Restart

I went out in the 65 degree weather today and tested out the achilles. I'd sent the orthotics back so I was running on the old ones. That meant my feet hurt instead of my calf/achilles. I did an easy 5 miles. My legs and chest felt a little funny from the 5 day layoff. I ran ok. No pain. It felt tight, but no pain. I'll ice it and cross my fingers.

Today at work I was working on a really boring issues log so I took a break and googled the hell out of myself, then Dmitry, then a bunch of people I ran against. It seems we were running and racing just before internet and nobody has bothered to post any of that old stuff. You can find stuff from the 1970's and 80's when American distance running had a lot of superstars, but the 90's and early 00's aren't out there to be found.

I did find a video of Dmitry's first NCAA Championship. He said he ran out of gas the last 2 laps. He'd just arrived from Russia and was studying like crazy because he didn't speak English and as you can imagine it was giving him a bit of trouble in his classes. So he ran the indoor season without training. Pretty good against these fellows. Jason Bunston and Jim Svenoy were real badasses. Plus Alan Culpepper and a few other folks who made the olympics for various countries are in there. Jason fell down, got up, and kicked everyone's ass in the last 800 meters. Totally hardcore. Dmitry is in the Iowa State Cardinal and Gold. He leads a good deal of the race.




Not a bad race for a freshman who hadn't been training. I think Dmitry was 6th. He needed the race to be really fast because he wasn't sharp and couldn't outkick those guys. The race went through the first kilometer in 2:50 which is about 8:30 pace. That's why he took the lead to speed it up, but by the time the end came he just didn't have it. If they'd have gone around 8 flat he'd have had a shot.


I'll keep digging and see what other videos I can find. I know some high school friends always had parents walking around my meets video taping. I'll track those down. Plus I have some Super 8 videos from the good old days. Somewhere in that box is a good bit from Russia and the Olympic Trials. I just need to find a way to play them or transfer them. Those would be entertaining for us all I'm sure. Plus it'd be neat to post them on YouTube and see if I get comments from other folks in them.