Bye-bye Bloomington

Final thoughts on the Indiana trip as we get ready to head back home, where hopefully we’ll see the sun (it has been cloudy, cool and stormy our entire stay here) …

--Thanks to Will’s mom, who made the trip out to Indiana with us, for her support of Will and our entire program throughout the school year. She also discovered the Bloomington Rail Trail, where I went jogging the past two mornings. Very nice.

--There are a lot of churches out here. Just a random observation, but seems like there is one on every street corner with an eclectic variety of denominations.

--Ditto that with Marathon gas stations/convenience stores. I’m a big fan of their coffee, and it’s cheap! Nicely done.

--A big highlight from the past few days was hanging with Marist alum Sean Hopkins, who is an assistant coach with the West Virginia women’s track team. Here’s a good one, guys: Hopkins (as far as I know, EVERYONE calls Hopkins “Hopkins” back on Long Island and from his Marist days) is known among the WVU team as “Little Sean.” Oh yeah. Little Sean. We’re gonna have fun with that one. Seriously, it was great catching up with him and talking track with him. We’ll see him later in the summer …

--Will did not finish in 11th place in 29:15, as that word spread like wildfire among the Marist Running family on Facebook and via text messages. While we all got a good laugh over it, from my perspective it’s great to see that so many alums were anxiously tracking the results online. And, even better, so many alums BELIEVED Will could run that fast and place that highly. 29:15. Something to shoot for – not just for Will but also for several of his teammates. Which leads me to my final point …

--Lastly, this was a good experience for Will and our program. But one of the things I liked was that Will did not come out here “for the experience.” He came out here to race hard, and he was disappointed in his finishing place and finishing time. He should not be disappointed with the effort. But again, he was not just “happy to be here.” Here’s hoping Will can return to this meet. More importantly, here’s hoping he’ll have some teammates with him as well for 2012, wherever it is. That’s the goal.