Cherokee's 1st Annual Crosstown Classic

To all Cherokee Cross Country Alumns, current Marlton Middle School and DeMasi Middle School student-athletes:

Tomorrow, Thursday May 31st, Cherokee will be hosting the first annual Crosstown Classic.  It will showcase Marlton's finest middle school athletes in a 1.5 mile cross country race!

The race will determine what school has the fastest boys team and the fastest girls team!

Crosstown Classic runners will receive t-shirts with their respective school colors and medals will be awarded to the top runners.

The goal of the race is to drum up awareness of high school cross country at Cherokee and raise participation for incoming 9th graders to run cross country or track and field in high school.

Race times are tentatively set for 3:30 and 3:45 and it will start and finish at Marlton Middle School's grounds.

We would love alumni support!  Hope to see some of you out there!

I'm Going on a Diet

...which really means I'm doing my best to eat healthier than I already do.

My goal is to minimize the processed food I currently eat, while upping my vegetable and fruit intake.  Eating whole grains and eliminating the "junk" food.

It's been fun, yet challenging to look at labels and find 100 ingredients on something like bread, but that's just how it is.  I've cut out what I can and as the weeks go by, I'll try and cut out a bit more.

While I'm hoping to do this for a month, I can definitely see myself sticking with aspects of this for longer than a month.  So I'll let everyone know how it goes!

Believing is Half the Battle

Trying to find energy and motivation is sometimes tough.  Ask all of the sub-4 minute collegiate milers or the sub 13:45 5k'ers who had to "hang up the spikes" because they couldn't get funding, or had to get "real jobs".

I'm not saying I'm there, yet, but I have to start finding ways to either trick my body into believing it's not tired, win the lottery, or just deal with teaching, coaching and running - because it's not going to get any easier.

Since my break, I've been torn about what to do - do I take some down time to focus on going back to school while teaching, do I gear up for a fall marathon, or do I do what I did two falls ago and try my luck at racing 5k's and 10k's in an attempt to win prize money?  What do I do?  I think I know what I want to do, but what I want and what I'll actually do are usually two completely different things.

So as I progress out of teaching for the school year, and into the summer and (summer classes) I'll see what I can do to find a boost and get in shape.  At the absolute worst, I'll still be running.  And that's still a good place to be.


What do you do to get yourself motivated?  Does signing up for a race 3 months away work?  What are your thoughts about "just running" for a month or so?

Beantown Redemtion

I can't call it falling off the wagon, but I do believe I can say, I stepped off of it and have two feet firmly planted on the ground. It's inevitable that the last few weeks of spring track are going to be hectic. It's the end of the school year, and it's filled with championship meets and last chance qualifiers. All that means is this: there are a lot of track meets that need to be timed. So I've put running on hold for a few days, stepped up to the timing plate and when it's all said and done, a few more days off won't kill me.

Would I like to be running right now? Sure as heck. But will these extra "days" of work go a long way this summer when I'm spending a week and a half at the US Olympic Trials this summer? Absolutely. Totally worth it, and if I had to take time off to work again, I might do the same thing.

On top of school and timing, I'm also going to Boston this weekend - my sister is graduating, but almost as equal to the runner in me, Carly and I are heading to Mile 20. What's Mile 20 you ask? Well, it happens to be the point right before Heart Break Hill. Also the site of where Carly (very wisely) decided the Boston Marathon would end for her on that Monday April 16th. So we're heading there, and come hell or high water (or 100* weather), we're going to run the last 6.2 miles of the course. It'll be good to see her get the last 10k - she and I will finally be able to celebrate Boston appropriately. I think she and I can agree that we left the city on pretty bad terms in April.

I'm proud of Carly. She's one tough girl and she makes me work my butt off just to stay up with her. I'm glad she and I are getting this redemption. She needs it. And I need to run.



We'll start right near that Broken Heart at Mile 20.