Humbled

I drove down to Holmdel again today to run the course. I can't make any excuses such as it being too cold (high 30s but sunny) or that it had only been 72 hours since running a grueling 5k race on Thanksgiving morning. Bottom line is that the course beat me today. I won't even mention the time. But I will be back.

Basketball practice started in earnest this weekend so personal running will decrease over the next three months. Hopefully, I can get out 2 or 3 times a week to keep the stamina at a decent level.

Two Good Days

The first day (yesterday) started out with the receipt of my second check from the N-City school. It ended when I stayed over my friend's house in preparation for the Flemington Turkey Trot. He would be running along with his wife, two sons, brother, and niece. The night was spent talking about nothing but running and cross country!

The second day (today--Happy Thanksgiving to all) was even better because I went out and ran an over-40 PB (personal best) in the 5K despite running only 3-4 times a week since Labor Day. The Verona Labor Day race was my previous best (26:15) and I bested that by 59 seconds (25:16.37). There were 3,851 finishers and I came in 859th. The time is a bit slower on the website results page because there were so many slow runners in front of me at the start. It took 51 seconds to get to the front. So I timed myself on my own watch. It was worse the further back you went; my friend's wife took more than 2 minutes to get up to the starting line.

After knocking off almost a minute off of my 5K time, I have to wonder how low I can go at this age.

Mecca

Today, on a beautiful Sunday morning, I decided to take a drive down to Holmdel to view the State Cross Country Championship Course. The state's cross country season officially ended yesterday with the Meet of Champions so I knew the park would not be crowded. I had never been to Holmdel Park, either to watch a race or just to visit. I had another reason for wanting to view the course for the first time. Although still being cautiously optimistic about next year's possible X-C team at E-City, my goal would be to take them there for the states. And this would be a first preview of the course for that race.

The park was easy to get to. Exit 114 and a few country roads brought me to the park. In hand I had a map of the course and a memory full of X-C videos of races held at the park. I found the starting line easily and proceeded to walk the course. As I traversed the running path I was amazed at what I was discovering. This is a true cross country course--almost all gravel, lots of open areas, and lots of woods running too. And it is a tough course--many hills including a hill which should be named "heartbreak". The entire park is very beautiful; even to a non-runner, the "bowl" is an incredible sight.

As I neared the finish, I had the temptation to go back to the car, lace up my running shoes, and give the course a jog. But I had already had done four miles in the morning so I just went back to the car.

I knew I had to come back soon to run this course and before the weather turned any colder. I am planning to do so one week from today. And I will definitely try to factor a run in whenever I visit family I have in the area.

In other news:

The N-City AD called to let me know that he has my second check. It's nice to get that money a lot sooner without all the letter writing to their treasurer, even though the amount is smaller.

Three more Juniors at E-City have expressed interest in running next year. The E-City now had six definites, three maybes, and a tennis player who wants to work out with the team.

This Thursday I'll be running in a 5K in Flemington with an old Pru/running friend and his family. Since Labor Day, I have been only running about three days a week and have lost some of my summer strength. So I'm shooting for a time of 28 minutes.

End of Another Season

This past Saturday, I drove my only N-City runner to the CTCs in W-Park in E-City. They say running is 10% physical and 90% physical. Well, my runner was definitely ready for the race mentally. He had been psyching himself up for this big day for weeks. But the physical wasn't there. No summer training and only 4 practices a week left him unprepared for the big race. He finished last.

And so my third season at N-City came to a close. Tomorrow I go there to collect uniforms and that will be it.

My new E-City team is still intact at 6 runners ready for next year.

And on the personal side, now that the season is over, I'll be spending more time after school to get ready for the Thanksgiving Day race.

One Week To Go

N-City - During the past week the girls were almost non-existent at the team's practices. So I decided against taking them to this Saturday's CTCs in E-City. I'll give them the bad news when and if they come to practice this week. That leaves just one male runner on the team. He still wants to run Saturday, but he still can't run 3 miles without stopping. He has four days (he works Wednesday) to fix that problem.

E-City - Six of the 10 girls who came to my X-C meeting signed and had their parents sign a "contract" stating that they understood the commitment involved in being a member of next year's E-City X-C Team. Of the other four, I'll only will miss two. One has a minor asthma problem and her mother won't let her run. The other is the best tennis player in the school but she almost loves running as much. We agreed to allow her to be involved in our practices when she doesn't have a tennis match or practice.

Personal - not running as much during the school year as I did during the summer. But I signed up for a Thanksgiving Day run anyway. A running friend and former Pru employee always runs it with his family. His two sons and niece are top notch runners in middle school. We'll be hearing about them in the next few years. Unfortunately, they won't be running for E-City. Oh, well. LOL

The Battle Is Won But The War Is Lost

All five girls showed up for last Friday's race. St. Vincent had 10 girls. I knew that four of our girls would be doing more walking than running, so I prepared for the worst. And that's what happened. SVA beat N-City by a score of 20-42. But the highlight of the day was that the one runner on our team who isn't walking anymore actually out-kicked three SVA runners in the last 100 yards to win the race. The time wouldn't get her in the top 100 of the CTCs but it was still a thrilling moment.

And now there are 12 days until the aforementioned CTCs. Goal #1, the girls have to eliminate all walking and build up their stamina. Hard to do when two of them never came to practice today. Par for the course at N-City. Goal # 2, lower their times, which will go hand in hand with the cutback of walking.

Bad News - Good News

The boys at N-City have stopped coming to practice except for one. He's pretty dedicated and wants to run in the NJCTC on 11/6. We did not run in the Greystone Invitational last Saturday because someone in the main office of the N-City school didn't mail out the check with the entry fee. Just as well since we only had one runner available.

The girls are only a little bit better. They come sporadically to practice but we still have five, enough for a team. They still can't run 2 miles without stopping to walk and they have their first race (3.1 miles) tomorrow. We are racing an all-girls school from N-City and it should be a massacre. I'm more worried about whether they will show up tomorrow than how they will do.

But the good news is that we had our X-C meeting at E-City school today. All ten girls showed up at the meeting. I thought I was dreaming. I gave them a 15 minute talk on what Cross Country really was about and to see if they still wanted to do it. Seven are still on board and three are thinking it over. Keeping fingers crossed for the 2011 E-City Harriers.

Mid-October Update

My third season at N-City is more than half over and nothing has changed from the previous two years. The runners are still out of shape, they come to practice sporadically, and the amount of time we have to practice isn't enough to form any kind of respectable team. The AD and myself scheduled 3 races for the year. The first is an Invitational meet this Saturday in Morris County for the boys on the team. But I found out from the meet director that the N-City AD did not send in the entry form nor the fee. Just as well. Our runners would have been embarrassed in the meet. The second meet is on October 22 for the girls against another N-City school (all girls). One of our girls quit due to poor grades so racing with only four runners will definitely shift any advantage to the opponent. And while this school is not a great team, I've been monitoring their results in their weekly races, and we will have our hands full with them. The third and final race (if everyone is in shape by then) is the CTC Championships on November 6. This is the Catholic Track Conference meet held at W-Park in E-City. This is the same race that one of our runners entered back in year 1. He's about the only one who is dying to get back there and have a good race.

So again, nothing has changed at N-City. I'm just baby-sitting a few runners who show up once in awhile. And getting paid less this year than the past two years. So I have slowly realized that I can't have a decent X-C team at N-City. And I have found out in the past three years that nothing will probably happen at E-City either. My three failed attempts to land a position at other schools this past summer (because of my age?) seems to seal my fate. I finally realized that my dream of coaching a decent X-C team was never going to come true.

So I decided to make some changes. I decided that the E-City school, especially the girls, needed another sport. Preferably in the fall since I'm busy in the winter and spring with other sports. In the fall, there are five major female sports in NJ. One is X-C. Another is Tennis, and E-City already has a team. Field hockey and soccer are two others but equipment and field locations present real obstacles. The fifth is volleyball. Practices and games would take place in our gym. And it seemed like the easiest of the three sports that I could learn quickly.

So I wrote up a proposal for the E-City AD and Principal. The principal liked the idea because we need to attract more females to the school. The AD said he would think about it since it would mean more work for him (he's not an energetic AD). So I left both meetings with the plan to forever give up X-C and to try volleyball in the fall of 2011.

Enter Mr. Murphy. The man who wrote the famous Law. That very same night, just eight hours after my volleyball proposal meetings, I'm at the Freshman Parents Orientation Meeting at the school. Two females who were in attendance with their parents came up to me and wanted to know why we don't have a Cross Country team. Yes, unbelievable. Murphy works in such strange and mysterious ways. Well, I was cautious and knew that fool me three times I'm an idiot. Fool me a fourth time, and I'm a bigger idiot. But they seemed so sincere and passionate. I told them that if they could get a list of girls who were SERIOUS about running next year, and give it to me by Columbus Day, I would think about it.

Well, today they brought me a list. Seven names, five females and two males. Only the five females were definite. The boys were maybes. So I decided my next step would be to have a meeting with the definite females. I may have two other females (two Juniors) who may be interested. But for my next step, I decided to try something new. I would empower these two freshman who seemed passionate about running. I told them it was too early to name captains, but they would be my "leaders". They would need to talk to the other runners and come up with a date when we could have a team meeting. By giving them this responsibility, I'm hoping that they will try to get the others to be as serious about the team as they are.

So hopefully, next week, we'll have a meeting and I'll have a better idea if this is going to happen.

Year 3 - Cautiously excited

N-City called me back last week. There are 11 students who are interested in running. A good sign. Seven boys and four girls. Two of the Seniors were on the team in Year 1 and are very good runners. One junior has been with me both years and is very dedicated. If a couple of the other new male runners step up, the boys team could show something this year. The girls on the team are all new and probably will have an average year. The AD at N-City is trying to get 2 or 3 dual meets with other private schools in the northern NJ area.

That's the exciting part. It has to be cautious because none of the runners ran during the summer and all are out of shape. N-City has an even later dismissal time for the students this year which translates into a shorter practice session each day. And the Seniors will be taking special SAT Prep classes after school and missing more practices than the others on the team.

We had our first practice today and the runners who showed up (not a work day) were all enthusiastic and worked hard.

Stay tuned.

Summer's Over

Today was the last day of the summer vacation, i.e. the last day I could get up early and run in the morning. Tomorrow, classes start at school and running will be taking place in the afternoon or early evening.

Final numbers for the summer:

218.8 total miles

80.5 % of the days were running

Had a streak of 30 consecutive days running at one point during the summer

Current streak - 14 days and 26 out of the last 27

Still no word from N-City on whether or not they will be having a X-C team this fall.

My second race of the year was on Labor Day. I had run Verona before in the early 90s. The course had changed a little bit but there was still a modest hill in the first mile. Nonetheless, I was able to knock about 50 seconds off of the July 4th time, if you concede that the courses are the same (same distance, different contour).

Not a Steeplechase

But an obstacle nonetheless. During my morning run thru Caldwell, it looked like I would not be able to get thru on Bloomfield Avenue. Police cars and firetrucks had the road blocked off and were detouring the traffic. As I got closer I saw that they were in the late stages of putting out a fire that had destroyed the Caldwell Diner. Well, runners can't just detour around obstacles like cars can, so I ran to the opposite side of the street and hoped that the sidewalk would be clear. It was and after passing some firemen who were resting and attending to their equipment, I passed the last police car and went on my merry way.

I had never been in the Caldwell Diner but had always wanted too. Maybe if it gets rebuilt I'll go there for breakfast some day. (Photo courtesy of The Caldwells Patch)

Summer Re-Cap

Over the winter I had to again resort to sending letters to the N-City school treasurer to find out when they would be sending my coaching fee. It took only two letters this time to get the check in the mail. I was very surprised to find out that they were paying me the same amount as in the first season. Even though I coached about one month instead of two. Even though we didn’t enter any races. And even though the students again showed up when they wanted to.

Meanwhile back at E-City, I decided to try again for the third year to start a cross country team. Flyers and announcements produced six female underclassmen who expressed some interest. After talking to them and letting them know what cross country involved, the list shrunk down to three. These three gave me the impression that they were very serious about running in the fall, but when, in the last few days of the school year, we couldn’t all get together for one single meeting to discuss the summer program, I decided to pull the plug again.

As summer recess started, I scoured the web for available cross country positions at other schools. There have been six. The first three, Gill St. Bernard, Ranney Prep, and the Bergen County Tech schools were too far of a distance to travel. The fourth one proved to be very interesting. It was not a high school, but a college, Caldwell College. It’s a co-ed college but it only has X-C for girls. Examining their website and race results on the web, I learned that over the past few years the team has had little success. There wasn’t going to be a large number of runners coming back either, maybe 5 or 6, not counting the incoming freshman. A plus for the job was that the school was close to home; a minus was that I would have to do some recruiting for future teams. I got as far as the HR department calling me to ask some basic questions and to let me know that I might be called again for an interview. Well, the call never came and I found out that they hired a young runner out of Ramapo College.

The fifth job was for Mount St. Dominic Academy, an all-girls school that shares the same campus with Caldwell College. This had lots of pluses: close to home again, lots of runners (they had over 20 the previous year), and a successful season the previous year. The minus was that it was for an assistant coach. Since I was in my third year of looking for a coaching job, and maybe I could always learn something new, I applied for the position. I got a little farther this time. The head coach called and set up an interview at the school. Two hours before I was to drive over for the interview, he called to postpone the meeting due to a family emergency. He said he would call the next day and set up another meeting. I’m still waiting for his call. Very strange. Their website is not updated regularly so I don’t know what they did regarding the position.

The sixth was for another assistant’s job at another all-girls school—Oak Knoll Academy. They had about 10 runners the previous year and were a middle-of-the-pack team in most races. I did get an interview this time and found out that five others were also vying for the spot. No need to go into any specifics—I didn’t get this one either.

And finally the new Athletic Director (the fifth in the last three years) at N-City called me to ask about myself and the two seasons I have coached there. We met today and talked about what has been going on there in terms of X-C. He wants to see if there is enough interest for Cross Country to move ahead and have another season there. He will be meeting the students on 9/1 and 9/2 and then get back to me on Friday 9/3.

On the personal side, this has been a very good summer for running. Unlike past summers, I have been running a lot and without pain. No pulled muscles. No bursitis. Nothing. I do about 25 miles a week and can hope this will keep up once school starts. I run almost every day—I had a streak of 30 straight days early in the summer and currently am on a 12 day streak. I entered a 5K race on July 4^th when I was just starting to get back into running shape and had a decent time. I will be running in a second race on Labor Day in a nearby town’s 5K.