Back on Track

1,050 days. It had been 1,050 days since I last raced on the track. That streak has finally come to an end thanks to a 1,500m/5,000m double at SFSU's Johnny Mathis earlier today. The times were slow (1,500m was ~6sec off PR, 5,000m was ~37sec off PR), but given my last 2+ years I'm pretty pleased.

My last time racing on the track was a 3,000m at altitude in April 2014, where I was trying to get a little prep work ahead of a 10,000m PR attempt in June. An ill-timed cold threw a wrench in that plan, making me bail on the target race and ending that track season. (Can you call one meet a "season"?)

Attention then turned to the marathon debut in December... the one that went so bad it prompted the start of this blog. And while I didn't know it at the time, it also led to me getting a sacral stress fracture. (I broke my back from running - sounds kinda badass when you put it that way!)

Rehab and hella cross-training got me decently fit come summer 2015. Unfortunately it all came to a halt on July 12th. While finishing a long run down Magnolia Road I all of a sudden felt a "pop!" in my hips/low-back. Discomfort came and went with me unable to pinpoint what was wrong or even where exactly the pain was. Very, very stupidly I kept training far too hard for far too long, eventually just destroying my right hip/glut. Turns out that pop was a labral tear. No good.

While lots of runners have labral tears of varying degrees that they don't even know about, I'd clearly put myself in a place where it was significantly impacting training. After finally getting an MRI to confirm the diagnosis, I started massive rehab for quite some time. Not to bitch and moan, but there was a time when all I was allowed to do aerobically was swim with a buoy. I would not wish that on my worst enemy! Seriously, it makes aqua jogging seem fun. Anyways, I digress...

My right hip hasn't felt normal since the labral tear. That's not an exaggeration. I feel hip discomfort/"off-ness" every damn day, and I expect this to be the case for as long as I continue to run. But, thanks to a lot of help (Brad Hudson, Kristin Carpenter, Richey Hansen, and others) and trial and error, I've been able to manage things so that I can finally train. While there are many days when I spend more time on rehab/prehab/core/what-have-you than running, I'm finally getting back to real running.

After months and months of 0-60mi weeks, 2017 is off to a solid start. Assuming tomorrow goes to plan, this will be week 9 of 100+mile weeks. After 993 days without spiking up, I've done two workouts in spikes in the last 2 weeks. True they were short and slow (closed my 1,500m faster than any 400m I've run since 2015), but it's something! While the workouts aren't there yet, not even close, I'm starting to get fit. When that'll start to pay off in races I don't yet know. But I do know that it's a great feeling being back on track!

USADA-sanctioned athletes at Olympic Trials

Who at the Trials is a cheater?

There's little doubt that at least one athlete at the Trials is cheating and has yet to be caught. This isn't about that. However, there are unquestionably athletes at the Trials who have already been sanctioned for anti-doping violations. If we are serious about #CleanSport, this information needs to be easily publicly available. If USATF gave a damn they would go out of their way to provide the information. But they didn't. So here it is.

Below is a list of every athlete who has been sanctioned by USADA. Hopefully this information will help you decide who to cheer for, and who to remain silent for (or boo, or chant "Cheaters Out", or whatever) when watching the Trials. And while you can take the information however you like, I want to make clear that this list isn't me claiming that all sanctions are equivalent; I strongly urge you to read the linked USADA press release for each sanctioning.

Be an informed fan. Just because USATF and the other big-time powers in the sports (sponsors, news media, etc) will gloss over doping issues doesn't mean we should. If anything, it just means we should be louder in our desire for #CleanSport.

M 100m:

Justin Gatlin (Nike): amphetamine, 2002, 2 years and Testosterone, 2008, 4 years

Michael Rodgers (Nike): methylhexaneamine, 2012, 9 months

Tyson Gay (n/a): Adverse CIR, 2014, 1 year

M 200m:

Justin Gatlin (Nike): amphetamine, 2002, 2 years and Testosterone, 2008, 4 years

LaShawn Merritt (Nike): Adverse CIR, 2010, 21 months

Wallace Spearman Jr (n/a): methylprednisolone, 2014, 3 months

Tyson Gay (n/a): Adverse CIR, 2014, 1 year

Michael Rodgers (Nike): methylhexaneamine, 2012, 9 months

M 400m:

LaShawn Merritt (Nike): Adverse CIR, 2010, 21 months

Michael Berry (Nike): THC, 2010, 3 months -3 month deferral for education

W 800m:

Maggie Vessey (n/a): Canrenone, 2012, public warning

W High Jump:

Inika Mcpherson (n/a): Benzoylecgonine - a metabolite of cocaine, 2014, 21 months

W Shot Put:

Jillian Camarena-Williams (Nike / NYAC): Clomiphene, 2013, 6 months

M Shot Put:

Mitchell Pope (n/a): boldenone metabolite, 2009, 2 years

W Hammer Throw:

Gwendolyn Berry (Nike / NYAC): beta-2 agonist, 2016, 3 months

Notes:

•Format: Athlete name (listed sponsor): substance, announcement year, sanction

•Athlete list is taken from USATF.org declarations as of 6/29. Order of athletes listed is the same as from the entry page.

•Data for bans taken from USADA's sanctioning search engine. 

Return to Racing

29 weeks ago, I ran my marathon debut, where, in addition to running tactically stupid and blowing up, I gave myself a stress fracture. So to say I was excited to finally race again would be an understatement.

Well sometimes excitement is not enough.

The result: 12:42 (4K) for 9th. 1 place worse than when I rolled out of bed to run this event on the fly last year. (To be fair, this year was 45 seconds faster.)

If not apparent already, I am NOT pleased with that result. Brad expects me to run (faster than) that pace for a half-marathon this fall, and he knows what he's doing. So yea, shitty result. But the truth of the matter is that it's less the result, and more the performance, about which I'm unhappy.

Races can go poorly for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's racing stupid. Sometimes it's not being mentally tough. (I've certainly been guilty of both.) Today, well, today it was just being flat. Even after a nice warmup, drills, and strides, I was just flat. Still, I stepped on the line hopeful that, upon the firing of the gun, my legs would wake up, and I'd be able to tear shit up. Sadly, they did not.

The purpose of today, in my mind, was to remember how to mix it up and make myself hurt. And I didn't really achieve either of those goals. Don't get me wrong, this is not an excuse; I gave what I had and achieved discomfort, but as many in this audience understand, that's not quite the same as real race hurt. 

This is all to say, my first race back didn't go too well. So what? I know my training is (I fully understand why I felt flat!), and the goal is to run fast over 21.1K, not 4K, come fall. And today did pass the most important test, that of being able to toe the line healthy. That's not nothing. So I'll content myself with that little victory today, knowing that there will be many bigger ones to take in the future.

Just hope that I don't have to wait another 6 freakin' months!

Open Letter to USATF

Over the next 4 days, the best T&F athletes in the country will compete for a spot to represent Team USA at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing. While I believe that most of these athletes are engaging in our sport with integrity, I cannot say the same for our governing body.

To be fair, I have seen some great strides over the last couple of years. You are showing many more races live, for free, on USATF.tv. You’ve helped support a quality High Performance meet with Hoka One One (that sadly had to be cancelled by freak weather). Your social media has done an amazing job keeping us fans informed about Team USA athletes all around the globe. There is certainly much to be proud of.

But there is also much that causes disgust. Specifically, your lack of integrity when it comes to cheating in our sport. Right now the buzz is all around the Nike Oregon Project, but we need not get into the details here. Regardless of the truth of the allegations, your position on cheating has been laughable. In fact, I cannot find a single word about this on your News archive or social media accounts. I greatly appreciate that you – through the words of CEO Max Siegal – are willing to speak up about other injustices, but am just baffled that you, as the governing body for T&F in the USA, are unwilling to speak up about injustices in our sport.

Of course, we don’t expect you to take sides on the breaking issue at hand. But why not at least acknowledge the issue and stand by the principles of clean sport? That should be true regardless of where the facts in this particular case may lead. You should be engaged with these important issues around the sport that you govern, instead of, as it seems, trying to let them slip by.

Instead, your actions throughout my years following the sport lead me to believe that you think issues of cheating are irrelevant if not actively occurring. I realize that, in many circumstances, you must allow convicted cheaters to compete when their bans are up, per WADA and IAAF, but you need not give them special privileges. And yet you do.

As best I can tell, there were two relay events this year in which you had at least some discretionary power in selecting athletes to represent Team USA. Those two events were:

USA vs. the World at Penn Relays (4/25)

IAAF World Relays (5/2-3)

Despite not being required by your published selection procedure, you chose to have us all be represented by convicted cheaters. While you may be forced to do so at the upcoming IAAF World Championships due to international rules, that was not the case here. For whatever reason, you thought that our country was best represented by individuals who have been convicted of breaking the rules of fair sport.

You clearly and unapologetically rewarded individuals who have been convicted of cheating.

And it’s not just the current athletes. You've let known cheaters into the official USATF coaching ranks. Even if a coach is truly the best in that particular discipline, shouldn’t selection of a coach involve more than merely technical expertise?

What sort of message is being sent when you purposely select known and convicted drug cheats for international competition, or give them publicaccolades for their performances? What is the purpose of our governing body? Is it merely to win medals, or is it to compete with integrity and honor? I’d like to think our sport is about more than merely medals and money.

Don’t get me wrong; you have done a lot of good for our sport, and I’m confident that you will continue to do so. And I recognize that our sport, at least as it seems to me, is one of the few that actively tries to catch cheaters and clean itself up. Yet it is in this area that you seem to be falling short.

But you can turn things around.

You have the power to not only make the USA the worldwide leader in medal hauls and world rankings, but also the worldwide leader of competing with integrity.

Do it for you, do it for the fans, do it for the sport. Just do it.

Of injuries and baby-steps

Six months ago, after over a decade of being a competitive runner, I made my marathon debut. Coach Brad Hudson had prepped me to run a good time and hopefully take the win. I was ready to go make (personal) history.

I didn’t win.

I didn’t follow the directions.

I blew up.

I got a stress fracture.

But this isn’t the time to talk about that race. (Though my recap is as good as my race was bad, so read it if you haven’t!) Rather, this is the time to talk about injuries, time off, and bouncing back.

It took about a month to figure out that I had a sacral stress fracture, and a pretty bad one at that. You’d think I’d realize it was doctor time when I couldn’t put on my socks without sitting down, but hey, us runners are stubborn! When I got out of the MRI they asked if I had been hit by a car. That is not a good sign.

Our best guess of what happened: For ~10 days before the race my right big toe was acting up, an ingrown toenail or some such. Just something random. Realized I was slightly favoring my left side due to this, and just wasn't quite running evenly. Going into the race I figured this would lead to a more sore left glut or something, and that was just a necessary evil of bad timing. How wrong I was.

Fortunately, I had a couple great medical professionals in my corner. Richey Hansen, himself a former collegiate distance runner, has been my go-to guy since moving to Boulder, and helped push me in the right direction, both with getting me to have the imaging done and with necessary re-strengthening exercises. And Kristin Carpenter was uber-supportive while I transitioned from fighting to put on my socks, to aqua-jogging, to, and I hate to say this, run-walk. If you want to injure the ego of a competitive runner, make him run-walk.

But even when hurt, training doesn’t cease. Once I was allowed in the pool, you better believe I was in that goddamned pool, silly little floaty around my waist and all.  Same goes for the stationary bike, and for each hip/glut/whatever-strengthening workouts I was allowed to do in the gym.  Plus, I was fortunate enough for ElliptiGO to donate some sweet rides to us as I transitioned to light-weight-bearing exercises. It was great to meet up for some Hudson Elite practices again, even if they got to run and I just rode off.

Finally, on March 29^th, I got my first run back. Okay, “jog” is more accurate. But that first step was the first step towards fitness. And while I’m still far from where I was 6 months ago, I’m well on my way towards running fast once again.

So what’s next you ask? Sadly, I missed the majority of the track season, which is even more painful as I’m watching NCAA’s while writing this. So it’s back to the roads this fall, with the tentative plan to hit a fall half, hard.

How hard is hard? Well, Brad’s talking big, like sub-65 big, as he wants me to hit that Olympic Trials mark. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t an exciting thought, but right now, I can’t think about that. Right now, it’s all about putting my head down, and taking one step after another. Where will those steps end up taking me? I don’t know, but right now I’m just enjoying each step!

#CompeteClean

While this blog was created to tell the trials and tribulations of this wanna-be-badass-runner, the fan of the sport in me can keep quiet no longer. While I and countless others pursue our athletics goals with integrity, there are always some out there who cheat the system, purposely using banned substances to get ahead. And, at times, these athletes, even after being caught, are still rewarded. As, for example, was justin gatlin, now that Nike is re-signing him.

Simply put, this is not acceptable.

Before I say any more, let me stress what this post is not.

•It is not an attack on Nike generally. Nike unquestionably makes some amazing athletics gear. I’ve set many PRs in Nike footwear, and would be more than happy to set many more in Nike gear in the future. Plus, it is undeniable that Nike spends huge (well, compared to most other companies, not necessarily compared to other sports) sums of money making a positive impact on our sport.

 •It is not a post generally about lengths of bans. While I personally am in favor of lifetime bans from the sport (and expunging all previous records) for a case of intentional doping, this is a much longer issue, which needs not be entered into here.

•It is not a post about how most, or however-many, elite athletes are doping. I choose to be trusting in general, withholding negative judgment unless there is significant evidence. Perhaps I am too naïve. But now’s not the time to talk about it.

            So what time is it? It is time to talk about what we, the fans of this great sport of athletics (track & field), should do in situations surrounding convicted dopers. And justin gatlin is exactly that. While he has served his ban and is allowed to compete legally, this does not mean that we have to make it easy for him. This certainly does not mean that Nike has to re-sign him. But they did.

            Nike, like all (most?) major corporations, are in it for the money. That’s fine. They, presumably, re-signed gatlin because they thought it would lead to better profits. So what can we, as fans of the sport, do about it? We can show Nike that such support of such an egregious case will only hurt their bottom line.

            To do so, we send a message with the almighty dollar. Stop, for now, buying Nike. Yes, this will hurt you, as you’ll lose out on some of their great gear. Too bad. Tell your friends. Email whomever at Nike you can. One email will be ignored, so will ten, but what about a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand? And then talk to your local running specialty store.

            While Run Specialty may be a small segment of Nike’s overall structure, my assumption (which could be way off base) is that the majority of people who’d be influenced by a sponsored runner would typically purchase their gear from a run specialty shop. So it’s these customers that, I assume, Nike is trying to reach by such a deal. If Run Specialty shops say no more, perhaps Nike will change their ways.

            So email your local running store(s). Let them know that you would prefer they stop carrying Nike products while such convicted cheaters are on the payroll. Again, one person doesn’t make a difference, but many do. So convince your friends to do the same.

Of course, no one store will make a difference itself. But if many stores get this feedback, and some start to say no more and cancel their Nike orders, perhaps Nike will listen. The more stores that stop carrying Nike, or extremely cut their orders, the more likely we, the people, the fans of this great sport of athletics, will be able to make our voice heard.

And that voice cries out: Compete Clean

Make-a-difference check-list:

•Email your local run-specialty store about your stance on dopers, and those who support them.

•Email Nike, explaining your choice to boycott until they drop convicted dopers like gatlin.

•Spread the word to friends and followers, in person and online, using the hashtag #CompeteClean

•Compete, in all that you do, with integrity.

Man, I wish I could aquajog...

“Man, I wish I could aquajog.” Never would I have expected to say those words. Well, not sincerely, at any rate. But here I am sitting with an extra pillow under my bum and another behind my back, wishing I could have a silly foam floaty on my back while moving at the speed of a lackadaisical turtle. But it’s not to be. Dang.

As my faithful followers are aware, I ran my marathon debut last month. (Recap here.) Besides for running a stupid race (listen to your coach people!), it also caused by far the biggest injury of my career. Double dang.

I’m certainly not saying that a marathon is bad, far from it. Going into the race I was having some issues on my right big toe and, while I didn’t feel it during the race, it was a bit inflamed. Our best guess is that some slight overcompensation lead to some not-so-slight extra impact in certain areas of the body. Specifically, the sacrum.

Stress fracture of the sacral ala (left side) is the diagnosis. Sure others out there understand this better than I do, but from what I gather it’s the lowest part of the back that connects to the hips. It’s also a connecting point for some glut stuff, which is why we thought it was just my typical glut issues for so long.

Nope. It’s a freakin’ big gash through bone, slicing almost the whole way.

Well I’ve been hurt before, and even if I couldn’t run I could keep up fitness by hammering the bike or aquajog or whatever. Well, not this time.

Aquajogging sucks. I hate it. But I hate doing nothing even more. But sometimes you just gotta suck it up and deal with the hand you’re given. Especially when it was avoidable. (I could have just not run the marathon expecting some injury, which, I must admit, did cross my mind.)

So you won’t be seeing me at USA Cross Country, nor on the track anytime soon. But mark my words, come fall or winter or even next spring, I am going to make myself known, be it on the roads, trails, or track.

But for now, man do I envy that silly lackadaisical turtle!