Race like Ritz

It is the night before the FHSAA Class 1A State Track meet, and all season long I have been trying to get my athletes to approach racing like Ritz. Often times, I have to remind myself that I am not the one competing anymore. In the interest of full disclosure I never competed past the District meet during my high school years of track and field. Admittedly, I get a little jealous of these young guns this time of year, and how I wish I was blessed with both the genetic lottery and work ethic of Ritz.

For those of you who don't know, Ritz is the shorthand name for the one and only Dathan Ritzenhein. He is my favorite athlete running today because of his unbelievable capacity for hard work. He could have called it quits many times after bouts with stress fractures, complications, and other injuries both collegiality and professionally. He is one of the "Big Three" who is credited with revitalizing American distance running in December of 2000 at the Footlocker XC Championships (read about that here). He won the NCAA XC championships when he competed for Mark Wetmore at the University of Colorado. In the summer of 2009, he broke the American Record in the 5000 meters going under the 13:00 barrier for the first time. No American had done that since Bob Kennedy. After Ritz did so, it was as if people believed it could be done again--they just needed someone to break the seal. Matt Tegenkamp, Chris Solinsky, Bernard Lagat, and Galen Rupp all followed suit soon after Ritz.

More recently, Dathan just missed qualifying for the US Olympic Marathon team in January finishing 4th after being dropped by the three leaders earlier in the race... He came all the way back to watch 3rd place cross the line just a few seconds ahead of him. That has to be one of the worst feelings in the world. Now, he has rededicated himself to the track where I think he belongs. He looked good a few weeks ago at Stanford taking the win in the 25 lapper, and I know he will continue to build on that as we move closer and closer to the Olympic Trials in Eugene this summer.

His fast times are not why I want young runners to look up to him. It is because of the way he attacks races--all races. It doesn't matter the distance. 5000m, 10000m, half marathon, marathon. Road, track, indoors, outdoors. If he is in the race you're going to know it. The only other American like that is Ryan Hall who made the race during the 2011 Boston Marathon happen because of his front running tactics. Like Hall, Ritz isn't scared. He wants to race. If the race goes out fast so what? You can't do anything about it--you just have to go. This is how I feel distance running was 40 years ago. Distance didn't matter; surface didn't matter. If you were a 5k specialist and the race was a ten miler on the road so be it. Shorter versus Bachelor versus Lindgren versus Pre versus Young versus Rodgers versus Kardong versus Salazar (now I am just listing some American greats, but what these guys had in common was none of them cared what the distance was... they just wanted to kick your butt or die trying).

During championship meets like the one tomorrow night, I make a single pledge to my kids: I will not call a single split. I tell them just get out there and race. Be smart, be patient, bump elbows, get tangled up, don't let any gaps open up. Be like Ritz: RACE.



For more on Dathan Ritzenhein you can read his blog at http://dathanritzenhein.competitor.com and he is on Twitter @djritzenhein

We're for freedom of speech everywhere

"We're for freedom of speech everywhere. We're for freedom to worship everywhere. We're for freedom to learn for everybody. And because in our time, you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country is very much my business. And so we are for freedom from tyranny, everywhere, whether in the guise of political oppression, or economic slavery, or religious fanaticism. That most fundamental idea cannot be met with merely our support. It has to be met with our strength. Diplomatically, economically, materially. And, if Pharaohs still don't free the slaves, then he gets the plagues or my cavalry, whichever gets there first.... No country has ever had a doctrine of intervention when only humanitarian interests were at stake." 

This is not at all something I take lightly.  The loss of any human life should not be taken as such, and when there is a systematic approach to taking human life the only action for a super power is to see that those taking life should be stopped and held responsible. The above quotation was written by Aaron Sorkin during season 4 of "The West Wing" where a genocide was taking place (think Rwanda) in a small African nation. This was President Jed Bartlet's response in the episode entitled 'Inauguration: Over There.' For months I have been looking for anyone in the our government to take any interest in the the thousands of lives lost in Syria, so much so that I was even hopeful that some Republican presidential candidates would step to the plate to ask the current commander-in-chief to act. So I was quite pleased last week when the Syrian government tentatively agreed to allow the United Nations to step in with a cease-fire. That said, the government was still attacking its citizens a week before the agreement was to "take hold." (USA Today, 7 April 2012) 

My position on intervention might surprise some of you as I am sure most of you see me as a bleeding heart liberal who doesn't think American fighting men and women and their guns should ever step foot in a foreign country. Certainly that has been my position since the Iraq war started in March of 2003 and "ended" in May of 2003. Unlike some hypocrites and panderers in Congress I really was against the war and never was for it. Afghanistan is another issue... The appeasing attitude of hate held by the Taliban created an atmosphere ripe for al-Qaeda to murder a few thousand of my fellow citizens so I will always be for (for lack of a better word) the war in Afghanistan; especially since we screwed it up the first time around in the 1980s. It is time we get this one right, and I do not care how long it takes. We do need to realize though that it is a country dominated greatly by regional tribalism and perhaps our brand of democracy does not have to be theirs as well--different strokes for different folks. 

Back to Syria. The AP is reporting today that "the U.N. Security Council voted Saturday to expand the mission to 300 members in hopes of salvaging an international peace plan marred by continued fighting between the military and opposition rebels." Apparently the "onus" is on Syria, but at a certain point we need to say enough is enough. Even though as one of my Facebook friends Jon Paul pointed out that we won't intervene in a country's affairs if they don't have natural resources we require for our day to day lives, we certainly should when humanitarian issues are at stake. I expect more out of my government, my President, and my fellow Americans--call me pie in the sky and naive, but that is just out I feel. 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h7LPUIN4gT_afX0Q_Viu7GsRPn4g?docId=678f23fb4d554e23bc2a836cca979f86

The Greenway

It didn't seem too odd at first;
A usual weekend evening moving long
at a decent clip.
The granola women were out with
the dogs that were too big for them.
The Earth did a special thing spawning those
oddly sexy beings.
After the downhill and through the crowd,
the field narrowed to the path.
Three minutes and one U-turn later
I come up on the bird of prey herself.
And, although I was out late and she was
up earlier, we were as similar as can be; hunting.
Alas, Old Lady Wisdom seemed thoroughly
uninterested in what I had to offer retreating
to higher pine pirch.
I moved along: through the picture frame
of the tree line finding myself face to face
with the reflection of a park bench that I had
never truly seen before. And then
it made sense,
A smile, a thought, and a mile and a half to go.

This is a thought I scribbled down last winter after running through the Tallahassee trails bundled in every bit of clothing I could find...In retrospect, this 'sub-elite' system still might work but I know that not even the best distance runners in the country make the kind of scratch they really need to retire after their running career is over. 

I noticed an interesting thing this morning as I ran in 30 degree weather once again. Other than the six figure salary of my current running heroes, one of the big difference between the elites and those of us chomping at the bit for "sub-elite" status is consistency in clothing. Today, I had Saucony shoes, underarmor socks, Puma half tights, an Adidas top, and Pearl Izumi gloves on my run. Oh and Zoot compression sleeves. Six different corporations sponsored me on my run today. Now, this is just wishful thinking of course but if I were Nike or Adidas or K-Swiss (I know one of the shoe reps... just saying) I would look at the sub elite age groupers, those of us who are knocking on the door of sub-elite or elite status and give them a small contract, per diem maybe or a stipend, and all the gear they needed. Maybe pay for travel? Get a group of sub-elites together and send us to Atlanta for a road race or something? We'd still have to keep our day jobs to ensure that running remains a passion, but what could we do with a few extra hours in the day?

Would that make the difference between me being a hindrance on my loved one as I strive for my 80+ mile weeks? Maybe. It would make it just a little easier, and maybe that would be the difference between sub 1530 and sub 1400, a sub 2:40 marathon and a sub 2:25, or a 72 minute half and qualifying for the Olympic Trials... If I had an extra 10-20 hours a week I could train an extra 20-40 miles a week probably (this including getting good sleep at night and requisite naps during big training weeks). 

And, Nike can't tell me it would be bad for business to pay me 10 grand a year to wear all your products when I train and race. 10 large is a hiccup in these companies' books. Think what the company would get in return: people wanting products. Locals would come up to you at road races and ask, are you sponsored? do you like the product? the company? And, we'd all say hell yes. Then you would have more people wearing your product and wanting to work harder to get sponsorship on any level. I think some of this would create the time and money needed to train at a more elite level. Again, I do not think that this little bit extra would get me or anyone I know on the next Olympic team (not necessarily), but it might get a few more sub-elites knocking on the door of the Olympic B Standard or maybe even stepping to the line at the Trials. 

I think I am only ten to fifteen years late on the Blog bandwagon, but as the great storyteller Stephen King once said, "if you want to be a writer you must do two things: read a lot and write a lot." So, as I have the reading thing down pretty well, here is an attempt to write more. Furthermore, as I was recently reading an article in the Tallahassee Democrat about a visiting author to FSU who said good writing can come from bad writing and bad writing can come from good writing. Her point was simply that you need to write. 

This is part of an effort for me to do several things: 1) have my work read, 2) get my voice heard on a number of issues important to me and to society (as unimportant and insignificant my point of view may be in the grand scheme of things), and 3) have fun! I do not know if I will ever have my fiction published or even read, but I am still going to do it for me. PYBITS is what it shall be called, that is what I am calling my new take on writing fiction. I think it is the only way I can do it right now without being in a workshop or taking a class where deadlines positively force creativity. PYBITS stands for Put Your Butt In The Seat. That is what needs to happen. I am tired of saying I want to be a writer without every putting pen to paper to take on the pages of ideas I have. 

I am happy and thankful for this medium and this technology to allow anyone to just sign up for an account with Google and "Boom!" they have a voice. The voice of this person might be unknown, quiet, brilliant, or just plain wrong on all the issues, but it is still a voice to be heard and that is a pretty cool thing. 

It's a funny world we live in; it really is. I hope you will join me in exploring the absurdity of life and all that comes with it.