for Wiley...

Love this ad! It's not the most politically correct thing to do, but I make no effort to hide my disrespect towards joggers. Team in training types, jack quinn's running club types, oprah winfrey "don't worry about the effort, we're all winners just for finishing" types, the "I spent 30 minutes doing my hair and putting on makeup for my 20 minute run" types, do everyone a favor and get a treadmill for your living room.

Several days after watching Boston I'm still inspired by Kara Goucher's collapse over the final two miles. When she started to fall apart I noticed her head flop down. She's a world class runner, has a world class coach (Alberto Salazar), has world class form, but that head thing was the same exact thing I do when I start to come unglued. It's like she studied film of me so she could let the world know that everything was going to shit. I knew exactly how bad she was feeling because I had been there many times before. I almost took off from work to go run when I saw it happen!

It's one of my favorite things about running. I realize I will never win another race (believe it or not, I used to win quite often back in high school and college). But I can always give a great effort, and I can honestly say that I've suffered just as much, if not more, than the guys up front. It's a great feeling that joggers will never experience. Guys like Kyle, Tony, Matt, Paul D, Fast Eddy*, they may finish many, many hours (even days in some cases) ahead of me, but it's not because I didn't give the same hard effort as they did. Tony said to me after Leadville once "I don't see how you guys do it, I could never be out there suffering for that long." Not sure if he meant that as an insult or a compliment, but I took pride in it.

So why is this post for Wiley? The ad made me think of him because he's going to be participating in the Stockholm marathon soon. I've been following his marathon quest, first to qualify for Boston and then to break three hours. We're roughly the same ability (though you wouldn't know that from the ass whuppin' I laid on him in his backyard at Austin!) so I know how hard he's been working. He gave a heroic effort at Boston in his run for a sub three, but fell painfully short (see his blog for a great race report). That happens when you set aggressive goals, I've told him quite often that if you meet your goals all the time you're setting them way too low.

And yet, he's thinking of losing his HFC status by jogging Stockholm! Despite being in sub three shape, despite knowing what little he has to do to get that magical 2:59, despite the fact that his parents will be watching, he's open to the possibility of sandbagging a marathon he travelled thousands of miles to get to!

Say it ain't so Wiley!

*I'm not convinced that SJ's quick race times are due to his hard training and race day efforts and have a hunch that he cuts the course when he can. I have informed the HR race crew to be on the lookout for this.