Daddy-daughter running diaries

Not long after I published my mushy Mother’s Day post, a good friend—and loyal blog reader—of mine pointed out that I sure as heck better write something equally sappy to commemorate Father’s Day. Of course, I was already planning to do so because (a) my dad is awesome and deserves mad props for his awesomeness, and (b) writing this blog post was much cheaper than buying and mailing a card. (Thanks for teaching me how to budget, Dad!)

My dad and I chillin' like movie stars in SoCal (Brad Pitt is taking the picture).

My dad and I share much more than just our good financial sense. From him, I inherited my charming foot deformity, my taste for anchovies and green olives, and, perhaps most notably, my insatiable desire to win at everything. As a pro football coach, he pretty much has to be competitive. And although he always emphasized sportsmanship and humility above all else, my dad definitely nurtured my innate competitive drive throughout my childhood—whether I was vying for the lead in the local children’s theatre production of Oklahoma! or a spot on the middle school math team. So, despite being raised in the age of participatory trophies and no-score youth basketball games, I developed a competitive spirit so strong that to this day, I can’t even get through a friendly game of Scattergories without a little smack-talk.

And even though cross-country was a bit outside of his wheelhouse, my dad fully immersed himself in the world of distance running to support my passion for it. If that’s not the definition of great parenting, then I don’t know what is. Here’s the “run”down (see what I did there?) of our most memorable father-daughter running moments:

A Daddy-Daughter Jog Down Memory Lane

1996 (summer) – I enter my first 5K road race. My parents also enter the race. After leaving my mom in the dust, my dad and I set out on a joint mission to conquer the eight-to-ten-year-old female age division. By the midway point, I am whining and complaining so much, you’d think it was an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras. Knowing full well that my drama queen antics are all for show, my dad risks a CPS investigation as he basically drags me through the final mile. Just as he predicts, my tears magically disappear when I see the huge throng of spectators gathered around the finish. I sprint across the line, win my age group, and receive my first-ever gold medal. From that moment on, I am in love with running.

1996 (fall) – My dad lets me race his offensive linemen in practice drills in hopes that they might be motivated by the threat of getting beat by a third-grade girl. I am oddly satisfied by my repeated victories over a group of 300-pound men.

2002 – It is the morning of my very first high school cross-country meet and I am a nervous wreck. It also happens to be school picture day, and in the midst of dealing with a Stage-5 Hair Crisis—trust me, curlers never work the way you want them to—I almost forget to pack my race bag. When I finally get to school, I make the horrifying discovery that in my rush to get out the door, I forgot to bring a sports bra. I immediately go to the office to call home. My dad answers the phone. My face burns red with embarrassment as I explain my predicament in panicked whispers. Ten minutes later, my dad shows up at school with the necessary equipment wrapped discreetly in a plastic bag.

2004 – My dad is coaching in Europe, and my family and I visit him over spring break. I am right in the thick of training for my sophomore track season. Because he does not want me to get kidnapped by a group of Euro-thugs in a Taken-type scenario—although, for the record, Liam Neeson ain’t got nothin’ on my dad—he insists on accompanying me on all of my training runs. He enacts the rule that I must stay within his sight at all times, so I end up doing a lot of back-and-forth running. This seemed overprotective and annoying at the time, but in hindsight was actually very loving and sweet.

2005 – For the second year in a row, my dad spends hundreds of dollars to take me to California so I can compete in the Footlocker West Regional Cross Country Championships. My race performance is mediocre at best, but he knows I gave it my all and offers lots of congratulatory praise nonetheless. Afterwards, he tries to ease my disappointment by devising a completely skewed, wholly inaccurate mathematical calculation proving that I am actually one of the top 50 high school runners in the United States. Also, he buys me a Tommy’s chiliburger.

2007 – It’s my freshman indoor track season at the University of Montana. I’m set to run the 800 meters in a meet at the University of Idaho, which happens to be in the middle of butt-effing nowhere. My dad doesn’t even think twice about making the five-hour trip to Hick Town, USA, to watch me run for two whole minutes. In his rush to get there in time for the race, he neglects to fuel up and runs out of gas midway through the drive. Without a moment’s hesitation, he gets out of the car, and—dressed in jeans and a leather jacket—begins jogging down the interstate toward the next exit. A nice young man takes pity on him and gives him a ride to the closest gas station. He makes it to the track just in time for the 800. A local sports writer is so impressed by this story that he later pens an entire column about it.

2010 (spring) – I’m set to run the 800 in one of the most competitive track meets of my college career: the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational. The meet takes place in Los Angeles—my dad’s old stompin’ grounds. I’m pretty sure my coach has fudged my entry time so I can run in the fast heat. To get myself in the psychological state necessary to compete against women with thighs the size of my torso, I repeatedly tell myself that (a) I am a badass and (b) as such, I can definitely keep up with these chicks and their massive quads. Once I hear my split at the 200-meter mark—27 seconds, the fastest I have ever run 200 meters, period—I realize that my plan is effed. I blow up hard core at 500 meters and finish dead last. My dad commends me for taking a risk and tells me it’s good experience to race against such a competitive field. Also, he buys me a Tommy’s chiliburger.   

2010 (fall) – It’s my senior cross-country season at UM, and we’re on our way to one of the biggest meets of the season: NCAA Pre-Nationals. For some odd reason known only to the NCAA and possibly Dr. Phil, the Division I cross-country championship course was built in the boondocks of western Indiana and is only accessible by a series of windy backwoods two-laners. My dad has traveled all the way to the Hoosier State to watch me compete. I have no idea how to direct him to the course, so I suggest that he follow the team van. He is staying at a hotel a few miles up the road from ours and plans to jump on the freeway as we approach his exit. Despite my moronically vague descriptions of our location—“Um, we’re, like, on this road that is next to, like, another road...oh, and the roads have lines on them!”—my dad somehow manages to perfectly time his freeway entrance, sliding right in behind the team vehicle in the legendary maneuver that forever will be known as “The Merge.”

2013 – I’m now a full-blown has-been, and I’m running in my latest community road race—a 10K in Polson, Montana. When I pick up my race packet, I find out that the 10K course is actually just two loops of the 5K route. I also find out that there are approximately six people registered for the longer distance, half of whom are men over the age of 50. After the starting gun—er, whistle—goes off, I am running alone within seconds. To help me deal with this double-whammy of monotony (repetitive course + no competition), my dad drives the car alongside me at various points throughout the race. He and my mom cheer just as enthusiastically as they would if I were pulling ahead of Kara Goucher in the Olympic Trials.

So Dad, thanks for always being there to cheer me on no matter what. I can always count on your congratulations, encouragement, and support—whether I win a major award or just a participatory trophy (although for the record, I hate participatory trophies and think they are slowly destroying America). Love you! 

Super Runday

This past Sunday, I—like many Americans—tuned my TV to one of the most anticipated sporting events of the year. I am of course referring to the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix.

In a sly move aimed at preserving as much advertising revenue as possible, ESPN2 elected not to broadcast the meet live on Saturday night, as it would have blocked a valuable time slot from much more lucrative programming options like masters water polo or competitive cup stacking. (I didn’t make that up—cup stacking really is a Thing and ESPN really televises it.)

I wish I had been a fly on the wall in the ESPN programming meeting where the Grand Prix scheduling decision was made. I imagine it went something like this:

SCHEDULE BOSS GUY: Ted, when should we play that Boston indoor track meet?

TED: Uh, I dunno, Boss. I guess we could just play it live. There’s nothing else going on that night.

SCHEDULE BOSS GUY: Wrong! If you don’t learn anything else from me, Ted, at least remember this: never put track and field in a time slot that has even the slightest possibility of drawing an audience. Saturday night is prime airtime for losers with no girlfriends, injured construction workers with no girlfriends, and fantasy geeks with no girlfriends whose Dungeons & Dragons game is on hiatus until the Dungeon Master recovers from the flu. It’s ratings gold just waiting to be mined!

TED: Oh, OK. So what would you put in the Saturday night slot?

SCHEDULE BOSS GUY: I don’t know, maybe competitive cup stacking—you know, something with broad appeal and moderate entertainment value.

TED: But what about the track meet? We’ve got to put it somewhere.

SCHEDULE BOSS GUY: Think about it, Ted. What’s the one day of the year when we have nothing to lose—when we know for certain that the entire country will collectively not give a crap about what’s on second-tier sports channels?

TED: Umm…Super Bowl Sunday?

SCHEDULE BOSS GUY: Very good, Ted. You’re catching on quickly. So, since we have pretty much no chance of attracting any sort of TV audience on that particular day, we might as well play something that nobody would watch anyway. Something like…

TED: Track and field!

SCHEDULE BOSS GUY: Excellent, Ted! You’re the man.

TED: No, Boss—you’re the man!

SCHEDULE BOSS GUY: I know.

What Ted and his boss didn’t account for, however, is the fact that there are literally tens of former track athletes out there just waiting for an opportunity to watch their beloved sport on the small screen. Usually this means sneaking into the living room in the wee hours of the morning to catch a condensed replay of a weeks-old college meet on some obscure sports network.

So when I see a TV listing for a track meet that is going to play on ESPN2 during normal waking hours, I get pretty flippin’ excited—even if it is Super Bowl Sunday.

Sure, I grew up in a football family that treated Super Bowl Sunday like a sacred religious holiday. But was there really any harm in skipping a bit of the redundant pre-game “fluff” to get my track and field fix?

Boy, was I glad I tuned in. Not only did Mary Cain—the 16-year-old running phenom from New York—shatter the high school two-mile record by SEVENTEEN FREAKING SECONDS, but also the camera crew managed to catch would-be 800-meter winner Phoebe Wright hawking a giant loogie on the track as she took her position on the starting line. (In case you were wondering, spitting on an indoor track is generally frowned upon. Vomiting, however, is totally permissible because come on, how are you going to stop that?)

Also, I will readily admit to giggling like a 6-year-old girl when men’s 3,000-meter competitor Dejen Gebremeskel, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being filmed at the starting line, did a not-so-subtle pick-and-flick before running to a third-place finish.

The logical explanation for their lack of manners: they’re not used to being on TV, and when they are, the only people watching are hotel night auditors and insomniacs who are just trying to find some yawn-inducing television until the Lunesta kicks in. Oh yeah, and pathetic track and field has-beens.

UPDATE: It has just come to my attention that the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix allegedly was broadcast live on ESPN3, an online streaming service loosely affiliated with ESPN. According to my research, access to this particular channel is heavily restricted by a series of complex subscription regulations imposed on the vast majority of digital cable providers. A recent survey of cable users revealed that ESPN3 is available in approximately 17 homes nationwide. However, since this figure falls within the margin of error associated with the survey, it is quite possible that ESPN3—like Manti Te’o’s girlfriend—is nothing more than an elaborate Internet hoax.

Run for the money

A couple of weeks ago, I was half-heartedly listening to a recap of college football scores while giving my toenails their last coat of polish before fall. I say “half-heartedly” because the level of artistry that goes into masking the grotesqueness of my feet requires a high degree of concentration.

When they started talking about ridiculous blowouts, my ears perked up and my foot flinched. In an instant, my impeccable paint job was ruined by an errant streak of Midnight Sapphire on my big toe. Why? Because there is one part of college football that has always fascinated me: money games.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this phenomenon, the simplest and least tasteful explanation can be delivered in a single word—prostitution.

Early in the season, powerhouse schools like to schedule an easy game or two to dust off the cobwebs, build confidence and impress their home crowds with a dominating win. To do this, they seek out smaller, lesser-known teams and pay them to get their asses kicked.

Small colleges usually have small athletic budgets, which makes this sort of deal extremely lucrative for them. Most don’t think twice about pimping out their football teams for 3, 4, even $500,000—or more. Then they put the players on a nice charter plane—compliments the opposing team, of course—and pray that they all come back alive and with the majority of their limbs (and cognitive function) intact.

The result? Scores like “North Carolina-62, Elon-0,” “Florida State-55, Savannah State-0,” and “TCU-56, Grambling State-0.”

In some cases, it’s almost sad. I feel for the guys on the losing side of the scoreboard. I don’t care where you play—if you’re a college athlete, you are a competitive person. And competitive people hate losing.

If it were up to them personally, I’m sure there are some morally grounded players out there who would refuse to lose for cash. Back in my days as a legit athlete, I probably would have agreed with them. But now that I’m just a lowly has-been, I would be willing to bend my ethical standards under the right conditions.

So that got me to thinking—what if they developed a similar system in the world of competitive distance running? I mean, think about it: when people watch world-class distance runners race other world-class distance runners, there is really no way of grasping just how fast they are moving. It doesn’t help that they all look like they’re out on a leisurely joggy-jog when, in fact, they are splitting sub-60s.

But if you threw in a race where world-class distance runners raced middle-of-the-road distance runners—former Big Sky Conference Championship bronze medalists, for example—the audience would be able to see just how good these Olympians really are.

Take Kara Goucher, for example—America’s Sweetheart of distance running. High school cross-country runners idolize her. They probably cheered her on during last month’s Olympic marathon. She finished just a hair over 2:26—a time that most men, even really good ones, could only dream of achieving—which was good for 11^th place.

Except that in America’s eyes, 11^th place is not good. It’s not good at all. In fact, you probably already forgot that Kara Goucher even participated in the Olympic marathon.

Here in the good ol’ U.S. of A., we like winners—the bigger and more embarrassing the margin of victory, the better. The way I see it, there is only one way for Kara to avenge that 11^th place disaster (besides winning gold in Rio, which probably won’t happen if Ethiopia still exists in 2016): winning a race by a laughably obscene margin.

That’s where I (or some other washed-up has-been) would come in. I could be the Grambling State to her TCU. I could sort of, but not really, compete with her and make her look really, really good. I could get her fans all fired up and give her a solid foundation of confidence for the rest of the season. All I would ask for in return would be a small* percentage of her race winnings.

So Kara, once you realize how incredibly genius this idea is, drop me a line. My inbox—and your comeback—awaits.

*Less than a majority** share.

**Between 1 and 49 percent.