A great opportunity

Friday, November 23rd

12:30 PM - 12 Miles, 77:50 (25:59, 26:01, 25:50)
Spring Road

Great run today, a little tight from the race but felt really good and ran very comfortably the entire way.

So I apologize if I've left any of you in suspense from the post I made a couple days ago. I've talked to many of you about this already either in person or over the phone but now that I've made my decision final, I'll share it with the rest of you.

So here it is. As a result of my performance in Sunday's race, I was selected (along with several other "rising stars") to represent the US in Ireland this coming February. The trip is fully funded and includes two races where I would be competing against international talent as well as get to spend time with some great athletes, all while experiencing the fascinating Irish culture. This is a great opportunity for me and I was very excited to have the offer... so you may be asking why I had to think about the decision of accepting it. The down side of this opportunity is that it falls on the same week at the US Indoor Championships. If most people looked at my track times, they may see this as an easy decision, thinking that I'd have no chance of hitting the 8:03 qualifying mark. However, one of my major goals this year was to qualify for this meet and compete well there. I believe that I can run that time this year and still have every intention of doing so. I do think that competing at the National Championships would be an amazing experience and one that very few get in their lives. But as I was told by a good friend today, the achievement is in qualifying and not in the race itself. The more I thought about this decision (while also conferring with several close friends) the more I realized I couldn't say no to this Ireland experience. So as you can probably tell already, I decided to accept the trip to Ireland and therefore give up any possible option of competing at USAs. I'll have to talk things over more with Kevin about the structure of my winter schedule and what I ultimately want to get from the season, but I still plan on maintaining my goals on the track and I believe there can be some great results that will hopefully set me up well for outdoor.

I'll probably give some more details about the Ireland trip as it gets closer but for now, I know only that I am going and these are the races that I'll be running.

Feb 21 - Armagh Road Race (5K)
Feb 24 - Ras na hEireanne (6K)

Thanks again to all of you that helped me realize the right decision with this and for sharing your opinions on the matter.