Blog
It is an incredible feeling to achieve a much sought-after goal. There is so much energy that goes into developing that dream, making a sound plan, following it through the ups and downs for months on end, and then finally taking advantage of the opportunity on that day. This past month, I realized a life-long dream to qualify for the Olympic Trials. It was a performance I had worked towards specifically every day since my disappointing result at the U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships.&nb...
Well the time has come again for another blog, however, instead of writing this from my normal locale which is upstairs at the ZAP office right in front of Frank and behind Nick (in a spot that I hi-jacked from Jess) I am sitting in my hotel room in sunshiney Tallahassee, FL, which is pretty tubular. This is my second experience with training in Tallahassee and I must say it is one of the greatest pleasures of the ZAP Fitness Elite Athlete training agenda. We arrived here a couple weeks ago and, well despite some dreary days...
Sleeping in an airport is not fun. Once you accept your fate and it sinks in that you are going to sleep at the airport, you tell yourself that it won’t be too bad. You have a good bench picked out, you have entertainment, you have a makeshift pillow and a good jacket for a blanket. You say, “how bad can it be? Its just like camping except better because its indoors.” It never works out the way you envision it. There are too many factors that can go wrong. You can get kicked out of the gate...
Over the past year I have found that, at times, training to be a professional runner can feel much like trying to dig through asphalt with a wooden spoon. Putting in vast amounts of effort but never really getting anywhere. Obviously, it was time for a change. A move that would take me one more quarter of the way across the country and hopefully from humble personal bests to slightly better than humble personal bests, or at the very least allow me to find more enjoyment in running. Having started my running career in southeastern Idaho, moving ...
The spring season is a great time to be at ZAP. The weather is mild. The parks we frequent are in full bloom. Everyone here is arriving at peak form and performing very well in races all over the country. For me, too, the spring has been very exciting. I came away from both the Mt. SAC and Cardinal Invitationals with substantial PRs in both the 5k and 10k, respectively. More than breakthrough performances, however, I am most happy with the process I have gone through in achieving those new best times here at ZAP.&n...
I may have graduated from college exactly 1 year ago to this day, but that doesn't mean I've lost the spark of intellectual curiosity. In fact, with Thomas and Warrenburg to argue with on daily runs, during dinner, and afterward in the kitchen, you could say the flame burns even brighter. One of my favorite classes I took in college was entitled Judgment & Decision Making. It was class that meshed professors from the departments of Psychology, Economics and International and Public Affairs. During lectures, we frequentl...
It’s hard to believe it is already June. We haven’t really had much summer weather around here, and I have only run two track races. The creek we soak our legs in is at an all time high with the rain fall, it rushes so loudly you can’t tell if it’s raining or just the sound of the creek. Over the last 2-3 weeks I have started to workout with all the guys again, and with so many new people this year it is the first time I have really worked out with them. I have been battling an injury since last winter, it isn&rs...
Today is Monday, June first, the official first day of summer (in my opinion). As a result I am in a happy mood overall as this is my favorite time of year, but today in particular I'm really upset because I have been sidelined yet again due to an achilles injury. It occurred tuesday of this past week while running a 2mile-mile-mile-800 cutdown out at Todd. What makes it worse is that I was rounding into pretty good shape (again) and was less than two weeks out from the pre "Pre" track meet in Oregon where I was going to be running my first ou...
So the new website is up and running, which is an infinitely awesome improvement over our old text based nightmare. Hopefully it will provide everyone with a little clearer insight into what we do here. Anyway, along with the website, most things have been going pretty well around here. I seem to have run into a little snag with some tight hamstring attachments and a messed up hip. It started during a track workout about a week ago, I must have been putting quite a bit more weight on my left leg as I rounded the turns and threw s...