Family- the hardest part of leaving

This weekend a few things began to hit me as I am approaching my departure date for Perth, Australia on November 2nd. One, I really need to round into better shape before hitting this new continent because some of the locals are waiting to race me already and have sent me several messages about bringing my "A" game. Two, organizing everything that strips most of the stability that I have worked so hard to achieve has been very unnerving & difficult. Three, I will really miss my family and many of my close friends whom I surround my self with on a daily basis.

Out of these 3 things the one that really affects me the most is #3 on the list. My family has always been VERY important to me, thus the reasoning behind sticking around the general Charlotte area my entire life. After 12 years of being an only child my mother decided to bring in a beautiful little girl as an addition to the family, as time passed I would be blessed with 3 much younger brothers also. Being the Big Brother to these amazing kids has been a duty that I have tried to fulfill in every way possible which has limited my opportunities in other regions that I had thought to once pursue. Conquering the hardest part of my new journey was allowing myself to "let go" of some of these obligations that I have set upon myself.

Just thinking about having a Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, my own B-day, Easter, and July 4th without my family sounds wrong just typing it right now. Not only will I miss my incredible family but I miss my family of friends who is my support system and my saving grace at times. Yes I will be gone merely one year BUT who knows what holds in store beyond. If things pan out, I may travel to another country for a stint. Opening my eyes to new horizons and trying to understand my potential in life has been an incredible journey. My hope is that when I travel abroad, I will join up with some amazing people who will open my eyes even more to what my true calling in life is meant to be.


I just want to send a HUGE Thank you to all of my family members who have been a crucial part of my life and have helped mold me into the person I am today. To so many of my incredible friends, thank you for all of the laughs so hard that it hurt my stomach and for the many days I needed you to pick my up from being in a bad mood. I will miss so many people that have touched my life, thank you for supporting me through this crazy, incredible, absurd, stupendous decision that I have made.

Blue Ridge Relay Recap:::::

6 months ago I decided that my total focus would be on the Triathlon National Championships in Alabama on September 26th, thus making it difficult to race the relay the week prior. Unfortunately I backed out of my said team obligations with "Team Awesome", whom ended up doing amazing this year as the #2 mixed team to finish overall. As most of you know, I ended up competing in the relay but with a different yet awesome team from the Compass group who asked me last minute to join in the fun.


My triathlon career was fairly short lived with nationals and etc after life got very chaotic for a couples of months in which my training completely disappeared. Life/God has a funny way of changing things that you have set in stone for the future. I am not sure why things have happened the way they have at this point, but looking back to last weekend its clear. I would have never met some of these amazing people whom where on my relay team. Everyone had their own interesting story and personality but everyone was very open to chatting with me about who I was and where I come from, the usual.

After leaving Charlotte, crammed into a van, then waiting around in mooresville for the other van, we finally reached West Jefferson around 8pm. Our van headed right to the meeting spot for dinner and chowed down! It was awesome that Compass actually covered dinner because we had a great meal and most of us had a couple beers to loosen up the conversation a bit. Waking up in the am, Gene, my roommate and I went straight to the coffee bar and had some muffins. We greeted some other teams downstairs and prepped for the journey. Upon arriving to the start line, every time I turned my head I saw someone I knew, it was magnificent seeing so many local runners joining in for this amazing adventure of which was my 4th time.

"Bear in Mind" started at 9:30am with team members, Judy, Joan, Lee, Gene, myself and Cheryl we set off downhill, literally. We each blazed our 1st legs faster than our time sheets had us predicted and handed off with a nice 25 minute cushion of time. Upon looking back over my garmin, I did exactly what I instructed everyone else not to do and that was to run real hard on the 1st leg. My 1st mile which was basically a gradual downhill I was swinging for the fences lets just say. As the relay winded along, we managed to get a few wash-ups, even a shower, some good grub and had plenty of gatorade and snacks thanks to the Compass group and Food Lion as our sponsors.

All in all the legs were very difficult, at points I wished I had run faster but what can you do, its the mountains! My team did an amazing job, I was so proud of everyone. This was the 1st time in the BRR competition that no one on my van had conflict! Yes I blew up the last time I raced but it was because I literally was lying everything on the line when I ran, to be followed by no rest and to eventually losing our lead. Live and learn people! All in all I think everyone was pleased, we finished 11th overall and 5th in the co-ed division. if it wasn't for 2 co-ed teams based from charlotte whom both broke the co-ed record, we would have been top 3 easy. After our legs were complete we managed to shower it up at the YMCA and even grab a couple cases of beer to sip on while we waited for van #2 to come through.

Thank you to CRC for letting me tag along with my yoga mat and bookbag while at Mellow Mushroom! We had an interesting brief drive back with Billy Shue who somehow missed the exit to I-40 3 times before Anne Falcon basically jumped from the back row to manhandle Billy, well verbally anyways. The ride back was just as fun as the journey in itself despite half of the van passed out. After sleeping forever on sunday, I came to realize that my calf pains were a bit more than I was used to, in fact it was in my Achilles tendon. After having Dr. Clay from Greenapple Sports & Wellness work on my legs he advised me to take 36hrs off with lots of heat, ice, and using the stick. My 1st run back tonight, actually went pretty well, I needed to vent some stress away, so my bounce felt like it was back. The 1st couple of miles felt amazing, but the last couple didn't feel quite as good, but I am coming around.


Thanks so much to the Compass Group for letting me be apart of your squad, Cheryl Todd for inviting me to watch you "girl" several guys on the course, Gene for being an awesome roommate, Kevin for communicating with me about logistics(and retrieving my car), and everyone else I encountered along the way.

Off the top of my head, I saw these people during the relay;

Mike Beigay, Ben Hovis, Danielle Crockford, Billy Shue, Allen strickland, mo campbell, stephen hudzik, colleen angstadt, chris cummins, scott woodbury, kevin lisska, borianna balkcheta?, brian mcmahon, john compton, paul mainwaring, kirk ward, emily hansen, todd patterson, shenna kevorkian, sarah neumann, jocelyn sikora, alice rogers, dusti jensen, caleb boyd, karin helmbrecht, melissa bell and joey church.

I am sure I missed some people but hey, thats a big list!!!

Here I come!

This is a very brief but straight to the point entry which has been in the works for WAY TOOO long. As of 4 days ago I have officially purchased my plane ticket to Perth, Australia!!!

Check out my short trip across the world:

- Charlotte to LA (5.5hr flight then an 11+hr layover!)

- LA to Auckland, NZ (13 hr flight! 8 hr layover)

- Auckland, NZ to Perth, AU (7hr 46 min flight)


I don't even want to think about this trip and being totally alone for almost 3 days traveling around the world. Books will only take me so far, does anyone have any recommendations for this journey??? The running better be AMAZING there!

Local 10k - experimentation with slight inebriation

This was not one of my finer moments as a "follow my lead" coach but I also stated that this was a semi experiment, as well I had multiple goals from this race. My first goal at hand was to meet Justin Mohl in the AM to chat about the 10k race and what too expect, while also providing some feedback to him about his form and etc. Secondly, I wanted to see if at all possible I could try to pull an all nighter and see with a proper warm-up routine it made it possible to race at a decent level. With the third goal in mind to review the course for Race director Paige Hauff to offer any recommendations going forward.

With the secondary goal in hand, I began my night with a cookout at my place to celebrate the departure of my friend Glenn Carroll to New Zealand, followed by an adventure into then uptown charlotte nightlife. After an amazing night of time with friends and busting a move on the dance floor, we managed to waste some time by people watching after hours which is a comedy in itself. After arriving home around 3:50am, i had a mere 2 hours to remain awake, just that simple. Well I tried to get online and watch TV as well but I was just exhausted and couldnt maintain my "All nighter". Even back in college I had to have a few hours of sleep, never pulling an all nighter. I was proud of myself to make it to 4:30am or so before I drifted off.

Worried about sleeping in, I actually woke up one minute before my alarm went off at 6:01am. I didn't feel too great but I grabbed a couple tylenol and some endurolytes along with a couple shot blocks for breakfast. Chugged some much needed H2O and hit the highway. It felt like a long journey to the race but I made seemingly half asleep (not recommended). Upon my arrival, I spotted a few familar faces and only could manage a wave. It was about the time I had to meet Justin, so we got to chat and I convinced him to jog around the block for an extra 3 minutes with me. So much for a "good warm-up routine" as planned. I just didn't feel good and well I was wrapped up in chatting with Justin about his goals, so my warm-up hit the back burner.

The race started about 10minutes late for some reason, but then all of a sudden we hear, on your mark, set, BANG...the race was on, I was about 3 rows back and I knew my hips were pretty tight and as usual lately my calf were stiff. Just the day before I received a massage based around my calf and neck essentially, so it was the typical 3 days out freshing massage. As we rolled down Randolph, I was pushing fairly hard and realized that my shot of staying with Jay and Aaron was shot. They blazed down the hill in a glory and I was left in the dust basically. After about 1/2m I just made up my mind that I needed to catch them NO MATTER WHAT. One consolation was that I agreed to meet Justin at 3 miles and run the rest in with him. "Chris, come on all you need to do is run for 3 miles with these guys" is what I said to myself. Legs feeling heavy, breathing feeling a bit shortened and my stomach churning, I gave it a good ol' college try and managed to close the gap on the leaders.



Upon my tagging along with the pack, Aaron noticed that I closed the gap and mentioned to Jay that I was in the group now. Knowing the faces of the other guys in the group from UNCC, i figured it would be a long shot for anyone to break up there 1-2 punch. They looked essentially effortless at this pace, we were half way chatting back and forth but I knew I had to focus more to maintain close for 3 miles because the adrenaline seemed to be non existant. At 2 miles they gapped me again up a hill and I nearly just called it quits there but made one more go at it and quickly caught up. The UNCC guys surged a bit it seemed as I looked at my garmin shooting out 5:06 pace, they gapped our group and Jay gapped Aaron and myself also. I chatted with Aaron and told him I was bowing out at 3 miles, so I decided to surge to wish jay goodluck the remainder of the race. I was happy to hit a split of 16:17 at 3 miles with Jay, not sure what the conversion is but I am pretty sure its a sub 17 5k effort.

Once Justin reached the 3rd mile marker, I really got to observe his actual motion and tendencies while racing. We often as coaches look over someone's form at practice or while doing strides, but you really don't quite understand someone until they are pushing that limit in the race atmosphere. Justin did excellent as we had a goal to catch a particular person and over the last few miles he managed to do so and even put a nice gap on him down the straightaway. All in all it was a great day to be out there, Justin did a fantastic job pushing through some respitory problems and it was nice to see some local guys take home the hardware.


OrthoCarolina Classic
USATF Certified. Registration No. TBA
Charlotte, NC 8/21/2010
UNOFFICIAL Results by QUEEN CITY TIMING SERVICES
RESULTS POSTED ON www.queencitytiming.com

10K

Place Div/Tot Sex/Tot Name Ag S Bib City St Guntime Pace
===== ======== ======== =================== == = ===== ========= == ======= =====
1 1/8 1/105 Adugna Deneamo 23 M 348 Charlotte NC 33:02 5:19

2 1/17 2/105 Jason Holder 26 M 134 Charlotte NC 34:29 5:34
3 2/17 3/105 Alejandro Arreola 28 M 3 Charlotte NC 35:28 5:43
4 1/9 1/81 Caitlin Chrisman 24 F 43 Charlotte NC 36:33 5:53
5 1/26 4/105 Aaron Linz 37 M 180 Charlotte NC 36:52 5:56
6 1/24 2/81 Emily Potter 31 F 346 Southern NC 37:54 6:07
7 1/17 5/105 Robert Heck 42 M 127 Charlotte NC 41:05 6:37
8 2/26 6/105 David Price 38 M 325 Charlotte NC 41:17 6:39
9 1/16 7/105 Derrick Hewett 33 M 323 Charlotte NC 41:45 6:44
10 2/17 8/105 Marty Lohr 40 M 184 Lexington NC 41:45 6:44
11 2/16 9/105 Nathan Stanford 31 M 362 Huntersvi NC 41:59 6:46
12 3/17 10/105 Daniel Fulco 40 M 104 Charlotte NC 42:40 6:53
13 1/5 11/105 Mitchell Rippy 48 M 233 Shelby NC 42:50 6:54
14 3/26 12/105 Adam Morris 35 M 339 Charlotte NC 43:37 7:02
15 4/17 13/105 Allen Strickland 44 M 259 Cornelius NC 43:49 7:04
16 3/17 14/105 Jeremy Johnson 29 M 153 Charlotte NC 45:06 7:16
17 1/4 3/81 Mary Dore 46 F 73 Charlotte NC 45:10 7:17
18 4/26 15/105 Christopher Tapia 37 M 263 Davidson NC 45:29 7:20
19 1/4 16/105 Sam Baucom 51 M 14 Charlotte NC 46:30 7:29
20 2/8 17/105 Dan Serianni 19 M 363 46:56 7:34
21 4/17 18/105 Christopher Lampers 28 M 312 Charlotte NC 47:20 7:37
22 3/16 19/105 Justin Mohl 32 M 210 Charlotte NC 47:20 7:37




The 5k had some odd conflicts I found out as I finished the race from one of the patients I work with at Greenapple sports and wellness. Apparently they turned the leaders around at some point and then made then jump back in or something. It basically translates to being the police officers fault because due to some lack of communication, no one knew the correct course apparently. Kudo's to Justin Ratike and Paige Hauff for putting on a fantastic race, that I hope will grow into the future. Shout out's to Aaron Linz, Jay Holder, Justin Mohl (and his wife), Bob Heck, Nathan Stanford(who must have started the race late) and Alex Arreola for pulling through with great performances on a very difficult course.

M.O.M ( miles of mooresville)

This blog is a quick summary the Miles of Mooresville which was the 1st stop on the "last second signup" 2010 tour on August 13th at a late 7:00pm start

I certainly prefer later starts especially since about 90% of my training is done in the evening time, minus the weekends on occasion. During my chaotic week leading up to the "M.O.M", I had so much on my plate, i figured it up that I had been working 60+hr weeks with all of the commitments I had made at my various jobs and my actually physical fitness was diminishing due to my exhaustion recently. After working at Greenapple Sports & Wellness on Friday I booked it to OrthoCarolina to meet up with the race director of the "OrthoCarolina 10k" to review the proposed course. (to note, I had bright kineseo tape on both legs while cycling and running)

It was one of the hottest recorded days of the year and here I was riding a calibration bicycle all around plaza midwood w/my friend Michael Heafner in the heat of the day. After a few passes of the proposed course and some examining we were covered head to toe in sweat. We wrapped up the course work at 5:44pm and attempted to make the start of the M.O.M. Luckily there was no traffic at all but we still seemed to get lost on the way there somehow. Once at the race site, we ran up to the registration booth w/15 min left just in time to grab a bib #. Once the 1st mile started Todd Mayes jumped out to an early lead as he was pushing the pace to break the 5 minute barrier as I hung in the back just hoping to warm-up. We hit the hill on the course and I thought, "Todd lied to me, he said the hill was NOTHING!" HA. Once Todd and another runner gapped me up the hill I focused and closed it up on flat ground then at the 3/4m mark I increased the pace w/thomas on my shoulder. I knew he had some wheels so I was just waiting for him to kick and he did, we took it to the line and I barely edged him out.

The 2 mile break was pretty long so I managed to mostly stand around and chat w/people gripping about the hill and how tired I was. Yea, no one wants to hear it, but i really felt exhausted@! bang, the 2 mile goes off, I group up with Michael and Todd, until I see my garmin showing 5:47 pace, then I knew I had to take off to a quicker clip. I took home the 2 mile in a fairly slow 10:50 but at least I had a big negative split on the last mile! The 3rd mile came up and I could tell there were less people on the streets. I told Michael I wanted to run together and make it a competitive yet fun race. Todd, Michael and I ran basically the 1st 2 miles together and the crowd loved our small front pack. At the 2 mile mark I took off with a goal to perhaps break 5 the last mile, even though far fetched, why not? I was churning it down hill and began lapping people, pushed the hill hard and then had a straight away to the line. I kept it controlled because of my recent calf issues but I didn't hit my sub 5 mark, closing the last mile in 5:13.

All in all it was a fun time, Michelle and Thomas managed to sucker me into a 18 minute cool down, but it was great. Fun times with good people, you can't beat that. I haven't been training but I have been getting lucky at some recent races and notched a fe "W's" on the belt somehow. I didn't prepare for this race as I would normally but I just wanted to have fun after a long day, with the hopes of throwing my self into the mix up front. Shout out to Michael Heafner, Michelle Hazelton, Thomas Eggar, and Todd Mayes for representing at the race.