I have a bunch of new stories to add to my bl og! Some of the more important ones will come soon. You can check out my full list of completed race results on my Athlinks account, but I just wanted to sum up a couple of my own highlights. So enjoy, I have a couple tiny stories that go along with each.The following is a list of some major Highlights in my career as a runner and triathlete: The picture on the left was from the Chicago Athlete Magazine. It was of the 2008 Chicago Shamrock Shuffle. They dedicated a full page to me! "The Green Guy"
http://www.shamrockshuffle.com/CMS400Min/runner_information/index.aspx?id=12363
Anyway, the nice thing about being on the team is that we do group runs on Monday nights at Dick Pond in Schaumburg and track workouts at the Harper College track on Wednesday nights to help build speed. When we travel to races, man do we travel. The team has over 100 people on it. The first year we had gold uniforms, the next we had silver, and now we have what they call Visipro Orange (construction cone orange). We flock to races and destroy all other teams in numbers. It is a ton of fun to race with all of them. Post race we usually have a bbq or some kind of relaxing party. Since joining the team I have become faster than I have ever been and enjoyed racing more than I ever have before. Here is a picture of our post race get together after the Cornfest 10K.  The Triple  Challenge consists of a Super Sprint on Saturday morning at foster beach, then Sunday morning you wake up do a sprint starting in Monroe Harbor in the Freezing Lake Michigan, when you are done, you go right back to the start line and do an International distance triathlon. The announcer calls you a freak and you dominate the field again with whatever is left in your tank. Here are my results:
The next race is the reason why my motto is to "Never Give Up!" I'm going to show you all my splits because it is one of my most memorable races. It was a successful Failure. Basically the race started out fine, my swim was slow, but my transition 1 was the 8th fastest in 58 seconds. At mile 3 of the bike I blew a flat in a tubular wheel without a spare on hand. Instead of giving up, without even thinking of it, I began to run with my bike. And no I was not wearing running shoes, I was running barefoot because my shoes were still clipped into my bike pedals. If you have done the math by now, I ran 12 miles barefoot the entire rest of the bike course. Have you ever seen the hills of this course? While running the race director and all the volunteers kept asking me to give up and take a ride with them back to the finish in a car. I couldn't, one I paid the money to compete, and two, I've never given up, why would I now. I was running a decent pace with the bike. Along the way I picked up another guy who blew a flat so we ran together for a long time. Eventually he cashed in the chips and got driven back. After he left my pace dropped by about a min, not because he slowed me down, in fact, he probably kept me going. I think it was because I was only about 2 miles to the transition and the adrenaline started flowing again.  When I started running back over the damn with the transition about a half mile away, but in sight, I really turned up the juice. The announcers and everyone at the finish was cheering me on. They kept saying, "this is the guy that has ran with his bike from mile 3 to mile 15." When I got back I had one of the fastest Transition 2 times 0:42 seconds. People kept telling me to give up when I got back. Others said, "Go get 'm John!" I've never felt so much adrenaline in my life. When I made it out of transition, everyone who has already been done for about an hour and half was there cheering me on. I still had a hilly 5K ahead of me. I kind of felt bad, because I wasn't the only one still out on the course. In fact, I passed two others while tearing up the hilly trail course. I ended up with the top 10 fastest 5K after already running 12 miles barefoot with a bike. Since then my Motto has always been, "Never Give Up!" Below are my official results.
[9:51] [89/355][0:58] [2:15] [355/355][0:42][19:25][6:15][10/355] (Time) [2:46:45]
 This was a picture of how upset I was to waive my registration from this race and use it towards next years Boston race.. of which I didn't sign up in time for and have to wait another full year....Even though I was still going through all of this physical therapy I ended up still going to the Boston Marathon. This was because I already paid for my plane ticket and hotel costs. So i went and ran/watched the race. I was traveling with my best friends and team so I thought it would be fun to still go.  The night before the race Ryan Giuliano, Jacqui Aubert, Mr. Giuliano, and myself dove head first for the Boston Marathon finish line. I clearly won!When we were there we saw a Boston Red Sox game and I ended up catching a Foul Ball! It was awesome. Actually we were walking through the courtyard on the brick street right near the comedy club, "Who's on First?" and all of a sudden I heard a whoosh noise zip past my ear and clunk about 5 feet away. The ball must have been fouled back over the seats and out of the park. Luckily Jacqui went and snagged it before any of the other little kids got to it. Man I was lucky it didn't hit me in the head.  Being the sly guy that I am, instead of waiting the whole day in downtown Boston for all my friends to arrive from the Marathon start that was just 26.2 miles out of town; I boarded a bus to ride out to the start with them. There was a Commuter rail that I was supposedly supposed to take from the start, all the way back into the city, however once I got out there I found out that the only way to get on that train was to run/walk 6 miles north of the start of the race or 6 mile down the course. So even though I was supposed to be resting and not running in this marathon, I grabbed all my stuff jammed it in my backpack... by the way, I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. The race didn't start for another hour, but I wanted to see the course so I just started running right when we got off the bus. Man was it a hilly course.. I ran the first 10K of the race in jeans a sweatshirt, and carrying a bouncing bag on my back. It was really annoying, I should have just ran the race. I felt so good. When I finally made it to the commuter rail I had about 40 minutes till the first runner ran by. I did however see my hero's Dick and Rick Hoyt.  They started early with the Women Pros. Man it was such an inspiration to be so close to Dick and Rick and watch them roll by.Did I also mention Ryan Giuliano ran the first mile right next to Ryan Hall in the Pro marathon start. haha.  When the racers finally made it to me, I was still at the 10K mark. I was debating on just running the rest of the way in with the group, but thought it would be best if I actually did rest my feet. Little can you tell from the picture of Ryan leading the race, he is actually carrying his cell phone and updating me how the race is going the whole way. When they finally made their way to where  I was, Ryan stopped took a pic then started to run and catch up to Jacqui again. Right after this happened I jumped on the Commuter Rail and when to Boston College where I got off the train and had to run another mile all the way to the course. At this time, I was sick of the dumb commuter rail and decided to run the rest of the way in to the finish with my bag and everything. I know I wasn't supposed to run in the race, but I figured, I paid my entry fee, I traveled all this way, there was no way I was not going to finish the race and get my unofficial medal... When I got to Boston College, I didn't realize I still had about 5-6 more miles.., like I said before, I should have just ran the damn race instead of dealing with the commuter rail, my back pack, and the jeans that were chaffing my legs.When I was about a mile away from the finish I saw a friend that I used to go to Iowa with.  So I stopped and took a picture with her and then changed into my finishing clothes so it looked like I was actually in the race. Once again, I was not a Bandit... I paid for the race and for all my other expenses, there is absolutely no way that I was not going to get my finisher medal. I hope you enjoyed all of my highlights, I also, hope you were able to read it all before falling asleep for how long it ended up being. That was my bad. The next few won't be as long. I just needed to catch you up on what has been going on. Soon I will be telling you the tale of my First Ironman! Never Give Up! |
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Catching up on Old Highlights
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