I never know what to write about myself when I place an "About Me" page on a website or blog I create. Part of me feels as though I am bragging about myself, but then again, having your own blog is kind of a self promotion site anyway, right? I have read other blogs and have decided to give you an in-depth look at me, although it takes more than just this post to get a feel for me.
Some of you may remember me having a blog titled "without limits" a while back. It worked for me for a bit, but then I got bored with it after not having the time to keep up with it. I also didn't have too much to write about, if I wanted to write about running and such. Although I have been running most of my life, all I had to write about was stuff about me, and not topics that are going on in running today. After reading many blogs, websites, magazines, and books, I now have more to write on. Especially this new craze called minimalist or barefoot running. We will get to that stuff a bit later. For now, its all about me!
Back in the Day
In middle school I was still playing football and looking forward to playing in high school. I joined the 8th grade track team with one purpose in mind: get faster for football. I ran the 400 and 800 in 8th grade, with a best time of 60 seconds in the 400 and 2:23 in the 800. I spent most of the season with a broken ankle, so that season was trashed.
High School
Freshman track season was the same thing. I ran because I wanted to get better at track. I was average at best, running a 54-55 second 400m and an 800 in 2:10. That, was until a meet in Galion, OH. It was an invitational meet with a strange track that had a large tree on the infield. I was set to run in the 4x800 meter relay, lead-off leg. Boom. 2:04. Sure, not good for high school, but I was a freshman who ran 2:23 the year before and dropped my time quickly. my thoughts were, "I can't wait till football season again!"
Sophomore year of JV football was just okay. Sure, I was one of the fastest on the team, but we had just had a transfer from a local private high school come to our school, and I essentially lost my starting wide receiver position to him. I later would play a lot of defensive back that year, but was quite disappointed that football seemed to not be my strong point.
Track season proved to once again be a big year. I was on the 4x800 team running consistent 2:01-2:02 races, and then managing to sneak my way onto the 4x400m team when I dropped a 50.6 split during an invitational. The 4x4 team made it to the regional meet that year, less than 1 second and 1 place away from qualifying for the Div. 1 Ohio State track meet. This is when I started to think that running, not football, was what I was meant to be doing.
Prior to the end of my sophomore school year, the football coaches came around asking players to participate in volunteer workouts throughout the summer. I remember telling them that I would not be joining the team that year, that I was going to focus on running cross country to help my track season out. It wasn't until mid-July when my friend Adam came home from a volunteer practice when he told me that the head football coach wanted to talk to me. I came in for a meeting the next night, and they told me that they felt I could help contribute to the JV team and possibly a little bit of varsity that year. I told them I really felt XC would help my track season, so they worked with my XC coach to come up with a way that I could play football and run cross country that year.
A few weeks later I was pulling two-a-days with the football team and running with the XC team. During a scrimmage against Shaker Heights, I was playing at WR with the second string team. At the time, former Ohio State Buckeye and current Pro Bowl cornerback Nate Clements of the S.F. 49ers, lined up to cover me. Well, after a quite successful scrimmage against him, I won the starting WR job as a junior. The rest of that season went good, both for football and XC. In XC, I was on the varsity squad, practicing 1-2 days a week during the season. Football games were on Friday nights and our meets were on Saturday mornings. We qualified for state that year, and I ran my career best 18:03 in the 5k.
This was the year I would run anything from the 100m to the 800m and all the relays in between. Our coach would always mix it up, never wanting to show other teams our capabilities as a team (we were stacked) so as to surprise them during big track meets. When I say we were stacked, it was because we could go to any meet and take at least 1st if not 1st and 2nd places in most of the running events. Relays it was the same thing.
For me, my main focuses this year were the 400 and 800m. Sure, I ran 10.8 and 22.0 in the 100 and 200m, and a ton of various relays, but the 4 and 8 were were I shocked everyone. I started off the outdoor year well with a 50 flat in my first event, taking 2nd (started in lane 8 for you track gurus). I also started off well in the 800, running a consistent 1:58 all year long. Looking back now, I can see that I could have run a low 1:50 time with the foot speed I had in the 400, but I always went out way to fast in the first 400, sometimes going out in 53 for the first quarter.
It didn't take long for me to start dropping some big times in the 400. On an asphalt track in N. Ridgeville I dropped a 49.2 to break the school 400 record. Two days later, I crushed my own record, running a 48.4 FAT (Fully Automatic Timing) at the Solon Relays in front of numerous college coaches including Coach Rainbolt of Kent State (where I later ran at the collegiate level). A few weeks later in the meet shown above in the picture, I ran a 48.1 FAT, rewriting the record books once again. My fastest 400 that year came in the regional 4x400m relay. We had the unfortunate handicap of starting off in lane 8, having to cover more track, when I got the handoff, we were in 6th place, and I knew I had to give everything I had to get us a qualifying place. After dropping a 46.9 split we took 5th place, missing 4th by less than a second.
Our team went on to win the Division 1 state title that year. I qualified for the 400 individually and was on the regional 2nd place 4x800 team. Unfortunately, on the first turn on my anchor leg of the 4x8 at state, my inside foot grazed the metal bar on the inside of the track, causing me to stumble, and breaking my ankle in the process. I was scratched from the 400m and would not make it back my senior year after developing asthma during the season.
College
I majored in Criminal Justice Studies, a degree I would later find to be absolutely useless. My original thinking was to use it as a way into the FBI or other federal agency, and if not them then a job as a police officer. After wasting a few hundred dollars taking several civil service exams, even setting a course record for a local department's physical test, I called it quits on trying to become a member of law enforcement. So I took my talents to Target as an assistant store manager in charge of Assets Protection.
While in the summer between for 3rd and 4th year at Kent State, I would end up meeting my wife Kristy (Graham) at a party. That was in the summer 2002.
Today
Nine years and two (#3 on the way) kids later, and we are living happily in Brimfield, OH. I feel as though I live in a zoo at times, with two labs, three cats, and two daughters who sometimes resemble animals.
Although it can be very tiring, I love spending time with my daughters. At the ages they are at now, 3 and 1, they are very active. My oldest, Morgan, is all about being outside. As soon as I get home from work, its "Daddy I wanna go outside!" We are typically outside until 8:30 or later until it is time for her to go to bed. Most of the time I spend the time out there watching her ride her Barbie Jeep, or her bike from her Grandma Cindy. Rylee is at the walking age now, running around the living room as much as she can. She also likes to just lay back or lean on you and "lounge," it is actually quite funny.
My wife Kristy grew up in the area, about 20 minutes outside of Kent. She played both volleyball and softball, while cheerleading for the football and basketball teams. She is not a runner, but in 2010, she started running and ran her first 5k in October at the Bowman Cup 5k in Kent.
Running
I from 2004 till 2010, I spent little time working out or running. At one point I was up to 205lbs. For me, being 6'3", 205 would be a good size, if I were a football player. My weight was in my waist area. Jeans fit awful, and my face looked fat. After Morgan was born in 2008, I stopped drinking pop and began to eat healthier. Within 3 months I was back in the 180s and felt much much better. In the late winter of 2010 I decided it was time to get back out and run again. In early April of that year, I ran my first 5k race since my senior year of high school. Sure, my time was lousy, but for me it was a milestone. I was back into running, reading Runner's World
and competing in four 5k races in 2010, even coming in 2nd place for my age group at the Yates 5k race in June (two weeks after Rylee was born). Now, I have my sites set on Boston, with my first marathon hopefully coming this year at the Road Runner Akron Marathon in September (barring injury). This year, I got into reading an absolutely fantastic book, Born to Run
, a book for anyone, runner or non-runner, and any level of running. It gives you insight into the theory and thoughts behind how humans were actually born to run. It is also where I got into my new Chia Seeds kick. Read the Chia Project page for my info about Chia Seeds.
No comments:
Post a Comment