Lance's #7

I look at Lance winning his 7th tour, and think about how far we've come in this country with bicycle racing. I took my first moderately serious ride back around 1983, and had dabbled in cycling since the late 1970's. I knew who Eddy Merckx was almost 30 years ago. In those days, adults on bikes were generally regarded as geeks of one kind or another. Now, it hard to go out on a nice summer day and not see several, and if they're in groups, it seems like half are wearing yellow.

I was working (part-time) in a bike shop at the time that Greg LeMond became the first American to win the Tour. Andy Hampsten was supposed to be the next great American. With Lance retiring, that mantle is up for grabs again. When I looked at the GC (general classification) standings (the time leaders, and the race for the overall winner), I saw 6th place taken by an American - Levi Leipheimer of the Gerolsteiner team; another American, Floyd Landis of Phonak in 9th; George Hincapie, one of Lance's Discovery teammates in 14th; and Bobby Julich of CSC in 17th overall. While most of these riders are starting to get old, many are team leaders. A far cry from the days when an American at the tour was an oddity, and merely finishing was considered a major milestone.

I am hopeful, though realistic, in my doubting that unless an Amercan contends overall, things like OLN's coverage of the tour will disappear in the next several years. The other piece of baggage that goes with that is the probability that Discovery and CSC may not continue to sponsor teams, which will hurt cycling in the USA.

I like seeing all those yellow jerseys on the roads in July, though I wish I'd see them in March and November as well. (Since I'm in the northeast, they get a pass for December, january and February.) It's good for their health, and they have fun. They also set an example of active living for kids to follow.

Pump your tires and get out there! Who knows, your kid could be the next Lance!

The National Championship on the Line

(This post is a truncation of my original post - I will try over the next couple of days to recreate the beginning of the post which I managed to lose.)

Original Title: A Rookie Mistake and a National Championship

I ran the two-mile in high school. That tells you that I'm no longer young. Since then, up until about a month ago, I hadn't run a race on the track since I ran those 8 lappers. This past weekend, I ran two relays at the USATF National Club Championship. A 4 x 800 meter relay, where each of four runners runs two laps of the 400 meter track, and a distance medley consisting of a 1200 meter (3 lap) leg, followed by a 400 meter (1 lap) leg, then an 800 meter (2 lap) leg, and finishing with a 1600 meter (4 lap) leg, totalling 4000 meters or just under 2 1/2 miles. I was asked to run the 1600 on my club's (Shore AC) "B" team.

Most of the teams in the meet were specialty teams, either mostly distance runners, sprinters and jumpers, or throwers (one of whom had my favorite team name of the meet - Lords of the Ring). My club, the Shore AC of New Jersey, is unusual, it can be roughly divided into three segments: a local/regional competitive running team; a regional field team; and a national level travelling team. The three segments rarely come together, it requires a rare confluence of circumstances to make this happen. The meet has to be important enough for the travelling club to come in, it also needs to be close by enough to get significant particpation from the regional members, and it must be a track meet (not a road race) or the throwers, jumpers and sprinters have no reason to appear. So, when the national club championships were held in NY City, it was such a time.

The meet, which began on Friday evening. Many middle distance events and some long events were held then. By the time the evening was over, Shore AC's men's team had amassed a meaningful lead. That lead grew early on Saturday as Shore's racewalkers picked up a few points against some specialty racewalk teams.

Shore AC's men's team had been leading the meet all day. As the day wore on, several clubs began eating away at our lead. As we got to the final two relays, Shore AC led NY Elite by 11 points. NY Elite is a crushingly good club in the relays. The next to last event was the distance medley relay (DMR) described above. NY Elite won the DMR, running 10:16.24 and picking up 10 points. Following them across the line was was the Syracuse Chargers team, just over 3 seconds back. Roughly 7 seconds more allowed the Central Park Track Club to pick up their 6 points and 13 seconds later, Shore's "A" team held off Executive Track Club's team, and thus, Shore picked up 5 points. So, going into the final event, a mere 6 points separated the two teams.

Unusually enough, Shore's team, wound up running in the "slower" first heat of the final event, the 4x400 meter relay. Shore wound up winning it pretty easily, in a relatively good 3:12.81. Now, the waiting began. We'd done the math, and knew that based on previous performances, NY Elite might well win, and if that happened, we would need to finish fourth or better to win the meet, while fifth would get us a tie.

The second heat lined up, we were all praying for a relatively slow race. NY Elite promptly grabbed the lead, so our nervousness ratcheted up. They continued building their lead throughout the race. Every time the baton was passed, we checked the clock and did the math. Those quick "in the head" calculations kept saying "too close to call." When it was over, NY Elite crossed the line in 3:07.92. The other teams were some distance back, but closely bunched. Our fate was in their hands. We each looked at clock, the other teams, and back to the clock. As it ticked past 3:13, no other teams had crossed the line. Virtually all the Shore AC members were going through the same process, a grin crossing their face and a little fist pump and the word "yes" crossing their lips.

Relays are a funny race, sometimes something goes wrong, a pass occurring outside the exchange zone, etc. Tim Brennan, the travelling team coach told us not to celebrate yet. A couple of minutes later, the relay results were posted, and Shore AC was listed second! A few more minutes passed before the team results were posted and Shore AC was listed at the top of the men's list, edging out NY Elite by a mere 4 points.

The men's final results were: Shore AC - 140 points; NY Elite - 136; Executive Track - 103; Greater Boston Track Club - 63; and Syracuse Chargers, whose 45 points captured fifth place by a single point over Central Park Track Club. The women's results were: Lemans Track Club - 160.50; Greater Boston Track Club - 148.50; Mid Atlantic Elite - 94; Central Park Track Club - 72 and rounding out the top five; Shore AC - 40 points.

In addition to Tim Brennan, Shore's efforts were orchestrated by Elliott Denman and Gerard "Coach G.P." Pearlberg, of RunningBuzz.com, author of Run Tall, Run Easy.

Firecracker!

After beating myself up a bit on Saturday, competing in two fairly long races, here I was preparing to compete again on Monday (Independence Day). I'd committed to picking up another blogger The Thinking Runner at an area train station, so I headed off a bit early to get him. (While there are stations closer, here in NJ, the train lines are rather like spokes on a wheel, with New York City as the hub, so by picking him up there, it may well have saved him an hour or more, since he's on a different spoke.)

I'd determined to run this one pretty comfortably. I was a bit surprised by Thinking Runner's prowess. He's a graduate student, spending the summer here in NJ, and plans to run the Chicago Marathon this fall with hopes of qualifying for Boston. He ran the race pretty hard and just crushed me, causing me to joke to him that "I wouldn't have invited you if I knew you'd beat me." Actually, I'm a proponent of having lots of strong runners around - having someone on my shoulder generally squeezes a better race out of me. I am amazed by the guys who can run a race solo and put up a really good time - their ability to focus on maintaining intensity must be extraordinary.

This race gives some astonishingly large awards - to the point of being too large. The winners got trophies that were about 4 feet tall. The second place awards were a much more manageable 2 feet. I'm a friend of the second place guy, and he and his dad were planning to "shrink" the trophy by removing some parts.

They also have some amusing "competitive" awards to fill time. One of them was to be "woman with the best arms," my wife, who's a trainer was going to go up with a friend of hers who's a masseuse, but when the women's race winner, a former competitive bodybuilder went up, it put the kibosh on that.

After the race, I shared a beer with some running friends, then got Thinking Runner back to the train and we both got on with our day.

Sometimes, Showing Up Is Half The Battle

I had the pleasure of competing in the USATF Regional Championship, and since it was held in my home state, it was also my state championship. I went down with the expectation of competing in the 5000 meter racewalk (3.1 miles). The site was almost 100 miles from my home.

For those of you not familiar, racewalking is a judged event. The are two rules to the sport; the knee must be straight from when the foot is planted until the foot passes under the body, and one foot must always be on the ground (when observed by the naked eye). Form breaks result in a "call," and collecting 3 calls during a race results in disqualification.

My goal at this race, because I hadn't racewalked much recently, was to avoid disqualification. I have a history of bending knees, so the risk was substantial. The extra attention to form meant I had to slow down a bit, and I walked the race in 33 minutes and change. I was the third male finisher (the walk was a mixed sex event, and I was beaten by one woman). Since one of those finishers was from out of state, I received a regional bronze medal and a state silver medal.

Because fields were thin, my team wanted me to also race the 5000 meter run. It started about a half-hour after the racewalk ended, so on little recovery, off I went. I started a bit quickly, drawn out by efforts to hang on to some superior runners, putting up 90 and 93 second laps for the first two. It quickly became clear that this pace would be too much for me and I backed off. I held form pretty well for about 10 laps (the race is 12.5 circuits of the track), but really fell apart on the last two laps. I finished dead last among the men, but with the thin field, picked up some points for the team, and because I was one of only two competitors from my state, received the state silver medal.

As you can tell, sometimes just being there is enough. My team won the mens team title (and some money). I have mixed feelings regarding this, pleasure and pride at the team's achievement, yet disappointment that the level of participation was not greater. He was a case where showing up really was half the battle.