GO TARHEELS!

Mary, what cute puppies! DS16 and I had a fun visit at the University of Texas. We got to talk with three amazing people: Bubba Thornton, the head track coach, who was also the Olympic track coach last summer; Lopez Lomong, the US 1500-meter runner who was also the Olympic flag-bearer; and Mack Brown, the football coach. All three were SO gracious and friendly and talked to DS as if he were very important! The Texas program is amazing, of course. Basically the athletes get ANYTHING they need. We thought the underwater treadmill with the accompaning large-screen TV was pretty cool! They also have a room FULL of Nike shoes - regular running shoes as well as training flats and racing flats. The kids who do 80 miles a week get new shoes once a month. If they don't have the right shoe size, Nike will get it to them by the next morning. Kids who go on to post-season meets get cool orange and white shoes with the UT emblem. Everyone is issued two sets of workout clothes, and a guy washes one set every night (of course that stood out to Mom). We also spoke with the weight coach who works only with the track team. He came over, took a look at DS, and said, "You must be a shotputter!" It was funny. He spent a good bit of time giving DS advice about what he can do right now to get stronger for running (lots of pull-ups, where you kick your legs at the same time, for example). We spent about an hour with the assistant coach, John Hayes, who works with the distance runners. He was very encouraging and thinks DS would do fine at UT. He also had a lot of advice, such as running lots of 50-meter sprints to work on leg turnover, and running (16) 100-meter intervals at mile pace. All year round! He said you just never know how any HS kid will do in college. Some of the best guys get discouraged when they finish 3 minutes behind another runner in an 8k race. Genetics also plays a huge role. He said it's also challenging for young guys like DS, because he could be running against guys as old as 25. He did say that DS looks young and should grow some more. We also went to the Texas Relays, which are fun because they mix up the high school and university races. We saw one tiny HS girl run the 3200-meter race in 10:12!!! That broke the meet record by 20 seconds. We saw UT win the men's 4x800 relay (wow, their uniforms were skin-tight - why wear clothes?), and a UT freshman win his very first 1600-meter race at the college level. The steeplechase races were also fun to see. DS and I went down to Town Lake and ran (separately, of course) on the beautiful Hike and Bike Trail in perfect 48-degree, sunny weather. I went 6 miles and he did 7.5 miles. Lots of people passed me; no one passed him! He had to wait for me awhile to finish. The next morning, I ran 3 HILLY miles in my parents' neighborhood - what a challenging place to run! Texas is not all flat, trust me. This morning, I did 3.6 carpy miles with my friend. I ate WAY too much BBQ and Tex-Mex food on the trip, so I have to get my act together. Thanks for reading my novel! We're certainly not putting all our eggs in one basket; it was just fun seeing such a Cadillac program!

I shoulda known better than posting a pic here thinking I’d get a little sympathy for my discomfort. I show a grimace of pain and Erika thinks I’m doing Sarah Palin impressions, Jlynne thinks I’m just cruising on an easy run. Peter thinks I’m just happy about the outcome. Geez, you’re a heartless bunch. Watch out, next time I'll post a puking picture. Don't say I didn't warn you. Nice race, CNY! Steve, maybe you’ll have a breakthrough with that five week taper system. Wow, all those long runs today. Nice!