#runcara

I occasionally wonder where I would be today if I didn’t join my high school cross country team and benefited from the mentorship passionate and knowledgeable coaches for the past 30 years. Before I joined the Tottenville High School (Staten Island, NY) team in 1989 under the coaching of Pete Whitehouse and Joe Cicoria, I was an underperforming middle school student following the wrong crowd in life. My coaches instilled a culture of excellence at Tottenville, where it was cool to study diligently and run for two hours on Sunday mornings. They transformed me almost immediately. I became the top freshmen XC runner in New York City and more importantly, starting earning As in the classroom for the first time.  

At the prestigious Penn Relays in 1991, I was the last runner accepted into the 3,000-meters and was intimidated to race in front of thousands of fans. Coach Whitehouse instructed me begin in last place and focus on executing my own race plan (72 second laps). I went through the mile in 4:49 all by myself, finally caught up to another runner at 2,000-meters and then proceeded past the majority of runners in the closing kilometer. I finished in 8:59, which was a personal best by over 20 seconds. If I didn’t buy into my coach’s special sauce prior to this race, I was definitely all in afterwards. Coach Whitehouse taught me to trust and execute my own plan. Starting in last placed scared the daylights out of my parents, but we believed in running negative splits and it worked big time!

Coach Whitehouse also taught me the importance of challenging complacency. After becoming one of the top varsity XC runners in New York City as a junior, he critiqued me more than ever. While everyone else was patting me on the back, telling me how special I was, he thought I had much more to give. Improve your form, push harder here, and slow down there. Thankfully, I listened and pushed the envelope with my training, nutrition and sleep. Later in my junior year, I won the national championship in the 2-mile and followed up with two more national titles in my senior year. We never talked about why he was so tough on me that year, but it has been quite evident ever since.

At Georgetown University, I experienced early success as a freshman, running on our top ranked relay teams at the Millrose Games and Penn Relays. Unfortunately, I struggled to perform to everyone’s expectations during the middle of my collegiate career. But coach Frank Gagliano (Gags) taught me the importance of persistence and never giving up. As a senior, I finally remembered again to stop following the crowd, to be unique and follow my own plan. I earned All-America honors and ran personal best time of 3:43 for 1,500-meters (~4:01 mile). Coach Gags even offered me the opportunity to continue running with his group of professional runners (Reebok Enclave). Being relentlessly positive and never giving up helped me that year, but even more as a coach at Duke University. I saw countless student-athletes struggle in their college adjustment, but I followed Coach Gag’s lead and just kept on believing and good things started to happen. One of those athletes was Abby Farley, who never lived up to her potential of being nationally competitive at Duke, but she decided to continue post-collegiately anyway. She lowered her 800-meter time by several seconds to 2:02.00, qualifying her to compete in the 2016 United States Olympic Trials and exceeding the fastest time ever run at Duke. Never stop believing!

I wanted to write this blog post for two reasons. First, to thank the coaches who helped me excel as a student-athlete and continue to help me be a better husband, father, coach and citizen. Thank you Peter Whitehouse, Joseph Cicoria and Frank Gagliano! Second, I want to highlight the importance of coaches for adults too. We continue to need an objective person to support, motivate and challenge us through the peaks and valleys of everyday life. Personally, I continue to benefit from the mentorship of coach Tom Cuffe, who was actually the coach at my rival high school. I hope you have a coach in your corner today and encourage you to take the time to thank the coaches in your life.

Within the running community, we know that running has a magical capacity to uplift people. For me, the combination of a passionate coach and the nature of running transformed me from Cs and Ds in middle school to As in high school and an athletic scholarship to attend Georgetown University. Most runners share similar inspirational stories regarding the power of running.

Unfortunately, various barriers continue to obstruct the magic of running from spreading throughout all communities (see “Why is Running So White”). While Blacks and Hispanics comprise 61% of Chicago, they represent just 7% of the running population. Additionally, the rates of obesity and diabetes in the Black and Hispanic communities are alarming, particularly among Black women (56.9% obesity rate).

CARA launched ‘Go Run last year with the objective to activate underutilized neighborhood parks, build communities and encourage active lifestyle through running and volunteerism. ‘Go Run attracted over 3,000 finishers in year one and we can exceed 30,000 by expanding to 12 parks throughout the city and suburbs by 2020. You can help CARA bring the gift of running to communities throughout Chicagoland via CARA membership, volunteering, running and donating.

Our culture is pretty obsessed with providing wonderful athletic and team opportunities for our children. Parents are scrambling to shuttle their children to weekday activities after long workdays and then fill up their weekends with their children’s games. While our passion for supporting our children is commendable, what about activities and teams for adults? We need to better focus on adult health and wellness and be role models for our children. Our current model is broken, with 68 percent of Americans obese/over-weight and nearly 50 percent diabetic/pre-diabetic.

On February 4th, CARA is hosting our annual Circuit Awards Banquet, honoring almost 300 of Chicagoland’s top runners and dozens of clubs. The CARA Runner’s Choice Circuit has been developed to promote participation in local races, to create competitive structure for area runners and within and between local running clubs. As the 2017 racing season begins to heat up, I encourage your to prioritize time for your own running and have fun participating in the CARA circuit. Just as importantly, join CARA’s or one of the 38 other Chicagoland clubs and lets have some fun battling it out on the CARA circuit for team bragging rights. We are so blessed in Chicago to have a robust running community and an abundance of running events.

Although I am currently nursing an Achilles injury, I am cross-training hard and excited to be up and running when the spring racing season begins. I look forward to seeing you at the Wintrust Lakefront 10 miler on March 18!

Happy running!

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This was my second year running the Rock 'n' Roll Chicago half marathon, and my third Rock 'n' Roll race. This race series is so much fun. From the expo, to the race, to the after party, they put on a good show. Marin and I went to the race expo at McCormick place on Friday. We got to take some fun photos!

The PAWS kitty and I

And we left with a bunch of goodies.

This years race was so much nicer than last years weather wise. It was still hot, but not in the 90's like last year! All the bands were fun and the spectators really make this race. Some of my favorites were a group of girls dressed up crazy doing to harlem shake, a little boy holding a minion sign, and by far the lululemon group on Michigan Avenue. That was they best little push I needed for the last five miles, for realz I almost cried running by them. At the expo Martin signed up at the Humana Vitality tent to send me a little inspiration. They had this giant screen with notes to the runners. My message was "Beth, you are a rockstar" It was really cool to see that. Right after that was one of the best parts of the race, volunteers hand out cold sponges to the runners, man did that feel good! Between miles 10 and 13 I was slowing down for sure. My knee has been feeling great throughout my marathon training, but at the race it sure was hurting. I took it slow for the last stretch, but once I saw the finish line I picked up the pace and the last .1 mile I ran as fast as my legs would take me. That is the best feeling in the world, you feel like everyone is cheering just for you, then you cross the finish line and it's done. All those miles were worth it and its a huge feeling of accomplishment. This is why I do this, and for fancy medals too. 

Gretchen and I before the race

Gretchen and I after the race (and Martin's thumb)

My phone did die minutes after the race. I like running with my Nike+ app, but it drains my battery. I was running the gymboss app at the same time and that really killed it. I did manage to say hi to some of the girls in my CARA run group after the race. Promptly after Gretchen and I met up with Martin and my Dad and stepmom Cathy too. We had a beer in the park then headed to Stout for brunch. I had another epic bloody mary from stout! Delish, it was a good day!