Home meet: Updated time schedule, women at 9:30 a.m.

Slight (very slight) change to our race schedule on Saturday: Men's 6km race remains at 9 a.m.; women's 5km race now starts at 9:30 a.m. (was 9:45 a.m.). This is to accommodate another event on another part of the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve grounds later that morning. Our Senior Day festivities will follow the women's race, after our ladies are done with their post-race cooldown and stretching. The Senior Day thing is always odd at the BEGINNING of senior year, but alas we must act while we can, since there are no other "home" meets for the remainder of the academic year. According to the sign in Donnelly Hall, there are 267 days till graduation. That seems like a lot; it's not. It'll be here before you know it. Our Senior Day holds the distinction of being the first one of many. Hope to see you there.

Women ranked 11th in Northeast Region

Sorry for the delay in posting this. Our women's XC team was ranked 11th in the Northeast Region in the NCAA preseason polls. Here are the details along with commentary from Coach Chuck. Good stuff, and an honor to have our women ranked in the preseason.

Update on the home meet

The weather this week is looking brutally hot, but fortunately the heat will break in time for our home meet at Vassar Farm on Saturday morning. The final roster of attending teams is as follows: Marist, Iona, Siena, Columbia, Mount St. Vincent. Men’s 6km race at 9 a.m.; women’s 5km race at 9:45 a.m. Important note: Palmer Weimann’s mom, Martha, has agreed to coordinate and organize the team tailgate for this and other XC meets. Please contact Martha at whctgirl@gmail.com or by cell/text at 860 803 8198. Look forward to seeing many of you there.

An open letter to the Class of 2018

As a new semester dawns with the beginning of fall 2018 classes on Monday, I’d like to pause and reflect and say goodbye again before we say hello once more. Each year brings with it new challenges for our team and our program. Each year’s team forges a new and distinct personality, and with it the opportunities for unprecedented greatness that inevitably (and hopefully) follows. But as we start each new preseason, semester and academic year, a part of our heart and soul is left behind with the recently graduated class. Oh sure, we feel that acutely on commencement day in May (this year, the mood was literally dampened by the nasty cold rain!), but we feel it in a bit more of a subtle way now, as we forge ahead with great goals and great attitudes. Recent graduates – 2018, 2017, keep ticking down the years – all have left their mark on the program. The class of 2018 was a special one (I know, I say it every year!), and will be missed greatly. The goodbyes continued this weekend, as we bid farewell (not goodbye; see you later) to one of our all-time favorites (aren’t they all?), Sami Ellougani (picture here is from Minnewaska on Saturday morning). Sami is soon off to San Antonio, where he will start his career in computer programming with USAA, as well as pursuing his master’s degree from Georgia Tech. So while the new academic year brings with it the anticipation of what to come, it is tinged with the sadness of those, like Sami, we has funneled out into the real world, where they are tentatively taking their first baby steps in doing great things away from Marist. We feel this way about each graduating class, class of 201x, 200x, 199x, all the way back to when we started. And so, to all them, and to the Class of 2018: we miss you. Class of 2018, we believe in you. Class of 2018, do great things out there in the world, as you did great things here in our little bubble called Marist College.

Introducing Ramon

We have a new entity in the Marist Athletics staff and “he” was at practice on Friday at Farm Lane: Ramon the Drone! Our awesome multimedia team, led by Meghan Graham, a true friend of the track/cross country program, was at practice getting some footage and using Ramon to film our men and women during warmup and the first Farm Lane interval. The video hasn’t been posted yet, but we look forward to what “he” added to the coverage. Neat!

Exposure

Recent developments have led me to a very obvious conclusion, one that I’ve probably been aware of for a long time but only recently can put into words here (hey, I’m not that smart, OK?): Our sport, and the way we go about our day-to-day activities, leads us to be exposed to all sorts of liabilities and dangers each and every day – far more so than any other intercollegiate sports at Marist. Again, you’d think after 28 years of doing this, I would have come to this conclusion sooner. First of all, it should be noted that getting up and out of bed and starting our day exposes us to all sorts of potential calamities. As I like to say, like professional athletes on an injury report, we’re all listed as “day-to-day.’’ So this concept of “exposure” is really elemental to our daily existence as human beings in the realm of free will.

But let’s get back on point here. In the realm of intercollegiate cross country and track, at Marist College, where, as you might be aware, we do not have track or cross country facilities on our campus, our day-to-day operations exposes us to more risk factors than any other sport we have. Go ahead. Name a sport. Tell me which one of these sports has to drive vans to off-campus practice facilities most days, or on the days when we train from campus, must navigate roads and sidewalks very much open to the public? The answer, my friends, is almost none. Driving vans on the roads exposes us to the risk of traffic accidents, one of which happened at our women’s XC practice on the way home on Thursday morning (Marty! Don’t worry! Everyone is OK! No need to call!). Our van was damaged; fortunately, our van passengers were not damaged, other than a few minor bumps and bruises. All were at practice and in vans, business as usual, the next morning. Through the years, several of our athletes have been hit by cars while running; several of our athletes have been subjected to scorn, bad attitudes and more while out running on roads and sidewalks. Comes with the territory. All of these occurrences are the direct path to insomnia for this old, long-time coach.

Listen. I’m proud of our athletes, past and present. More than any other Marist athletes, we are ambassadors for our athletic program and our school, for the very same reasons and risks of exposure we face on a daily basis. We’re out on the roads, the tracks, the trails, the parks, every day – whether we run from campus or not. More than 99 percent of the time, everything’s A-OK and we’re good to go. But on that less than 1 percent of the time when something goes wrong, boy do we long to be one of those sports that lives in the safe cocoon of a court, a field, a pool or even a river, usually with a sports medicine professional at the ready, and certainly no traffic or angry general public to deal with, where exposure exists but is limited to that relatively safe cocoon. Tomorrow’s another day, another long run. We’ll continue to live our athletic lives in vans, outside and off-campus, and we’ll continue to pray that most of our exposure is positive and doesn’t involve police reports, insurance cards, tow trucks, ER visits, or anything else that we don’t want to deal with out there.

Spiffy uniform, results

Spencer Johnson was the first to debut the new Alumni Racing Team uniform and he did a nice job at America's Finest City Half Marathon in his new hometown of San Diego. Spencer won his age group and got seventh overall in 1:09:55. He was slightly bummed at the finishing time, having hoped for a faster time, but noted that elite times across the board were slower this year for whatever reason, perhaps due to warmer than normal conditions out there. We are proud of him, now and always, and now in new colors (not to mention fancy sunglasses)!

Updated 2018 XC schedule

An alert blog follower asked me to post the 2018 cross country schedule. Now that it is finalized and updated, we can present it here for your viewing pleasure.

Saturday, September 1: Marist Season Opener at Vassar Farm. Teams expected to attend: Iona, Siena, Fairfield, Columbia, Mount St. Vincent, LIU Post, Marist

Saturday, September 8: Siena Invitational at the Crossings at Colonie

Friday, September 14: West Point Open at Bowdoin Park. This is a new addition to the schedule as the Rider meet was canceled without our knowing it; we just learned of the cancellation last week. We will be running a very limited men’s squad at this meet. Women’s 5.5km race at 10 a.m., men’s 7.5km race at 10:40 a.m.

Saturday, September 29: Paul Short Run at Lehigh

Saturday, October 13: Leopard Invitational at Lafayette College

Saturday, October 27: MAAC Championships at Crossings at Colonie (Siena host)

Friday, November 9: NCAA Northeast Regional at Buffalo

Saturday, November 17: IC4A/ECAC Championship at Van Cortlandt Park

Preseason XC: Sign of the times

This is where we work, as the McCann Center goes under a complete overhaul and renovation. The next year-plus will be a noisy construction zone. The finished product will be well worth the time and effort.

Preseason XC: Minnewaska and High Falls

Sorry for the lack of posts ... preseason is a frenetic time with an unbalanced schedule so I don't find myself in front of the laptop that often. Here are a few photos from the past few days: 1. The men at the top of the world at Minnewaska in the middle of their long run on Sunday morning; 2. A group of men and women who went over to High Falls for some watering hole jumps on Monday afternoon. We just got done moving the team out of Champagnat -- move-out day turned to night on a Monday, a new one for us! More later in the week ...

Preseason XC: Still with the hills

Once again, our first men’s practice featured the Mills Hills at the Mills Mansion in Staatsburg. It was warm and humid, and the freshly cut grass was wet and messy, a byproduct of the relentlessly rainy weather we have been having. There were clumps of grass clippings everywhere. We got through it, heavy/wet/grass-stained sneakers and all.

Preseason XC: Christmas in August

Wednesday night, after checking in to the sweaty Champagnat Hall and having dinner in the Grand Dining Hall, we handed out our team gear for 2018-2019 in the dance studio of the McCann Center. This is always akin to Christmas for our athletes, who relish their new gear. Alumni are not left out in this party. Men’s alumni who have not yet received a Marist Alumni Racing Team singlet … they are IN! If you already have a previous iteration of the singlet and you would like another, we’ll put you on the “waiting list” as first dibs should go to our proud alums who have yet to receive one. All I ask is that you make good use of it by participating in races, proudly wearing the new red and white singlet. If interested in a new MART singlet, email me with your name, address and preferred size and we’ll get one out to you soon.

Preseason XC: Introducing South Field Fitness

With the rapidly developing construction project overwhelming the McCann Center and its surroundings, one nice offshoot is the short-term/long-term weight room/fitness center during this period, which is being billed as South Field Fitness. This turned out much better than we could have expected, and our team got an introduction to it today with Coach Suma (strength and conditioning). Next time you are on campus, check it out; you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Pre-preseason ...

Our athletes are starting to trickle back into town. Like the baseball players who just can't wait for the "pitchers and catchers report" day at spring training, so too are some of our athletes trickling in before the official reporting day of preseason on Wednesday. Such was the case this morning, when Graham and Hogue stopped by McCann post-run, and took this Instagram/Snapchat style selfie with me by the pool bleachers. More athletes will be back on Tuesday, and the full squad reconvenes for the start of preseason and our long three-season journey for 2018-2019, on Wednesday. Here we GO!

Bryn leads her new team

Sorry, this result and photo got lost in the shuffle of our family travel the past few weeks. Congrats to Marist Running Alum Bryn Gorberg for being the lead runner of her new team, Gotham City Runners (GCR), at the New York Road Runners Club Championships 5-mile race in Central Park. Bryn ran 32:33, which is an excellent time although she said she was hoping for faster but was slowed a bit by the usual humidity that plagues NYC running this time of year. Great photo here of her leading the new pack. Looking good and strong, kid!

Add another 116 to the total

I won’t bore you with too many details about my annual 8-hour ultra in Pittsfield on Saturday. Through sheer persistence of showing up each year, I entered 2018 as the all-time laps leader at Clapp Park (.3553 of a mile per lap) for the first five years of the race (see back of this year's race T-shirt). Add 116 laps to this total after a muddy and messy 2018 race (monsoon like rain at four hours). The second name on the list, race winner Greg Soutiea, who is a legitimately elite ultra runner, easily overcame me for the trivial pursuit statistic of most “Laps of Clapp,” as race director Benn Griffin calls it. I also earned my 200-mile medallion – again, an award that signifies my ability to stay alive and to be stubborn enough to drive to Pittsfield and do this thing every year. This was a “post-surgery” PR (seven laps more than last year); hey, we can make up our own rules, right? My sneakers may not dry out till September.

Spencer sizzles in Balboa Park

Recent alum Spencer Johnson has moved out here to San Diego (we spent a few hours with him at the zoo on Monday ... neat!). On Saturday morning, he made us proud (as he always does) by representing our program in fine fashion by winning the oldest race in this town, the Balboa Park 8-Miler, which has been run for more than 60 years. No, we didn't get a chance to see him at this race as it was quite early and we were still weary from traveling to town. Anyway! Here’s his email and photo from the race:

Here’s my splits and pictures from the Balboa Park 8 Miler.  Overall it was a fun race and a good tempo/tuneup for my half marathon in two weeks.  It was pretty humid and mile 6 was somewhat sandy and a steep uphill which slowed me down a bit.
Mile 1: 5:14
Mile 2: 5:20
Mile 3: 5:12
Mile 4: 5:21
Mile 5: 5:14
Mile 6: 5:53
Mile 7: 5:17
Mile 8: 4:57
Official overall time: 42:34.07

Al otro lado

We’re now 33,000 feet above the flyover states, finally having departed San Diego with a late night/early morning arrival imminent at JFK in New York. Ruminating upon our excellent stay in the San Diego area, there are memories of the usual, almost cliché, things to do there. Yes, we went to the zoo, and we now know why it’s considered one of the best in the world; our youngest son, James, has a strong interest in zoology and it validated his desire to spend the day there. Yes, we went to the beaches – oh gosh, there are so many great beaches in the San Diego area: La Jolla, perhaps the prettiest shoreline area you’ll find anywhere; Pacific Beach and Mission Beach, where families flocked for the waves and the boardwalk attractions; Torrey Pines, where this summer my son Joey often ended his post-work, weeknight runs on a hilltop overlooking the beach, watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. We never made it to Coronado, which everyone said was a must-see, but there were only so many hours in the day.

One non-touristy spot we visited -- at the insistence of our son Joey, who has a fascination with borders – was Friendship Park, which is located on the border of the United States and Mexico near Tijuana. For a nominal $5 car fee, we drove to a mostly deserted beach that was equally beautiful to the other San Diego area beaches. Imperial Beach was right on the border; there were two border walls, one on the U.S. side and one on the Mexico side (yes, there’s WALL on this Border). On the Mexico side, in Tijuana, the beach was jammed with beachgoers -- colorful beach umbrellas, music, food, etc. On the U.S. side … mostly desolate, we had the place to ourselves! James and I played catch for a while, and we all dipped our feet in the warm Pacific water, and we vowed to return on Sunday, when there was a four-hour period (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) in which the border patrol allowed limited visits to the tightly guarded wall, where you could speak to folks on the Tijuana side. My wife referred to this at first as “sad” and then “surreal” as she grappled with the words to match the odd emotions we felt at the scene. Families spoke from either side of the wall and it had the feel of visitation hours. We tentatively walked to the wall and peeked al otro lado (to the other side). Joey, who is somewhat fluent in Spanish, soon struck up a conversation with a Mexican gentleman named Hector, who comes to the wall each Sunday to practice his English with English speaking folks. Joey and Hector talked for quite a while, maybe 20 minutes. It was a pleasant, cordial conversation. He spoke of his life in Mexico; Joey told him that we were from Nueva York and that he was here for the summer. Everyone in the park was watched closely by the US Border Patrol, but it was a relaxed atmosphere.

We walked away from the late morning at the aptly named Friendship Park with an odd feeling. There is so much yelling and screaming about immigration and border walls and such these days. The subject is far too complicated and divisive to discuss on a simple blog like this. Our family left with the notion that there are real people on the other side, with real lives and real connections to “this” side. We felt there was friendship at Friendship Park, on both sides.

Foxes everywhere: Eli in San Diego

On Tuesday afternoon on the University of San Diego’s breathtaking campus, I was able to track down a very busy Eli Bisnett-Cobb, a 2004 alum of Marist and our track program. Eli was one of the greatest track and field athletes in school history as a hurdler and high jumper – he still owns the high jump record! He was also one of the first Athletic Training major graduates, and his career path since Marist has led him many places. His most recent stop is as the Director of Sports Medicine/Head Athletic Trainer at USD, a post he just accepted a few weeks ago. Understandably, he’s quite busy with the start of preseason sports, but he was able to squeeze out a little time with me. One funny moment was walking through his training room, wearing a Marist fox T-shirt, while several USD football players were receiving treatments. There was some grumbling from the big men – after all, they are Pioneer Football League rivals of our Red Foxes. Eli was quick to explain the connection and calm them down! Very proud of Eli as he starts a new chapter in his career. Neat. 

Foxes everywhere: Reuniting with an old friend

The last time I had seen Donald Godwin was at our wedding: 23 years ago. So it was a true blessing to connect with him for a few hours on Monday night. Donald was a track/xc teammate of mine at Marist, a former housemate, a fellow Class of 1986 alum – and mostly, an old dear friend whose path and mine have gotten lost and scattered with the relentless march of time. Donald has worked at the University of San Diego (what a beautiful campus!) for the past decade. He is the assistant vice president and dean of students at the nationally recognized Catholic university. Donald remains true to his Catholic vocation and faith – he was a Marist Brother for four years in the late 1980s – and he seems to truly enjoy living life in the paradise called San Diego. We were able to catch up on our lives a bit and make up for lost time. Again, a true blessing!

Sunrise in San Diego County

They say a picture is worth a thousand words ... so I'll spare you 2,000 words to accompany these photos, taken this morning on my 70-minute jog/walk up the big hill from our Airbnb in the canyons/mountains east of San Diego. Gonna miss this paradise, but it'll be nice to get home as well. Eventually.

The siren call of an angry 12-year-old

Sitting in the San Diego airport, where our flight back to JFK has been delayed four hours due to forecasted thunderstorms back in New York. This is one of the primary reasons I so dislike air travel and I feel so fortunate that I don’t have to do this on a regular basis. My traveling companions are my two younger children; my wife is still in San Diego, getting ready for a cross-country drive back with our oldest son, once his internship out here is done. It’s times like these that you realize how addicted to “connection” this younger generation is. Younger generation? Ha! Really, all of us are. Oh. Did I mention? The Wifi in this airport stinks! My daughter Natalie was smart enough to download videos to her phone, so she’s OK. My younger son, James? Not so much on the planning ahead thing. Which has led to the following whining siren call of an angry 12-year-old, wanting to watch Fortnite vids all afternoon: “No Wifi for four hours? What am I supposed to DO all that time!” Never mind that I brought a library book for him to read (pfffft, yeah RIGHT?). Or, he could do what we did back in the prehistoric times when I was a kid: Stare out the window at airplanes, and be bored. No such luck. Swell. Hopefully, we’ll get home by the end of the week …

Grids, on and off

My last post was written at more than 30,000 feet altitude, as we were flying Jet Blue (now really, is there any other airline better than Jet Blue?) out west to Las Vegas on our recent/current Family Adventure. Thank you for the feedback received from the post. We are currently in the San Diego area, where our oldest son Joey is completing a summer internship at Qualcomm. We are hopeful to see several Former Foxes near and dear to us, in the next few days, while out here. Along the way, we have traveled many roads and my wife Heidi has taken many, many, many pictures – if you are “friends” with her on Facebook, my guess is you’ve seen a lot of them, as I think she has been posting and checking in, etc. … I don’t have Facebook on my phone so I’m not fully aware of what’s been posted.

So we landed in Vegas late on Tuesday night and spent a full day (Wednesday) in the sultry desert city. It was hot, even for Vegas standards, with temperatures soaring past 110 degrees at times. Whoa. I had never been to Vegas (Heidi went several years ago with some friends) and I wanted to experience it. Check. Done that. I “gambled” exactly $2 on video poker (big spender, I know, lost the $2 and lost interest even faster). I don’t smoke. I barely drink (didn’t have a sip of alcohol, while out there). Gambling has little appeal to me – I don’t even like scratch off lottery tickets! So really, in Vegas terms, I was a fish out of water. Vegas is all about hedonism. Pleasures, guilty and otherwise. For a boring schmoe in tube socks who relishes the idea of going to bed early and getting up in the predawn darkness to walk/jog in a parking garage for a few hours, Vegas has little appeal. I’m glad we went, for one day, and that’s that. We were able to hook up with Hild, who by amazing good fortune happened to be in Vegas with his family at exactly the same time as we were. It was good to see him for a little bit and catch up on things in person.

The next morning we hit the hot road, en route to the Grand Canyon. We stopped at Hoover Dam briefly, and Radiator Springs (famed from the movie Cars) briefly, but otherwise drove on desolate back roads to the Canyon, where we arrived at 5 p.m. This was a huge highlight, mostly because I knew how much Heidi was looking forward to it. Several days later, she’s still glassy eyed over the Canyon. We hiked down the Canyon about one mile on an overcast and stormy early evening, savoring every blessed step of this truly breathtaking place. Heidi took a ton of pictures; the one accompanying this post was taken by our daughter. If you want proof of God’s creation, go to the Grand Canyon. We were only there for a few hours, but it was worth every bit of the long drive out of the way.

Speaking of driving … the trek from Arizona to San Diego was long, hot and dusty. Waze took us on the most direct route, which featured some extremely desolate state highways in the California desert, where the temperatures once again soared into the 110s. The sheer intensity of the heat is difficult to describe and quantify. As is the sheer intensity of the solitude. Several times, we pulled the car over – yes, so Heidi could take more pix, but more so to simply immerse ourselves in the complete, stark and stunning silence of the vast, dusty open spaces. God’s creation.

By the time we were approaching the San Diego area, the Old Man driving was getting a bit tired and grumpy. We are staying in an Airbnb for the first time, and it is in a remote area of San Diego County, which required us to drive over winding mountain pass roads. We entered San Diego County in the desert, where the temperature was in the 110s, and ended the day in San Diego, where my son has been for the summer, on the beach, where it was in the low 70s. California’s topography and climate is so fascinating to me. Anyway, our Airbnb is a wonderful guest house on a cliff overlooking the foothills of San Diego. It’s a bit out of the way – about 45 minutes from Joey – but worth the isolation. Our host noted that we are completely “off the grid,” relying totally on solar power. Fortunately in these parts, the sun shines every day and there are rarely even clouds, so there is little danger of being plunged into darkness or even worse for my kids, out of Wifi! Joey noted to us that the last time he felt a rain drop was somewhere in South Dakota, in mid-May, on his drive out to this 12-week internship. It almost never rains here. So yeah, we’re off the grid, and loving it. My morning walk/jog has been up a dirt road, straight uphill for 40 minutes, past abandoned ranches … and once again, enveloped in complete silence. Dirt roads. Good footing. No cars. Uphill. I looked up and thought, THIS is heaven.

So while we’ve covered a lot of ground and seen a lot of things, the biggest takeaways so far for me has to do with the disparity between the bustle and noise and second-hand smoke of Vegas and the complete beauty and silence of everything else along the way. Grids, on and off. And oh yeah, getting our family back together for a few days – all of us, in one place – has been priceless, worth all the time and effort and miles on the rental car. Living off the grid here for a few days is nice; being home in a few days will be nicer. For a guy who is a creature of habit, this type of travel can been disruptive to a routine. We’ve been piling up the memories and it’ll be great to look back on all the photos when we are done. I’ll try to post some more stuff later in the week, perhaps from 35,000 feet on Jet Blue again. For now, it’s time for another cup of coffee and some more sweet silence here on the side of the cliff.