Thoughts on the Millrose Reunion

Greetings Fellow SUNY B Runners and Blog Members!

For those of us who were able to get to New York to see the Millrose Games, it was a memorable event. I believe that 10 of us in addition to Coach Truce were able to come for dinner and see the meet. While my comments are a bit late, more on that in a minute, I think we all had a great time and definitely see the potential to do this again. I know for me, the evening brought back a ton of great memories of school days, running and good friends. I hope we can continue to get together.

I won’t make a big deal out of this but I went to the meet on Feb. 1 knowing I was going to the hospital for surgery on Feb. 5. I had my third abdominal tumor removed successfully. After a nine day hospital stay, I’m now home and resting comfortably and awaiting radiation therapy around mid March. Needless to say, I was not able to post a blog until now so please excuse my tardiness. I also want to reassure all of you that while I’m now a 3-time cancer survivor, I want to emphasize “survivor” in this situation. Fortunately I have benefited from early detection and in my case the “cure is worse than the disease.” In any event, it adds a dimension to running, keeping in shape and relating all of that to our stage of life. If anything, I have found that staying in shape is one of the best assets to have when recovering from something from like abdominal surgery. I won’t kid anybody, the surgery is invasive and recovery is uncomfortable and debilitating. But I’d rather do it knowing I’m in good shape and rallying from that than the alternatives. And they do give you amazing drugs!

However, the real point of my entry is to relate how it feels to watch your son follow the same path as the father (at least in terms of running track). My son Greg ran an indoor development meet this past Sunday at Kent State University and I was able to get out and watch. He did his father proud by posting a personal best time 400 meter time of 53.7. As a 16 year old sophomore, Greg is far from the leaders. The winners were from Cleveland and ran in the mid 48’s. Considering it’s still early in the year and that Ohio does not have a formal winter track season like New York, I’ll take the 53.7 as a major step forward. His previous best outdoor time was 54.8. Greg quit football this past fall to run his first cross country season (another positive move from my perspective) and without any real speed work, took over a second off his previous best.

If you ask Greg, his real goal is to eclipse his father’s times relative to the same age and year of high school. My best as a sophomore was 52.2 for 440 yards so without considering the conversion, I think he’s definitely within striking distance. Frankly, if he gets into the 51’s this year, I’ll be delighted and I think he has a serious chance to pull it off. Of course, then I’ll have to suffer the taunts and put-downs that only a 16 year old can level at his old man. Given everything else in my life at this time, my only response is: “Bring it on!” I have to confess, I definitely felt a father’s pride watching him run this weekend. I usually tease him about how he loses form toward the end of the race, a common fault among 400 meter runners. Greg also does not like running indoors. He thinks the turns are too tight and the air stale. This would give him a built in excuse for not putting out a better time. But this race was different. He looked faster at the start and stronger in the mid portion of the race. His form in the last 75 meters did not break down as badly and I had the sense that maybe he would be faster than in the past. As he crossed the line, I hit the stop watch and was within .05 of his coach’s time so I know it was accurate.

As Greg came off the track he actually looked dejected. He started to tell me how slow he felt, how bad the air was, etc. So I just showed him my watch and waited for the reaction. When Greg realized he did a personal best, a smile started to break out. Even though I’ll hear about it later in the season when he should beat my old time, I can say “I told you so” before he can throw the usual taunts at me. I’d like nothing better than to see him beat me. Being around to see it is a pretty good trade off for 9 days in the hospital.

Regards,

Former Runner

Note from Eric: Due to a bug in the blogging software I am being credit for this post my by Dave.