The Why & the How: Part 1

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First, I know this blog entry is about a week late, sorry about that!  After my first two entries, I spent a lot of time reading other people’s blogs. I realized that the blogs I loved the most were ones that seemed to really carry the voice of the person writing it. They are genuine. One of the blogs I keyed on was that of Lauren Fleshman Thomas (asklaurenfleshman.com). Yes, I do currently live with her and her husband Jesse (who also has a killer blog at leapdaysports.com), so there may be a little roommate bias, but the thing I like the most about the blog is that you actually hear Lauren’s voice…crazy as it sometimes is!

She recently had a long workout to do, I had already run, but said I would go along as company while riding the ElliptiGO. During the warm-up I explained to her my desire to find my own voice within this blog. We had a brief talk about things that she thought about as she tried to write, but soon the workout started and I forgot about the idea of blogging entirely. Instead, I was trying to focus on my real job…providing stories to keep Lauren’s mind off the fact that she was actually doing a 9 mile tempo (which she absolutely destroyed). Fortunately for me, Lauren had not forgotten our initial conversation. I started relating to her the stories of how I’d gotten from being a collegiate athlete to where I am now. About half way through the first story (and keep in mind she was mid-workout and hauling ass), she stopped me and said, “you realize this should be your next blog, right?” I hadn’t. But she was absolutely right. I told probably 3 or 4 other stories throughout the workout, and each time she’d respond with, “there’s the next blog,” “that’s one more.”  I don’t know if I was any help whatsoever for her workout, but damn it, Lauren really got me excited about this blog!

And so, here we are. I hope that this is the beginning of my voice…how I got to where I am, and where I intend to go.

The Why

Part of me would love to say that I got to this phase of my career in the same manner as most of my fellow professional track and field colleagues. Most of these athletes are former All-Americans, NCAA Champions, USA National Champions, etc. For many, they came out of college with a professional contract. They were recruited by professional coaches and groups. They knew their direction and stayed on the track they had been following (no pun intended)…this was not exactly how things went for me.

After having success in high school (I won the 2001 Illinois High School State Championship 1600m in 4:10), I went on to Duke University. For a variety of reasons I did not have any athletic success while there (Lauren decided to try to create a Wikipedia page for me recently and we summed up my collegiate career as: Ian had no notable collegiate athletic accomplishments…all in good humor, but not at all far from the truth). My fastest 1500m was a 3:50.03 my sophomore year at ACC Championships…coincidentally, that was just 0.03 seconds slower than I needed to run to qualify for Regionals that year.

So there I was. While most people I compete with now were finishing college with glowing resumes and stories of NCAA Championships, I hadn’t even qualified for a Regional Championship meet.  I think this is the point where most would say, “well, I guess everyone else just has way more talent,” and they hang it up. I know plenty of people who have done it. They have moved on to amazing lives, and I am certain that most of them have no regrets at all about the decisions they have made…but I couldn’t do that…I knew I WOULD have regrets.

There are so many people who say, “I could’ve done X,” or, “I could’ve been Y.” The one thing I know I want for my life is to NOT be one of those people. When I graduated from Duke, the only thing I knew was that I didn’t run close to my potential. I knew that I needed to find out how good I could really be. I knew that if I didn’t at least try, I would be 50 years old and talking about how good I could’ve been if I’d only done something different. I had no idea where to start. I didn’t even have a clue as to how to begin to try to keep running. The only thing I knew was that I had to try…

Please Ignore the Rant

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I know you’ve all been waiting on pins and needles for the next installment of my blog, so I’m back! For those of you just boarding the E.L., you’re way behind…this is already the SECOND entire blog entry…it’ll be tough to catch up…but I hope you do (see part one here)!

Now, I realize the primary intent of my blog is to keep you all up to date with my training. So as not to neglect that aspect entirely, I am very pleased to report that the solo aspect of my training has officially ended! This past week marked the beginning of official practices, and with it, my first legitimate workouts. In fairness, these are not “bust your balls” type workouts, but it’s awesome to start feeling like I’m really back training. It is now 5 weeks until my first race (see my full fall schedule), and I’m really excited to see my fitness improve over that time period.

Ok…I could go on about getting back into my lifting routine, how that’s always tough while your body adjusts and you’re doing workouts….yada yada yada (I’ll save that for next week)…right now I need to vent a little. For those of you who hate other sports, or especially hate Fantasy Football, you may want to tune out now and check back in next week for a real training update…because today’s blog is going to veer a bit.

If any of you have read the About Me, “Fun Facts” section, you’ll know that while I am currently in the 9th year of being in a fantasy football league with the same group of 11 other guys, I have never won the Ogilvie Bowl and thus my name is still absent from the coveted Manker Cup. One could argue that I just suck (and I am certain that more than one member of the DTPA would make such claims). There is plenty of evidence to support this claim. For example, my first pick, of our first ever draft, was Chicago Bears running back Anthony Thomas…perhaps the 25th best running back on the board when I made that pick; in year two I drafted David Boston when he had a broken leg…I could probably go on, but for the sake of salvaging any self-respect, I’ll stop there. I will say I have improved drastically since then. I won my division just last year. However, this is not last year, and I think it would not be overstating to say that I may, once again, have the worst team in our league (my best player is Tony Romo…I don’t think I need to go on). With that being said, coming into the close of week one, it looked like I had a victory locked up. Sure, the guy I was playing had four players left to play on Monday night, but one was a defense and one was a kicker…and I was winning by literally 70 points…a sure lock.

Then Tom ‘Frickin’ Brady walks on the field, puts 517 passing yards, 4 TDs, and on and on and on…oh, and 47 fantasy points on his own. HORSE PUCKEY! I realize my team is bad. I went into the weekend expecting a loss. But that loss was just insulting. I have tried to remind myself that I didn’t put up a horrible score, but it’s fantasy football, the entire idea is to get worked up over something with which I actually have zero control…so I AM FURIOUS.

Okay…since I have now alienated at least 4 of my 6 total readers, I will end my fantasy football rant there. For those that made it through that, thank you. For those who now hate me, I will try to do better next time!

On a final note, each week I will be summing up my “Weekly Picks” from the Interact page at the end of each blog. Of course, if you don’t want to wait until next week, just head there now! So here we go:

Week of 9/5

Song: “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People

Movie: “Trailer Park Boys”

Plug: SchererSpeed

Let the Journey Begin!

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Wow…this is a little crazy. I’ve never written a blog, had a website or really taken any overly active online presence (outside of the usual facebook stalking), and it feels a bit surreal to finally be launching it all. I absolutely need to start by thanking Matt Scherer (schererspeed.com) for his hours of labor on this website. I started with a Microsoft Word mock-up, and he turned into into a functional reality.

For the next year I will be counting down the days until the U.S. Olympic Trials and the 2012 London Olympic Games (and they will be literally counting down in the menu bar to the right!), using this blog to take you all along for the ride. After spending grades 1 through 12 in Chicago’s north suburbs, I had to give a little shout-out to the city of Chicago, hence my blog’s title: Ride the E.L….a not-so-subtle homage to Chicago’s ‘EL’ train. I am certain to get plenty of Chicagoans reminding me that it is just the ‘L’ train, but seeing as it actually stands for “elevated,” and the fact that “EL” works fantastically for “Eugene to London” I’m going to stick with my spelling.

To quickly catch you up on what’s been going on with me, for about the last 4.5 years I have been living and training in Eugene, OR. I had a pretty good racing year in 2010, running PBs in both the 1500m and the 800m. Unfortunately, 2011 has not had the same fortune. I am extremely tempted to cash in on the cliche that it has been an emotional and physical “roller-coaster” of a year…however, that would imply that there were as many extreme ups as there have been downs…this has, unfortunately, not been the case. The only way 2011 has been roller-coaster-esque is if we’re talking about riding Splash Mountain on a 55 degree day: you start off on top, but before you know it, you’ve hit rock bottom and end up having to walk around the rest of the day cold and with wet underwear. My metaphorical cold/damp wedgie began last December after straining the ligaments in my SI joint. After an extremely long recovery period, the emotional hits kept coming and I just never really got myself back on track for the 2011 racing season.

But that was then…this is now. Rather than try to push too hard, my coach (Andy Downin) and I decided to shut things down earlier than usual and really focus on getting ready for 2012. I have refocused, gotten myself healthy, and am ready to make this last third of 2011 a truly positive building block to launch the Olympic year.

So here we are, back at present day. I am finally training and starting to feel really good. After a very gradual build, I have my mileage moving back up and will hit about 80 miles this coming week. This time of year is always the hardest for me. No races, no real workouts, just getting in the miles and starting to build the base that will carry me to the finish line. Patience has not always been a strong virtue of mine…something Andy reminds me of constantly, but the heart of our strength phase is now within sight, and I…can’t…wait. Sitting on the sideline this past season was friggin horrible, and I am determined to not spend another moment doing so.

It’s going to be an awesome year, and I’m excited to bring you all along with me.