting the front pack get a gap opened up. We’ll see what happens. 12k is also a long ways and a lot can happen in 35min.

Headed back to the hotel for a bit of R & R around 3:30. Read a little. Ate a quick dinner before our abbreviated team meeting at 7:30. Didn’t have much to talk about. Take the 11:30 bus, get the warm-ups in the bag, give your passports to the coaches, yada yada. Talked about the strategy for the race a little but really not much. Basically don’t go out too fast and don’t go out too slow. Good advice eh? Duh? I’ve decided there really isn’t any pressure on us and certainly less than at Nationals. It’s a good race to take some risks here and there and see what we can do. I realize no one is really expecting much from the long course team since we’re so young but I’m hoping we can pull off a good race and not race like a bunch of amateurs. We’ll see. Our story has yet to be told.

Without much fanfare we adjourned the meeting and retired to our rooms. But only shortly, our 3hr dinner was cut short by the meeting so Pat and I decided to head back down to dinner for a cup of tea and some more people watching. The people watching is quite amazing here really. It’s great with so many different nationalities. It is head and shoulders above any mall or sidewalk café, hands down. There’s the famous runners obviously, there’s neon pink hair girl from Australia, there’s the very serious-never smiling Ruskies, oh, there’s spiky hair girl from Australia (who’s hot by the way, don’t tell my wife), and many more.

With dinner winding down we headed back for the room. I finished the evening off by arranging all my stuff for my run in the am and my powerbar and water breakfast, and then a viewing of Office Space. Now it’s 12 on the eve of the race and I’ll be up in about 6 or 7 hrs to prep for the race. Not nervous yet.

Journal Day 5 March 31 – Course preview day. Another breakfast at the New Jersey Marriot. Pretty good. I have certainly eaten my fill of banana bread this week. The Japanese make a mean banana bread. With this buffet for every meal I’ve been really wary of eating too much. I can’t tell if I’ve been eating a lot or not. I’m not really hungry between meals so I feel like I’m eating too much but the plates and glasses are about half the size of any normal dinner ware so I know I’m not eating that much. I’m confused. So I’m erring on the side of not eating too much cus I need to watch my girlish figure and I don’t want my love handles dangling over the waist of my shorts on Sunday. I have definitely eaten my fill of banana bread this week. The Japanese make a mean banana bread.

Then it was off to the course. I will commend the Japanese on their organization, but the buses taking people to the course did not carry the mark of their strict military like organization. It was a fiasco. But we made it. It was a beautiful day, no wind and sunny. The course is about a 30 min drive from the hotel out on a peninsula in the bay. Basically it is a sand dune with grass on it. It’s supposed to rain Saturday and Sunday but no amount of moisture or rain would ever make it a muddy course. Disappointed? Yeah, but it’s pretty similar to the Van Cortlandt course plus 50 degrees so it should go alright. Pretty fast. Very flat except for a few small man made hills.

After taking team pictures we headed back to the hotel for some lunch. Same thing but good. I didn’t eat too much.

Finally got a glimpse of Bekele today. It’s humbling to know how fast he can run but how much like everyone else he really is. I mean he still has to eat the same food I do, he’s even about the same height as me. There were some British girls scurrying over to take pictures with him but I have a hard time getting that excited about someone famous. I can’t say I’m not impressed but I can’t let on that I am. When I see someone “famous” I don’t get all excited like “Ooh, there’s so and so” I just don’t see it. They’re just a person like you and I but happen to have a recognizable face so everyone automatically thinks they know them. Sure they can run fast but I’ve got to think I can too and they aren’t above me. Runners like Bekele and Mottram are my opponents, I may never beat them, but I can’t think like that or I’ll never beat anyone.

The evening was pretty uneventful. Some reading, another 3hr dinner, a little green tea ice cream, stayed away from the banana bread though. Talked it up with some of the other runners. Shootin it. It’s been really enlightening to be able to talk with other sponsored athletes about the business side of running or sport that most people never think about. After you run fast everything starts to get more complicated. Trust me. That’s another topic for another time. Time for bed.

Journal Day 4 March 30 – Pretty laid back day today. Woke up to a hurricane, well not quite but it was windy enough that some of the junior girls floated away. Still getting full nights of sleep, which is great. Some of the guys are having a hard time sleeping still from the time change. Went to the track after breakfast for my normal couple of 200s then jogged back to the hotel.

Just before I left I ordered the book The Gift: A Runners Story. I haven’t finished it yet but that’s what I’ve been reading in some of my spare time. Luckily I run faster than I read, but I’m hoping to get through the 262 page book before I get back.

Went to lunch. They’ve got us in a big banquet hall now and looking around the room we could be in a Marriot somewhere in New Jersey for all we knew. Nothing says Japan like chafing dishes full of pasta and stacks of Coca~Cola in a room full of identical chairs and numbered tables.

After lunch Pat and I, by the way I’m rooming with Pat Gildea, finally finished the DVD we started two nights ago. We keep crashing around 9:30pm so today we decided to start the movie at 2pm so we were actually coherent enough to understand what was going on. Around 4, feeling pretty bored in the room with dinner more than an hour away, I decided to go for a walk down by the beach. Then we ate dinner for two and a half hours (what else are we going to do), then went with Pat down to Starbucks, yeah Starbucks, right next to the Nike store, Toys R Us, Hard Rock Café, Billabong, and Quicksilver in the mall. And that was about it for the eventful evening. Finished it off with a good laugh at “Steamin Willie Beamon” in “Any Given Sunday”. Entertaining.

Journal Day 3 March 29 - Today was a little more exciting. Got a taste of Japanese tourist culture. A little more comfortable with the athlete schedule – do nothing all day. It’s harder than you think to have nothing at all to do. After only two days I’m going nuts ready to claw my way out of a hotel room. Even though I could work a little less than I do now it is nice to have something to do during the day.

The typical day for the week is get up at about 7 or 7:30 because you wake up wide awake then or before. Go to breakfast down at the cafeteria that has the same exact selection everyday. They have some typical Japanese food then also some other stuff like pancakes, eggs, bacon, cereal. Then we go hang out back in the room or with some other runners until around 10:00 when we go for a run. Since we’re all tapering it’s different for everybody. Some people do an hour run, some did a workout today, I’m just doing a short warmup of about 20min, 10 X 200m in 29-32sec, then a short cool down everyday this week. Then its off to lunch, same thing as the day before, good selection though. Today we had a team meeting at 2pm to go over some little details like uniform policy, team leader introductions, and schedule for the week. Not much to talk about until Friday when we have the course tour.

After that it was time for some tourism. We, as in 30 US athletes and coaches, all piled onto a city bus to go to the city center. It was comical. We would bottom out the bus on a small bump in the road then getting off took about 15min while everyone paid the driver. We had people honking and staring and other people waiting to get on the bus, it was a fiasco. From the bus we had to take a 15min train ride out to Dazaifu where there is a Buddist Shrine. The train ride was pretty uneventful and pretty easy to navigate even for an American. The Shrine itself was a little outside the city on the edge of the mountains. It was a beautiful area with Japanese gardens and ponds and Pagoda style buildings. We didn’t get to stay long but it was nice to get out of the city and see some Japanese culture. In the village of Dazaifu there are little shops that are mostly for the tourists visiting the Shrine and some of the shops reminded me of Krispy Kreme. People would wait in line for these rice cakes that would come hot off the grill. They were actually pretty good and almost comparable to a Krispy Kreme. They are a rice mash stuff filled with a sweetened red bean paste and they would just melt in your mouth. Very tasty and recommended. Then we made our way back to the hotel for dinner. This evening we mixed it up and went to the Chinese Buffet, our other restaurant option for dinner. It was very good food and a few treats that you don’t see at the Ithaca Chinese Buffet like cooked jellyfish. I had to try it. Very squiggly kind of like gristly fat without much taste and not highly recommended. They had some green tea ice cream that made up for the jellyfish though. The rest of the evening was spent up in the room chatting with the other runners, Sharon, Ian, Jorge, Matt, and Luke. Ian and Jorge have played about 70 games of speed solitaire since they arrived two weeks ago. That is just amazing to me. I guess that’s one way to pass the time.

So good night for now. Tomorrow’s another day in the land of the rising sun.

Journal Day 2 March 28 – Whoa, where’d the days go. This whole international date line is screwing with me. I was trying to figure out my running schedule because I figured I’d take Sunday the 26th off but I didn’t want to take Monday off because I didn’t want to take two days off, but then I figured out that since we lost a day if I didn’t run Sunday or Monday I was really only missing one day, not two. Then on the way back I’ll actually be able to run twice on Monday April 3rd but it will be like running two days.

Anyway, so far everything here is very nice and pretty normal or at least pretty close to what I’m used to in the US. In the restaurant they cater to everyone and have some normal American food and then some traditional Japanese food as well. I can’t say I’ve tried any yet but I will. I’ve only eaten breakfast so far and didn’t feel like rice and vegetables for breakfast. I haven’t gone for a run yet either.

Journal Day 1 March 26 – So, Ross (Team XO director extraordinaire) asked if I would document some of my trip to the World Cross Country Championships. First, I have to thank Ross and Team XO for their support and all the work they do to make sure us post-collegiates have somewhere to call home even if we live and train on our own. It’s nice to have an environment that is similar to college when we travel to races and a team to compete with. After all cross country is a team sport.

Well I’m on my way to Japan. It’s been quite a trip to get here and by no means is it over, but competing for the USA in a world championship cross country race has been a goal of mine since, I guess, high school, when I figured out that cross country is what I really loved about running. You’ve heard this before, but it is raw, pure heart. No track, no time barriers, just you, your competitors and the environment. So cliché but so true. I just wish I could explain it better. Since I’m an engineer I’m not exactly an eloquent writer, nor is my punctuation up to par.

Sitting in the seat I’m in now, as a member of the US World XC team is quite an honor and as rewarding an accomplishment as qualifying for an Olympic team in my eyes. Although many people wouldn’t hold world cross country in the same regard as the Olympics track and field, cross country brings all those Olympians together to compete against each other in one competition in the purest of sports. Don’t get me wrong, to be called an Olympian puts one on a level that even the most apathetic couch potato can understand and appreciate, and in the next two years I intend to put myself in a position to represent the US in Beijing as well.

After the national qualifying race in NYC in February I was as surprised as anyone that I finished third. It’s humbling to be running with the best in the country, but at the same time it feels good that with each race my confidence in my racing and fitness grows and I can compete where I have to believe I can.

Training since Nationals has been pretty hit and miss. Nationals really tore me up. I mean I had trouble running for about two weeks after the race. The race course was so hard and the weather so cold that my calves felt like they were packed with walnuts for two weeks. Then the small little nagging injuries started in, not to mention the residual fatigue. Workouts up until a week ago have been pretty miserable, so naturally I was starting to wonder if I would be ready for Worlds. This past week though has been back to normal. Some good fast speed work and some strong longer intervals have helped reassure me that I’m mentally ready to go and that physically I have been all along. I was just being a pathetic weenier and I needed to grow some.

So now I’m here, flying somewhere over the pacific near the Sea of Okhotsk. In a week I’ll be ready to go. To race the best or at least take the first step toward actually racing the best. Man this is a long plane ride. I’ve already watched two movies. I need to write a report for work on Dimensional Analysis of Pressure Swirl Atomizers. What a vacation. I’ll try to write a little more each day on what it’s like to experience the world championships. So far it’s a goal finally achieved and a long plane ride.