The Next Level

So summer training, at least the first week and a half of it is going pretty well. My legs are finally getting under me again and that is making running 10x more enjoyable then having to deal with muscles that prefer the couch than the open trail. One great piece of news is the fact that I am technically now a scholarship athlete! Despite my poor performance at the Conference meets this season, my marks got me a books/shoes scholarship. Nothing crazy I know, but it is kind of a carrot to chase for next season where I want to score at conference rather than participate. In fact, getting on books is a huge boost. It shows that I am going in the right direction and that my improvements and hard work didn't go unnoticed. I'm still going to train with the mentality of a walk-on though. And that's run hard days hard, easy days easy, and miles, miles, MILES!

Today is also significant because of two extremely talented runners named Lagat and Solinsky. An AR and another sub 13 just continues to re-affirm the American Distance Revolution. These guys are showing that it can be done and it takes a lot of elbow grease to do it. Seeing these guys run THAT fast should pump up everyone who loves running. They are taking a barrier that only 5 years ago was extremely tough to break, especially for Americans, and man handling it. I can't wait for the Pre Classic where I think that mark of 12:54 is going to get dropped even further.

With Solinsky's sudden rise, I was reminded of a site that showed "Duds to Studs" or basically runners who might not have run particularly fast in HS but really took off in college or post-collegiately. Now Solinsky was a STUD in HS, so it doesn't really apply to him, but I was surprised to see names like Frank Shorter and Roger Bannister have times that were extremely average in HS or even less than average and then go on to run world class times. It just shows that most anyone, as long as they are willing to put in the work and get a couple calls their way can run FAST. I always enjoy looking at this site because it reinforces what I'm doing as an athlete and why I am training the way I do. The site is here:

 http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/nats/slowmilers.htm

Hope everyone is having a great last week of school or if you are a lucky bastard and already out of school, enjoying your summer. I know you must be having better weather than the Pacific NW. Do Work!!!