ON LIFE, TRAINING & FAMILY

Every day I come home to my 19 month old daughter, Chloe. She screams DA-DA and runs to give me a big hug at the door. My wife, Shelby is expecting our 2nd child in November and we are excited for the new addition to our family. My family is the most precious blessing I have and really helps to keep my life in perspective. They are also my biggest motivator. My wife Shelby has certainly made many sacrifices to allow me to chase the dream of competing as a distance runner. Knowing that I am given this opportunity really makes me realize how fortunate I am and drives me to produce the absolute best results that I possibly can, regardless of what those results are.

Stotan Racing and our members is also a family to us. With our very successful year of running, many people ask, what is the secret of Stotan Racing? Well, that is a hard question to answer, but I think you might be surprised by my answer. Usually the expected answer is some formula of workouts that no one has heard of before. While training hard and persistence is essential to what we do, it is not why we are running so well right now. It really comes down to trust, dedication and family. Trust is something that most people do not think of when talking about distance running because it is always perceived as an individual sport. However, this is something that we have, that fuels us. Athletes and coaches alike trust each other and know that we are all working together to become the most powerful team we can. Success of one athlete is success for the entire group. Thus, responsibility of everything we do falls on all of us.

Long before the Rock 'n' Roll Philadelphia half marathon even started, I was prepared by Bill and John Aris with my teammates to run the fastest half marathon of my life. When I qualified for the Olympic Trials in the marathon, I was fast enough to get into the event and run the race. But we knew that if I wanted to be competitive I was going to need to do something bigger, something faster. After a summer of training toward a goal of running under 65 minutes, I was confident and excited to run for Stotan Racing and represent everyone on our team through my race. The four of us that raced (five including Brad Miller who raced the USA 5K championships in Providence the same day) prepared to race not for ourselves but for our entire team. John gave me instructions for Philly, and this made the race simple, I was trained, prepared and had a plan. I was going to start at a pace that was fast, really fast. In fact it would take me through 10k at a personal best time on the roads.

As the race started I jumped off the line right up front. This raced was being promoted as the most competitive half marathon in the world, so I knew I was going out fast. I found my rhythm as I formed a chase pack behind the leaders. Our pack contained 5 runners including Olympian and 4 time NCAA Division 1 Champion, Adam Goucher. We were running ahead of some of the best runners in the country. If I was using common sense, I would have dropped back, but that was not my instructions. I was aggressive, I usually don't go out this hard, but this was the plan, I was simply running the plan. My first 3 splits were 4:50, 5:01, 4:51. Certainly the fastest start to a half marathon I had ever run, but I felt strong. I went through 5k in 15:15 and 10k in 30:30--right on pace. After 10k my legs began to tighten and I was pushing more and more to maintain the aggressive pace I had set. I went through 15k in 45:54 and 20k in 1:01:17, both were Personal Best times through those distances. My finish time was 1:04:37 exactly what we were preparing for. More importantly this puts me in a position to begin my buildup for the Olympic trials marathon.

Stotan Racing had a powerful day at Philly, Maegan Krifchin ran 1:11:04. That is the third fastest half marathon by an American woman this year. Jared Burdick ran under 68 minutes and Chris Raulli ran under 70 minutes, PR's for both. Our group is moving forward and looking forward to getting back to training.