John Keenan was a member of our team and
our program from 2005-2009. From my now 30-year coaching perspective, that
timeframe resides in a bit of a murky area: It’s long enough ago where the
memories are fuzzy around the edges, but not so long as to have some vivid and
positive memories of that era of those teams. So, when I think back to the four-year
career of JK-Trey (as he was called, he’s John Keenan III), as a member of the
Running Red Foxes, certain flashbacks come to mind:
--His bad hair (see photo here). I
already know his and Rolek’s rejoinder, and they are correct when they will
inevitably remind me of my horrendous and ill-timed attempt(s) at a mullet
(note to current team: stop asking, it’s not happening!). But anyway: It was
relatively easy to tolerate Keenan’s unwieldy mop because a. I didn’t really
care and b. he usually ran really fast during that haircut phase (in fact, most
of his Marist career was highlighted by strong racing).
--Our trip to Indianapolis: Words cannot
describe the level of boredom and inactivity that these few days in this
completely nondescript Midwestern town (if you are from Indy … sorry!)
entailed. Time has not softened this memory; in fact, it has probably hardened
it! It was summer and it felt like we were a few inches from the surface of the
sun. So when Keenan needed some sports drink (hydration is key!), we figured we’d
go to a neighborhood store (we were staying in a downtown hotel) to get one.
Wrong! Downtown Indy, at least when we were there 14 years ago, completely shut
down at 5 p.m. We had to drive about 20 minutes out of town to get him a damn
Gatorade. Crazy. We had hours and hours of down time, including when the meet
was suspended because of the very predictable thunderstorm. Fortunately, JK-Trey
was a great travel partner and we talked endlessly the whole time. So, in an
odd way, it’s a fond memory.
--Like so many of our former athletes,
Keenan rode that seesaw between hard work and hard play like an expert surfer.
He loved the grind, and he worked hard with his boys on the team back then. They
continued the work ethic from their predecessors and laid the groundwork for
the future. But they’ll be the first to admit that on occasion they had a
little too much fun. It’s a delicate balance and the best way for athletes to
learn it is to experience it. Like almost every athlete that’s ever gone
through our program, I would say John made smart choices exceedingly more often
than not. His analytical background in psychology allowed him to reflect on that
beautifully here in his Pandemic Papers interview.
--Speaking of analytical: JK-Trey was also
one of several athletes during this era who were quite into the nitty gritty of
distance training. I pushed them, but they pushed me for answers as well. A
very healthy give and take that continues to this day. The great thing about
Keenan: We could be having these in-depth, complex discussions about a variety
of topics – from VO2Max or lactate threshold training, to politics, to the
choice of who the next Pope should be, and anything in between – but then it
could completely go off the rails when one or both of us would make an immature
comment (usually him) or stupid pun (usually me) or some combination of both!
And we would both get a good laugh at it.
Right before the pandemic shutdown,
Keenan was in town. I hadn’t seen John in person in years. He stopped by track
practice at Vassar. For him, I’m certain it was a time warp kind of experience.
That big mop of hair is long gone. But his loyalty to our program as a Forever
Fox remains. This Pandemic Papers interview is on the longer side, but John
veers into some really awesome areas. And being the analytical academic that he
is, he’s included several links to articles that could be very helpful. Thanks,
JK-Trey, for taking the time. And may sure that JK-Cuatro knows he’ll be
getting a call from me in about 14-15 years, so keep him running!
You are one in a long line of former St. Anthony's runners to attend
Marist. How and when did you start running and what are some of your high
school running career highlights?
As a freshman in high school, I was
always considered one of the fast kids on rec league soccer teams (without any
of the other requisite soccer skills), so I started running. Coming from K-8
with the same 25 kids to St. Anthony’s with a class of 530+, I figured starting
to run in late August before school began would help me meet a few new people
and hopefully get a leg up. I enjoyed the sport and the group of friends that
it gave me, but I didn’t get serious about running until my sophomore year
when, after a particularly bad meet at the Armory, my coach gave me his copy of
Running with the Buffaloes. There was
something about that team, the adversities they went through, the success they
saw because of their hard work, the camaraderie they felt for each other: I
wanted that kind of experience. My junior year, I worked hard to be a
consistent 8th or 9th man on a team that finished 3rd in the NYS Federation XC
Championships and was 5th man for the 4x800 that finished 2nd at Millrose and
6th at Penn Relays. Since I didn’t have any of those successes on my resume, and I unfortunately came down
with mononucleosis the summer before my senior year, my summer training was
really hampered. Even still, I wanted to run in college so I worked really hard
from late August on and was a consistent top finisher in cross country, indoor
track, and outdoor track (where it all started to come together).
*I dropped a 9:44 steeple and a 1:59 800
to score some big points at the CHSAA Championships.
*I finished 5th in the Eastern State
Championships in the 2K steeple.
*I competed at the 2005 Nike Outdoor
National Championships in North Carolina in the 2K Steeple.
It was a long time ago, but take us back to your recruiting process.
How did you choose Marist and what other schools were you considering?
As you just read, I was a mediocre-at-best
runner in high school and colleges weren’t exactly beating down the door to
talk to me. My best times were from late in my senior year, so I didn’t have a
lot to offer potential schools. I was looking at St. Joseph’s University,
Marist College, and SUNY Albany as my main choices. I had a good SAT score and
a good GPA, and was fortunate enough to get academic scholarships to all three,
but it was my visit to Marist that sealed the deal. The campus and the Hudson
River Valley were gorgeous, especially compared to Philadelphia and Albany. On
my runs with the team, everything just clicked. The sense of family and
camaraderie was immediate, even with a wide range of abilities and a group
looking to specialize in every distance event. I earned my nickname (JKTrey) in
my first run (I think by Chris Baum ‘07 and other St. Anthony’s Alum Sean
Hopkins ‘05), and the way that the team described running for Pete made it
obvious that this was where I was meant to be.
You were a runner at Marist just as the program was starting to take
off into one of its best eras of distance-running success. What are some of
your favorite memories of your time as a student-athlete at Marist?
My first race in a Marist jersey was the
2005 season-opening 5K at Sunken Meadow, my former home course, where I had
never broken 18. I had, for the first real time, put intention, consistency,
and a lot of energy into my summer training. It was a surreal experience,
running as a D1 athlete on a course I had run dozens of times, in front of my family
and high school coach, Tony Toro, who was also the race director. There was
electricity in the air during our team strides and huddle, an electricity I
would experience before every single meet for the remainder of my Marist
career. That day, though, I surprised everyone, including myself. I finished
third on the team and ran low 17s (17:10, I think). I walked onto the team and
was a Top 7 runner the rest of the season.
Later in my freshman year, I was able to
compete at the Junior National Outdoor Championships in the 3,000m Steeplechase
as the first-ever Marist qualifier in this event. Pete and I enjoyed an
incredibly boring trip to Indianapolis, where I completely bombed in 100-degree
heat and high humidity. I’ll never forget the thunderstorm that closed the meet
down for hours, needing to drive 20 minutes out of the city to a highway gas
station to stock up on Gatorade because everything in the city closed by 5 pm,
and the hours of talking with Pete.
The 2006 MAAC XC Championships race was
where it all came together my sophomore year. After dealing with phantom pains
of a previous stress fracture and lack of consistent summer training, this was
one of the few races in my entire career that I experienced “flow.” Beforehand,
I had struggled to break the 26:40 barrier. I remember coming through 5K in sub
17, setting a 5K personal best, and catching up to Justin Harris (‘07), who
pushed me to go even harder. I’m glad I listened to him. I finished in 26:18,
13th overall, made the All-MAAC team, made the sub-26:30 VCP all-time list, and
was part of a school record (Fastest Top 5 Team Average) that lasted quite some
time.
At the first indoor meet at Boston
University during my senior year, Joe McElhoney (Manhattan transfer and fellow
class of ‘09) and I wanted to run fast. We convinced Pete to get us into the
fast 5K heat so it could drag us to some good times. Our strategy was to run in
dead last, then with 1K to go, let it all out on the track. We executed our
race plan flawlessly, and with 1K to go, I distinctly remember Pete yelling at
us to make our move. Joe and I took off, picking off runners lap by lap. We got
faster and faster until we were just mowing down the field, finishing in 5th
and 6th and running my current 5K personal best, 15:06. I called Mike Rolek
(‘08) soon after to tell him about the race and his first reaction was, “You
know what sounds better than 15:06? 14:59.”
Like many others who have been a part of
these Pandemic Papers, my most cherished memories are times spent with my
teammates, my brothers and sisters, my Red Fox Family: the hours spent at
cafeteria tables, petitions to “Deb” to put General Tso’s on the menu more than
once a month, actually having (a lot of) hair on my head, the tunnel under
Gartland, nights spent roaming campus just talking about life, early morning
runs with Rolek and CT (Matthew Szymaszek, ‘07), the Jerk Squad, van rides,
pizza rolls, days spent at Woodlawn and later at 56 Sunset, the slip-n-slide at
the library, and Sundays at the Hyde Park Steakhouse. Since graduating: the
Annual Winter Extravaganzas, weddings, children, FaceTime calls, and
cross-country visits. I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to take part in
this activity, because it’s opened the vault and I’ve gotten to relive some of
my favorite years.
You just recently visited the Poughkeepsie area and stopped by at one
of our practices at Vassar College back in March. For younger runners, tell us
what it was like to train and race at Marist back then and what differences
there are between then and now.
Well for one, we only got access to the
Vassar College track in my last season (2009). We had to travel a bit farther
to Arlington High School, Spackenkill High School, the dirt roads at Vassar
Farms, the meadows at Vanderbilt or FDR, hell, we had a residential loop that
mimicked a slight 1000m incline that Pete fell in love with for about two
years. While I only saw the one workout, I would guess that the biggest
difference was we had to be a bit scrappier (and we were WAY more trusting as
we all left our bags just in the McCann Center lobby for anyone to take,
seriously!).
In spite of that, one of the best things
about this program is its similarity over the years. There are still the
diverse personalities, the groups splitting off to stretch/warm-up “their way,”
the leaders of the workouts, and the guys who pushed too hard or not enough.
While some may say that more uniformity helps the program reach another level
(I was one of those voices), now I think diversity is what makes the team
achieve success year after year. Pete always allowed some level of
individuality to be expressed through our running and it’s probably why so many
of us continue to compete at a high level for so long: we were allowed (and
encouraged) to find ourselves as runners.
Talk about your academics in Marist. What did you major in and how do
you feel it prepared you for your post-collegiate career?
As a Psychology major at Marist, I had
some great professors, especially my last two years. Dr. Kinlaw (now the
Psychology Department Chair) helped me design research studies that led me to
explore various areas of psychology and ultimately find my academic passion:
sport psychology. Similarly, my advisor, Dr. Gatins (now the Dean of the School
of Social and Behavioral Sciences) and I worked together through the student
group, Psi Chi, and I couldn’t be more grateful. After two internships in
Clinical Psychology, and realizing that I did not want to pursue that
professional path, they both helped me discover and pursue the field of sport
psychology. After I graduated from Marist, I moved to Tallahassee, FL and earned
a M.S. in Sport Psychology at Florida State University.
Speaking of that, your post-graduate education and work experience has
taken you to a lot of places with a lot of twists and turns. Tell us about
that, where you've been, what you've done and what you are doing now?
Immediately after graduate school I took
a job with The Princeton Review in Gainesville, FL. As the Territory Manager
for North Florida, I sold test preparation to high school and college students.
While I didn’t love this career path, it set the foundation for a few other
moves that I would eventually make. I ended up moving back to Tallahassee to
become a Student Success Coach at Florida State. I absolutely loved working
with freshmen students, helping 115 of them structure their lives within the
newfound independence of college. A short while later, my (now) wife, Abby, and
I were recruited to work with the U.S. Army, teaching soldiers mental skills to
enhance performance; we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use our graduate
degrees doing applied work. At Fort Bragg in North Carolina, I had the pleasure
of working with the 82nd Airborne while Abby worked within the Special
Operations community. The experience was incredible: we each worked alongside
6-10 other mental performance experts in our respective offices, we were
completely integrated with a number of soldier groups, and we had the
opportunity to make an impact through building curriculum and teaching skills
like attention, confidence, imagery, routines, mindset, and resilience - in the
classroom and in the field. After almost two years, though, the job was taking
its toll. We decided to move to Atlanta, GA (where Abby is from) and start our
own business while living closer to family.
In Atlanta, I went back to my roots with
The Princeton Review as the Georgia and Alabama Territory Manager. More
importantly, Abby and I launched our business, Intrepid Performance
Consulting,
in May of 2015. Abby quit her full-time job the following year as the business
began to expand in order to focus solely on Intrepid. I moved on to GreenSky
Credit, the largest financial technology company in Georgia, who offers
financing to home improvement businesses like the Home Depot. Over the last
three years, I’ve held a number of roles in sales, account management,
training, and management. I am now the Director of Outside Sales, where I
manage a team of eight Sales Directors from coast-to-coast and am responsible
for acquiring and onboarding new enterprise-sized home improvement businesses.
My career is rewarding and I have an amazing work team. While my background in
training mental skills comes in handy, I also continue to keep a foot in sport
by working with a few clients through Intrepid, which continues to expand.
We’ve focused on supporting runners, swimmers, and triathletes, from teenagers
to age 60+, helping them to improve performance and fulfill their version of
success through online mental skills training. In the process, Intrepid became
the exclusive mental skills provider for the Atlanta Track Club Elite Team, a
partnership we worked towards for a number of years.
My journey has been a crazy one,
switching jobs almost every 18 months and moving around quite a bit. My life
wouldn’t be the same without all of those choices and moves, and I’m so happy
that Abby and I explored a number of career paths. From those experiences, we
discovered what we wanted to stand for, how we wanted to work with clients, and
what would ultimately make us happy and fulfilled, both individually and as a
family.
You've done some great post-collegiate running and racing. What kept
you motivated to train and race at such a high level for such a long time? What
are some of your racing highlights? How is your current training and what are
some of your running goals?
As a volunteer Graduate Assistant for the
Florida State cross country and track program, I was able to train with the
team twice a day and experience a very different (but still Division 1)
program. After finishing grad school, though, I found it incredibly difficult
to keep training. I loved being part of a team, not just for the camaraderie,
but for the built-in discipline. I realized that a huge part of my consistency
was always having someone counting on me to show up to practice and train hard.
For the first time in my running career I didn’t have that, and I was wildly
inconsistent.
After about two years of on-and-off
training while working on mental skills with a lot of runners, I realized it was
tough to help people be great when I still felt I had something left to
accomplish. I hired a coach and asked him to train me for the marathon trials.
It was a longshot, but I went all in for it. I ran 75 miles per week for about
three years, most of which was in Florida, where New Year’s Day runs were 80
degrees and 90 percent humidity. I trained completely alone and learned to love
mentally pushing myself to limits without having another person there to keep
me honest.
I consistently finished in the Top 15 of
any road race I entered, got a little help from the Bull City Track Club out of
Durham, NC, and enjoyed traveling around the southeast for some great races. I
finished 8th in the 2013 Atlanta Half Marathon (1:15:20) and 73rd overall (out
of around 60,000) in the 2015 AJC Peachtree Road Race 10K. My body, though,
kept breaking down in a lot of small ways that started to wear me down. A week
off here, a few days of lost training there, and after about a year of random
and nagging injuries, my mind was shot. I didn’t feel like I had a pop and
started to loathe my training.
I stopped the coaching and just randomly
went for runs 2-3 times a week for another few years. It took me about two
years to treat and get rid of a nasty case of plantar fasciitis and enjoy
running again. In 2018, for some reason I decided it was smart to throw my hat
into the Chicago Marathon lottery with a buddy of mine when my wife, Abby, was
many months pregnant. I got in, and then right when I started to train, we had
our son, Jack (John Keenan IV, or JKCuatro). Abby was really supportive,
pushing me hard when I needed it. Despite being exhausted, many weekends she’d
let me sleep and then kick me out the door for my runs. I had a goal of 3:30.
On race day last October, I debuted with a 3:11:24, having a near-perfect day
and race. I’m still debating if I want to do another one and shoot for a sub-3,
because as I know Rolek would tell me, “You know what sounds better than 3:11?
2:59.”
How are you and Abby and your young and very active son handling the
pandemic? How has life changed for you and your family?
We are very fortunate. I’ve been working
from home since early March, pretty much since the day I got back from
Poughkeepsie. Not having a 2.5-3 hour round trip commute has given me so much
more time with Abby and Jack. GreenSky is continuing to prioritize employee
health and safety, with no intentions of reopening the office anytime soon. My
entire team is remote anyway, so me being in the office is largely
inconsequential.
With sports essentially being cancelled,
new clients for Intrepid initially slowed down, but Abby has not. She’s written
multiple articles, has been featured on a few podcasts, handled some public
relations work for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology, and hosted an
international webinar on virtual mental skills training, all while maintaining
a handful of online clients and taking care of our son. As people have settled
into new routines and are hopeful about returning to practices and competitions,
we’ve started to see an uptick in interest again, and recently Abby has brought
on several new clients.
Jack is a ball of energy. He decided to
master walking (and is taking his first attempts at running) during this whole
thing. We have an established routine, are lucky that we live next to a massive
county park, and are honestly enjoying the opportunity to just be with each
other. Of course, like everyone, we’re ready for this to be over and we’d love
to see more people, especially our families, but our health comes first.
Where do you see this thing going for the short- and long-term future?
It’s really hard to tell. Short-term, we
are doing our best to follow guidance laid out by the hardworking health
professionals and scientists in the country and keep a pulse on any day-to-day
changes. It helps being close friends with a few doctors as well (CT!) to get a
first-hand perspective on what is going on. All we can control is trying to be
patient and vigilant about social distancing practices in order to do our part
in keeping ourselves and others safe.
Long-term, I see the, not one, but two
pandemics (Coronavirus and systemic racism) changing the face of the country
and the world. We are in the middle of history in the making, which is
devastating and incredible at the same time. It’s hard not to see a facet of
our society that won’t be impacted, hopefully for the better. COVID-19 and the
Black Lives Matter movement have really forced us to take a hard look at life
as we know it and evaluate what matters, what we want to stand for, and how we
move forward.
You have a strong background in sport psychology. What tips can you
give to our current/returning student-athletes with regard to how to manage the
uncertainty of this pandemic?
First and foremost, I’d say to own your
emotions and know that they are normal and okay. Some days you might feel
robbed of a “traditional” experience. Other days you may love the extra time
you get to train. I anticipate them continuing to experience the gamut of
emotions, and if that’s you, you’re not alone. If you want to dive deeper into
emotions and what to do with them, check out this post Abby wrote about AAA:
awareness, acceptance, and action.
Second, I’d prioritize your mentality to
help manage the adversity we’re all facing:
● Focus on healthy lifestyle choices and
get serious about the little things. Hydration and nutrition are crucial as you
continue your summer training (run, rehydrate, run some more). Sleep (at least
7-9 hours a night) and intentional recovery strategies make a huge difference
in your training, how you feel in general, and long-term, how you’re able to
get back to performing. Be intentional with your core and strength training to
ensure your body is built to last for the long haul.
● Have an accountability partner. As
current Red Foxes, you’re still part of a team, even if you can’t physically be
with one another yet. Challenge each other from week to week. Communicate about
your training and how you’re doing. Set goals and be open about them, whether
they revolve around training times, miles per week, or times you want to hit
when competition opens back up.
● Learn your “why.” For anything that you
chase in life, one of the most important things you can do is reflect on your
motivation for chasing it. Why do you do what you do? Why do you want what you
want? When you truly find some clarity around this, especially if you can
connect it to an internal love of the sport, not much else is going to stop
you.
● If-then plan. Adversity is going to
continue, whether it’s related to the Coronavirus, managing stress and
uncertainty surrounding the upcoming semester, or in pursuing goals next season.
It boils down to this: if something bad happens, how are you going to
productively respond to it?
For some additional mental tips and
strategies, here are some other articles we’ve written:
Lastly, ask for help if you need it,
whether that means reaching out to your team, your coaches, your Red Fox
family, or a professional.
From your time as a student-athlete here to the present, what wisdom
can you impart to our current team in terms of how to improve themselves as
student-athletes during their remaining time here (you started addressing that
to the team at the Vassar track!)?
I’ve learned the hard way that success in
this sport lies in consistency: Building a mindset and physicality that can
weather weeks, months, and even years of training. This means doing the little
things, focusing on what really matters, and taking care of yourself. Think
about your goals as a runner, student, or just as a person. Back-track from
there and ask yourself, “what are the things I need to do to achieve those
goals?” Then, prioritize those things and reach out for support if needed.
I also know that this period in your life
is unique. When you’re able to get back to it, spend time with your friends and
teammates (just maybe not until 4 am), talk with each other about everything
and nothing, and create a community.
Study hard (even pro runners need a second job). Get involved in things
outside of sport. Figure out who you want to be.
As I have asked most in these Pandemic Papers, what message would you
impart to our graduating seniors who have missed so much over the past two
months?
Nothing I can say will take away the hurt
you likely experienced when you realized it was all over: not knowing that you already put your jersey
on for the last time, not celebrating after your last-ever class or final, and
not having those last few weeks to reflect and enjoy everyone’s company knowing
that “real life” is right around the corner.
But life is not over. You will see those
people again. Many of you will race again. This pandemic stole a few weeks from
you, but it didn’t steal the other 3.5+ years of memories that you made and it
certainly can’t steal the decades of memories that you will make with your Red
Fox Family in the years to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment