Mircea Bogdan: Road to Recovery

Attempt to a comeback

2009-07-27T07:45:00.001-07:00

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.”

Will I make it? Time will tell

2009-02-13T19:23:00.000-08:00

A little over a month from the ‘09 year has passed, reason of satisfaction for me and many others to celebrate because January has been a though month due to many reasons and aspects. First of all, weather in Western Pa the past month was terrible, many people said one of the toughest months they have seen in years. As far as I remember we had snow pretty much every day throughout January, and temperatures dropped down bellow 0 F on several occasions. This made it really hard for running, but myslef and SFU runners managed to find ways of getting our training done.

Cold and harsh climate has plaid a major role in my rehab from the surgery. January was by far a very challenging month with lots of downs and concerns regarding my health. My progress was very little, in fact at times I though that my surgery was actually getting worse as nagging pains appeared and kept switched form one place to the other. Towards the end of January I called my doctor and scheduled an appointment to see me, which will indeed happen on February 23rd. My Dr. also prescribed another doze of 6 weeks of indometacin (anti-inflammatory), which I’ve been started taking.

Most of the discomfort I had during the first 3 months after surgery was on my left side of the hip. However, the left side now appears to be doing well and could see progress. The only problem is that over time I unconsciously tended to favor the right side over the left and the negative effects (compensation pain) by doing that did not take long to emerge. The trigger point to that was when I had to shovel the snow accumulated around my car after a snow plow truck pushed it towards and beneath it. It seems the shoveling strained my right lateral abdominal. It happened in mid January when I abandoned/left my car about ½ a mile from my house because the car alarm acted funny. I guess I pressed the wrong button and activated a program which forbade me form starting the car after I turned it off. That day I was on my way to a track meet with the SFU team-it was on a cold Saturday morning at 6am, outside temperature read -13F. In the end I got picked up and made it to the indoor track meet and worried about the car the following Monday.

A week after I got back from El Paso I figured out the way to stop my achilles tendon problem, which troubled me in December and could have also extended in January. It seemed that switching to a particular running shoe was the cause of my pain. Therefore, I decided not to use that shoe and go back to the old shoe I had used prior. The results were positive immediately after I started using the old pair of shoes-and have been enjoying running again ever since then (January 12th). However, lately I have been having pain in my left knee, which could be a result of running on the roads for too much. The fact is, I have never felt comfortable running on hard surface such as roads, but there has been no other choices here, and until March or so it may be the only option there is. So now I’m icing my keen twice a day in order to take care of it and stop further damage. Luckly, the last 3-4 days I have been training on softer surfaces since there are more options after Western PA was hit by a heat wave early this week, high 61 F. However, that did not last much and now we are back to winter as snow made its way in.

As I said earlier the last 7 to 10 days did show improvements as far as my surgery. The truth is I have been working really hard for it. I allocated about 1H every evening for massaging the scar tissue and much of the area where the surgery took place. I got more motivated to do massaging over the past few weeks although this (massaging) is something I had constantly done following surgery. It’s a fact that my fingers are getting painful for doing so much massaging, but I am happy that I finally see some results.

With all the challenges I have been facing lately I am still optimist about getting back to competitive track and field. My training these days consist of long runs, which lately have been around 1 hour long (pace is decent). I also do a lot of stretching and core training and seem to be heading towards the right direction. The feeling I have in mind now is not a question about when I will be back into racing, but rather a statement I tell myself every day “you will do all that it takes to achieve your dreams and get to where you belong”. I’ve came to realize the challenge I’m facing and the effort, both mental andphysical, I need to generate if I want to get to the top. Will I make it? Time will tell!

In the meantime I’m patiently waiting my doctor’s appointment, continue to train, treat my injuries, take care of school, and do my G.A. duties. It’s very true that I have a busy schedule, however, I am structuring my time to have enough time for all the things that I do. These are the last three months I’ll spend in Western PA and maybe in the U.S. so I want to do my best, it’s pretty much all I can do.

My Valentine’s day will be interesting as I need to wake up before 7am tomorrow, Feb 14th, cause I’ll be travelling with SFU track team to Lewisburg PA for another indoor meet, which is the last meet before NEC conference championships scheduled next weekend in Baltimore, MD. Definitely lots of excitement for me ahead.

There is a saying: “when the wheel stops spinning you have to be ready to push it”. That is exactly what I am doing

Borderland

2008-12-29T22:23:00.000-08:00

I am currently in El Paso, Western Texas, visiting friends, spending the holidays, and definitely enjoying a better place for training with much warmer weather compared to the East Coast. I have been here (EP) since December 7th and will be leaving to Pennsylvania on January 7th. But honestly, I don’t look forward to train in freezing PA weather for the next three months.

Training over the past a month or so has been ok, some ups and downs, which is not quite what I wanted, but given the circumstances of the last six months, I dare to say that I am moving towards the right direction. Nevertheless, the challenges I have been facing lately decimated my confidence and broken down my training consistency. It all started with some pain I had towards the end of November close to the calcaneus bone of my interior left foot. Fortunately it was nothing serious and only lasted ten to fourteen days with two days off from running. However, a compensatory pain developed in my right achilles tendon a week after I arrived in El Paso. I took few days off and did aqua jogging instead, but the pain came back a few days after starting training, mainly because I didn’t use the right progressive training. In other words, I rushed and trained just enough to put me back to square one. The treatment over the past few days has been massaging and stretching the tendon/calf and applying lots of ice, all of this in combination with time off from running, which hopefully in the end will show positive results.

To stay physically active I have been doing a lot of core training. Today, 12/29/08, is the first day I will be jogging after a 5 day time off due to an assumed minor injury. The plan is to only do 20 minutes of running followed by core training. The goal is, by the time I leave El Paso in nine days, to get back to the level of training I came with, which is: 60min of running, 6 to 8 strides, and lots of core, which I’ve been doing over the last month or so. The strides are vital in breaking down the scar tissue accumulated from the surgery. The bottom line is: it’s very frustrating not being able to train due to all kids of minor injuries.

Three months have passed and my left hip is slightly doing better. On Nov 28th I visited my doctor in Philadelphia and was told to keep training like I was 100% healthy. He also put me on a six-week anti-inflammatory medicine plan, which so far helped to some extent. The main improvement since surgery is in my left hip abductors, now stronger and almost painless. The soreness and my main concern comes form the lower left abdominal, and I am guessing is the left internal oblique muscle, which does not seem to improve that quickly. However, I’m going to be patient and give it another month or so and see how things will be doing then.

Two days after visiting my doctor in Philly I traveled to Detroit where I spent the Thanksgiving Day with my brother Constantin and visited some friends I have there. It was really nice spending some time with my younger brother after almost a year. The last time we met was when he came to visit me in Ebensburg in late January. Then I actually raced the mile invitational at the Penn State National Invite. The performance I put at that track meet brought me a sub four minute mile and high expectations for the ’08 year, which where later blown by the unexpected hip problems yet to be completely healed.

Given my current health status, the 2009 indoor season is compromised, which only leaves me with hopes for the outdoors. Training with the goal to race outdoors does not bother me at all, as long as my health is constantly good and allowing me to train towards achieving my goals. I am still restless, highly motivated, and ambitious to come back in competitive track and field. But getting there won’t come to me, instead, I believe I have to go and get it, go and reach it.

Mourning the wasted year is another waste, which I am not going to do, because I don’t usually look back to my past. All I know about ‘09 is that I wanted so badly to do well, but instead I badly did bad. Now, I am looking forward to the year 2009 and hope that it’ll bring my more satisfactions. I am looking forward to school, because I am two courses away from getting my Masters in Education from Saint Francis University this coming May. I am looking forward to coaching the following ’09 indoor and outdoor seasons. And, I am also looking forward to training for 2009 outdoor season, and maybe dare to say World Championships in Berlin this coming summer.

As I said earlier, I am currently in El Paso, TX, “the home away from home” for me. It has been a year since my last visit here, and I am always happy to return to this place. Throughout my visit in El Paso I am hosted by my good friend Dirk. As I am writing this, him and Brook are getting married in Thailand, therefore Dirk&Brook, if you read this, Congratulations!!! I’m looking forward to your reception in Phoenix in late March.

By skipping the details, so far my extended trip/holiday vacation to El Paso has been pretty pleasant and did a lot of fun things. I only wish my friend Paul Zwama did not have to cancel his trip to El Paso, because I think we would have had a great time together. But Paul is transferring from UMBC, MD, to Fresno State, CA this coming January, therefore, he had a good reason for canceling his trip. Anyway, I still have a little over a week left of spending here in EP, and quite honestly so far my roommate Hansy, a beautiful cat, and I are having a wonderful time. Speaking about cats, Brook’s sister, Bridget, has three gorgeous cats, which I’ve been taking care of over the past six days, as she and her husband, Jasper, are in Holland visiting their family for Holidays. With so many fussy cats in care I am like a feline manager.

Happy New 2009 Year!!!

P.S. I’ll try keep this blog updated more often in 2009

Sizzling winter ahead

2008-11-18T20:00:00.000-08:00

A year ago, when I started this blog, I was a healthy man in perfect conditions to practice. Now I am just half of that, “a man” , who is in the process of getting healthy. Since my last blog update (Nov 1st) it’s kind of difficult to say if things have improved, as far as rehabbing after my surgery. I dare to say that to some extent I feel a little better, but definitely not too much of a difference has taken place. The scar tissue is still persistent in the surgery’s proximity, and that continues making things rough for me when I run.

After the NEC Cross Country meet, held that Sat, Nov 1st, I flew out to Colorado and attended my friend’s wedding, Adriana. The wedding itself was really fun-I met a lot of friends from UTEP, and also a lot of Romanian people, which I mostly knew myself with. The day after the wedding I and my pal Eric went to have some fun in Denver. It was the day Miami Dolphins plaid the Denver Broncos. Therefore, we went to see the football game, which was the first NFL game I ever went to, and believe Eric’s first too. To get in the stadium we needed, of course, tickets, which we did not have when we were heading towards the stadium. Eric and I had two major problems once we arrived at the Invesco Field stadium. One issue was finding a parking place for the car, and the other was getting tickets. After circling around for a bit we found good parking without having to deal with the Tow-A-Way-Zone signs (many in the area). Next step was to find tickets, and that came fairly quick as we were approaching the stadium and some guys asked us if we need any. We negotiated the prices and got one for $20 (originally $110) and the other for $35(originally $297). All the hassle we went through was due to our lack of planning it ahead of time. The fact is, this way was much more fun and we really got a good experience out of it. Inside the stadium the excitement was high as 70,000 fans intensively lived the football game. In the end, the Dolphins won the game upsetting the majority fans. All in all, that weekend in Colorado was a good getaway for me.

My training over the last two weeks has not suffered major changes except that my runs lately have gotten from 30min, two weeks ago, to 50 min, this very week. After my runs I do my stretching and strides and than head indoors to do some core exercises and strengthening specifically for my groin. I also do some light polymetrics and admit I feel just fine with the training I do for now. The thing that I am mostly excited about is simply my runs. I feel fine running 50 minutes a day, despite coming from a three month time-off. Definitely I won’t be pushing things more than my body tells me to. Listing to my own body it’s my number one coach, dictating how much I need to do and for how long, so I’m listening to it.

My schedule for the next few weeks is pretty busy in all aspects, nevertheless that does not hold me back from not looking forward to it. On Tuesday, Nov 25th, I’ll be in Philadelphia for a doctor appointment, which I really put faith in hoping to get some good news. A positive answer from Dr. Meyers will definitely boost up my confidence and motivation, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that that will indeed happen. The following day on Wednesday I have a major exam at Statistics and after it I’m heading out to Detroit, where I’ll spend the Thanksgiving break with my brother. In between this schedule I still have to take care of my training and other attributions, mostly school work and coaching. I was recently assigned 19 SFU distance athletes to work with for the indoor and outdoor track seasons, and that means my work load will be greatly increased.

The trip to El Paso is already set up to leave Pittsburgh on Dec 7th and come back on January 7th. If there is anything I am excited about, this is it. El Paso is, as I many times stated before, my home away from home. It’s the place I have always felt embraced by, mostly because I have a bunch of friends from my time in college. But I’ll talk a little more about El Paso in my next blog as I get closer to flying out there.

The first snow that hit Western PA in late October might have been a mild sign of winter, which did not last long. However, we have been having snow falling since last Monday and temperatures have not gotten over 30F. The fact is, winter is here and won’t be leaving anywhere for the next few months, but I’m.

"Good things come slow - especially in distance running."
- Bill Dellinger, Oregon coach

Looking ahead

2008-11-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

Five weeks have passed since my surgery and hope is what best describes how every day has been like. The first two weeks following surgery did not consist of any exercises, except one mile walks and daily activities. After that I progressively transitioned into exercising, which was really light for the first four days, and more intense, “getting in shape” starting with the fifth day. Basically speaking, I started running 19 days after surgery, with ½ mile runs for the first 3 to 4 days. I also did a lot of exercises in the pool, including jogging, side slides, hip add/abd/flex/ext, scissors, etc, etc. To this day I still have some pain when I exercises, and full ROM in my groin is not quite there yet. There is still scar tissue that I need to break down, and Dr. Meyers said the best thing to get rid of it is massage and practice. In fact, the Dr. recommended to me just two days ago to engage into some all-out (full speed) sprints to really break down the scar tissue. I was a little skeptical when he told that to me, but he is the one that knows better what I need to be doing, so I’ll just do it and see what the outcomes are. On Nov 25th I’ll be going to Philadelphia to get my surgery checked up and hope to get good news then.

The fact that I’m not 100% fully rehabbed is a little of a concern to me. I feel like I have been pretty patient and followed all the steps to get healthy after my surgery. However, my rehab has progressed at a low pace for the most part, and I expressed that to the doctor. They told me that my rehab is going normal and most of the symptoms I have complained to them about were normal. The advice I got back is to keep massaging and pushing things, which is what I am doing every day (definitely lots of massage).

With running I have come to 20-25 minutes on a flat surface, and that was this past Thursday Oct 30h. After the run I engaged in six-seven 80% max speed 100m strides. This was the first time I did strides during this rehab. After the strides I did 4 sets of 10 lounges, 4 sets of 15 abs, standing hip adduction and flexion, and heal raises.

At the moment (Friday Oct 31st) I am in New Jersey for the NEC cross country conference hosted by Monmouth University. We left Saint Francis at 8am and arrived at the CC course at about 2pm, where SFU athletes did a warm up. I actually ran the full 8km men’s course with our CC guys, and was impressed with the challenge this course will give to all the athletes tomorrow. It’s definitely not a neat course at all, in fact some parts are really rough and will be really exciting to see how the athletes will hold up in the race. After my run I stretched and ran six strides before heading out to the Staybridge hotel. Dinner was provided through a banquet where all the athletes and coaches attended together and some were recognized for their athletic and academic achievements this semester.

Right after the men’s race, which is scheduled today (Nov 1) at noon, I will be rushing to catch a flight out of Newark Airport to Denver, Colorado, where I will be attending a wedding in Fort Collins the same day. My countrywoman and former UTEP teammate, Adriana Pirtea, is getting married. She is mostly known in America after her heartbreaking 2nd place finish in the Chicago Marathon in 2007, a race where she was the theoretical winner. I am really enthusiastic for her and this big step she is taking in life, and personally expect to have a good time at the wedding as many well known Romanian athletes, established in the U.S., will take part at the event.

I will be back to Ebensburg on Monday night to complete the remaining, one month of the fall semester. Few more races are left from the cross country season, and also few things to do for my three graduate classes. It feels as this semester has gone by really quick, part of it I think is because I was really busy doing all kinds of things. Life in Loretto-Ebensburg has not been too exciting, however, winter may bring enough excitement considering that we already had three to four inches of snow fall just three days ago.

My future goals, both short and long term, still remain the same, which means to get healthy. Once I am 100% rehabbed I will reveal my intention as far as training and competing. I am planning, as last year, to go to El Paso for few weeks as soon as the semester is over, but again, that depends a great deal whether or not I am good to go/healthy. As for now, I am looking forward to the NEC meet and the wedding tonight, which I intend to talk about in my next post. I am also hoping to have more positive news about my rehab that I can talk about, but I need to keep believing, hoping, and being patient.

Marquis Vauvenargues said, “Patience is the art of hoping.”

Huge barrier out of the way: Post surgery update

2008-09-26T17:58:00.000-07:00

“We will use this tube to help you breath during surgery”, says the anesthetist assisted by a nurse. By the 2nd to 3rd deep breath I was completely out and don’t remember anything except seeing the same people after the surgery which I saw before it. My surgery started, I’d estimate, at around 2:15pm and lasted between 60 to 90 min. As soon as I woke up I was taken from the surgery room to the pre-surgery room where I spent about 2 good hours. I was given a menu and was told to order something to eat because it was gonna take a while until transferred to my room. Therefore, I ordered some chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and apple juice.

After a long wait I was eventually taken to my room, which I shared with a kid from Florida named T.J who plays soccer for some high school. T.J had pretty much the same type of surgical procedure I had, and that plus soccer were good topics to talk about that evening. At about 9pm I took my first convincing walk down the hallway and met some other guys who just had the same surgery as I did. In fact, out of a dozen or so of people who had surgery that Wednesday done by Dr. Meyers, most of them were athletes; three of those including myself were track athletes. Mike DiGennaro, who runs steeplechase (PB 8:35) was one of them, and the other was Tennessee’s decathlonist Jangy Addy who took 2nd with 7916 points at the ’08 NCAA outdoors. I also heard that day that supposedly NFL New Orleans Saints’s defensive player Mark Simoneau was there too for the same kind of groin problems.

One of the funniest moments which happened that same day, but later in the evening, was when watching Jay Leno show( one of my favorite TV shows), having Dr. Phil as one of the guests. The TV show is always funny to watch so it was this time; therefore, nothing wrong yet. However, there was a huge problem when laughing at the funny moments because of the surgery, which didn’t allow any sort o pressure on the lower abdominals. As a result, I had to restrain myself from laughing, which at that point was very hard, especially watching Jay Leno.

Despite a very nice and adjustable bed, the night in the hospital felt long for me. I remember waking up at about 4am and being hungry and also tight throughout my whole body. I got up and ate 2 granola bars I had in one of my bag packs and after that took a 5-7 min walk before falling asleep till about 7:40am. I was discharged from the hospital at 11:30, then took a cab till the 30th street Amtrak/train station to get to Altoona PA at about 5pm, where some of my bodies picked me up and took me back to my house in Ebensburg.

Another interesting (somehow funny) moment happened few hours before I was discharged from Hahnemann Hospital. One of Dr. Meyers’ co. workers, who came to visit all the patients before discharge, showed up in crutches. Supposedly he injured his knee playing squash, which is a racket game played in a closed walled court with a rubber ball. I said to him with a sense of humor, “what happened to you overnight?! It seems to me that you need more help walking than I do”. Of course he started laughing and the rest is history.
Now I have already started my rehab training, which includes 1 mile walks once a day for the first 7 days. The pain is pretty annoying and present in the lower abdominal and groins, mostly bothering when trying to get up or squad-even walking is not too pleasant. Good thing is weekend and don’t have much going on, so basically I can just relax and hope that by Monday I will be much better.

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Taking advantage of expressing myself to people using this blog I want to say thank you to Dr. Meyers and his crew and their commitment and service they bring to athletics. Also want to say thank you to all my family and friends who helped and supported me through these tough times.
I will try to keep this blog updated as far as my recovery goes and hope that somewhere around 3 weeks from now I will be able to run.

“One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have is to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick”

Rabbi Harold Kushner

The Moment of Truth: Pre-surgery update

2008-09-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

It has been way over two months since my last training due to injury. Ever since then I have gone from doctor to doctor, clinic to clinic to get the best/most accurate answer regarding my groin injury. Thanks to Sandu Rebenciuc, who’s comment on my previous post on the blog led me to Dr. William Meyers (Drexel University College of Med.), a specialist in groin problems (Athletic Pubalgia).

It all started with an email to Dr. Meyers, which I sent sometime in early August and told him about my symptoms and asked if he can give me some guidance. His reply came surprisingly quick, and from that point forward I knew that I must get to his clinic in Philadelphia, where I actually find myself to be at the moment. Due to unwanted reasons, which I prefer to keep confidential, I wasn’t able to get to the U.S sooner than the 24^th of Aug; however, my first visit to Philly for an appointment was scheduled on Monday, Sept 15^th.

The first appointment with Dr. Meyers included a close check up at my injury in order to determine what type of surgery procedure is best needed in my case. He also recommended doing an MRI that day even though I had brought with me and old MRI and other scans from Romania. Thereafter I was left to call the office and decide on the next appointment and possibly surgery. Due to relatively normal delays I was finally able to schedule another appointment with Dr. Meyers on Sept 23^rd, which is basically today. This time Dr. Meyers looked at the new MRI and than personally tested both of my groins to better match the two as in one piece.

After a very long and exhausting process it all comes down to the so-called moment of truth, which is surgery intervention scheduled to take place Wednesday Sept 24^th at the Hahnemann Hospital. Dr. Meyers said that he will perform an adductor-release type of procedure, which will involve incisions on both sides (groins) of the body. I am scheduled to get to the hospital by 10:15am and be there until the morning following the surgery when I will be released home. It’s expected for me to walk for about 1 mile 24 hours following the surgery as part of my rehab protocol, which will last approximately 6 weeks full recovery period.

I have no doubt at this point for me surgery is necessary and helpful. But saying the truth here I am a little anxious about this surgery because I have never gone through anything like this before. At this time I know I need to toughen up and go there with a lot of faith because I am on good hands. My family is in Romania and my friends have things to do, so I’ll be going by myself; however, I know they will be prying for me in the end to be all right.

Patience, a virtue which I lately learned to manage, and a strong trait that I believe to have inherited since the day I was born, make me understand why I’m so eager to get healthy and start the long road to the athlete I used to be. I’m willing to make all the necessary sacrifices-I just want to get healthy, and hope God I am not asking too much.

There will be a post surgery blog update, which I hope to get it ready as soon as I get the chance. I am also planning to continue this blog, of course changing the old headings of it. But before I do that I need to see myself running again as a fact.

“Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.”

Anonymous

Road 2 Beijing failed

2008-07-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

It’s ironic to talk about Beijing as the past when the competition has not even started yet. I am currently in my home city Craiova-Romania, where I am spending my vacation until I get back to the U.S. There are a bunch of things I want to talk about in this posting since I feel I owe to many lots of explanations. I know for a fact that there used to be a good amount of guys reading this blog, most of them track fans, friends, SFU athletes, some family members, and last but not least Alina. Looking back I feel sorry, and I mean it, for not keeping my promise and updating the blog on the regular basis as I did before World Indoor Championships. There is definitely no excuse for it, therefore I won’t try to make up one. Instead, bellow I am going to talk about the most important details of what has happened since my last posting on the blog up to now 07/29/08.

After a two-week break from running which I took right after Valencia I started my preparations for the challenging goal, dream of every athlete, and unique chance, the 2008 Olympic Games hosted by Beijing-China. The last few days of March I mainly focused on easily getting back into running after the time off I took in mid March. At that time ahead of me laid the month of April, where serious training was planned to take place. To get my focus and energy specifically into running, my coach (Barbu Augustin) and a fellow of mine, a good 10k runner (Irimia Cristinel), both from Romania, arrived at my home in Ebensburg.

April was a very challenging month for me with lots of school projects, coaching/traveling with SFU team, and training for the Olympics. Unlike previous months, April carried a higher amount of stress because school and track season were coming to an end and undivided attention was necessary. Despite a demanding schedule which I was involved in, the desire of working hard and getting things done right was always a priority, a target, and nevertheless a duty. My training during that month was exactly like the weather: sometimes happy and thrilled about it and other times discouraged and disappointed by it. The main reason that kept me focused and patient with my training was that fact that I was leaving to Romania on the 7th of May. I knew that once I get home running will be my only focus, which was indeed until health problems kicked in.

Once May settle in school and most of the track season came to an end as well as my staying in the U.S. I left the country the day after my Birthday, which I mostly spent packing my stuff for going to Europe in preparations for the ’08 outdoor season. I usually don’t throw big B-day parties, but definitely did not want to spend my 26th the way I actually did. To encourage I said to myself that day: to hell with parties, Beijing is once in a life time, but my birthday is every single year. However, what was waiting for me in the next two months, because 7th of July was the date I officially knew Beijing failed, is far-off from what I expected, believed, wanted, prepared, dreamed, breathed and lived for. Let me now go ahead and tell how it all unwrapped the way it in fact did.

Injury like training, recovery, etc, is part of the game, and unfortunately this time was heavily part of my game. I feel that’s important to say that in fifteen years of running no injury has kept my back from not racing, or even worse like this year loosing a whole outdoor season, not to mention this “tiny-little” competition called Olympics. So what injury am I talking about in here? I arrived in Romania on the 8th of May, which was a Thursday. Our track&field federation scheduled an appointment for complete medical tests at NIMS, mandatory for all Beijing candidates of all sports. The National Institute of Medicine and Sports is located in Bucharest and mainly serves elite athletes of all sports in Romania. Among many things doctors check athletes for are the following: blood samples, heart monitor/check, response/measure to/of effort, etc, etc. There was one single problem I told doctors about, my left groin, which was hurting me more intensely since I arrived in the country few days prior. Most likely the pain came about after jumping the water jump not being warmed up for it. The orthopedic doctor said that the spot I was pointing at as hurting leads to inguinal hernia, however I should visit a specialist for an accurate answer. Hearing the doctor’s diagnosis did not relax me before starting my first training camp in preparation for Olympics, however I tried to stay calm and don’t get too distracted.

As soon as I finished the physicals did not hesitate and went straight to the training camp three hours away from Bucharest, a small Romanian city called Saint Gheorghe, where people mainly have Hungarian heritage. I love this training camp because twenty minutes from the hotel there’s a huge forest perfect for long runs, tempos, fartleks, etc. My expectations for a perfect training camp were shaded by terrible and deep pains I was having during every run because of my left groin. It was already the middle of May, about three weeks away from my first race of the season, having serious health problems. The first visit to the doctor to check for inguinal hernia revealed that 90% according to the doctor is not it. In the mean time ice and anti inflammatory medicine was part of the menu I was taking for pain relief, and positive results did not take long to show up. However, taking medicine/treatment without lowering the intensity of training won’t give the best results, therefore the pain decreased only until some extent. Time was passing by and the first track meet was about to take place. It was the 5th of June and due to my medical problems there was no way to compete in the steeple, so we considered the 1500m. The thing here is that my injury was amplified whenever I was trying to jump/hurdle, as a result I eliminated jumping from my training for then.

The decision for the first track meet of the season was not to compete at all, but instead run some more medical tests. I was sent to a private Clinique for an MRI, a scan which accurately reveals most of internal health problems such as of mine. The result of the MRI surfaced the following: exostosis benigna (osteochondroma-surgery needed) surrounded by a hematoma on the left pelvic girdle pointing outrward; a varicocele (surgery needed); and a muscular lesion in the left gluteus (mainly hurting when getting a massage). Basically, an exostosis is a benign (not cancerous) bony growth projecting outward from a bone surface. In my case, the exostosis has grown on the pelvic girdle and is rubbing on the iliac muscle. As a result, doctors said the best thing is surgery. Given the circumstances no matter how good I was fighting stress, pressure and challenge-I was overwhelmed by the whole situation. At that time staying positive, calm, and not responding or being affected by the hits is like faking a K.O.

Full of hope and faith, living a drama of a blind man gazing and chasing the Olympic dream, the ultimatum goal, are the ingredients almost withdrawn from a movie, which I never wanted to play. The injury needed surgery, but doctors said to postpone it
after the Olympics and for now treat it in Bucharest with medicine, time off, laser, ice and acupuncture. To keep my muscles active I was doing strength training exercises with a gym professional using own body weight and sand bags. Running during the seven to eight days of x-training was occasional and in very small quantities. The results after this period were encouraging to some extent, nevertheless the pain was still there, just sufficient to make running uncomfortable. At this point we had just passed the mid of June and there was no time to lose recovering and taking time off from running. It was a now-or-never type of situation which needed quick acting. At my request, the decision to continue training at an altitude (2000m) camp (Piatra Arsa) was taken. It was Monday the 16th of June, exactly two months before my race in Beijing. I was in horrible shape, but full of hope that I can make the impossible possible or if you want, turn the dream in reality.

First week back into training was horrible as it was the whole training camp and implicitly the whole summer. Treatment helped the pain minimize quite a bit, however physically I was completely down. The consequence of stress caused by this whole situation negatively affected my sleeping, eating, and training. During the three weeks I spent in Piatra Arsa I did my best staying positive and hoping that things will eventually turn around. I’d like to believe I used/did all I knew and was told to get healthy. As the days were passing by, the month of June was over and the last major competition, the Romanian National Championships, was getting close. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to compete in this meet either and this was the last chance to get a race in before Beijing. The Romanian federation unfairly decided July 7th to exclude my name from the list of athletes competing at the XXIX Olympiad. The decision struck me as a thunder at that time, hardly accepting the defeat after fighting and believing for so long that I could still make it to China. Helpless and embarrassed by my own luck, talent and faith, and betrayed by my own destiny, I wondered if can ever justify, forget or forgive this summer. I said to myself, “maybe I need to learn that you can’t always be happy as you will not enjoy it as you do coming from being sad”. With wounds wide open from both professional and personal defeat, I soon I came to realize that life gave me an unforgettable lesson, a test which I admit was never ready for.

The next step after knowing that Beijing was out of the question was to solve my health problems. I started taking action as soon as possible because there was no time to waist as I wanted to continue my running career regardless of what has happened. I visited several doctors in Romania and did more scans and tests to get a better clue of what is going with me. I don’t want to rush things knowing that one mistake could bring my running career to an end. Surgery is indeed an easy and fast alternative to solve the problem- however it carries some risks due to the deepness of the injury.

Note: Romanian Olympic Committee offered the track and field federation 20 spots to be filled for Beijing with athletes having the A standard only. Because our country didn’t have 20 track athletes with the A standard, they only sent 19 (18 females and 1 male).
Currently I am waiting to visit another doctor across the border in Hungary, which I hope will help me decide on the surgery and surgeon.

In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unforgettable love and an unreachable dream.
Diego Marchi

Valenica is past, Beijing is future: I only look forward

2008-03-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

It has been three weeks since my embarrassing result in the 1500m at the World Indoor Championships. I was really disappointed with my performance, and there was no reason for me to have ran that awful.

Training before Valencia went really good and the PRs in both mile and 3000m says it all. My last major work-out before going to Spain was one of the best work-outs in the last 4 years. In addition, I got to Spain early enough to get adjusted with the time change so that my performance would not be affected. As a result, I was rested and ready to go. Therefore, my confidence and trust in my own potential were really high. I was expecting a very good result, close to making if not making the finals or 3:40 to 3:41, timewise.

The day of the race: I remember I woke up at around 9am. I ate some light breakfast and went to watch for about one hour the morning session of the first day of the competition. My interest was to watch the heats of 3000m men and than leave to eat lunch and stay in bed for one-two hours before going to the arena for my race. Basically all went perfect, except the fact that my stomach was giving me some hard time since morning. At the time I thought that is normal, usually the day of the race you get really nervous. Indeed I was really nervous, but not more that I had been in the past when racing major championship races.

Once I got to the arena, which was about 2 and ½ hours prior my race, my stomach was hurting me even more, and that worried me a bit. In addition, my upper back, neck, and shoulders were really tight. I asked the team’s masseur to stretch me a bit to loosen up before I start warming up. In the same time, my lower back was hurting me really bad, almost felt like a kidneys related problem.

During my warm up run I felt a bit tired, but did not pay attention to that because most of the times it’s a fake feeling, such as the warm up before my 3:59 in the mile. After the warm up I stretched and than did some long strides, during which I felt really good. 25 min before my race I was ready to compete and many thoughts went through my mind, but none that I could race the way I actually did. I had no doubt in my mind about my potential, and did not care about the stomach and back problems I was having. I just wanted to race, which I did, and I did it poorly, not to say it embarrassing or/and discouraging for my future.

After the race I felt hard broken, I felt betrayed by my own body, which was in great deal of pain, like I had just finished running the marathon. I was in the locker room for about 15 minutes trying to find an answer to what had just happened. I was in a position I wish no one will ever be. I was helplessly trying to motivate myself and saying, “you have to start off all over again”, “You are a winner not a quitter. Winners never quit, quitters, never win”. It was too late for me to change anything; the journey of my indoor season had ended sadly. There was not time to look back, it was time to look forward to outdoors.

Later that evening I went to see the team’s doctor to get some treatment for my lower back pain. She gave me a shot so that the pain would go away faster. That evening I did not eat any food, I had no appetite. Even in the morning was really hard for me to eat something. Nothing, but in a way everything matter for me at that time. I was seriously thinking and trying to understand why I was feeling and going through all these pains at once. Where has this vulnerability come upon me from, and why now? I could not find an answer. And rather than finding an answer to my myself, I had to justify my result to the Romanian officials, which were really worried with my result 5 months before the Olympics.

In the end I was happy I left Spain and a 4 star hotel that put me to pay $170 for a load of laundry. This indeed happened to me, who did not ask the charges for laundry. Now that I know it won’t happen again, but until then my $170s are gone.

The first two weeks and few days after Valencia I took time off from running. My girlfriend came to visit me for about 10 days and spent a lot of time with her. The Easter weekend I spend in New York visiting the city and relaxing before resuming training for outdoors.

In the next posting, which will be soon, I will talk about my future plans for outdoors: my first race, my training camps, my training, etc.

Valencia, Spain

2008-03-04T05:17:00.000-08:00

One would never appreciate good things if they never experienced the bad ones. Friday, one hour before noon as I was getting closer to Pittsburgh International Airport, a major snow storm hit the city and the whole PA, implicitly. This was going to be by far the worse snow storm we’ve had this winter, where up to 15in of snow were indeed predicted to accumulate at higher altitudes, which is the case of SFU, Loretto-Ebensburg area.

My flight was scheduled to leave PIT and go to JFK at 1:25pm. As I was checking in with my carrier I asked the ticketing agent if my flight was gonna be delayed due to severe weather conditions, mainly snow. A very confident statement was given saying that, “right now all flights are on time and shouldn’t be a problem to get out”. The answer only satisfied me partially because I honestly didn’t believe it. Part of my reluctance has strong reasons, which I am not too happy disclosing, that go back a year while I was in El Paso. At that time I was trying to get to Birmingham for the European Indoors Champs and instead of getting to Birmingham 4 days before the race, I only got there two days prior, and the whole experience from start to the end went awful. However, this time I was much luckier, at least as far as getting to Valencia, and I will talk about it next.

Finally I was out of PIT and on my way to JFK following a 30 min delay, which is not that big of a deal if you think about. As many people may know, JFK is a totally different airport than most others. Two things that best describe the atmosphere at JFK are lots of people, and not too organized. However, my flight to Paris left at approximately the time it was supposed to, so no problems with that. We touched ground in Paris at around 5:00am local time, following a seven hour flight, which indeed wasn’t too bad. During the flight I had not slept a minute, which worried me because I knew that is going to be tough on me for the rest of the Saturday.

A lay over of more than five hours was the time I had to endure in Charles du Gaulle Airport until getting up on my next flight to Valencia. Terrible and hard-to-explain feelings of sleepiness had hit me in Paris, where most of the time I spent was waiting for my carrier to open the checking-in counter (2h prior flight). Airports in Europe have separate checking counters for every single flight, unlike U.S. Airports where you can check in at any time if you fly with American for instance, whether is one or 6 hours prior flight.
I finally checked in and got up to the gate where there was so much chaos and so many confused people. My flight to Valencia was delayed for about 30 minutes, but interesting the Airliner didn’t inform us that, so people like me were waiting there helplessly. Once we embarked in the aircraft I crashed into a dip 60 min sleep, since it was impossible to stay awake any further.
Before landing in Valencia I could almost feel the warmness of the sun and beautiful weather. In a way I expected to find such nice climate because I checked the weather before leaving my house. Despite being exhausted, weather in Spain made me feel the happiest guy alive. Just imagine how anyone would feel leaving snow and 10-14F behind and 24 hours later enjoy 70s, no wind, and clear sky.
From the airport I was taken straight to the Hotel by one of the competition officials, who told me that there was another athlete from the U.S. team that was supposed to come at the same time with me, but seemed he might’ve missed the flight. After getting my room and settle down for a bit I went to eat something and enjoy the weather. Few hours later I went for a jog, even though I felt like I was going to pass out any moment due to not sleeping. The rule of thumb when trying to make up a deficit of 5-7 hours is to stay awake as much as possible until 9-10pm. Many say that is easier to adapt and deal with jet lag when going from Europe to U.S. than vice-versa. Why? Two reasons I see: 1. Most of the times flights leaving Europe to U.S. get there in the afternoon, whereas morning when they reach Europe, which means less hours to endure until going to sleep; 2. It’s easier to sleep longer while for instance is 10pm in the U.S. because it means one goes to sleep while in Europe is 4-5am. On the other hand, going to sleep at 10pm in Europe means 2-3pm in the U.S.
I have to admit that after three nights I’m very thankful to have slept quite more than I expected and hope to continue doing that. It seems that the efforts of staying awake throughout the whole Saturday so far paid off well. In addition, to aid my night sleep I bought from Dollar General some medicine called Melatonin, which has the purpose to put you to sleep and better cope with jet lag.

Training for the past three days has been going good enough. All of my training sessions have been done in a small park right next to Hilton. Saturday, the day I got in Valencia, I went for a 30 min jog followed by six strides w/jogging in between followed by stretching. On Sunday I went a 40 min run together with 6 consecutive strides with jog in between all. Monday, March 4th 2008 I ran for 50 minutes and did plyomterics and stretching after. Today, I will be going for another run and strides in the park.

So far I haven’t met any athletes competing at this world indoors, but also haven’t been to the track yet either. Most of the European teams don’t come until one or two days before the competition starts. My team is scheduled to come in Valencia tomorrow (Wed), and I am pretty excited to meet them. Until then, I am enjoying the pretty weather here in Valencia and relax as much as possible. Being here reminds me of being home, because the lifestyle here is similar with what we have in Romania. In fact, there’s a big community of Romanians that live throughout Spain, and just by walking outside I could recognize and hear people talking in Romanian.

One of the things that surprised me here in Valencia, besides the fact that the Banks close at 2pm, are fire works, common for new years, which here are blasted by teenagers at all corners, especially in the evenings. First night I thought that there’s a special day to celebrate or so, but three days later I figured that’s not the case. In the mean time, kids are having fun with it and I am still confused of why they let them fire such things since are so dangerous.

Next post, with more details about the race on Friday, coming soon!

Travel to Spain

2008-02-28T15:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow (Friday) I will be leaving to Valencia, Spain for the 12^th IAAF World indoor Championships in Athletics. For this particular competition I will be competing in the 1500m, an event scheduled to take place on Friday, March 7^th. Before going any further, I will talk about my last days of training, following my last post on the blog which was last Thursday when I had that indoor work-out at Penn State Univ.

Friday 02/22/08 I only did a light 45 min run to loosen up after the crazy 400m reps work-out. After the run I did my usual session of stretching and few push ups. During the run I was a little tired but not as much as I thought I would be, which was really encouraging.

The following day I went for a longer run (67min). Weather in Ebensburg on Sat was bad, so the only place for a run was on the roads. Winter in Loretto-Ebensburg is still in its teens and signs of spring are very far off. As far as training for Sunday, I decided to take the day off and stay warm inside.

For my Monday run I used a new road, one that I haven’t yet used, still hilly but exciting indeed. I went a little over 60 min and concluded with some playometrics. As before, I arranged seven hurdles I a row and did 12 jumps over them. After the playos I stretched well and concluded the training session for the day.

Tuesday was time for a tempo run, and the place to do it was nowhere but on the hilly road. Following 40 minutes of running at decent pace I started a 15 min tempo run and 10 min cool down. I have to say that I did not feel great running on the hills again. I know for a fact that running on the hills makes you stronger, but too many hills can have adverse reactions. With this said, I need to start avoiding hills from now on since I am not hungry for them anymore.

Together with one digit temperatures, more snow was on the way on top of the one that has accumulated over the past 10 day. Therefore, Wednesday and Thursday I had to run inside on the 160m tiny track we have here. Wed I ran for 40 min and today I ran for 45 min and did 3 sets of 20 push-ups after followed by my usual stretching session. My next training will be in Valencia, where according to the weather high 60s-low70s are waiting there for me. This trip will be in a way my real Spring Break, one week after SFU’s official.

Updating the blog with some insight information about my trip in Spain will be much determined of whether I will have internet connection or not. If Si, than I will definitely keep things up to date from over the ocean, where the biggest competition in track and field before Olympics is taking place.

Competing in the 1500m is probably the most exciting thing for me, and it wasn’t one of my plans to do so when I started to get ready for this World Championships. My aim has always been the 3000m and I still believe that I am better prepared for it than I am for the 1500m. If I could have had another shot to a good 3km within the last 3-4 weeks I believe that I would have made it in the 3k. Part of the fault is mine, but the other part is the fact that I had a bunch of duties here at SFU and couldn’t go to all the races I wanted (i.e. Mayo Invite), which was in the same time with out conference meet.

Major indoor work out

2008-02-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

An indoor work-out is always a positive experience, especially if you rarely have access to an indoor facility. With two weeks before world indoor championships I had to use an indoor facility for a major work-out. From SFU, the closest indoor facility to run on is the Penn State indoor track, the track that hosts Penn State National Invite meet. Before using the facility, I needed to ask the people in charge there if I can actually use the track, as well as the hours I could use it at. After getting the approval form coach Beth Alford, the track head coach, it was set that I can come and use the track after 5:30pm.

For this particular work out I took one of my athletes (Jonathan) to help me out with. The work out consisted of 2×8×400m with 1 min jog in between the 400s, and 3 min jog in between the 2 sets. Jonathan did an awesome job throughout the entire training by picking me up in the last 200m. The following are the times I recorded in the first set: 63”2, 63”6, 62”3, 62”4, 62”2, 62”3, 62”4, 62”2 (3:00 break), second set: 62”2, 61”5, 61”4, 61”0, 61”6, 61”4, 61”2, 60”6. This was a 90% effort work out for me, on a flat, 200m track. I cooled down for 10-12 min and did my usual stretching after the work-out and than drove back to SFU.

Yesterday (Wed), prior this work-out, I ran for one hour using one of the roads that connects SFU with the rest of areas around it. Tuesday, the day before, I took the day off since I had an important assignment due and needed to work on. Sometimes, I have to put school as my no.1 priority, before training and/or coaching.

As far as today’s indoor work-out, I have nothing to say but be happy with the way it went. Also, I want to say a sincere thank you to people that allowed me to use the track, because this training wouldn’t have been possible outdoors since temperature was 20F.

2008 Tyson Invitational...

2008-02-18T19:46:00.000-08:00

...was a complete disappointment for me. Much of it has to do with the fact that there was no competition in the 3000m. I invested time and money for a 7:59.03, which I could have ran at any other decent meet and not having to go all the way to Arkansas. Even though I won the race and set a Personal Record, I left Arkansas with a bitter feeling of an unsatisfactory performance, which will send me to world indoors in the 1500m instead of 3000m. Now the next challenge is World indoors series scheduled to take place 7th through 9^th of March in Valencia, ESP. I am balancing my chances for the 1500m and know that I am an underdog competing in such a challenging event at the world indoor series. Regardless of my chances, I will put my best abilities, talent and competition ethics once I’ll step on the track.

Every race I race I want to compete the field is in it. I only look at my time after finishing the race because I don’t race the clock. I never use a stop watch when racing because again, I first care about the position I finish and then the time I ran.

Sunday I spent the whole day traveling. Initially, I was scheduled to leave Fayetteville at 5:40am but due to bad weather the flight was canceled. American called me to confirm that and I was set up to leave with an 8:20am flight through Dallas, which that did not work either since the flight was delayed. I ended up leaving one hour after noon, this time through Chicago, and finally got to Pittsburgh late Sunday evening and home at about 9:00pm. Since Sunday was compromised with travelling, I did not run at all to loosen up from the race. Today (Monday) I ran for 40 minutes and did my usual stretching after together with 3 sets of 20 push-ups. I was really sore from the race, especially my calves and hamstrings from wearing spikes.

3000m: Favorite event

2008-02-14T18:12:00.000-08:00

Tyson invitational, hosted by the University of Arkansas, is taking place this weekend. I will be competing in the 3000m, invite section, scheduled to take place Saturday afternoon at 3:40pm CT. I am very enthusiastic about racing my favorite indoor event, a race that I have been training for over 3 months now.

I will be leaving towards Fayetteville tomorrow (Fri) morning and getting there late evening, which most likely means that I won’t be able to see much of the invite races scheduled that evening.

As far as training, the past few days have been pretty chaotic, mostly due to weather conditions. Tuesday I ran for 60 min using the 170 yard indoor track we have at SFU. It wasn’t a fun run since the track is so small and curves are really tight, which considerably limit your speed. Wednesday I was able to run for 12 miles, which wasn’t planned, on the challenging roads around this area. My plan was to do some repeats for that day, but because it was really cold and windy, I decided that a run is better instead. I usually don’t run close to 12 mile long run in the week of a big meet, but this week I did it, and still don’t know why. As for today (TR), I ran for about 40-45 minutes and did 6×200m progressive strides at “the mall”, because track was covered with snow.

I am really looking forward to this coming meet and hope the outcomes will please me. I have high goals that I want to accomplish and I will do my best to make them happening.

NEC

2008-02-11T19:01:00.000-08:00

SFU is part of North East Conference, which was hosted this past weekend in Landover, MD. For most the schools, athletes, coaches, etc, the conference meet is probably the most important meet of the year. Conference is the meet where usually people run as many as 3-4 events, do ice baths, count every point, etc. I pleasantly remember my conference meets as a UTEP runner, where I had to run 3 events whether was indoor or outdoor.

The past couple of days I have done a lot of recovery runs starting with Thursday the 7^th where I ran 60 minutes easy on the football field at SFU. The following day I was only able to run 30 minutes since we spend that day traveling at NEC, which involved meeting after meeting, and so forth. Saturday I was able to run 40-45 minutes late in the evening, after the 1^st day of NEC was over. I wanted to run that day, not just to keep my shape, but also because I wanted to relax my mind after a stressful day spent in the arena.

We got back from NEC late Sunday evening after a successful day with some good individual performances. As far as my training, I took the day off form running because I wanted to focus more on my duties as a coach at this particular meet. However, I promised myself that this week I will try to focus more on myself since I have a big race coming up this Saturday.

Today (Mon 02/11/08), I did a long run over 11 miles going away from SFU and back, the second part being more challenging because it involved more uphill. After the run I did my stretching session followed by 2 sets of 35 and 40 push ups. The run went well, except that outside was no more than 14F, which explained why it took me a while to warm up. In fact I felt much better after 40 minutes of running and was on my way back to SFU ruining on the challenging hills that surround this countryside.

Weather, the 2^nd most common subject in this blog hit our area again. Last night temperature dropped a few degrees bellow 0, which was a big change compared to the place we had left behind, Washington D.C.

Track work out: Finally possible

2008-02-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

Most of my past weekends have been really busy, and the very last one was no different. As I said on my last post, one of my top recruits flew in Saturday with his family to visit our University. Since their flight did not get to Pittsburgh until 2pm, I found some time in the morning to do a 35 min light jog indoors on the very tiny track we have, before heading out towards Pittsburgh.

After an exhausting weekend which included two round trips between Ebensburg and Pittsburgh, I was finally home with one hour before the start of the Super Bowl XLII. As soon as I got home I went for a 70 min run, even though outside was dark and roads were slippery. The run went good and did not feel as tired as I though I would be. I would say that my pace was good enough throughout the whole run, even though can’t accurately say how fast I was running. The fact that I was running on the hills that surround this area is already tough regardless of my pace. After the run I did my 15 min stretching session and also 2 sets of 35 push ups.

The Giants won the Super Bowl as the underdog coming in this year biggest event in sports. Even though I did not have a favorite team to cheer for, I was hoping the NY Giants would make a surprise and defeat the Patriots, which in the end they did. It was a fun game to watch and nevertheless a game that will be remembered, and I assume we all know why.

Training for Monday consisted of 11 mile long run. I started from school and followed one of the roads that connect SFU with other places around here. The first half of the run was mainly downhill as I was descending couple of hundreds of feet. I was quite sore after the run and did an extended session of stretching to prepare myself for the work-out that day after. So far, except my short and sweet run on Saturday, all the other long runs or work-outs have been pretty intense, which explains why I was a little sore.

Yesterday, Tuesday 02/06/07, I had my first track work-out after the 1000s repeats, which I did about a month ago. The work-out consisted of 3×5×400m with 1 min jog in between and 3 min recovery jog in between the sets. Track was partially cleared of snow, except the first 3-4 lanes, which still had snow left because they dumped it there after clearing the turf. There was no problem because for 400s I could use any lane I wanted.

Initially, I was supposed to do the work out sometime before noon but because it rained throughout the whole morning I had to postpone it to a later time that day, which most likely was going to be later in the evening after finishing the training I had with my athletes. Eventually I started warming up at around 5:50pm, while outside was really cloudy and rain seemed to kick in at any moment. Temperature at the time of the work-out was about 50F, which was really good since I could use shorts. Rain settled in after my first set and did not stop before I was done with my training. Despite that, I managed to finish the whole work-out, also forced because I knew that it may be the last time I will step on the track before running Tyson invite in 10 days. Good weather here won’t last very long.

The following are the times I recorded for the 15 by 400m: 70”0, 66”3, 64”8, 65”7, 64”7, 65”0, 64”2, 64”3, 64”5, 64”6, 64”4, 64”1, 64”6, 64”4, 64”0. This was a 75% effort work-out. Cool down 12-14 min and 20 min stretching was done after.

Today (Wed), I took advantage of this warm weather, which melted almost all the snow, and ran 11.5 miles on Ebensburg Trail. Most of my miles where under 6 min pace, with the last mile a little even faster. After the run I could feel the fatigue that has accumulated over time. It mainly comes from all the long runs and hills I have been doing in the last couple of weeks, and it’s time to back off a little if I want to perform well on the 16^th.

Later in the evening I jumped in the ice bath to get some recovery I needed. I will do the same thing for tomorrow.

Patience paid of in the end

2008-02-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

As predicted by the weather experts, today was really nasty outside. Rainfall turned into ice as soon as it hit the ground creating a massive mess around the entire area. Roads were hardly accessible until noon, which made school officials delay the startup of all morning classes here at SFU.

As soon as I woke up in the morning I was really stressed out because I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do much, in terms of training. My plans for doing a tempo work-out at “the mall area” helped by someone biking in front of me were blown away by this crappy weather. There was nothing I could do except wait for a miracle, which was unlikely to happen. Around 3-4pm, while I was in school, I thought about the idea of running from Loretto to Cresson and back. In the mean time icy-rain had turned into light snow, which made me believe that I may be able to do something on the road. Suddenly I told myself that I could actually give it a try, even though I assumed that the Cresson road may still be difficult to use, and in the same time dangerous.

At 4:25pm I was out the door trying to get some training going on geared up with tights, hat, gloves and a light rain jacket on. Surprisingly, the road was not too bad, except some parts of it and the challenge of paying attention to cars passing by. It took me 30:31 to get from Loretto to Cresson(4.7M) at a cruising pace, and hammered the last 4.7 miles on my way back from Cresson in a time of 24:56, which is 45 sec faster that what I ran 2-3 weeks ago. Together with cool down I ran a total of 64 min and stretched well after to complete the whole training session for the day.

In terms of training, today it could not’ve turned out better than it did. Until 2pm I honestly didn’t think I was going to do more than a light run or maybe not even than, but in the end things came along just fine.

Tomorrow I will have to be at the Pittsburgh Airport to pick up one of my top recruits, who’s coming to visit SFU together with his family. This means that I may not have time to do more than just a light run.

Next target: one opportunity

2008-01-31T16:45:00.000-08:00

There has been a major change produced in my racing schedule. Ever since I started training for the 2008 indoor season I had in mind racing PSNI and than going to Notre Dame University for the Meyo Invite, where I was planning to run the 3k. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to race at Mayo because that weekend I’ll be travelling with SFU track team for our conference meet (NEC), which is scheduled earlier than the other conferences are. Therefore, I needed to adjust my schedule and find other competition where I could compete in my favorite event (the 3k). Tyson Invite, hosted by the University of Arkansas, is scheduled to take place the weekend of 15^th-16^th of Feb, and I will be running the 3km there. The only problem with this meet is the fact that I do not know whether I will be running the invite race or not.

Training for the last couple of days has gone pretty good. Monday, Feb 28,I went for a 60 minute long run. I used one of the roads that connects SFU with other small places around the area. This one road as most of them here is very hill and challenging. I started from SFU and went 30 min one way and turned around to finish a complete hour of running at a decent pace. After the run I stretched good as I usually do and did 2 sets of 40 push-ups.

The hardest work out so far this week was scheduled for Tuesday and consisted of hill repeats. It happened to rain that day, which made me think whether I should run or not. In the end I took the risk and still did the training, which was really long indeed. Before the hill work-out I ran for 60 minute continuously. I started from SFU track, where I had parked my car, and went 30 min towards Ebensburg and 30 min back to SFU. As soon as I finished the run I changed everything I was wearing and put on dry clothes and shoes. I continued my training with 10×500m hill repeats. For this particular work-out I used the hill which is located right by the track and field stadium. I was lucky that rain stopped while I was doing the long hill repeats. Without measuring the hill, it looked like it was about 400m long, but I changed my thought right after timing the first one. I felt good working that hill 10 times and put a great deal of effort throughout. Stretching well after a training like this was necessary because my muscles got really tight, and needed to loosen up a bit.

The rain and warmer temperatures (mid thirty) we have had lately here melted a good percentage of snow, but track still had some snow on it so could not be used yet. Yesterday (Wed) was a much easier day for me which consisted of 60 minutes of easy jogging on the football turf. After the run I arranged 10 hurdles as I usually do and did 10 sets of 10 plyometrics over them. I love this exercise because it worx a great deal of important muscles.

Today I went for a 12 mile long run at a good pace. At first I wanted to use the Ebensburg trail, but unfortunately snow still holds tight throughout the trail. I was forced to redirect my run someplace else, and I chose to go from Ebensburg towards Loretto using a back road. After my run I did my usual stretching exercises and did some push ups (2×40).

There is one more fast training scheduled for this week, which will most likely take place tomorrow (Fri) if weather is ok. I just checked to see what the weather is predicted to be like tomorrow and seems that I may not have too much luck (Ice to Rain/ Wind-High: 38°Low: 24°).

Results

2008-01-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

Men 1 Mile Run Inv================================================================ PSU Record: * 4:02.30 1972 Greg Fredericks Facility Rec: F 3:59.39 2007 Matt Lincoln, Unattached Meet Record: M 3:59.39 2007 Matt Lincoln, Unattached NCAA Auto: A 3:59.50 NCAA Prov: P 4:04.00 Name Year School Finals ================================================================ 1 Bogdan, Mircea U N A 3:59.15F
2 Bair, Sam SR Pittsburgh 4:00.16*
3 Lincoln, Matt U N A 4:00.60*
4 Borchers, Sam FR Penn State 4:01.98*
5 Fuller, Brian SR Penn State 4:06.34
6 Slosky, Tom SR Duquesne 4:08.82
7 Heath, Kyle SR Syracuse 4:08.96
8 Miller, Levi SO Georgetown 4:09.46
9 Cummings, Chris SR Mansfield 4:09.80
10 Grosscup, Neil SR Georgetown 4:09.89
11 Campbell, Wallace SR Bucknell 4:10.00
12 Biladeau, Andy SO Virginia 4:10.09
13 Fleming, Eric SR Pittsburgh 4:10.25
14 Giza, Daniel SR Buffalo 4:11.30
15 Johnson, Tim JR Penn State 4:11.38
16 Foster, Ryan SR Virginia 4:11.46
17 Mickowski, John SR Army 4:12.50
18 Mason, Alex SO Georgetown 4:12.82
19 Kincaid, Yarrick SR Tennessee 4:20.02
-- Kozy, Benjamin SR Navy DNF

2008 Penn State National Invite

2008-01-27T19:41:00.000-08:00

This weekend, as many track and field fans already know, the PSNI took place. This was the first time for me competing in the Olympic year, and was really exiting. I won’t hide the fact that I was pretty anxious prior the mile, but that’s how I am all the time. Before going any further with details, let me talk about training the last two days before the race.

Thursday I ran for about 55 min on the road because that’s the only place I could use. Outside was a typical day, one that I have gotten used to lately, and which seems to still be around for a while. During the run I had a nice company: snow showers, slippery roads and the good old wind chill.

I left SFU the day before the race, since some of our athletes competed that Friday evening. Training the day before the race consisted of 45 min of running and 6 strides, everything was done on the road close to the hotel. After a stressful Friday evening, where I was taking care of duties pertaining to coaching, it was finally time to take care of my race on Saturday.

Warming up for the race itself was the hardest thing ever. During my 25 min warm up run I din not feel well at all. I felt like my body had no strength, I felt weak, but not tired. I was constantly telling myself that I need to wake the f**k up if I want to survive at that pace I knew the race will go out in. 20 min before the race I told my brother, who came to support me for the race, that I feel like s**t. But I say this right now, “it don’t matter s**t how you feel in the warm up”.

One thing that pleasantly surprised me before and during the race was the environment created by the people attending the meet. It was something you don’t see at every track meet, and I really enjoyed it. This kind of audience wanted to see a sub 4 min mile, which had happened in the past, and I am more than happy it was me winning the race in 3:59.15, against top level athletes. I would love to come and race here again.

We left State College about one hour after the race. Even though was really late, I wanted to get 30-35 min of running, to release out some of the tension I had accumulated in my body after racing the mile. Indeed, I ran for 35 min, pretty late (7:30pm), and did some stretching after. It sucks b***s to come home and don’t have a place to do a jog besides a slippery road covered with snow.

Today (Sunday) I ran in the afternoon for about 50 min, in the same s***y weather conditions. I was kind of tired during the run, but I will be fine.

Becoming innovative

2008-01-23T20:01:00.000-08:00

My last work out before racing the mile on Saturday afternoon was done today. Since SFU track was covered with snow that has accumulated over the last 10 days or so, the only options were to run on the roads or use “The Mall”. The roads here are ok, but it’s difficult to find a place on any of the roads near by with a 300m flat portion. The best alternative was to use “the mall”, which is a place in the middle of SFU campus, where there is an actual 300m flat part. The challenge with running in the middle of the campus, where all SFU buildings are, is the fact that there are students everywhere, especially at 12am when I ran. I took the last option, which was running at this place know as “the mall”. Funny thing was to by pass people running at decent speed and almost guessing what some of them may say about me. Some students thought I’m crazy or that I don’t have anything else to do but to run under freezing temperatures.

After an extended warm-up of about 28-30 minutes of running off campus, I went and did 10×300m with about 1min of jogging in between. Since outside was really cold (25F) and windy, I did not care about the time I was running the 300s. My only need was to role my legs at a comfortable pace on a dry ground. Ideally, would’ve been good to use spikes and a track to get a good felling of running, but that was not possible here. As I said above, SFU track has few in. of snow, which never gets cleared unless it naturally melts. The track is relatively built new, which means it is under warranty. No body is allowed to use any sort of objects to clear the track of snow because they may damage it, which may lead to lose of warranty. This whole thing makes me really pissed because we could really make use of the track, and this means all track athletes we have here. Even one lane would be good enough to do something.

Competition at Penn State national invite is running Fri and Sat. Our team will split this weekend; most of the athletes will be going to compete at Lewisburg, while a small % is going at Penn. This means that this weekend I will not just compete but also be in charge of some people from our team that will be competing there. I am looking forward to make the transition from wearing a polo shirt, with SFU inscription on it, to spikes and singlet. It will be a quick transition; therefore I should start preparing from now.

4 days left...

2008-01-22T19:30:00.001-08:00

…until my first race of 2008 and in the last 3 months. As I have said few times during this blog, Saturday I will be racing the mile at the Penn State National Invitational. The filed should be pretty fast this year as it was last year as well with athletes that will want to break the 4:00 barrier.

At the moment I am recovering from a cold, which troubled me very much in the weekend. The cold struck me Friday after I completed my 12 Mile long run from Ebensburg to Loretto and back. During the run I felt pretty good, 39:50 to Loretto and 37:12 back to Ebensburg. The major problem was the powerful wind in my way back from Loretto, which probably aggravated the cold symptoms and the cold itself.

Saturday 01/19/08 I traveled again with SFU team at Lewisburg PA for an indoor meet. The cold I had made it awful for me to enjoy being there, but I still managed to take care of my duties. I did not do any running that Saturday and Sunday, just so that I would get rid of the cold ASAP. As I am writing this now (Tuesday 10:00pm) I am feeling much better and seems that the cold is gone, which pleases me a lot as the race on Saturday is getting close.

Yesterday (Monday) I only did 45 min of easy jogging on a very small track we have here at SFU. After the run I stretched well and did two sets of 40 push-ups. As far as today, I ran from Loretto to Cresson and back, total of 9.4 Miles at a decent pace, and felt o.k. On my way back it started snowing and continued like that throughout most of the day. It’s very hard to get good training done up here because weather does not give us that option. To continue with weather, this past weekend we had the coldest temperatures for this winter. Saturday and Sunday temperature dropped as low as 1F, which felt even colder as wind was blowing. Therefore, a quality work-out is hard to be done since snow and low temperatures limit out alternatives. Having all this said, I do whatever I can to stay in shape and focus for the races ahead.

I am looking forward to this coming weekend and know that the race on Saturday will be very challenging. I know that it’s a very fast race to open the season with, but I also know that my goals are World Indoors Champs, in March. I believe in me because if I don’t, no one else will.

Challenging enough: Because I love the sport

2008-01-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

The road to Beijing” has not stopped as some people may have wondered. I have been really busy with school, coaching and training, but this blog will go on until August ‘08. There may be times, such as now, when I can’t post my training every single day, but I will make sure not to miss a day whenever I post.

Saturday 01/12/08, the day after that 6 by 1000m track work-out, I traveled with the SFU team at Philadelphia, PA for an indoor meet (Penn Sate Relays). I managed to do a 67 minute long run on the University’s golf course, same place Penn State Nats CC yearly takes place. During the run I felt pretty good, which pleased me because I was expecting to feel a bit tired, especially after doing that work-out the day before and because I slept less that night having to wake up early to travel.

Being a coach is a different world with a different taste. As soon as 2007 CC ended I was in charge coaching 9 of SFU distance athletes. I decided that two females and one male form my group will compete at Penn State Relays in the 3k. During the meet I was really nervous waiting for their events to come and see the outcomes. I have to say that it’s an interesting experience and a different type of excitement and anxiousness being a coach compared to when you are an athlete. I live for every second and 1000 thoughts cross my mind at once. This was the perfect description of a guy whose hands shook timing splits while HR was close to his P.R. in the steeple.

Sunday 01/13/08 I went for a 12 mile long run on the Ebensburg trail. Once again, it was a good day for me, a relief, which came after a stressful day. Looking at the weather forecast, I knew that this Sunday was the last day with no snow and good-grip type of run.

I kept it nice, easy and short for Monday 01/14/08, with only 50 min of easy jogging, while outside where 3-4 in. of snow, because winter has come strong again and seems it will least long on these plains.

A light repetitions work out was scheduled for Tuesday 01/15/08. Since weather outside was exhibiting its worse side, I decided to do 3×5×400m with I min jog in between and 3 min between sets. That very same day my athletes did a work-out and was difficult to find a place to run while outside kept snowing. Somewhere in the middle of SFU there is a flat portion built of bricks, which I decided was good for a work-out. I went out with the measuring wheel and drew the distances that I was interested in. During the work out more snow was falling as we were progressing with is, which made it very hard to run. We got the effort, and that’s what it matters most.

The 400s did not go bad, especially on this s***y type of weather, slippery, windy, cold, etc. My average was somewhere around 73 seconds, but time was not something I cared that particular day. During the work-out I don’t think I reached 70% of my potential. The first 2 sets I was pacing for Dave H., one of my athletes, since he did not have anybody that day to work out with. This was one of the very few times running with SFU athletes.

Wednesday 11/16/08 was the main day of the week in terms of training. Between Loretto and Cresson Pa, the distance is 9.4 Miles. I took it somehow easy on my way to Cresson (31:30), and badly hammered Cresson-Loretto (aprox.4.7M) in 25:40. Last and only time I did this exact run was 12/08/07 when I ran from Cresson to Loretto in 29:20. I can’t be more satisfied with the way I responded for this work-out. It tells me a lot about my shape and gives me enough confidence for future.

As for today 01/17/08, I only did 60 easy minutes on SFU track stacked with 4-5 in of snow, while outside continued snowing throughout the whole day.

Looking ahead, I see a big challenge fighting with the harsh weather climate in this part of the country. I have a little over a week until my opening meet, and I am starting to feel the spirit of competing again.

Major track work out

2008-01-11T16:08:00.000-08:00

After struggling in practice for the entire week, today I did a work-out and see where I really am, shape wise meaning. But before talking about the work-out I just did this Friday afternoon, I will talk about how my past 3 days of training have been.

Ever since this past Monday my body has felt pretty weak in training. Most likely this fatigue is the consequence of the tough work-outs and training I had done for 4 full weeks in El Paso, TX. To be honest, I knew since Sunday when I left El Paso that I will have to take it easy for the next couple of days to recover. It has been over two months of pretty intense training for me and was time this week to slow down and get couple of easy days.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, training consisted of 55, 62 and 67 easy minutes respectively, all done on Ebensburg Trail. I couldn’t ignore my body being tired, so I took it easy to recharge and than start pushing hard again.

I was hoping that today, Friday, I would have good weather suitable for a good track work out, but luck wasn’t by my side. At the time of the work-out weather in Loretto PA was really windy, rainy and cold. The good thing is that I had Andy Brown with me to help me. Andy brought his bicycle to help set the pace for the 6×1000m with 2 min jog in between. Since cycling is not allowed on the track, Andy was asked to leave the track while we were going into the last lap of the 2nd 1k. I did the 3rd 1k entirely by myself and got Andy helping me only the last 300m of the 4th because the SFU Police came and asked him to stop cycling on the track. Andy stepped on the track to help me finish the last 2 repetitions of my work-out, which was a risk I took. Police came again for the second time, got our names, and made a big deal out of the situation.

The following are the times I recorded for my 6 by 1000m with 2 min jog in between: 2’48”8; 2’45”0; 2’47”5; 2’47”2; 2’42”5; 2’48”5. For the first 4 I had my tights on and removed them for the last 2. I am still pissed that we got distracted by those guys, who didn’t let Andy cycle on the track. The work out would have been a little better I think if helped entirely at all 6 reps. After the work out my calves were really sore so I tried to get some good stretching after 15 min of cooling down.

Tomorrow will be a very long day because we are traveling to compete at Penn State relays. I will try to get 60 easy minutes of running as soon as we get there so that after I can take care of my G.A. duties.

Better later than never

2008-01-07T19:57:00.000-08:00

Being busy kept me away from posting my training for the past couple of days on the blog. But before anything else, I need to say that I am back in PA, which means back to work, school, and last but not least, continuing training for indoors. I left El Paso Sunday very early in the morning at 6:00am and arrived in Pittsburgh at 2:00pm. My friend Steph Marcon, the head coach for women Lacrosse team picked me up from the airport. I got home around 4:30pm, very tired and with a lot of things to do in my mind. I took the Sunday off from running.

Last Friday still in EP I only did 60 easy minutes with my friend Bashar. After the run I did some good plyometrics training consisting of 10×10 jumping over the hurdles. It’s still one of my favorite strength training and one of the most efficient I have found for me.

My last fast training in El Paso took place last Saturday in the morning. Only me and Dirk came at the Canals for a long tempo run, which made me really mad at some of the Kenyans since they promised they will come as well. After 15 min of warming up and stretching, we did a 13.3km (8.2Miles) tempo run. We basically ran what we call the “short loop”. On a beautiful day in EP wearing a t-shirt, tights and training shoes, I ran the loop in 43:50. It wasn’t the time that satisfied me, but it’s not a bad pace to end up the training camp. After a very heavy week Dirk did the best he could running with me side by side for 70% of the tempo. More people were needed to push the pace to have ran faster than what I ran.

In the afternoon I went for 25 min easy run to loosen up a little; I stretched well after the run since I was really tight from the tempo run. In the evening I spend some good time packing my s**t and get the f**k out of EP. Last dinner in EP was at Applebee's, the same place I ate a month ago when I had first gotten to EP. I woke up after a very short night with only 4 hours of sleep to catch the flight that brought me back to PA.

The four weeks I had just spent in El Paso could not have been better. For the most part training had gone as well as I wanted it. In addition, I met and spent good time with most of my friends I have down there. I even managed to go out a few times and have some fun as everyone else does.

Today, Monday the 7^th day of ’08 I ran for about 50 minutes easy and did some stretching after. I forgot to mention that I was surprised to find almost the same weather in PA as it was when I left El Paso. Temperatures in their 60s and people wearing shorts at school are the perfect images here at SFU. I am wondering how long this unusual type of weather is going to least here, to be honest, not for too long.

Spira

2008-01-03T21:19:00.000-08:00

Training today consisted of sixty two minutes of easy running in Chamizal Park. After the run I stretched well as I usually do and did 2 sets of 40 push-ups. Overall I felt pretty good except my calfs, which were still kind of tight from yesterday.

In the afternoon I stopped by Spira headquarters to visit Jose van der Veen, a friend of mine from Holland, who works there. Jose introduced me to a bunch of people, including Andy Krafsur, the founder of Spira Company, who I’ve briefly met before. The visit paid off well because I received some running gears including some shoes, a competition singlet and some T-shirts. I am excited to try on the Spira flat shoes, because I’ve heard from some people, including my friend Dirk, that are really good.

Major work-out

2008-01-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

Windy weather didn’t stop me today from doing a major track work out. Temperature at the time we worked out was in mid 40s F, which is not bad, but wind was a main issue blowing at around 15 mph. The work out consisted of 16×400s divided in 2 sets of 8. The recovery after each 400m was 100m jog (1min), and one lap between the sets. Myself, Mutai, N’ojoy and Talam formed the group to complete the work-out. Only myself and N’ojoy took turns leading the work-out. Talam stopped before finishing the first set with a knee problem, and Mutai did only 12 quarters, but stood in the back at all of them.

The following are the times I recorded for the work-out, first set: 64”8, 64”7, 64”00, 65”9, 63”8, 64”1, 64”3, 63”7; (4:50 break-jog); second set: 63”7, 63”4, 63”7, 63”7, 63”6, 63”5, 63”1, 62”2. After the work-out I cooled down for 20 minutes and stretched for another 10. The wind and not enough people to push the pace made this work-out harder than it was supposed. I was just imaging how much faster this work out would have been if guys like Samoei, Dirk, Bashar, Nicodemus or Paul would have been there. I guess for now I have to be satisfied with what we did with less people on a very windy morning.

Late in the afternoon I went for a 25 min jog to loosen up a little. I stretched really well before and after the run, especially my calfs, which were really sore after using spikes in the morning. Other than that, I felt pretty good in the afternoon, but as far as I know I will feel the fatigue tomorrow and the day after.

Training in the new year

2008-01-01T20:26:00.001-08:00

As far as training goes, first day of 2008 was an easy one. In the afternoon I went for a light 45 min run on a flat surface. My legs were still tired from the long run I did Sunday on the Transmountain course. I am hoping to be fresh tomorrow for a track-work out together with some of the Kenyans.

If weather allows it, this week I have scheduled two fast work-outs. One of them as I said is planned for tomorrow and the second one for Saturday. At the end of the week I will draw conclusions about my shape and what to expect from the indoor season.

I have 24 days until my first race at Penn State Nationals where I will compete in the mile. The most important race this indoor season will be the 3k at Notre Dame University, which is scheduled to take place in first weekend of February.

2008

2008-01-01T15:04:00.000-08:00

Sunday afternoon I went and for a 12 mile long run. I chose to do the run up and down “the transmountain” course. It took me 38:08 to complete the first 10k uphill, and 42 minutes downhill. I went with the idea to run a minute faster than I ran, but was hard to push the pace by myself. 38 minutes is the second fastest I have ever run there, so I have to be satisfied with it.

Monday was an easy day for me with 60 minutes of easy jogging done on a soccer field. After jogging I did 1 set of 35 of push-ups followed by another of 40. Good stretching ended the training sessions for the last day of 2007. It is wise to take it easy for two day after running the transmountain, the toughest course of EP.

Monday night I went out with a bunch of friends to celebrate the New Year like everyone else.

Just another Saturday

2007-12-29T17:02:00.000-08:00

Training for today consisted for 80 easy minutes on a flat surface. At 10:00 am I met with Mutai, N’ojoy and Talam in the West side of EP. We ran the 18km loop at a very easy pace. During the run my calfs were really sore from wearing spikes during yesterday’s track work-out. After the run I stretched well for 15 min because I needed it so bad.

I have one more week to spend in El Paso. I want to make the best of it as far as training goes. I am still not where I want to be, even though I have done some good work-out during the past two weeks here.

1st Track Work-out

2007-12-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

My first track work-out, in preparation for 2008 indoor season, finally was done today. Weather was very cold for El Paso, with temperatures in low thirties and inexistent wind, unlike yesterday. Myself, Mutai, N’ojoy and his brother Talam Gideon ran the work out together, but only 3 of us took turns leading the 300m repeats.

The work-out consisted of 20×300m divided in 2 sets of 10. The break consisted of 100m jog (50sec), and in between the 2 sets, we jogged an entire lap. Mylsef, Mutai, and N’ojoy took turns leading every 300m. The average pace for all twenty 300s was high 47 sec. After the run I jogged for about 20 minutes easy with Talam, who has 2:10:40 P.B. in the Marathon. I asked him some things about Kenya such as how they train, where they train, and so forth. It was good to get some good ideas about what the real deal runners of Kenya do for training, etc. It’s interesting to know that most of the UTEP Kenyans personally know really well all best runners from their country. In addition, most of them have trained at least once with Paul Tergat, Saif Saaeed Shaheen or other big names.

Late in the afternoon I went for 25 min of easy jogging, good stretching and 2×30 push ups. After running, I ate dinner with Paul, Dirk and Brook. Dinner was cooked by chief cooker, Brook Smith, and was really tasty.

Tomorrow, there will be a long run at “the canals”, a flat area. We are meeting sometimes around 9:00am if is not too cold.

Bad weather in EP

2007-12-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

Weather in EP today was awful. The wind was blowing very hard and was really cold. I managed to do 60 minutes of easy running around UTEP on an uphill-downhill terrain. After running I did 10 sets of plyometrics over 8 hurdles. I stretched well before as well as after the plyometrics.

The antibiotics I am taking after my tooth surgery make me feel kind of weak. I felt it during my run this morning because it wasn’t one of my good days. The bad news is that I need to continue taking antibiotics for 5-6 more days. The good news is that the surgery seems to heal the way is supposed to.

In the evening I was invited to eat dinner with Bashar’s family all. While there, our common friend Ryan and his girlfriend Natasha stopped by. Natasha, who is from Holland used to be in the same team with me here at UTEP. She is now doing her masters in Holland and is in EP to spend the holidays with Ryan.

At the Dentist

2007-12-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

Going to see the Dentist is one of the places I hate to go. Last time I went to see the Dentist was 6 weeks ago, for an x-ray, and prior that had been more than 6 years. The x-ray revealed that there was a piece of tooth left there following and extraction I had more than 7 years ago. This piece of tooth got infected about 6 and ½ weeks ago for the first time in all those years following the removed cavity, which is kind of interesting. I was supposed to do the surgery in Ebensburg, but it would have cost too much money. I knew that I would come to El Paso, which is minutes away from the Mexican city, Ciudad de Juarez. Many things done in Juarez, including dental appointments, are cheaper than they are in the U.S.

At 11:00 am I crossed the border in Juarez were I was scheduled for a surgery at 12:00pm. The surgery lasted for about 90 minutes, and was a success. I got back to El Paso sometimes around 4:00pm, due to a big line of people waiting to cross the border from Juarez to U.S. I was advised not to run today and tomorrow, but could not stay away from doing so. The fact is, I went for an easy 30 minute run, stretch and did a set of 35 push ups.

I spent the evening watching a movie with one of my favorite actors Denzel W., “Inside Man”.

I was really happy that my tooth got taken care of today, even though I was really exhausted after.

Xmas day

2007-12-25T19:48:00.000-08:00

Today it was the most crowded long run since I have been here. In addition to Paul and myself, all UTEP team was there for a long run, 9 guys in total, 7 of them Kenyans. We met at 10:00am in the West side of El Paso at the place called, the canals. We agreed to do the long loop, which is about 19.5±0.5km long. Samoei stopped after 1km due to achilles tendon pain at his right leg. Myself, Mutai and N’ojoy finish the run in 67 minutes, which is couple of minutes faster than any of us had prior ran that loop.

The long run was more like a fartlek, pace dropped and quickened 4 times during the whole run. It was the kind of run where not all the guys who started staid together. Indeed, I enjoyed today’s training and look forward to the next couple of days.

In the afternoon me and Paul were invited to eat and spend the Christmas day with Bashar’s family. It’s the 2^nd time I was invited to spend a major day with them, and was a pleasure for me to be there again, they are great people to be around. We had some good food and watched a really good movie called, Bourne Ultimatum.

Tomorrow, there is supposed to be a track work out consisting of on lap repeats, but I can’t go because I have a dentist appointment.

I did no running yesterday, I wanted to enjoy the day, and was tired after going out Sunday night.

Fast Saturday, easy Sunday

2007-12-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

Saturday in the morning me and 4 Kenyans, including 2 UTEP runners, Mutai and Koech, went to run the Mount Cristo Rey. This course is the 2nd most challenging of EP after the Trans Mountain. The other two guys who ran the Mount Cristo Ray with us were a professional marathoner, whose brother Japheth Ng'ojoy is an All-American for UTEP, and Robert who runs for El Paso Community College. Samoei and Dirk did not come due to achilles injury and gone to Phoenix for a visit, respectively.

The run itself was more than a work-out. The pace was very high, especially on the uphill part, and Mutai was the one to pushing the pace. The two of us run to the top of the Mountain in 33:25, which is about 4 minutes faster than the fastest recorded before by the Kenyans. The pace was set high going downhill as well, but this time it was four of us pushing it. The only flat part of this course is right at the bottom of the Mountain. Once we reached it on our way back, the pace was insane. I would estimate something like 4:40-4:45 for that flat mile, with me and Mutai in the front hammering it. We took it easy for the last 10 min, which are up hill.

For me, the uphill part of Mount Cristo Rei was the hardest out of the whole run. Part of it is because I used the new shoes I bought last week, which are not yet loss and much heavier and than the Prefontains I have been using for the past 4 months. I don’t know why I chose to use them for this run, but it was not smart at all. After the run, the only thing I did was to stretch.

Today, I ran 77 minutes (18.5-18.7km) easy with Bashar and Paul on a flat surface. During the run, I did not feel as bad as I expected to feel. It was good I took it easy today, especially after a very heavy week for me, with lots of fast running throughout.

I am looking forward to next week of training. There will be some interesting work-outs coming up, and I am very excited about them.

Easy day

2007-12-21T20:14:00.000-08:00

Training today consisted of 40 easy minutes on a grass field. It was wise to take it easy, especially after yesterday’s park work-out. After the run I stretched well for about 10 minutes.

There’s a decent training planned for tomorrow with some of the Kenyans. We will be going for a tough run at 9am. I will talk about it in tomorrow’s blog.

Park work-out

2007-12-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

Medlin Park was the place me and Dirk chose to do one lap repeats work-out in the morning at 10:00. The park, as I said before, has a lap of 535 meters, half of it being uphill. After 22 minutes of running, stretching and strides, I did 12×one lap (535 meters), with 90 sec easy jog in between. I ran in flat shoes, tights and a long sleeve. Weather at 10:30am was not too bad for a work-out. The temperature was about 47F with some decent wind, which I mainly felt going downhill.

I did not feel too good as I was warming up for the work-out, but once I started it, there was no problem. The following are the times I recorded for each 535m lap: 1:37, 1:35, 1:35, 1:35, 1:35, 1:33, 1:34, 1:34, 1:34, 1:32, 1:30, 1:29. I cooled down for 15-17 min and stretched for another 10.

It was a pretty solid work-out for me, and I was pleased with the way it went. In the afternoon at about 5:20 I went for an easy 30 min on a flat surface. I felt pretty fresh during the half hour of easy running, which is a good thing. The light run was followed by stretching and 3×25 push-ups.

Different activities, same city

2007-12-19T17:18:00.000-08:00

Mesita and Aoy elementary will be the first two out of six schools whose kids will beneficiate of a twice-a-week after school physical education program. The main focus of the project is to help overweight kids in the six particular schools, which are part of the EPISD. Attendance and participation is completely volunteer and free, but every kid needs parental approval. The program will be administered twice a week in the afternoons after the last regular class schedule to avoid conflict with classes. Hired professionals will carefully design and monitior the activities to assure the safety and goodwill of the students.

Reading books and offering little presents to kids is something special. Dirk, the head of the project invited me, Brook, Samoei, Mutai and Paul to go with him at Aoy elementary school to spread the word about the after school program, which will start in January. Form 9:00 to 11:45, all of us went to a different class to read books and give Christmas presents to little ones. In addition, we passed out fliers with information about the project in English and Spanish so that kids can take home to their parents. It was a nice and enjoyable experience for all six of us and kids seemed to have enjoyed it as well.

Training today consisted of 35 minutes of easy jogging on a grass field, property of UTEP. I felt really good during my jog even though was short, but it was wise for me to take it easy, especially after yesterday’s killer run on the Trans Mountain and Monday’s spicy tempo. After the run I did a couple of sets of push-ups and some good stretching.

There will be a park work-out scheduled for tomorrow and another crazy uphill run Sat. on a new route used mainly by UTEP Kenyans.

Trans Mountain: EP’s toughest place for a long run

2007-12-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

One of the toughest places to do a long run is “The Trans Mountain”, which is right out side of El Paso. Trans Mountain is a high way which connects the West side of El Paso to NE. To do a long run there, we usually drive and park our cars at a gas station near Interstate I-10. From that gas station (3746 Feet Alt.) until the highest point of the trans mountain (5280 feet Alt.) is 10km going only uphill.

The Trans Mountain is my favorite place for a challenging long run. Today I went there with 2 of UTEP All-Americans from Kenya, Stephen Samoei and Patrick Mutai. We covered the 6.2 Miles uphill in 38:20, and came relaxed down hill in 40 minutes. The uphill was really challenging for all 3 of us, more for Samoei and Mutai, who are trying to come back in shape from a break they took after NCAA CC. After the run I stretched for 15 minutes, because I needed it, especially after this crazy run.

I am looking forward with lots of confidence, that's all I can say now!

My friend...

2007-12-17T19:53:00.000-08:00

...Eric Lira switched today from U.S. resident to American citizen. I went with him in the morning to attend the ceremony for such an important event. There were approximately 500 people that turned their status in citizens of Unites States this morning. I found out that this event takes place several times a year.

Dirk picked me up from Eric’s ceremony, where I could not stay too long due to some plans me and him had for 10:30am. We both went to Mesita Elementary school, a place where I was a P.E. student teacher in the spring of this year. During that time I came up with the idea to develop an after school program that would help overweight kids. At that time, I shared the idea with the other P.E. teachers, school’s nurse and principal, and they all found it interesting and exciting. In addition, I also told Dirk about it and he said that he will help. After a couple of meetings with the principal and nurse, Dirk and I decided to really give a good try. The only problem in May was that I could not continue the project due to leaving El Paso. Thanks to Dirk, who made all the hard, but indeed important work and steps, starting with the spring semester this project will indeed take place. It is called LEAN, and Dirk was given a $75,000 grant for his proposal to help overweight kids in a couple of schools. It will start with 2 elementary schools from El Paso, and later spread out to 6 more schools.

At 3:30pm I met with Paul and Bashar for a long run at the same place we ran yesterday, the Canals. Dirk and Samoei didn’t come due to bad stomach problems and other priorities, respectively. My plan was to just do a long run (11.5M), but Paul and Bashar wanted to have a fast 4 mile tempo starting after we would reach 20 min running. The plan went as scheduled, and after the first 5km (19:30), we started the 4 mile tempo (21:10) and continued easy till finishing the 11.5M loop in 72 minutes. It was a good and spiced run for me, especially because of the 4 decent miles we ran. I stretched well for about 15 minutes and went straight home for shower.

In the evening, Brooke cooked some good food that me, Dirk and Paul really enjoyed.

3 Europeans...

2007-12-16T19:54:00.000-08:00

…including myself, Dirk and Paul, both from Holland, ran a flat loop of approximately 17.6 km in aprox. 75 minutes. I took it easy today after a hard week of training for me with 3 good work-outs. During the run I felt the fatigue that has accumulated over the last 6-7 days. I wasn’t surprised for not being fresh during the run. I know that by Tuesday I will be ready for something fast.

In terms of training, I have faith that next week will be even better than this one. I need to continue stay healthy, focused and motivated, in order to achieve my goals. I know what I have and what it takes to get where I want, I just need to do the right things. High results come with high expectations, sacrifices and commitments.

Park work-out

2007-12-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

The weather in El Paso today was really cold and windy with temperatures in mid-high 30s throughout. At 11:00am myself, Dirk and Bashar met at Medlin Park, which is close to UTEP. The park itself has a lap of 535m or 584 yards if you run close to its edges. The way we usually start our work-outs, half of the lap is uphill, and it’s a pretty challenging 250m or so hill. The good thing about this park is that you can run some decent times on it, and get some good strength from the hill is got.

After 20-25 minutes of running, good stretching and 5 long strides, we started the work-out. We did 10 laps of the park in the following format: 1 lap, 2 min break, 2 laps, 90sec break, 1 lap, 2min break, 2 laps, 90sec break, etc. The following are my and Dirk’s times: 1:39, 3:15, 1:35, 3:14, 1:33, 3:11, 1:34. I cooled down 15 minutes easy and stretched. It was a pretty good work-out after a really good week in terms of running. Late afternoon I went for a 25 min easy run and did 4 by 20 push-ups and stretching. Tomorrow the three of us will be going for a long run, together with Paul Zwama from UMBC, which is originally from Holland.

I’m looking forward to next week of training. So far I’m close to where I expected to be. I definitely need to get better in the following 3 weeks in order to be competitive for the indoor races. Next week will get harder and there will be some interesting work-outs to be done.

A relaxing day

2007-12-14T17:44:00.000-08:00

Friday was a relaxing day for me with not a lot going on. However, last night me and Dirk went out, where we met some former teammates and had a drink with them. The night at the bar wasn’t too long for me because I wanted to get home early and get the rest I need. I have a pretty tough park work-out scheduled for tomorrow and sleeping well the nigh before is not enough.

As for today, I ran for 75 minutes around the school on the same 8km loop me, Bashar and Dirk ran last Monday on. It was a nice and relaxing run, even though the loop is really hilly. After the run I stretched for about 15 minutes and went to eat something.

Like I just said, tomorrow there will be a good work-out scheduled together with Dirk and Bashar in one of the Parks close to UTEP.

Two training sessions

2007-12-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

It’s a pleasure to be outdoors when temperatures are in their 60s with mostly sunny sky. Today I trained twice under the great weather of El Paso. In the morning at around 10:00 I went for a 30 minute easy jog on a grass field used by the UTEP football team for practices. After the easy run, where I tried out a new pair of shoes I bought yesterday, I went on UTEP’s track for plyometrics. I arranged 8 hurdles in a row, 2 and ½ feet between each, and did 80 jumps divided in 10 sets. The way I do it is simple: I take off and land in two legs with one muscle impulse over every hurdle. I’m only doing them for strength not for technique. It’s always smart and helps to run and stretch before and after you do this plyometric training. Ryan Shields, a former teammate, originally from Jamaica, partially joined me for the plyos. Ryan is a very talented sprinter with a P.B under 46sec in the quarter, and was nice to see him after couple of months.

In the afternoon, 15 minutes to 4:00, I met Bashar in Chamizal Park for 1 Hour easy run. Dirk could not come due to some school work he needed to finish. The run went well, and was good that we took it easy, especially after yesterday’s fast run. After the run I stretched well and did 4 by 20 push-ups.

Samoei, one of UTEP’s Kenyans called me after finishing the 2^nd training and said that Monday is when they will start training for real. This week was the week of finals, and that was the main focus for all of them. It seems that the next 3 weeks here in El Paso will get heated up. With Kenyans soon starting to train for good, and with Dirk in very good shape, I have no doubt that training here is going to be good.

1st serious training

2007-12-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

This past spring I was assigned to do my student teaching at Jefferson High School (JHS). My mentor during that time was coach Alfredo Trejo, former UTEP runner and teammate of great Suleiman Nyambui, 15 times NCAA Champion for UTEP and silver medalist in 5km at 1980 Olympics. In addition to teaching physical education classes at JHS, coach Trejo is the head of the women soccer and men’s&women’s cross country. I called Trejo yesterday and told him I will come at the high school to visit him and Ivan, who is the athletic trainer there after working for UTEP. All three of us went to get something to eat as we used to do back when I was a student teacher. Before leaving the high school I told Trejo and Ivan that I will stop by one more time before I leave El Paso. In fact, Ivan invited my to spend the Christmas day with his family for the second time, first being last year. The afternoon was gonna be tough!

Bashar, myself and Dirk planned a serious long run on a 13.5km (8.4Miles) flat loop called, “The Canals”. This place is in the West side of El Paso and a good portion of it runs very close to the Rio Grande river, which separates USA from Mexico.

The training consisted of 10 min easy run and stretching, followed by the fast 8.4 mile long run and cool down. Dirk and I put the hammer down for this run, with Dirk in the first 30 min and me after that. We both finished the 8.4 miles in 44:28, which is an average pace of about 5:15 a mile. This was the first challenging training I have done since 1^st of November, the date I resumed training.

The stomach problems I had yesterday affected me today. My first 30 minutes were not as good as my last 12-14. After the run my stomach gave me hard times as it did yesterday.

In the evening I ate dinner at Olive Garden with Joe Padilla, a friend that I temporary worked with this past spring here at UTEP doing surveys. This was in fact the first job I’d ever had and only did it to get some extra cash for using in Europe.

Food poisoning

2007-12-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

I started the morning by going to Wal-Mart to do some groceries. I usually buy and cook the same food to avoid unwanted problems that some new foods may produce, especially stomach problems. I cooked some of the food I bought today, relaxed for a little bit in the house, and than went to meet Bashar and Dirk for a light park work out in Chamizal Park.

As I was driving to meet my friends in the park my stomach started feeling a little funny. My stomach started to trouble me a little bit from the warm up and it was not something I was happy with. I barely finished the work out because of my stomach. I was so pissed because it’s all because of the food I bought from the great place called Wal-Mart. I promised myself to go back to the store and tell them that the chicken was messed up and want the money back. I hate to get stomach problems because of bad food.

The training consisted of 30 minutes warm up, stretch and strides followed by a work out consisting of 10×1 min fast with 1 min jog in between. After that I cooled down for 15 minutes and stretched. This was a light work out since tomorrow we planned to do a long fast run on a flat surface. My legs felt pretty good throughout training, but my stomach didn’t.

After training I went at Dirk’s house and ate dinner with him and his fiancée Brook. Dirk was the guy cooking dinner for all three of us, which was really tasteful indeed. After dinner me and Dirk played mini foosball, a game he has just bought for entertainment. I need to say I was a little luckier scoring goals than Dirk was. There will soon be a rematch between us.

Meeting Acquaintances

2007-12-11T09:48:00.000-08:00

Monday in the morning first thing that I wanted to do was to go and to talk to my former coaches. I was really excited to go and see the head of the program, Bob Kitchens and the head of the distance events, former 800m Olympic Champion from Kenya, Paul Ereng. As I walked in the office, first person to see and shake hands with was the throwing coach, Mika Laaksonen. Right after meeting the throwing coach I went straight to Ereng’s office and spent there almost an hour and talked a variety of things with him. For about 10 minutes or so I went and say hello to coach Calvin Robinson, UTEP’s coach for jumping events. As I was getting ready to leave the track office to grab something to eat, Bob Kitchens, the head of the program shows up. I went and say hello to him and also talked about some other things for 15 minutes or so.

Right before noon, Stephen Samoei, now considered former UTEP stand out after running his last college career last moth where he grabbed his 4th All-America title, gave me a call to see if I have arrived in EP. Stephen told me what I already knew from Paul Ereng, that this week the distance guys are taking the finals and they all run whenever they have time. Serious training for UTEP distance guys will resume as soon as they finish their finals.

For my first training in EP I scheduled a long run in the afternoon together with Dirk de Heer (26), my former roommate, teammate, best friend and the guy with the best academic potential I have ever come across, and the man who in one year will have a PhD in Psychology. The third person to come and run with us was my friend Bashar Ibrahim, former All-American for UTEP in the steeplechase, competed at 2004 Olympics in the steeple for Kuwait.

It had rained pretty heavy throughout the day and there was some uncertainty whether we will be able to run or not. All three of us scheduled to meet on the track at 3:45pm and do a run around UTEP. We ran two loops of 5 miles each on the watery roads around UTEP. The long run was pretty easy even though the course was really challenging with a bunch of hills. We tried to enjoy the run while we talked about some of the things that have happened since the last time all of us met back in May.

After the run I stretched really well and did 4 sets of 20 push ups. Dirk staid at school to finish some things and I went at Bashar’s house to see his new born baby, his second son, which was born in the summer while I was gone in Europe. Also wanted to say hello to his wife Gabriela.

After eating dinner with Bashar’s family I went straight home to sleep being tired after a long day where I met more people than I expected. I still haven’t come across all of my friends I have in EP, but I have so many days ahead to do it. This is just the beginning!

From Western PA to TX Western

2007-12-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

I’m finally in El Paso, after a long trip spread throughout the whole Sunday. The trip went well although, there were some flight delays in Pittsburgh and Dallas due to weather, but nothing major. From the Airport, where I was picked up by my good friend and former roommate Dirk De Heer and his fiancée Brook, we went straight to Applebee’s restaurant as it was already planned to eat dinner and celebrate Kyle’s birthday.

Although I was tired from the trip, I enjoyed seeing part of my friends again. I was more excited to come to EP now than I was in the fall of 2003, which was my first time here. This time was something different than it was in 2003. Over the years I had developed nice relationships with a bunch of people around school and knowing that I will see them made me so anxious.

As I said in my last blog post, I did no running on Sunday. I wanted to be as fresh as I could be for the next 4 weeks of training in El Paso. Recovery for me is as important as training. I have done enough mileage in the past 4-5 weeks to take training to a faster pace during the next month here.

During my staying in Texas I will live with another good friend of mine, Eric Lira, who has a house not far away from the nice places El Paso has for running in the West side of the city. To get by would not be a problem for me since Eric is letting me use one of his nice cars he owns. I am very thankful to have him and as a friend along with Dirk, Bashar Ibrahim, Stephen Samoei, and the list can continue. Some of the last names I mentioned will be in this blog pretty frequently throughout my staying here.

I will post later today more details about how the 1st Monday in EP went.

El Paso! I’m coming!

2007-12-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday of 2007 in PA was a good one. In the morning I held a meeting with SFU distance team, which went pretty good. After the meeting I did my training, consisting of a good-pace long run. The best option was to do the long run on the road between Loretto and Cresson. I started from the Stokes Athletic Center and went all the way to Cresson town and back, which is about 10 miles both ways combined. It took me 64 minutes to finish the run, with going away from SFU slower(34:47) than coming back (29:20). The road between Loretto and Cresson is pretty hard with lots of hills and downhills, nevertheless is easier to come from Cresson. After I completed my run I did some stretching followed by 3×20 push ups and 3×15 back extension.

The afternoon was one of the most relaxing I have had lately. I cooked a pretty delicious meal, talked to my friend back home and packed my stuffs for El Paso. Did I just mention El Paso? I guess I just did. I am so excited to get there tomorrow, and not just because of training, but also for the friends I have there.

I am flying out of Pittsburg one hour after noon and scheduled to get to EP at 7:30pm MT. One of my good friends, Kyle Susa, is celebrating his birthday, therefore from the Airport I am going straight to have some fun with a bunch of friends.

There will be no running for me tomorrow!

Bad week almost ends

2007-12-07T19:06:00.000-08:00

There was no training done this Friday. I had a rough night last night, car let me down, took it to a car shop pushed at 12pm, went to sleep late and was awake very early in the morning. In addition, I had to take care of some things in the morning and throughout the day because Sunday I will leave to El Paso and I want to leave everything as neat as possible.
So far this week has been the most stressful week I’ve had lately. There has been too many negative things going on lately for me and it’s hard to deal with a bunch of stress at once. As for tomorrow, I am suppose to do a long run in the morning and than spend the afternoon home packing the necessary things for my trip to El Paso.

Long run

2007-12-07T05:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, 12/06/07, I went for a 13-14 mile long run on the road. From Ebensburg to Loretto and back under freezing conditions I ran a total of 80 minutes. The course is pretty challenging to do because it has lots of long steep hills. I was a little tired from the previous 2 days when I ran on heavy snow.

I got really busy doing things in the evening and did not have time to write this and put it up on the blog. I will try to update it every day as much as possible, especially while in El Paso.

Do your best at anytime and anyhow!

2007-12-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

Now days I am trying to work with what I got the best way I can. Today I ran a total of 68-69 minutes on the E. trail, if you can call it a trail these days. The outside weather conditions were not much different than the previous day. In fact, there was a little more snow on the trail today than it was yesterday.

The overall long run went well. I timed 6 of my mile splits to see how fast I was going through almost a foot of snow on the ground. The following are my splits: 6:34, 6:22, 6:20, 6:19, 6:28, 6:39). After the run I did my usual 10 min stretch and 4×20 push ups. For now I am satisfied with the training I am doing under the current weather conditions. I know that snow makes it harder for me to train but I am looking forward to better days. It’s very important to stay focused and think positive towards things ahead.

My good friend Drik De Heer told me today that in El Paso there 70 degrees outside. I know that temperatures in El Paso during wintertime could drop close to 40F, but it should definitely be better than it’s here. In addition, in rarely snows in El Paso, so even though may be cold sometimes, at least snow should not be something we have to deal with.

The VO2max, which was postponed from last week to sometime this week, should in fact be done this coming Friday. Seems that the broken part has arrived and the equipment is ready.

Running in Tough Conditions

2007-12-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of snow fall around this area in the past 48 hours. Weather today was pretty much like yesterday with cold temperatures, lots of snow and wind. In other words, the kind of weather you don’t want to run on. Despite the outdoor ambiance, I had no option but to go and run because yesterday I didn’t do much running.

The plan was to go and try to run on Ebensburg Trail for 75-80 min. I knew from the start that it will not be a great run since outside everything was covered in snow. Indeed, there was about 1/2 almost 1 foot of snow on the trail, as I was running. The further away I was going the bigger snow there was. The good thing is that feet didn’t slip running in that heavy snow. I ran a total of 78 minutes and even reached some good speed. Some of the miles I timed were as fast as 6:20-6:18. I stretched well after I finished the run.

I was really happy with the run I got to do today. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The wind blow and snow I didn’t really enjoy, but I tried to enjoy running on the snow. It was a nice experience that I haven’t had since the winter between ’02 and ’03 when I was in Romania. After that, El Paso had been the place I had spent my winters where snow was like rain in Sahara Desert.

What a Day to Remember!!!

2007-12-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

I just got home few minutes ago (7:30mp ET) from the most difficult, challenging and life threatening day I have had lately. It all started in the morning with a flat tire on my why to school. This was the 1^st time in my life when it happens to have a flat tire. The bad part is that this flat tire came while outside was the worse day possible (25F, snow and powerful wind). I managed to take care of the flat tire on the spot because I had all the necessary things to do it, so I got to school OK.

The flat tire was just the beginning of a day-to-remember. Basically speaking, “whatever starts off bad ends up the same way”. Since outside was pretty bad, I didn’t want to run, but I changed my mind later in the day. The plan as usual was to run in the morning, but I postponed it because I thought maybe weather will be better in the afternoon. I went to run at around 6:30pm after spending time in the office doing intensive work I needed to finish right away. After running for about 12 min in snow and wind, I felt that my nose was running. This wasn’t something uncharacteristic to me when running in a very cold climate. Because it was dark outside I couldn’t realize that my nose was indeed bleeding pretty bad, that being really unusual for me. I stopped running for a few minutes to stop the nose bleeding and went straight to the office. I was wearing a white and light jacket, which was bloody everywhere in the front. I was very embarrassed with the way I looked, especially when there were cars coming from the front.

With roads covered by a pretty good sheet of snow I knew that I would have hard time going home. I need to say that my car is a BWD with bad all-seasons tires! I knew that I may have difficult time getting home with it. Between SFU and Ebensburg is about 6 miles on an up-and-down and lots-of-curves type of road. Right after I pulled from the parking lot I felt my car having problems going up on a long hill. As I was going down the first hill not far from SFU my car hit the fence on the side of the road. The way it happened is this: There was a car behind me and I wanted to go to the side and let that car pass me so I can slowly drive home. As I slowed down and pressed the brakes I couldn’t stop the car from hitting the metal fence. My car kind of bounced off that fence as I was trying not to scratch it too bad. I eventually stopped my car, and the one behind me passed with people looking and wondering if I was OK. I got out of the car to see the damage I produced but could not see much since it was dark.

I eventually made it home with the gas light on and shocked after all that happened between 11am and 7:30pm. First thing when I got home was to look at the car again and see how bad it was. Fortunately, my car looked as it didn’t hit anything. There was a lot of snow and ice covering the sides of my car, so maybe that’s why the contact with the fence did not leave scratches or things like that. Tomorrow I will get a better look at the car because it’s impossible not to have at least some minor scrapes.

I am happy that I am home now and that I learned a good lesson today. The positive thing is that I managed to change a flat tire and was ready with all the equipment such as car jack, spare inflated tire and a tire iron. The bad lesson that I learned today is that I should not drive a car, especially a BWD, in West PA with improper tires. I have a big contribution to whatever happened to me today since I knew that I needed to change my car’s tires to winter tires. I will go and fix the problem ASAP in order to avoid any other problems in the future since winter is only at the beginning.

The bleeding nose during running is something that surprised the F*** out of me. It could be the stress I accumulated before running on a very short time. It could also be the fact that outside was 24F and in the office, where I was for 6-7 hours, was 80F. Last explanation I tried to find has to do with sticking fingers inside my nose and playing with it like a stupid 7 year-old would do.

In conclusion, today was a day I will always remember. Most important thing is to learn from the mistakes I do and don’t repeat them again. Once again life gave me a lesson!!! Thanks God I’m safe, it’s all that matters now!!!

Plyometrics Training

2007-12-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

Last night I took advantage of coming back before 10pm from Lewisburg PA and went to sleep pretty early. Waking up at 11am after twelve hours of sleep is a good feeling to have. I needed to get some extra hours of sleep because the day before was long and exhausting. I kind of wanted to run sometime around noon but outside was cold (33F) and raining. At 4mp I went to school because we had to meet with four recruits and their families coming for an official visit at SFU. The meeting, which included conversation and dinner, was done by 6:20-6:30pm. During dinner with the recruits I didn’t eat much except a small salad because I had to answer lots of questions from the recruits’ parents. I took a take-out box so I could eat later after finishing my training.

Training consisted of 40 minutes of running. After that I did 12 diagonal strides with jog between and completed a total of 60 minutes. Next, I stretched well and did 12 plyometrics divided in three sets over 6 hurdles arranged 2 and1/2 feet apart from each other. Between the plyometrics sets I did 3×20 push-ups and as soon I was done with the plyos I cooled down couple of minutes. The plyometrics over hurdles is something I had used before in my training for steeple. It a good exercise that works very well the abdominals, quads and lower back including gluteus muscles. Furthermore, this is a good exercise that has given me some extra tallness I needed in running. In addition, it’s a good exercise for coordination between upper and lower limps.

A new month- SFU 1st indoor meet at BU

2007-12-01T19:22:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 5am to go to an indoor meet hosted by Univ. of Bucknell. My plan was to have a long run as soon as we got there. It took us about two hours to get from Loretto PA to Lewisburg PA. While we were heading there I figured that I brought all the necessary gears to run with except my sport pants. I thought of borrowing some pair of running pants from somebody but didn’t know form who, and on top of that I am a picky guy with running cloths. At some point I thought of not running at all, but the opportunity showed up. One of the Bucknell distance runners, Donnie Sanner, which I briefly knew and my roommate use to be teammate with, lent me a pair of pants. Since it was really late in the afternoon, I quickly changed from casual cloths to running clothes. I went out and ran a total of 73 minutes on the golf course. I really enjoyed the golf course and its surrounding. BU campus is a very nice place, I really liked it.

This was also the first day of December and things will start getting really serious as far as training. I have one more week until getting to El Paso, where training will get tough and challenging. My plan for this coming week is to stay healthy, get one or two good long runs in my legs and a possible fartlek. In terms of training, my shape is where I want it to be. I don’t say this because I like the way it sounds, but because it’s true. I know that I still have to do a lot of work to get to the results I want, but for now I am happy.

VO2max Postponed

2007-11-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

As I said yesterday, I was supposed to do a VO2max test in the afternoon. The building we were going to do the test was right next to the track. Before jumping on the treadmill and do the actual test I jogged for about 30 minutes on the turf. I was ready and excited to measure my maximal oxygen uptake, but unfortunately the equipment failed to work. There was something wrong with a piece of it that had broken before. I was really disappointed for not doing the VO2max test since I was really ready to do it and fitted well in my schedule. There’s a slight chance to retry doing it sometime next week before heading to El Paso on Sunday.

As soon as we knew that the VO2max equipment wasn’t gonna work I went out and continued running for 40 more minutes. In between I did 10 diagonal strides on the turf. After running I went inside and stretched in the gym. I also did 3 sets of 15 back extension exercises and 3×20 bench press with light weight. As for tomorrow, I will have a busy day with an early wake up. We’re going to Bucknell University for an indoor meet. None of our distance runners will compete though.

Recovery Training

2007-11-29T19:48:00.000-08:00

Since yesterday I had a pretty intensive training done, it was wise for me to have an easy, recovering run for today. The training consisted of one-hour easy run on a soft, flat area, even though I wasn’t that tired from yesterday. The grass field, which is about 350 yards long by my house, was a good place for what I wanted to do. I started with 30 minuets of jogging followed by 5 minuets of stretching. After stretching I went and ran 6×100m progressive strides with continuous jog between. After strides I continued easy running till reaching one hour.

Tomorrow should be an exciting day. In the afternoon I will be doing a VO2max test using the laboratory equipment right here at the University of Saint Francis. It should be exciting to see the results since I have never tested my VO2max with high performance equipment. I will put the results tomorrow evening and a possible video of the actual test right here on the blog.

4 weeks completed

2007-11-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

As I said yesterday, the plan for today was to have a decent, strong long run in my legs. A sunny day with temperatures in the upper 20s was waiting for me. I picked the Ebensburg Trail (ET) to be the place for my long run. The practice consisted of 74 minutes of continuous running, in which I completed an estimated of 11.3 miles. I was interested in timing 8 of my miles, except the last 10-11 minutes because there is no mile mark.

I started as I usually start, directly from my apartment towards Ebensburg trail. It takes me about 4 minutes running through the neighborhood from my house to get to ET. Basically, those 4 min till hitting the trail are a huge sudden descend. The first 6-7 min on the trail are uphill culminating with a short flat portion, and than downhill as you head towards the actual 1st mile mark. As you hit the 1^st mile mark there’s a continuous downhill that goes for miles and miles and they are all marked. Today I turned around right after reaching mile mark 5.

The first 4 miles that I timed going downhill are as follow: (6:42, 6:35, 6:28, and 6:25). The last 4 miles going uphill were: (6:13, 5:56, 5:38, and 5:24). I continued running for 10-11 minutes or so till reaching my house where I stretched for ten minutes and did some push-ups. I could say that I gave close to 85% on my long run today. Normally, those times that I hit today would have felt easier and faster with a group of guys around that would’ve helped push the pace. Therefore, I am looking forward to run with UTEP guys.

This decent long run was just another important step to get myself ready for the indoor races I am planning to compete in. As for now, I am satisfied with how my training is coming along and hope to stay healthy and focused because it’s a long road to get to where I want.

Preseverance

2007-11-27T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today I ran a total of sixty minutes (around 8.5 miles) on Ebensburg Trail. Initially I wanted to have a long run up to 75 minutes long at a decent pace, but I wasn’t feeling physically ready for it. My old foot injury was kind of hurting me since the very beginning, which was the first sign for me that I should take it easy. At the end of the 60 minute run my foot got painful again and I was happy that I didn’t run longer than I went. Some good stretching afterwards for my Calves, Hamstrings, Quads and Gluteus was needed because I was kind of tight.

Weather in the morning was also a factor. Temperatures dropped 20 degrees compared to the previous day. Quick change in temperatures brings a lot of stress upon one’s body and sometimes training could negatively be affected.

As for tomorrow, I’m hoping to have a decent long run somewhere around ten mile long. I’m also expecting to get some good night sleep tonight unlike the night before. In my opinion, when putting a lot of miles is crucial to rest well, otherwise things won’t work well.

Soak and Wet

2007-11-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

It’s almost bed time as I am writing this and outside is pouring as it’s done all day. I did not want to run in the morning because 1st it was raining and 2nd I woke up late. It was a busy Monday at the office with recruits coming to visit and some other things related to track I needed to take care of. I went to run late in the afternoon at about 4:30pm on the SFU track. After 40 easy minutes on the turf I went on and did 2×100m strides followed by 10×200(light pace) with 200 jog in between. Everything was done continuously which gave me a total of 72 minutes of running together with the cool down minutes. After running I stretched well for about 15 minutes.

Running in the afternoon did not save me from getting soaked from the heavy rain. During my running I wore some cotton clothes that got really heavy from the rain, which made it very difficult to run comfortably. The longer I was running the heavier my clothes got. Even though I like wearing cotton I realized that rain and cotton don’t go hand in hand.

With weather acting all wired lately I don’t know what to expect from the days ahead. Yesterday morning as I was doing my long run it was sunny but cold (bellow 30F). Today on the other hand we had mid 50s F with lots of rain. Therefore, I need to be ready for anything from now on when it comes to weather.

The Golf Course

2007-11-25T17:28:00.000-08:00

The Ebensburg Golf course was a good place to do a long today. It has been pretty dry outside in the last couple of days if I count off the light snow we had two days ago. I tried to take advantage of the situation and use the golf course we have in town. This golf course has the disadvantage of being extremely hilly which does not allow for fast running. On the other hand, it has the advantage of being very wide (5km loop), if you are inventive. I’ve not asked for permission to run on the golf course, but so far no body has said anything to me. Some folks are actually happy to see someone running around with so much vigor. As long as I’m running by myself on the golf course I don’t think someone will deny me from being there.

After completing 73 minutes of running (mostly on hills), I stretched for about 10 minutes and did some upper body strength. There are too many hills around this area, and I mean serious hills, which says that I need to be very careful because hills can be detrimental sometimes. This week will be very busy for me because I have some assignments to still finish and we have an indoor meet that we are going to at the end. I am really excited that the semester is coming to an end. I am looking forward to have some time off from school.

The Plateau

2007-11-24T19:34:00.000-08:00

Today I got to eighty minutes of continuous running for the second time this week. I’ve reached the maximal distance I need, the plateau I talked about early this month. For the next 3-4 weeks my long runs will be somewhere between 10 to 12 miles long. I don’t want to go over 12 miles since I will only compete the 3km indoors as my longest race. I know that from now on training is going to get much tougher than what’s been so far. It’s time to switch up gears for the next 2 weeks or so before getting to El Paso. Once at UTEP training will suffer modifications in intensity and variation. It could be my last gear I may have before competing in January. I know that the four weeks in EP in terms of training will be a “pedal to the metal” all throughout.

During the 81 minutes on Ebensburg Trail (ET) I ran an estimated of 12 miles, maybe even a bit longer. The first half of my long run was downhill and second was uphill. Most of the trail had an inch of snow on it and outside was about 28 F. I accurately timed eight of my miles as follows: downhill (6:41, 6:32, 6:23, 6:19), uphill (6:59, 6:26, 6:01, 5:32). After the long run I stretched really well for about 15 minutes. In the near future I am planning to have a run on ET starting the opposite way, meaning that I would have to finish downhill and see the difference. I am sure that the 5:32 mile could easily be a 5:10 if done downhill on ET.

Back to Business

2007-11-23T20:08:00.000-08:00

I am back in Ebensburg after spending Thanksgiving Day with my friends in York PA. Back in W PA means back at low thirties, because temperatures have dropped to normal again. After I took the day off yesterday I decided that it would be wise to just have a light run for today. The 350 football field by my house was the perfect place to run an easy and relaxing fifty minutes followed by good stretching and couple of sets of push ups. During my run, snow was descending from the skies as it was in a Santa Clause movie. If it’ll continue to snow all night, tomorrow may be difficult to run outside as I am planning to do something longer and faster than today.

Thanksgiving Day was a good time to see my friends and also get out of Ebensburg. It’s always good to have a moment of relaxation and good time in order to recharge and focus again on my goals. Thursday was also the 1^st day of the 4^th week of training since resuming on the 1^st of this month. I am looking forward to the next 14-16 days because they will be decisive to get me ready for UTEP guys.

Performing high comes with lots of sacrifices. If I want to succeed I need to put many things aside for later and just focus on what I want to accomplish. I wished instead of going to El Paso I could go in Romania and spend time with my friends and family I have there. During last summer I was in a training camp getting ready for Osaka and didn’t get to see my family nor my friends too much. I want to believe that it’s the price I pay for the cause I love.

Thanksgiving Day

2007-11-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

There was no practice today. I wanted to just spend time with my friends here in York PA. I am planning to run tomorrow after getting back from York.

80 minutes

2007-11-21T22:47:00.000-08:00

Since temperatures are going up, my long runs are going the same way, but in duration. Today I ran a total of eighty minutes on the good old Ebensburg trail. This was the first time since I resumed training three weeks ago when I reach the 80 minute mark for my long runs. I can’t say I had a good day today because physically I was a bit tired, but days like this are common for every runner. In addition, my left foot was hurting me again towards the end of my run. Despite the struggles I faced during today’s training, I ended up running 80 minutes, and a total of 12 miles. I timed one of my last miles (5:24), the fastest in the past three weeks. After the run I stretched for about 10 minutes and also did some upper body strength which consisted of only push ups.

Late in the afternoon I decided to go and spend the Thanksgiving Day with a friend of mine from Romania that lives in York PA. In fact, my friend Florin Ionescu, a former Olympian who competed in Sydney ‘00, is the current steeplechase holder in Romania (8:13).

Global Warming...

2007-11-20T18:14:00.000-08:00

…seems to have direct consequences here in Western PA. High fifties could be cold for some people living in the southern states such as TX, AL, LA, etc. For others like me living in W PA, high fifties is warm if we consider that for the past ten days temperature hasn’t gone over forty during day time. I went to do my long run with no gloves and no hat as usual, but with long spandex, t-shirt and long sleeve on top. I ran a total of seventy eight minutes on Ebensburg Trail and put around 11.5 miles. The pace was somewhere in the middle, not too fast and not too slow either. I didn’t want to time any of my miles as I was passing the marks for them. I did however time the last mile marked on the trail (6:03), which is nothing out of the ordinary, but I really felt easy going slightly uphill there.

The good thing about today was that I did not have any sort of pain in my left foot, which again means that ice and anti inflammatory medicine do their job. On the other hand, my other foot started to hurt a bit about the ankle and achilean tendon. As Ryan Bair, one of SFU runners and people that I will work with said, the right foot may hurt because it’s taken more weight on when the left one was hurting. I did agree with Ryan on that matter and I will try to minimize any further pain before it escalades.

Right now I am still in Ebensburg even though everybody else went home for thanksgiving. I am not sure whether I will end up going anywhere for thanksgiving dinner, but I have one family option (brother in Detroit City), and a friend in York PA. I am inclining to go to my friend’s house which is about 2H:30 minutes from my house.

'07 NCAA X-Country Championships

2007-11-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

For the 1^st time CC Nationals were Live on TV and I, a crazy CC fan, wasn’t able to see it due to a mandatory staff meeting we had. I even sneaked my laptop out during the meeting and hoped to see the races live on the internet, but that didn’t work either. Watching the results afterwards wasn’t a surprise to see the Ducks and the Cardinals wining the titles for men and women, respectively. UTEP men had a tough day today, and finishing tenth is not what there potential is. UTEP senior Samoei, a good friend of mine, finished the race in 23^rd and with it his college career. I want to wish him best of luck from now on, and looking forward to have him as my training partner in June and July before Olympics.

As far as training, today was a relaxing day with fifty easy minutes on the grass. I needed this day with easy, shorter running, so I can recharge my batteries and give more time for that foot to heal. For the next days of running I’ll stay within the seventy-minute range, but rather above 70 than below. Another goal for my long runs is to pick the pace up a little and reach 5:40s in some of them.

Sundays

2007-11-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

Distance runners consistently run on Sundays, just as others go to church that day. We need to put those miles, and to do that, we need to run on Sundays. This does not mean that all distance guys do it. We’re all different and respond differently in terms of training. I usually run on Sundays, and as I am getting closer to compete I take some Sundays off. Today I ran for seventy four minutes on Ebensburg trail. It was the best option I had since outside was snowing as I was getting ready to run. After the run I did my usual stretching session and 3 sets of 20 push ups.

I would like vary the places I go for my long runs, but since outside is wet, it limits my alternatives. I could have some good options such as the golf course right here in town, or the one from SFU. In addition, I could go and run on some other trails around SFU, but again, it’s wet and not a lot of fun as your shoes get loaded. The last alternative could be the simple roads, but I want to avoid them as much as I can because it’ll come a time that they’ll be the only option for running around here. Basically, I have to work with what I have and make the best of it.

Seventy Minutes

2007-11-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

Gradually I am making steps towards my goals. Today I reached the seventy-minute long run mark. It’s not something out of the ordinary, or something I had not reached before. What’s important about it is the fact that I’m building up progressively. Tomorrow I could go two hours if I want to, but it’s not what I want, nor what I need at this time.

The Ebensburg trail was the host for my seventy-minute long run. As I said before, the trail goes slightly down hill and vice versa on the way back. I purposely started my long run at a pretty slow pace (6:48), and didn’t keep track of my pace until 3^rd(6:12) & 2^nd(6:12) miles to the last. Stretching for ten minutes and 4×15 push-ups was what I did after running.

I’m really satisfied with the way running comes along for me. In addition, today I felt improvements on my foot injury as well, which proves that ice “really worx out”. I’m looking forward towards the next days of running and implicitly real work-outs, which will mostly happen in Dec and Jan.

Tough Times

2007-11-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

My foot was hurting me today during my long run like no other day before. In addition, there’s been snow falling for the past two days and temperatures have dropped in low thirties, high twenties. I woke up in the morning and did not know if I would have a place to do my run because everything was covered in white. Snow has accumulated enough to restrict the areas where a decent practice could be done. So I decide to go and try out the Ebensburg Trail. I was pleasantly surprised to find the Trail just good enough to run on. My training consisted of 68 minutes of continuous run at decent pace. Just for my references, I timed one of the last miles (5.56), even though was slightly uphill. The only discomforts I had during my run were the pain in my foot and the light snow falling accompanied by a slight cold wind. My goal right now is to REALLY take care of that injury because it drives me nuts during and after practice.

Under the Light Bulb

2007-11-15T20:46:00.000-08:00

Due to a busy schedule, I was forced to do my training late in the evening right after my class. One of the few lighted places at night around this area is the SFU track. I chose to do my long on the track because of safety reasons. One of them was my ankle, still not yet cured. I ran a total of sixty six minutes, most of them on the track and the turf. I did the first thirty three minutes on the turf inside the track. After that I moved on the 8^th lane of the track and continued there until I reached forty minutes. I checked my pace by timing 1km, which showed 4:11 (nothing crazy). At the end of forty minutes I continued running by doing 20×100m strides with 100m jog between. After the strides I ran for about 10 more minutes and that was the end of the run. Next after the run I went to the gym for stretching and also did 3×20 bench-press (light weight) and 3×15 back extension exercises

On Schedule

2007-11-14T18:18:00.000-08:00

Today, Wednesday 14th, 2007 I completed the first 2 weeks of running after the three week time off I had taken prior. An unusual warm day for this time of the year with high humidity was the most interesting features during my run. Practice consisted of one hour long run, precisely sixty three minutes, moderate pace. I chose to do the long run around a half-mile loop with uphill and downhill portions right here in Ebensburg. After the run I stretched well for about 10 minutes and than went to school.
For the next week of practice I have planned to gradually go a little over seventy minutes. This will put my mileage somewhere around 60 for this coming week, which is right where I want it to be. Along with the miles increase there’ll also be a slight pace increase. Upper body strength will not be neglected as I am moving forward with my training. In addition to the usual push-ups I will gradually add some back extension exercises, which I had incorporated before in my training.

Consistency…

2007-11-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

…is to me one of the most important elements of success, whether it’s a sport or any other domain. In my area I need to be consistent in three different ways. First way is training, second is recovery/sleeping, and third is diet. In order to get the results I want, my goal is to achieve balance between those three things. The more consistent I am, the more chances I have to be at the top of my game. Consistency leads me to talk about its antonym...

...A sunny Tuesday with temperatures in the 60s was unexpected after it had rained the whole night and snowed in the past weekend. Today was a perfect weather for a work out even though I only did a one-hour long run. My ankle is still not 100% recovered yet. It seems that whenever I am about to finish the run the pain starts to increase. Other than that my long run went really well. I usually start very easy and gradually pick up the pace as I progress towards the end my long runs. Out of curiosity I timed one mile to see the kind of pace (6:12) I was running on. At this point I don’t care too much about the accuracy of my pace. This will likely happen later one when training will have more variety added and long runs are followed or preceded by important work outs.

Fourteen years

2007-11-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

With this foot problem that I have I decided that today I should do an easy run, less than one hour long. The grass field few minutes away from my house was the perfect place to do a light run and spare my foot in order to heal it quicker. Fifty minuets of running, ten minutes of good stretching and sixty push-ups, was the whole practice session.

Today was my 12^th day of running after the three-week time off I had taken prior. I already went over one hour on my long runs. So far I’m where I want to be. I can’t expect to be in top shape suddenly. After 14 years of competitive track and field and x-country I know myself better than anybody else. By mid December I should have a good overall fitness level. As for now, I want to gradually build my shape back where it was before World Championships.

The four weeks in El Paso will be decisive towards my indoor season. My main goal right now is to be ready to work out with the UTEP squad. My former teammates at UTEP are strong individuals in terms of running, and working out with them should have positive results. I should be getting in El Paso not later than Dec 9^th, and come back to SFU around January 6^th of ’08.

Healing Ankle

2007-11-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

My main concern in the morning was to see how my ankle/foot was doing. Without doubt it was painful, but it wasn’t swollen. At first I thought of not going to run and just rest the foot in order to heal faster. Than I decided to go and try run with my roommate Adam Syty, a former Bucknell runner, who is also a G.A here at SFU. Adam picked the Ebensburg trail as our long run path. We run a total of sixty minutes, and my ankle only got painful towards the end of the run. I was a little tired from the trip we had this past weekend, and did not feel great during the run. I am looking forward to heal this unpleasant injury so I can fully enjoy running again.

Tomorrow it will be a busy day for me because I have to be in the office a little earlier than usual. First, I need to take care of some recruits that will come to visit the school. Second, I need to make some phone calls to prospective student-athletes we want to bring in for the fall. Last but not least, I need to work on some school assignments that are due this week.

Bethlehem

2007-11-10T18:47:00.000-08:00

2007 NCAA x-country Mid-Atlantic regional meet was hosted by Lehigh University. The reason I was there is because SFU is part of that region as well. Friday in the pre-race day I managed to run about sixty-four minutes on the actual course. During the run I sprained my ankle really bad while I was running on a down hill portion of the course. This happened sometime around forty minutes into my long run. I continued to run like that because I was afraid the ankle would get swollen really badly and I didn’t want that to happen. The next day I woke up my ankle was fine, just a little swollen, but nothing major. Before D1 races I went and ran a little over an hour, again on the race course. I started to feel the pain in my foot towards the end of the run. After the run the ankle got really aggravated due to sprinting up and down the whole course trying to encourage SFU runners. That really cost me because I wasn’t able run after that, and even walking was a pain. I am going to take some anti-inflammatory medicine and put some ice on my ankle, which is a little swollen only, and hopefully Sunday morning I will be fine for a run.

It’s hard to stay on the side and encourage runners when you’d rather be competing with them. It’s nothing but that crazy college-kid runner instinct that goes on many years after you had graduated. I am sure many graduate runners have the same feelings as I do when watching college races. For me, regional meet was a big deal back at UTEP, especially in x-country, so watching it now brings back old memories. Since nationals are next, I want to wish good luck to all the teams and individuals that qualified to Indiana. I will be cheering for UTEP men, hope they will have a great race.

Second Week

2007-11-08T19:00:00.000-08:00

Today, I wanted to do my long run on a flat surface. Even though Ebensburg trail is not a completely flat trail, it’s the best option I have. The trail slightly descends going away from Ebensburg and vice versa. According to John Balouris, a SFU runner, the trail runs for about seven miles one way. Today I ran a few minutes over an hour. Going down the trail did not seem I was actually descending, but once I turned around I could see that there is a light climb all the way to the starting point. During my run I thought about coming with a measuring wheel and make Km marks for about ten Kilometers straight. I like to guide my work outs by kilometer rather than by miles marks.

For the next six to eight days I will not go over sixty-five minutes on my long runs. Tomorrow, Friday the 9th, 2007 I will be gone with the SFU team at the x-country regional meet hosted by the Lehigh University. I have planned to do my run once we get to Lehigh tomorrow afternoon. We will be back from the regional meet Saturday evening.

Good new from school are always welcome. One of my three classes will meet next week for the last time this semester. This will give me more freedom from school as I’m approaching the end of the month. In terms of running, this is perfect since I can focus more on what I want to accomplish.

Winter’s come

2007-11-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

Today, Wed. the 7^th, 2007 was the second day in a row it snowed. I have no doubt in my mind that from now on I will deal with a tough winter. Most people here at Saint Francis PA had told me, “wait until December, it gets damn F****** cold up here”. Right now, I am happy that in early December I will be going to El Paso for about four weeks of training with my former teammates. El Paso weather could be cold sometimes, but at least it does not snow or rain.

Today I ran in the morning for about fifty five minutes. The pace wasn’t crazy or anything. I ran on up-and-down terrain in a park. I need to be very careful with hills─they are everywhere here. In fact, I have hard time finding a flat area anywhere within twenty miles from my house, except the track and a 350 yard high school field, which is by my house. The Ebensburg trail is my best bet for a long run on a flat surface. It’s not really a flat trail, but it’s definitely the best alternative.

1st Snow in Western PA

2007-11-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

As predicted, today we had the first snow fall. Personally, I did not look forward to this moment because winter will take forever up here. Even though I’m from Romania, and temperatures in the winter are about the same as they are here in Western PA, I still don’t want to deal with cold weather and snow. It could be the fact that I had spent the last four years in El Paso, which got me sensitive to cold environments.

Today's practice wasn’t that big of a deal. I ran for about fifty minutes on a grass field by my apartment. The only exciting thing going on during my run was the fact that it light snowed. After that run I stretched well and did 3× 20 push ups. I do stretching every single time I finish a practice. It does not matter if it’s a work out or just a simple run, at the end of it I will have to do a ten-minute stretching session.

Morning is the best time for me to work out. My plan is to start the practice sometime between 9:30 and 10:00. Noon of every day I serve lunch. After lunch I head to the track office and take care of some things there such as recruiting. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I have classes in the late afternoons. Most of the evenings find me home cooking something. I usually try to finish my school work during the day so I won’t have to stay up all night. My plan is to go to sleep by 10:30pm and sleep as much as I can, which means that I don’t wake up by an alarm clock or anything like it.

2007 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials for Men

2007-11-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

New York

Since this weekend Central Park (NY) hosted the American Olympic Marathon trials, I and some of my friends decided to go and watch. This was the first time for me going to New York City. We decided to leave Friday afternoon, and come back Sunday afternoon. After a five-hour drive we got to Hyatt Hotel, ate something and than went to sleep because we had to wake up early to see the Marathon. During the Marathon, I did manage to continuously run for about fifty minuets, just a little over how much I wanted for now.

The group I was with consisted of about 15 guys, all cheering for Brain Sell, a former SFU runner, and a future Olympian. Brian got third in the trials, behind Hall and Ritz. Even though me and my friends enjoyed the marathon trials, it was shocking to hear that Ryan Shay, one of the guys competing in the marathon, suffered a hart attack and died. It was a moment that saddened the worlds of sports and maybe beyond.

After the marathon trials we went to visit some of the places NY has to offer. I also met a friend of mine that lives in NY with whom I had been part of the Romanian Junior Team (2000-2002). Him and his brother invited us to a BAR they work at. The invitation was gladly accepted since we did not have a plan for the evening. It turned to be a fun night for all of us.

Sunday morning before heading to SFU I managed to run for about 40 minutes. I was kind of tired, but it is self-explanatory why. By 5pm we were back to Loretto and ready to start a new busy week. The New York experience was fun even though many things could have been better. We promised next time we will go is going to be even better.

First Practice of the Month

2007-11-01T19:25:00.001-07:00

Today, November 1st, 2007 I had my first 30 minute run after a three-week time off. The main target right now for me is the next World Indoor Championships. Basically, I need to be in shape for February so I can run a fast 3k indoors, since WC will be in the beginning of March.
Some facts about where I stand at this point are:
1. I come from a 3 week-break (no running at all)
2. I am part-time G.A coach at the Univ of Saint Francis, PA
3. I am doing my Masters in Education ( Enrolled in 3 Classes)
4. I reside in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania

The plan for November is to get my cardio up again, especially after three weeks of time off. During the first two weeks I will progress from 30 minutes to approximately one hour runs. The following two weeks, which will conclude the month, will reach a plateau as far as long runs go, but not longer the 80 minutes.

In December, I am planning to go to El Paso for as long as four weeks if my schedule allows that. The group they have at UTEP is the group that I am very familiar with. Working out with the UTEP guys during winter perfectly fits in my schedule, since they will also compete indoors in 2008. My training in December will then change compared to the previous month. The long runs will be at faster pace, with faster guys. In addition, there will be tempo runs, “farleks” and track work-outs, towards the end of Dec, beginning of Jan. By January 10th I should be back in PA because school will start around that date. Once back in PA my training will switch up gears a bit. January is the month where I will determine if I am geared up to compete or not. There will be specific work-outs that I need to do during January that will tell me the shape I am in.

I have planned to compete in three races before the WC Indoors that will take place in Valencia (ESP) in the beginning of March (7-9). There are two ways I want to set up my schedule for races. First is to compete in one mile, followed by another one mile, and then a 3k. Second is to have my first two competitions in the mile, and finishing with the 3k. The first competition will take place in the last weekend of January. Second and third race will be in February, preferably back to back races in three different weekends. Basically, three back to back races: Mile-Mile-3k or Mile-3k-3k.

Between now (Nov 1st, 2007) and my first race (Jan 26th-27th) is a gap of about three months. This should, not must, be enough time to prepare a good indoor season. Again, the main goal here is World Indoor Championships in March, but before that, I need to prove that I deserve to be there.

One problem that I hope I won’t deal with this year like last year is to get into fast races. Last year I tried to get into the Tyson Invitational but it did not work. One of the things about indoors is that tracks are small and not many people can get in. I will try to solve the issue about getting into some fast races on time. I will post the races I will be running as soon as I decide which one I will be competing at. Not to forget that if I will be at SFU, I will travel to some indoor meets with the track team. Soon, I will decide if the races my team is going to could fit with what I’ve planned.

Welcome

2007-10-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Mircea Bogdan:Road to the Beijing Olympics.

I hope this blog can help all of you in some way, either through gaining helpful knowledge about the sport of competitive running or learning more about what it takes to be a champion. It was 14 years ago that Mircea started running. He was in his home country of Romania. eager to become someone or something. He decided to try out for his local running team. Unfortunately he did not make the team but instead of getting down, Mircea simply showed up and ran. He practiced with the team secretly and the coaches who cut him had no idea. After struggling for sometime with poor coaching in Romania, Mircea came to the USA. While in the US he ran for UTEP and eventually became NCAA champion in the steeplechase in 2005. After lowering his steeple to a 8:23 and just missing the finals in the World Championships Mircea made great improvements and will represent Romania in the 2008 Olympics.