Attempt to a comeback

I know I’ve slacked updating my blog and hope to make up now. There are so many things I wish to write about and this might make this post a bit long, which is not necessary a bad thing. In the past I used to write about my training, school, coaching, and something about my life, and now I’m going to talk about the same things. Ever since my last update many things have happened, some bad and some good ones. Here (bellow) I’ll share some of the most important moments that I have gone through since my last update.

My contract with Saint Francis University as a Graduate Assistant coach is over since early May after I finished my Masters in Education. I was obviously happy to finish my degree and sad because I had to say goodbye to a place and people I connected with during my time there. I left behind many good memories and contributed to the development of a good track and CC program. One of the nicest accomplishments of my two years at SFU had been winning the 2009 men indoor title and also helping the distance program improve and develop the confidence it needed. Personally I am satisfied with the work I had done there and happily moving forward with my future goals, one of them being to come back and coach NCAA D1 again.

I left the United States on May 10th shortly after school was over. I am currently in Romania in the heart of the mountains at 6600 feet altitude, a training camp designed many years ago for distance runners. I’ve been here since June 9th, and prior that I trained at sea level near Bucharest in a dense forest. When I got back my shape was poor because of all the injuries I encountered during March. I wasn’t able to run indoors because of an achilles problem I had in December. In early March, or so, my left hamstring stopped me from moving forward with my running and after that I developed a knee problem at both leg at the hamstring insertion. There were all muscular problems mostly triggered by compensation and limping. On top of all problems was my surgery which in February and March didn’t feel great at all. Because of it (surgery aches) I had paid three visits to my doctor in Philadelphia and one to another doctor in New York City during February and March. I had done two more MRIs and CTs on my pelvic in order to determine why I wasn’t I feeling ok. They all revealed nothing, except a small tear at the origin of my left hamstring, which meant that it was all normal pain believed to go away with time. Bottom line for me was that for about a month, mostly March, I didn’t trained at all. I slowly resumed training sometime in mid April, but even then I was very busy with coaching, travelling, and school/finals and didn’t have much time to train.

After doing everything possible to get healthy and fighting with many injuries I was facing the risk of skipping the 2009 outdoor season, and for me that was a freighting feeling. As soon I got back to Romania I knew that time is short and must seriously get to work if I want to accomplish anything this summer. The desire, motivation, willingness were all high and with them I needed lots of luck and good, strong healthy body that will resist the hard training. I looked at the calendar and noticed that I would have exactly 3 months until Romanian Nationals scheduled for August 1st and 2nd. In order to qualify to world champs in Berlin, Romanian Championships is the only shot I have.

Small, nagging pains have never diapered and were in the menu throughout the last three months of training until today. In May and June my groin was mostly my main problem. In July I battled with my left hamstring and/or the small tear(scar tissue of it) they found during the MRI I did in March and it troubled me after some hard practices. Lots of ice, anti-inflamatories, and massage, were part of the healing treatment in order to be able to continue my training. It was a fight with my own body taking place every single day. There was no slaking, no breaks, not shortcuts. I new I was taking a huge risk with all the little injuries, but I also knew that I badly wanted to get back on the track and was willing to do whatever it takes regardless of how long it may take. In my mind I was willing to move the mountain!

A good base consisting of hard core long runs and plyos was my main training in May and June. I could definitely feel that I was getting stronger every day, even though there were days when running was rough because of accumulating fatigue. Nevertheless, I was going towards the right direction and my target was well established. In July, at 6600feet alt. I started hitting the first track work outs after some fast tempo and progression runs on an up and down terrain. My first track work out was 2x8x400 with 100m(1min) recovery in between and 3min in between the 2 sets. I averaged 65sec for the first set and 64 sec for the second set. The day before that I had a 6400m, 2 laps (3400m each) tempo averaging 3:17 per km. Only three days after the 400s I did the fastest track work out of this stage: 6x1k with 200m jog(2min) recovery at 2:49 average. Because of the altitude of this training camp it is estimated that this practice at sea level would have been an average of 2:45. After those three in a raw work outs I did some steeple work outs, one consisting of 10x200m with 2 hurdles and the 2nd consisting of 8x400m in 67sec, 66sec using 4 hurdles. This past Saturday, a week before my big race next Saturday (Aug 1st) I did a 1200 time trial in 3:02, again done at 6600feet with windy weather, although my coach biked in front of me which helped lot. Yesterday I had a 70min long run and today (Monday) is a day off, enough time for me to finally update this blog. I’ll be leaving the training camp on Friday.

To be where I am from where I was is not a matter of chance, luck, or destiny it’s a matter of sacrifice, hard work, and commitment. Even though I’m in Romania now I still haven’t yet had the chance to visit my family. It has been 11 months since I last time saw them before I came back to finish my last year at Saint Francis Univ. In the meantime I finished my duties, came back to Romania, but unlike previous years, this time I went straight to the training camp till this very day. I have no regrets for not visiting my family yet as long as this hard work and sacrifice pays off at the end. However, as soon as I get the chance I’ll go and spend some time with them, but for now the goal is August 1st and 2nd, Romanian Nationals.

This week prior to nationals will be the most boring of all consisting of one practice a day and relaxation in between. There is not much to do in this training camp except training, resting and eating. For the past two-three weeks a bunch of guys gathered after dinner and played table tennis (ping pong), which has been very fun. Tour de France is over since yesterday and that is bad news because every day from 2pm to 7pm for the past three weeks I have been watching it live, being part of my entertainment and cheering for Lance. Armstrong finished 3rd as we all know, but hope to see him next year winning his 8th title.

If I’m ready, if I prepared this race well, and if luck is on my side after 18 months the answer is coming this weekend. I’m 99% healthy, not enough, but encouraging. I’m 100% percent sure that have done the best I could with the short time I had and I’ll do the best I can this weekend. I know one thing: Good things come hard and tasty!


“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”