Joey's season in a nutshell- from flotrackr

I shall start with my choice to come to Chico State. In the last ten years, Chico has become one of the premier distance running programs in the nation under head coach, Gary Towne and his success as a coach was one of my major deciding factors in coming here. Gary has coached numerous top-5 teams in cross country and many individual All-Americans in both track and XC, as well as two individual track champions in 2007. This program was just bursting with success, I saw the opportunity to become what I wanted to become as a runner and took it. I have very, very high expectations of myself. I have never been one to care too much about academics... the running, beautiful campus and Bidwell Park were my incentives.

Bidwell Park. Bidwell Park is the third largest municipal park in the United States, behind Central Park and Golden Gate Park. The main path is much like the bike path in Lafayette, in the Burton Valley area. Slight uphill on the way out from town, slight downhill the way back, but ever so slight, just like the bike path. The difference is that this is a dirt trail with trees hanging over for the entire way. The trails of Bidwell go out to Upper Bidwell Park and thus eventually to the Sierra Nevada. I am sure you could run from Chico to Tahoe by trail if you knew the way. The trail within Chico has half mile marks, making it great for intervals and tempos without having to go on hard surface or the track. We run in Bidwell Park almost daily to avoid over-pounding on asphalt America. Anyone who has had a stress fracture or connective tissue problems in their Achilles or heel can tell you how essential this is. Picture at top.

So lets get to training. At the beginning of summer, Gary gave me my mileage plan. I would start out at 40 miles for the first week, then the next weeks would be 50, 60, 65, 75, 55, 75, 75, 80, 85, 55 then see what I would be ready to run for the rest of the season. I made it through the 75, then the 55 before getting a minor injury while running with Tyler and Colby Pines. I ran 35, 65, 75, 83 for the next weeks following that. It was odd running that 83, I didn't really get that tired. In order to get back to this mileage I had stopped doing workouts and focused on volume for the time being, I was afraid a workout would re-injure the spot that was hurting.

The season began. The first workouts were excruciating, I couldn't finish the first 4 workouts. They weren't even that hard, I just hadn't been doing workouts since July and it was 100 degrees even in shady Bidwell. The reason I couldn't finish these first few workouts was dry heaving. Towards the end of the workouts, I would begin to dry heave, that is throw up but have nothing to throw up, so just retching with nothing coming. It is not a pleasant feeling. Since then I have learned how to counter-balance the causes of dry heaving by over-hydrating and trying to breath very deep and slow while running. I only needed to dry heave on hot days anyway.

The first "race"
Chico Invite: I go out in 5:23 and think I have gone out conservatively. Oh no, I was wrong. 5 minutes later I cannot get any turnover, my breathing is fine but my body cannot move. I finish the race, my breathing is fine and I have not been able to even kick, I have averaged 5:36 per mile.

I have a few more practices where I drop out of the workout.

A breakthrough. One morning we wake up EARLY to go for our 8 mile tempo run that begins at 6:30. I make sure to get up extra early so I can drink a lot of water and have some breakfast. It is important to eat some carbs before running so I eat some oatmeal so that my body doesn't have to go to stores it doesn't have. We do our warm/up: drills, dynamic stretching and strides. We begin. First mile in 6:04, then start running some faster ones. At the end I have dropped 11:00 for the last two miles and averaged 5:42 per mile for a continuous 8 mile tempo run, and I wasn't ever troubled to do it, it was easy. Confidence is back up. This workout was in an 80 mile week.

Season keeps going, I keep running 75-80 miles a week with down weeks of 55 miles in order to break it up into phases and recover. During this time I do strides, lots of strides, to try to keep my speed up. I have gained speed. I do a workout of 3x400, 3200, 3x400 in splits of 69, 68, 70. This first set was ridiculously easy. Then a 10:27 for the 3200 part, this part was surprisingly hard, but I have a LOT left in the tank nonetheless. My next interval is a 66, it was really easy. I then run a 62 thinking I have just run a 65. I came through 200 in 30 seconds feeling like its a 33... confusion? I run the last interval in 61. This was the easiest workout ever, I dont know how I have come to the point where a 62 felt like a 68 did last year. The next time I do quarters it is not with as much success. I ran 8x400 in 69, 68, 68, 68, 66, 65, 64, 64. No ridiculous splits, but still not a hard workout, it was basically what Gary had intended, an introduction to speed without going too hard and taking short rest (60 seconds between intervals).

Stanford. I didn't get into the 8k race but they let me have a spot in the 4k. Redshirts like me had a hard time getting into the 8k, but we find ourselves in the 4k. First mile 4:40. Second mile must have been around 5:00, and the last half mile should have been around 2:30. I have averaged 4:53 for a 2.5 mile cross country race.

I ran the 8 mile tempo again, this time after having run a 4 mile morning run the morning of. With warm/up and cool/down I have run a 20 mile day. I ran the same average as the first time, but after having run in the morning, it is fairly successful.

San Francisco invite: 26:23 for 8k (5:18 average). Nothing really special to say about this one.

Mile repeats. 3x1600, 3 minutes rest. 4:54, damn that was easy. 4:49, wow this is easy. 4:41, oh wow, that was fast. Still not that hard. Excellent.

Training goes as usual but I cut down to 65s then a 55 the week leading up to Almond Bowl, the 10k I am peaking for.
Almond Bowl is a 10k that runs through Bidwell Park on roads, starting with 3 miles of slight uphill then coming down for 3 miles before making a spiral to the finish that briefly goes uphill then back downhill. All hills are so slight it seems dumb to even mention them at the end portion of the course, but there you have it. So I go out in 4:57... on the slight uphill. Crap race is ruined. So I dont think that negative and proceed to keep running hard splits uphill, a 5:14, a 5:22. Ouch. Then I start going downhill and convince myself to push this part of the race. 5:14. Ouch. 5:25, 5:25 for the last two then I come to the .2 miles to go. Too bad I starting kicking 200 meters ago, I didn't know how much longer I had to go. Ouch. So basically all I can do at this point is remember what Chuck has taught me about keeping form together at the end of a race and use my own finishing toughness to get me the hell to the finish line as fast as I can. Ouch. 32:43 for my first 10k, 5:15 average. Not too bad, Gary just wanted me to run under 33 and I did it the hard way.

That was on Sunday, but on Thursday I have the 3200 time trial.
I do the usual warmup, drills, strides, long strides. I sport the old Campo boys uniform. Blue top, red shorts. Lanangs, the socks I won NCS in, but not the same pair, a blue version. Gun goes off (okay the gun is Gary saying "Kaayyyy, GO!") but its just as effective and him telling us that that will be the command relaxes us. Pat Boivin, the assistant coach has agreed to pace the first 6 laps as 70, 70, 70, 69, 69, 69 then let the race go as it will in the last 2 laps. This sounds like an excellent way to drop my PR from 9:21 to 9:16. I run behind Pat and am 4:40 at the mile, off almost perfectly even splits. We were 35 at 200 and 70 at the 400, Pat's pacing ability is uncanny. So at the 5th lap I am 5:51, I was 5:55 there when I ran 9:21, this is good. Next lap, arg 72, then ARGH 73. Closed in like 70 to finish in 9:26. This is only the second time I have run under 9:30 and is quite remarkable to me since I havent done many workouts geared for the 3200. I wanted to PR, but this is a great sign for track season.

NATIONALS TRIP

Last Wednesday night (a week before Thanksgiving) 3 vans with 7 people each rolled out of Sacramento after an hour and a half drive down from Chico. The 21 people in these vans embarked upon one of the greatest adventures of our young lives, the trip across the country to Joplin, Missouri for Division 2 NCAA Cross Country Nationals. Chico men's and women's teams flew, but the non-top-seven fans had a 30 hour drive... each way.

My van included some of my newly-made favorite people. Danny and Thomas I felt I knew decently before the trip, kind of Nick as well, but I didnt know Alia, Katie or Stephanie well at all... that changed a good deal.

I won't bore you with too much crap that happened in the vans though, except the time all 3 vans got pulled over for running a red light (I was driving the van that didnt do this... though I was the last van through and probably would have had I been driving in either of the first two) and doing 48 in a 25. Since we were in a caravan cross country, the two cops decided to not ticket us, but did point out to me that I should try to "match the numbers on the dashboard with the numbers on the big white signs with black letters" oops. I told him, "sorry officer, I was following the caravan and forgot to pay attention." Remarkably, that worked.

Our first major stop was Salt Lake City, Utah. We had intended on making this a one hour stop since we wanted to drive to Arches National Park that night and try to make it to Boulder as well, but we stopped for 4 hours, hanging out at the Mormon Temple and walking around a shopping center. Now Arches and Boulder were out of the question. We did get to Denver though... but missed all of Colorado's beauty due to driving at night.

The shifts I drove were the very early morning shifts that contained the sunrise, which was always awesome. Next major stops were Kansas City, then Joplin. As you may have guessed we drive straight through the night.

Joplin: we arrive, get into a hotel room that Gary has gotten us, chill, eat etc. Go to course, party, sleep, wake up by the host school's (Missouri Southern U.) coach blasting "California Dreaming" by The Mamas and the Papas at us. He was cool though, he even gave us NCAA banners because he knew we were going to steal them anyways.

Paint: we are now all (there are now around 30 Chico fans as others have traveled that were'nt in our caravan) painted red, black, and white. Personally I have "Brendan" written across my front to support Brendan. So we are all running around doing our Chico chants and then other schools' fans come at us, then others, it looks like Braveheart. Painted fans running at painted fans... pretty soon there are over 100 fans running around in a big circle of mayhem that really resembles Braveheart, save the lack of swords and shields and everyone screaming their school's chants.

We go out to where the girls are doing strides, do their epic chant, which was a mystery to the men's team up to this point but I have forgotten already. Soon after the race starts. Epic, the women are ranked 7th I believe going into the race. Everyone clicks, Sarah Montez gets 13th place, Kayla gets the second to last All American spot in the low 30s and Aisha misses All American by .7 seconds, but helps her team to their 4th place finish. Top 4 get hardware, the women have achieved their goal. The fans are psyched.

Men's race. Once again we battle the other fans then go out to do the men's chant, which is epic. Doing Grape Vine style Greek dancing in a circle all linked at the shoulders, the fans and team chant "C. H. I. C. O. C. H. I. C. O. C. H. I. C. O. CHICO, CHICO, CHICO, THERE AINT NO RUNNER LIKE A CHICO RUNNER CUZ A CHICO RUNNER DONT STOP, YOU KNOW!!!" yipes and clapping. Men get back to the line, race begins!!!

At about 600 in, Timmy is around 35th and Brendan is not too far behind, the rest of the men come through. The race is led by a pack of 10, all but 2 are Kenyan, or at least East African. Too bad Scotty is redshirting, that would give the pack more diversity. Later, the pack is pretty spread out, Timmy looks like he has gone too hard too early, something is not clicking with him... redlining is shown in his grimace. Timmy redlined longer than I have ever seen someone redline before.

A few miles in it is Timmy, Brendan, then a pack with Angel, Wickman, Manny and followed by Page and Fairley. Brendan moves up, Timmy falls back, Angel moves to Tim, Wickman falls back and Manny and Fairley maintain. I am screaming, running around with Beau. I yell to each Chico man that passes me to go find the next Chico man. I yell to Brendan that "THIS KENYAN IS DYING, START BY PASSING HIM." To my joy, he passes the Kenyan and keeps rolling up on guys. Brendan finishes 20th, getting the All American spot he had been eyeing all season. Excellent. Timmy and Angel finish just outside of All American contention. Heartbreaking. Manny and Page come in. Wickman's foot bothered him to no end and he finishes outside the top 5, followed by Fairley. The men have not clicked as well as the women, but have not done horribly either. They just expected higher, at least Brendan clicked. The men are happy to hear that they have gotten 6th. 4th was the goal but after their performances it wasnt bad to hear, especially with most of them coming back next year.

At night there is much partying, but since I havent slept a wink in 3 nights, I sleep pretty early.

On the drive back I got the morning shift again, this time going into the Grand Canyon, which is beautiful at sunrise. We spend about 2 and a half hours there then get back on the road. Late that afternoon we drive through Barstow. Multiple D3 State Champions, I see why Barstow is so good at running... there is nothing else to do. It looks like a spaghetti western's downtown.

So we get back to the bay later that night and I sleep forever. We have gone through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Damn. Good times.

Next year nationals is in Pennsylvania, so I am hoping to make the team. That trip is fun but I think flying there would be nice too.