1. Someone who actually knows the the decathlon is usually responds complementary or with a story. For instance, my downastairs neighbor the other day asured me of some knowlwdge of the event with, "wow, you've got to be really well-rounded." Ok, he's got at least a pretty good idea of the event and didn't have to ask any further questions (see below).
The "storytellers" will show you their understanding with a tale of their days high junping or running the mile in high school - often beginning with something along the lines of "I used to run track."
2. For flow of this blog I'm going to skip ahead to the other end, those with no idea what a decathlon is. Usually far from athletically inclined, I think these are the people that do whatch the Olympics here or there every four years but probably have very little understanding of track and field. Although at times frustrating, these encounters can be entertaining.
I think it's the "athlon" part of the name people do recognize which brings association with the olympics, but its about there the recognition ends and you get questions like "wow, how much do you swim?," or my personal favorite, "so that's like with the horseriding and shooting, right?" Such encounters provided for a funny story, yes, but this makes me sad more than anything. No offense to you modern pentathletes out there, but if there's a significant population in the United States that knows more about the modern pentathlon than something you devoted your young life to, well, I'm not evengoing to finish that thought. Good work on that Olympic coverage NBC. Single tear.
3. In the middle is the group that has some recognition of the event but not a great understanding. They can make the track & field association and, if they're older (as apparently I am too), they may even recognize a Dan & Dave reference. These people usual go with "wow, so how much do you run." As recreation runners, fans, or retired gym class mile run heros this is a simple and fair enough question that shows some level of understanding. In reality, however, its actually the most difficult question to answer.
I know that to most, proficiency in running is demonstrated by ability to run a lot, ability to run FAR. Coming from a professional track athlete, a "professional runner," they'd love to be awed by my 200 mile weeks or my double days of intervals and mile repeats. I'm 210 pounds dude, I don't actually like to run. Yes it feels great to run fast and I do like the feeling I get when I am DONE with a workout, and yes, I do love what I do, but I don't consider myself a professional runner. I am a decathlete, running hurts. My long runs rarely top 20 minutes (my new personal long record as of this summer is a whopping 5 miles - but I did do it 2 days in a row) and the majority of my "running" throughout the year is based around training for the 400m - and therefore sucks. On top of which, I am not fast - relatively speaking. Thus, even when I am running in competition I'm not exactly having
the time of my life, its more like hanging on. I'll never forget one of the dutch coaches in Italy: he looks across the table to Jake Arnold and I at breakfast and says, "I thought Americans were supposed to be fast."
This is actually why I enjoy this part of the year so much. It's getting towards Championship season with USAs on June 24 and thus everything is geared towards topping it all off. The bulk of the work is done, now is a lot of fine tuning. Some of my college coach, Deanne Vochatzher's favorite sayings (second only to "KNEE!!" when we're hurdling) are "the hay is in the barn," or, "the money's in the bank.". Although there's still a little more work to be done, a lot of it now is polishing.
Case and point, if you really want to know just how much I run as a "professional runner?" On Sunday I ran for roughly 69.5 seconds. That's it. If you only took that long to brush your teeth your dentist would be pissed. Even worse, the whole workout took me about 40 minutes and I ran a grand total of 600m. How's that for tough? I'm on pace for about a 90 minute mile if I keep it up and dig down for a big kick finish.
The workout was actually 4 x 150m with 10min for recovery so they're all out. The security guy gaurding the tent on the infield for graduation definitely thinks I'm crazy (it doesn't help that it was raining), but that's the great part about this time of year. Every practice you're going for it. You're hitting new bests in the weight room (I'm just trying to keep up with Ben Affleck who can be spotted in our weight room), finding yourself in new places in the jumps, and reaching new territory in the throws. Even the sucky workouts (3 x 300) make you feel good. It's actually a hell of a lot of fun and pretty damn addicting.
On the other end this time of the year is a bit of a bummer because I don't get to hang out with my Jets. I've been traveling a ton both for Harvard and for my own competitions (I've spent the last few weekends in Italy, New Jersey, Greensboro, and now Dallas) and the Jets have taken their practices outdoors and off-site so it's been impossible for me to get to them. I'm gonna try to check in with em next week, but hopefully they understand. Don't get me started on the social life. If it wasn't such a mess I'm sure my roommate would be thinking about subletting my share of our apartment.
I am excited though. In about an hour ill be back in Dallas for what I hope to be a great summer of competitions. Ill try to keep you posted on how TGA goes this weekend and for those of you in CA, I'll be coming home for a little training camp before the US Champs in a couple weeks.
-matt
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