State of SLG
Ah yes, Sunday December 30th and from where I am sitting, (in Sag Harbor, on Long Island) the view out the window is positively wintry. So, what's a coach to do but give a "State of her running club".
And of course, as expected, it was "Another Fine Year for SLG" so a review of this year's highlights and some musings and observations for 2008 shouldn't wait any longer.
2007 started off with a running bang. There was the New Jersey Half Marathon to train for and SLG seemed quite excited about it. Erik and Philippe even toyed with the idea of expanding this to a full marathon. A setback by injury for Philippe and the realization by Erik that he had a party to host afterwards seemed to have brought everybody back down to earth and on the same page and so on april 29th, we had another glorious day to run a half marathon.
Then, on August 5th, we had the second running of the New York City Half Marathon, which took runners around Central Park, through Times Square and down the West Side Highway to finish in Battery Park. Most importantly, we had a new runner making her debut in this distance, Margarita Chavez or "La Estrella"!
November of course brought us another New York City Marathon, and again, it was a great success for SLG. Too bad Mike was injured but Dora and Clem once again came from Belgium to run and David and Grant joined us from LA. Gil wasn't entirely pleased to loose his title to Clem after eligibility rules were changed but graciously passed on the trophy and other royal paraphernelia to Clem who took the trophy to Europe. The deposed but eternal Queen of SLG had mixed feelings about this marathon. On the one hand she was very happy that some of her former "pupils" passed her and set new PR's. Isn't that after all the ultimate goal of a coach, to make the other runners better?
On the other hand her pride was quite hurt having run her slowest marathon ever, even with a very good preparation. It got her obsessed for a few weeks to run a spring marathon to prove that this was not just old age catching up to her but that it could be chalked up to a bad day. She hasn't ruled out the possibility of that yet but right now her obsession has waned a bit. But don't you get too relaxed out there, she has been running very regularly in the last couple of months.
Of course, a special mention should be made of Philippe. Not only did he set a PR and finished in 3:58 in New York. Barely a month before, he had finished the Chicago marathon in "Death Valley" conditions with temperatures approaching 90 degrees. So here is this guy, at the height of his running carreer and now, he has announced that his marathon days are over. Say it ain't so, Philippe! And mind you, that is not the only reason that the future of SLG seems uncertain al of a sudden.
Erik has not run since the New Jersey Half Marathon. He is bothered by a nagging knee injury that does not seem to want to get better. Of course, he will always be a very important part of SLG and has provided invaluble services as party host and as fan coordinator. It would be great too if he could get back onto the running circuit.
Then there are rumors that Anne and Stefan might be leaving, to go back to Germany. What a loss would that be and how can SLG survive, without one of its founding fathers on "TERRA AMERICANA?? So, I have been thinking about a way to solve this issue. Apparently he has had some job interviews and some company has even offered him a job selling fish sticks or something like that. The company has accused him of not being completely excited about the offer and although Stefan has mentioned his services would not come cheap, after seeing all the fancy blog entries he has done as a guest blogger, I think we should consider making Stefan the Chief Information Officer of SLG. He has certainly proven his talents in that field. And wouldn't that be much more exciting for him (and for us) than selling fish sticks in Germany?
So although I do worry a bit about the coming year for SLG, there are a bunch of things that make me really happy for our goofy running club. During this past month, Stefan and I ran some NYRR races together and everybody knows from the article in the New York Times that we both ran excellent times and that it was quite the competitive event between the two of us.
Earlier this month, I had brunch with Grant, who was in town from LA one weekend and Larry and I had dinner with David the next weekend. During dinner with David, we got in this off-the- wall conversation about "skipping" and how skipping could save energy. So, David and I started talking about our next big event... which, remember....would be the Berlin Marathon on September 27th, 2008. So you could RUN it, or SKIP it if you would want to be energy efficient but the one thing a true SLG'er will not do will be to "SKIP" it. I know Dora is planning on running it, as is the King and Supercoach Clem and... to give you all a kick in the behind, I just signed up for the SLG event of 2008.
For more info, go to www.davengo.com. if you go to list of participants, and punch in my name you just might get inspired, Happy New Year to you all! Coach
posted by Lief at 11:12 AM
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