Track and Field Blogs - Kyle OBrien

Well let me start by answering a question I got from my last blog. Jeff Jonaitis asked me about an incident that happened in December, and how it effected my training. My college teammates and I had a reunion back in Danville where we caught up with each other, relived old stories from our "glory days", and basically put ourselves back in college for a night. So anyway, we have one teammate who was there who we'll call "Jeff", no that's too obvious, lets call him "JJ". He's that guy, you know, the one from your group that's always talking trash to EVERYONE else in the group, just trying to start something. Well somehow by the end of the night (maybe 8 or 9 hours of straight trash talk) we found ourselves in a bit of a scuffle. Unfortunately for JJ I caught him off guard with a double-leg takedown (a la my new teammate and ex-wrestler Mike Reneau) and quickly ended up getting him in side control and firing shots to the body with my right. Unfortunately for me I did not realize the proximity of my left shoulder to JJ's mouth, and he latched on like a rabid pit bull. He probably held the bite for a solid 30-45 seconds, and the bruise (and teeth marks) stayed for about two weeks, but luckily I did not have to miss any runs.

So now that we're up to speed on that, I'll move on to my current training and the beautiful Michigan winter. Note the sarcasm, my best training so far has come during the week that we spent in Orlando, Florida. We get greeted every morning with temperatures around the 0 degree mark, and most of the time with snow and ice that makes a 14 miler feel like a 24 miler. Sometimes I wonder if Mother Nature even wants me to run London! The training still goes on though, I've had some decent workouts, and some not so decent. Mileage wise things are going well with the last two weeks at 125 and 130 (which is a lot of time on your feet because going under 7:00 pace is a rarity these days) and we're going to keep plugging away in hopes that it makes us tougher for April. So for all of those out there struggling for motivation to get out during the winter and put in the miles, just know you're not alone.

I also wanted to say congrats to all my teammates who ran the Austin Half Marathon this morning and swept the top 6 places, Brian Sell still insists that he can't run 5:30 pace for workouts but manages 4:50 pace for races, and a big congratulations to my boy Jacob "The Legend" Frey who won the Austin Marathon this morning. If any of you can find a clip of the finish the last 400 meters of any race he runs is really a work of art, and this one was no exception. That's all for now, thanks for reading.