So I have some catching up to do here. We’ll handle this in a few ways. I’ll break it down into categories to you can skip parts that don’t interest you. READ MORE HERE
With our trip to Olympic Trials pending, I was inspired to start a blog about some of our travels. When I say we, most of the time it will be me and Chris Hunt, ArmoryTrack.com’s writer. PHOTO GALLERY FROM TRIALS AND BEYONDJune 19th - NY State Meet/Traveling to Buffalo June 25th - Nike Outdoor and trip to Delaware June 30th - Arriving in Portland, Ore. July 2nd - Arriving in Eugene, Ore. July 3rd - Morning run and Pre's Rock July 4th - The Eugene Experience July 5th - Distance Night at Hayward |
BLOG UPDATE: Rain Storm RaceSo I headed over to the Westchester Summer Twilight Track and Field Series to get a glorified workout in. I started running double sessions this week so I just needed a little bit of a harder effort. The meet was held at Hen Hud HS and I have run in the series every year since 1985 except one, so it was important to get the race in. |
TRIALS BLOG: Continuing to San Fran |
TRIALS BLOG: Distance Night at Hayward |
TRIALS BLOG: The Eugene ExperienceSo we headed over to the Brooks/Hanson house, which is where FloTrack parks their van and broadcasts from, to pick up Bart and walk over to the Warton house, where numerous Olympic hopefuls have been staying and while others drop by to get treatment (massage, etc, more coming on that subject from Chris Hunt later today). READ MORE HERE - |
TRIALS BLOG: Morning run and Pre's RockI joined my buddy Bart Sessa, the Syosset, NY coach and one of the directors of The Running School, to meet some friends at a local spot about a quarter mile from Hayward Field. We met up with Steve Josepher and Jerry Farrell, both of who coach at East Meadow, NY. FULL ARTICLE HERE |
Arriving in Track Town: Trees, bikes, and runners - 7/02/08by Tim Fulton We’re here. After arriving on Portland Monday evening we drove down to Eugene this morning. As we pulled off the exit to go and pick up our media credentials, Chris said, “A lot of trees here.” Indeed there are. You expect that outside of the city but everywhere within in the city you just see green. I’m not sure what they have more of here - Trees, bikes, or runners. While I thought that Portland was “Bike Town USA” and Eugene “Track Town USA”, there are a ton of bikes here as well. Every bike rack outside the buildings on campus is full to capacity. READ MORE HERE |
TRIALS BLOG: It’s all about the journey - 6/30/08I love to travel. All week long I have been getting ready for this trip. I’ve spent countless hours day dreaming of how I would navigate from Yonkers, NY to Eugene, OR and countless dollars on new hiking gear for the trip to San Francisco that follows. I’m flying to Portland, Oregon after a taxi-train-taxi ride from my apartment next to Van Cortlandt Park to LaGuardia Airport, with Eugene, Oregon the final destination - The US Olympic Track and Field Team Trials the motivation. I like the fact I started my trip at the mecca for cross country running with the mecca of track and field my destination. |
BLOG INTROWith our trip to Olympic Trials pending, I was inspired to start a blog about some of our travels. When I say we, most of the time it will be me and Chris Hunt, ArmoryTrack.com’s writer. I got to know Chris when he worked at The Journal News covering Section 1 track and field. Over the years we’ve spent a lot of time together at state meets and national meets. Even before we worked together officially here at The Armory, we always worked well together at the bigger meets, often sharing hotels when one of us forgot to book our own (this happened often). Since I recently did a triathlon (pictured left - and I am ready for the abuse from my friends for this pic) and I'm training for another one as well as a fall marathon, I’ll be blogging about races, food, travel, places to run and bike, as well as any other strange stories from the road. Follow me from Buffalo to Greensboro, NC to Rehoboth Beach, DE to Eugene, OR to San Francisco and northern California, to The Adirondack Mountains in upstate NY, to Sebago Lake in Maine, and to the Green Mountains of Vermont for running camp. I'll mix in work with a few vacations and hopefully some great runs, long rides, fast times at the meets, and some tasty food along the way. The New York State Championships
We started what I consider our summer traveling on Thursday, June 12th as we headed to the NY State Championships in Buffalo. The week before we had driven all over NY State to cover meets, includingt eh Section 2 State Qualifier west of Albany in Johnson, the Section 11 State Qualifier way out on Long Island at Port Jefferson HS, and the Lenox Fast Times Relays in Warwick Valley, which is always farther away that you realize. To get to Buffalo I drove out to Chris's house in Queens and left my car there (I didn’t want to leave my car in Somers like I did for the indoor state meet because while I was in Ithaca a tree fell on it and totaled it). From there it was an easy trip to JFK airport, literally taking 25 minutes to leave his house and get through security. I was amazed. At the airport we saw a few people we knew in the terminal. Bay Shore was on our plane as was the entire Monsignor Farrell team with coach Tom Cuffe. Cuffe actually came up in the middle of the flight to ask if I knew anything about some XC meet in Idaho. I did not. Thursday night me and Chris went for a short jog around the campus from out hotel and found the track. The stadium was bigger than I imagined it would, with huge stands surrounding the entire track. I couldn’t imagine the stadium feeling packed at all for the meet, and I wound up being correct. On Friday and Saturday, except for the home stretch, it looked empty. I was pleasantly surprised at the volume of the crowd though. Anytime a move was made or someone ran a spectatular time, the crowd was very load and very knowledgable. It was a tough meet to cover as a photographer. First of all, even though we called ahead of time for a press credential, they were no where to be found when we arrived at the stadium on Friday morning. We walked around, from one side of the stadium to the other, for over 45 minutes until we located some guy who had a box of credentials. It was very frustrating and I apologize to the college age girl working security who I was a little rude to. Not a good start. What makes the meet tough to cover is one of the things that coaches and fans were talking about all weekend. The divisions. Basically there are two division by school size for every event and then there is the “Federation Championships’ which encompasses as teams from any kind of school. Only NYSPHSAA teams (teams from numbered sections 1-11 as opposed to the CHSAA (Catholic), AIS (privates), and PSAL (NY City Public) can win medals in the Division I and Division II but all schools win medals in the Federation. So that means that in order to get a picture of every state champions, I have to get pics of anywhere from 3-5 people per event and I have to know what schools are NYSPHSAA and what schools aren’t. Thankfully I’ve been coaching in NY State since 1996 and I have a very good idea of who’s who. I actually got a picture of all but three or four state champions. Talking about divisions leads to conversation on how you qualify for the NY State Championships. Basically two athletes in each Section (including the 3 non-NYSPHSAA Sections from the Catholics, Privates, and PSAL) automatically qualify – the small schools champions and the large school champion. The next best athletes from either division qualifies IF they meet a strict qualifying standard. This system creates a lot of animosity in our sport. The better Sections feel that they should have more athletes at the meet because they have kids sitting at home with a chance to win state medals. The smaller, less deep sections often like the system because they are well represented at the state championships. One things seems for sure – no change seems to be in sight for the meet. I personally feel that there should be qualifying standards that if you meet them, then you compete. You can’t tell me that anyone who breaks 4:20 in the mile shouldn’t be at the state championships. Our sport in quanatative. We can measure performance with a stopwatch or a tape measure. Why not use that to our advantage. It just makes sense. The meet is always good. I loved watching the 4x800’s. It was hard not to root for Pine Bush as they battled Shenendehowa down the back stretch. I’m a Shen fan too, but they have had so much success over the years. Everyone likes to see new teams win titles. I was happy for Pine Bush. The work is never done when the meet is over. It took all night Saturday and all day Sunday to edit the 2000 pics, all while I was trying to get a run in Sunday night and pack to go to North Carolina for Nationals. We flew home Sunday afternoon and I left for NC Tuesday morning. I decided to drive down while Chris flew. I drove because I wanted to bring my bike with me to get a few rides in. I did just that in Washington, DC. I hadn’t been to the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, or the Vietnam Memorial since 8th grade so it was nice to take a little spin around the city. Afterwards I had dinner with an old friend before driving to Richmond and staying overnight. The next day I awoke early and arrived in Greensboro around 1:00pm. The MileSplit Webmasters Convention - Greensboro, NC
ArmoryTrack.com joined the milesplit network a little less than a year ago but it was at this meet last year that Don Rich of PennTrackXC.com approached me with the concept. This year MileSplit.us is hosting our first ever webmasters convention to get to know each other better and to learn and teach each other new skills. After trading so many emails with Jason Byrne and others it’s been great to get to know them better. I did my first triathlon a few weeks ago and when I started training in January, I made some changes to my diet in an effort to feel better. The triathlon went well and in the process of training and diet changes, I lost over 15 pounds. So when I got here I promptly googled for a organic market and found Deep Roots Market. We’re staying at one of those extended stay places with our own, very small kitchen (with ONE spoon so me and Chris have to take turns eating cereal). I picked up some of the best granola I have ever eaten as well as some essentials for survival – fruit, yogurt, cereal, orange juice, milk, etc. It’s amazing how bad the food can be at track meets considering how healthy most of the people attending the meet usually are. This is my first long trip away from home with my new diet and it will definitely be a challenge to stick to it, but it is doable. Wednesday I found a state park to run in – Hagan Stone State Park. It has beautiful, well groomed trails that are all shaded very nicely. I liked it so much that all of the other websmasters got together this morning for a run there. If you’re ever in the area, check it out. The trails are easy to follow and you can’t really get lost. Nike Outdoor Nationals - Greensboro, NC
The meet starts tonight (5000m) so we’ll start having race coverage, photos, videos, and all the usual content, but look for travel blogs from me and Chris the rest of the summer. I’ll be blogging about races, food, travel, places to run and bike, as well as any other strange stories from the road. |
Nike Outdoor Nationals – the meet
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