When I started running I was 13 and my training consisted of running laps around my yard. At the time it was hard to explain what attracted me to something that was so simple; I remember unsuccessfully trying to convince my brother to run with me. There was something that drew me to running even then. I began racing local road races with my sister and uncles who ran regularly and I loved competing. I wasn’t fast, my first three 5k’s were all slower than 23 minutes, but there was one thing that compelled me to continue. The idea that the more I ran, the faster I would get was addicting to me. I wanted to push myself more and challenge what I could handle.
In high school I was becoming a strong local runner, but certainly was not garnering any serious attention from colleges. As I ran more I found myself running out of time in the day to run as much as I wanted so during my senior year of high school I started getting up at 5:30 AM to run before school. Before bed I would lay out my running clothes next to my bed so that I wouldn’t waste any time. My alarm would go off at 5:30 and I would hit the road by 5:33 AM. I would run my 7 mile loop all winter in the dark and cold. This is when I knew I had found a passion that I would carry with me throughout my life. I really did not know how good I was going to be, but there was one thing that would carry me to achieve many goals; I was willing to work. My best times in high school were 4:42 for 1600 meters and 9:48 for 3200 meters. Good enough to qualify for the New York State meet, but I was not the best runner in the State, or Section and I wasn’t satisfied.
My freshman year of college I attended Broome Community College where I met a very important person in my life, Tom Carter. Tom was the cross country coach at BCC but it wasn’t his coaching that was significant to me, it was his passion. Tom and I shared something in common, our incredible passion for distance running. To this day there are only a few people I have met who can even understand Tom and his passion. When Tom was in his 20’s and 30’s he did one thing, and only one thing, RUN. Tom may not be proud of it now, but his 1.0 GPA his freshman year of college was not a reflection of a lazy student, just the opposite. Tom did some things in his life that seem absolutely crazy, unless of course you share his same passion, in which case it made perfect sense. Yes, Tom made perfect sense to me and I wanted to follow his lead. Tom lived a frugal life; in fact he had lived in a car, a gas station and on a porch at different times of his life. Tom chose these because he wanted to focus completely on running. He could not tie himself down with a job. Running brought Tom many victories including the Utica Boilermaker in 1979. Tom went on to run a 3:58 mile and 14:04 5k. There was however one thing that eluded Tom, the Olympic Trials. Tom trained for years and was never able to hit a qualify mark for the Olympic Trials for Track and Field. Tom does not regret any of his journeys in fact he wouldn’t trade it for anything. The best advice anyone has ever given to me, was from Tom and it is simple “Chase the Dream”.
I moved on from BCC to SUNY Cortland after one year and I was a new person, a new runner. I had two wonderful coaches who guided my aggression to meaningful training, Jack Daniels and Matt Moran. Jack is a legendary coach known for his running books “Daniels Running Formula”. Both men were among the most intelligent running coaches I have seen and I owe them tremendously for helping me reach my potential as an athlete. My sophomore year I began running 100 miles a week, sometimes more, considerably more than other collegiate runners. I knew that I was willing to train and put myself through more suffering than my competitors and this would lead to success. In my four years of collegiate cross country I improved my 8k time by more than a minute each year going from 28:00 to 24:46. By the time I graduated from Cortland I was a five time All American and had won a NCAA Division III Championship in the 5000 meters. Many would think of this as a successful running career, but to me this was not the end. It was not easy explaining to friends and family that I was pursuing a career as a runner and that I might not make any money doing it. People thought I was chasing an unrealistic dream and wasting my time.
In 2007, after a series of strong road races at USA national championships, I was invited to run for a professional running team, Hansons Olympic Development Program in Rochester, Michigan. At Hansons I was able to train with an Olympian and several World championship qualifiers. I had some successful races at Hansons but was not able to achieve the one goal that I had always wanted…an Olympic Trials Qualifier.
My wife and I decided to move back to central New York in 2009. In March of 2010 our beautiful daughter, Chloe was born. Now a father, my life certainly had added responsibilities. However, my running career was not over. Bill and John Aris started a post collegiate running team called Stotan Racing in January of 2010 with sponsorship from Nike and Pacific Health Labs. Although I now balance a full time job at Fleet Feet Syracuse, responsibilities of fatherhood, and going to graduate school, I was not done competing. Bill and John and my Stotan teammates pushed me to continue to train for the Olympic Trials qualifier. To qualify for the Olympic Trials a time standard must be achieved in a marathon. In 2008 the qualifying time was 2:22:00 for the marathon. For the 2012 Olympic Trials a committee decided to lower the standard to 2:19:00. At Hansons, my best Marathon time was 2:23:54. I had a lot of work to do. As my training became very intense I started to see results. In October of 2010 I ran the Chicago marathon in 2:21:23. It was my best time by over two and half minutes, but I was not satisfied, I had once again missed the Olympic Trials Standard, this was my 8th marathon. After Chicago, we had a big decision to make; when would I attempt another marathon? Usually it is ideal to fully recover from a marathon and rebuild starting with base training. This process usually takes at least six months to properly prepare. Bill, John and I discussed and debated our options for about two weeks because we knew we were making an important decision. We finally decided to prepare for the New Orleans marathon on February 13, 2011. We had four months, which meant we had to continue to marathon train. We wanted to do this because we thought I had the fitness to run faster than 2:21 and wanted to take advantage of my fitness.
Training for the Rock’n’Roll Mardi Gras marathon, had a few challenges. For one, it meant that we had to train through the Syracuse winter. As if running 130 miles a week wasn’t hard enough, doing it during a winter in which we had 179 inches of snow meant I was seriously tested by not only my training but the weather as well. The worse the winter got, and the more intense my training became, the more confident I was becoming. I was forced to do a long run on a treadmill…it was 23 miles. We ran our marathon pace workouts on Saintsville Rd and the surrounding area; I ran hundreds of miles down the long straight stretch of road along the rail road tracks. Every time a train came charging by, I tried to imagine myself running as powerfully as the train. Seeing a train became a visual reminder of the hard work I was putting in chasing my dream and pushing through anything to achieve it.
Several days before the marathon, I flew to New Orleans where I met my brother, who conveniently lives only an hour from New Orleans in Diamondhead, Mississippi. Marathon training seems to be an endless journey of training, so arriving at the marathon was surreal, it was finally here, and I was ready.
Race morning finally arrived; I was up at 4 AM to eat my oatmeal and banana breakfast for our 7 AM race start. I was nervous, as I usually am for races, but especially so before a marathon. It was 42 degrees at the start and sunny, which are perfect marathon racing conditions. The race started and I strode off the line, reminding myself to relax early, it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of a race and go out too hard. A pack of about 5 runners formed right away in the lead of the race. We passed the first mile in 5:11, a little quick but I felt good and was relaxed. Although it was very early in the race, I took the lead. I wanted to make sure we stayed on pace to run under 2:19. Mile 2, 5:17, mile 3, 5:12 it was already down to 3 of us, one of which was Shamus Nally, a good friend of mine who graduated from SUNY Cortland with me. Shamus was also going for an Olympic Trials qualifier. The third member of our group was Kevin Castille, a former Olympic Trials qualifier in the 10,000 meters. Shamus and I traded leads while Castille stayed tucked behind us. It became clear early that Castille was running for the win while Shamus and I were racing for time. Shamus and I continued to push the pace until the 13th mile, when Shamus began to fade, it was down to 2. We went through the half marathon in 1:08:41, we were averaging 5:14 per mile. We were 49 seconds ahead of pace. I continued to lead until mile 14. I was beginning to fatigue and each mile was becoming increasingly difficult. For the first time Castille led as I tucked behind him and tried to keep pace. We continued on until just after mile 18, where we went under a railroad bridge. As we began to run up the slight incline coming out of the underpass, Castille seemed to let up just a fraction, and I realized he was suffering. I reacted; I pushed hard to try to break away. Although I was focused on running 2:19 I was in position to win the marathon and I needed to take advantage of the opportunity. By the time we got to 20 miles I was about 100 meters in the lead. I was feeling strong running on the adrenaline of being only 10 kilometers from winning a marathon and qualifying for the Olympic Trials. But it wouldn’t be quite that easy. Mile 21 I had run a 5:27, I had slowed but I was putting in the same effort. This is common in the late stages of a marathon. As the body begins to run out of glycogen, muscle’s preferred source of energy, in combination with muscle fatigue, it becomes difficult to maintain pace. I was really starting to hurt, but I needed to average 5:18 per mile in order to run under 2:19, so I was losing time. I continued to run in the 5:20’s for the next few miles. The feeling of excitement was slowly turning into desperation. At mile 24 I ran another 5:27 mile, followed by a 5:26. I had lost the entire cushion I had a built up early in the race and now had to actually pick it up in order to qualify. My legs ached and I was feeling exhausted. I had been in this position before, being ahead of qualifying pace but losing it in the last few miles. Late in the race, I thought to myself, can I accept going home without qualifying for the trials? The answer was no. I just could not accept coming this far, hurting this much, making this much sacrifice, to come up short. I pushed on, ran as hard as I possibly could. The last mile and half of the race are in a park and I was winding through the park chasing the lead vehicle, it seemed to last forever. I wanted it to be over. I reached the 26 mile mark after a 5:18 mile, my time at the 26 mile mark was 2:17:46, I needed to get to the finish in 74 seconds, which meant I needed to kick, but I knew I could do this. For the first time of the race, I knew I was going to qualify for the Olympic Trials. I sprinted down the final stretch in front of a screaming crowd. My name was announced as I approached the line and I raised both arms pointing toward the sky as I crossed the finish in 2:18:49. I had won by over 7 minutes. Although my legs were in pain, I was overjoyed and filled with emotion. It had been a long and painful journey but I had achieved my goal. I spent the afternoon with my brother, Shamus, and Shamus’ girlfriend Megan celebrating my win. By the time I got back to my hotel room and found my phone, I had hundreds of messages from friends and family waiting for me. I will never forget the message each of my coach left. John was screaming and could barely control his emotion; Bill kept repeating how “awesome” this was. It actually took several days to even go through all of my messages. It was overwhelming.
A few weeks went by and I enjoyed the accomplishment with my family. When I finally sat down with Bill and John to discuss our plan toward preparing for the trials there was one main question they asked me; what was my goal for the Olympic Trials race? My answer was simple “How high is up?” This is something that Bill and John have used as a motto for their running teams, as to not limit what athletes can do. It was then that I realized my journey of chasing the dream was not over. In fact, it very well may be just beginning.
On January 14, 2012, I will compete in Houston, Texas with the best athletes in the country where the top 3 finishers will go on to compete in the Olympic Games in London representing the United States of America. How high is up?
Since college, I had been running on my own, running shorter road races and attending graduate school. Since last spring, I have been a member of Stotan Racing, a post-collegiate team out of Syracuse. Stotan has become another family to me. After graduating Syracuse, it was much different training on my own, and not having that team environment. Stotan has given me that team environment and more, it has been a great experience, and has only just begun.
teammates to run the fastest half marathon of my life. When I qualified for the Olympic Trials in the marathon, I was fast enough to get into the event and run the race. But we knew that if I wanted to be competitive I was going to need to do something bigger, something faster. After a summer of training toward a goal of running under 65 minutes, I was confident and excited to run for Stotan Racing and represent everyone on our team through my race. The four of us that raced (five including Brad Miller who raced the USA 5K championships in Providence the same day) prepared to race not for ourselves but for our entire team. John gave me instructions for Philly, and this made the race simple, I was trained, prepared and had a plan. I was going to start at a pace that was fast, really fast. In fact it would take me through 10k at a personal best time on the roads.