Keep Pounding

Keeping warm at NFC Championship Game in my In the Arena / L.L. Bean down hoodie

After moving to Charlotte in May, I have had the privilege of having two professional high-profile professional sports teams quite literally in my own backyard: The Carolina Panthers and The Charlotte Hornets. I’ll be the first to admit that I really enjoy watching other professional athletes at the top of their games “throw down” live or on television showcasing God-given talent and nerves of steel. I love every part of it: watching the warm-up, seeing how coaches handle adversity, the interaction between opposing teams, witnessing how good (or bad) some players are under pressure, and the hype of big games.

That being said, the opportunity to attend yesterday’s NFC Championship Game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte was an experience second-to-none. Considering the winner received a bid to Super Bowl 50 (and I am a track guy), I couldn’t help but correlate it to being in the final heat at Olympic Trials in July vying for one of those three coveted spots. Each player was in pique condition and so psyched up for the game: trained, hydrated, rested, mentally prepared and focused; hours of tape on opponents had been watched by both teams. It all came down to who would “show up” more on Game Day.

FOX announcer booth getting the crowd hyped up

From the start, all of us Panther fans could tell our team was going for it. Just like in track, they went out hard and fast and did not look back. They took chances. They caused seven turnovers, Ted Ginn, Jr. crossed the entire width of the field from end-to-end in one route for six points while our quarterback Cam Newton scored two touchdowns by running the ball in himself—with one an actual front flip into the end zone. The Panthers have a goal of winning the Super Bowl—not just the NFC Championship, so to achieve this, they had to pummel their opponents yesterday. They were not content or complacent nor happy with just a win. They would have found a way to get it done no matter what! It inspired me.

The beautiful city of Charlotte with its snow post game

The Olympic Trials loom in July. The clock is ticking, but I do not want that to be a negative thing. My focus and resolve is true and I will be ready to achieve my bid to tow that line, Lord willing. Learning from these amazing powerhouse athletes at this level has given me just the kick in the bottom that I needed. See you on the track! Onward and upward.

We saw the Theodore Roosevelt In the Arena "Daring Greatly" quote on our walk to the game in uptown Charlotte

Top 10 Moments of 2015

1. Camel City Mile

Down to the wire with Will Leer and Leo Manzano

Possibly the "Photo of the Year" for me

2. USA Indoor Nationals

Coach Ruud Van Thienen and I in record snow in Boston, MA

Start of the second lap in a very tactical affair!

4th Place finish!

3. Altitude Training in Colorado

Thank you to Dr. Jay Kinsman; he hosted me for 3 weeks in April this year at his home at 8,500 ft.

My first helicopter ride with my girlfriend who is much more fearless than I

Shirtless at 4,500 ft.

Training run with my girlfriend in the snow at 9,000 ft.

4. Surgery

Moments after surgery in the recovery room

The first moments after arriving home post surgery

First post surgery outing--this veteran wanted to race (see dog in basket)

First steps without crutches using the Lowe's basket for support

5. Badwater Crewing

Badwater Salton Sea Crew after 81-mile race in CA desert.

Badwater 135 Starting Line--the hottest place on Earth

Badwater 135 Packet Pick-Up

6. Traveling the USA

Training at my favorite track in the country--JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, NC

A weekend in Las Vegas

Spending my birthday in Atlanta, Georgia: pre Chris Brown concert!

Malibu, California

7. Charlotte Country Day XC Coaching

Our team finished up our season at the State Championship on a high note in my first year coaching

Thank you, Meredith, for your help in making me a part of this team

8. Jared and Jacob

Jared and Jacob (twins in all black) at their State Qualifier XC meet

Below are the boys and I after their final high school Cross-Country race

There is not a whole lot I would rather do than spend time with these boys!

9. RunningWorks

Run for Your Life Summer Track Series was a highlight of the year for all at RunningWorks--here I am pacing
some of our guys in the 3200

RW 4x100 meter dash rehearsal at the RFYL Summer Track Series--they ended up winning the series in the event!

My three worlds (RunningWorks, The Palmetto School and CCDS XC) collaborate to support The Run for Attention
and The Palmetto School where I used to teach K-2nd grade

The RW Staff are my family: here we are spreading the word about more than running

Pre-ThunderRoad Marathon where we had 15 homeless men and women complete the half and full marathon

Neighbors from The Relatives on Ramp Program enjoying a Charlotte Knights baseball game

One of RW biggest supports, Performance Therapy, at the OrthoCarolina 10k Classic

RW at The Rookie Run

RW at The LungStrong 15k

RW at The Shamrock 4 miler

My RW children!

10. Speaking 

 RunningWorks at The Children's Attention Home's weekly program

Thankful for the opportunity to speak to the Belmont Abbey College track and cross country teams

Saturday Bike and Run put on a fun pancake run in Rock Hill, SC

Speaking to long time RW supporter--Ally Bank here in Charlotte, NC

***Virtually 100% of these photos were taken (or arranged) by Meredith Dolhare. Thank you and I love you very much.

Finding Your Solace

My ultimate place of solace with In the Arena and Brooks Running

As 2015 is quickly coming to a close, I can honestly say that this will probably be my most memorable year. I, as I am sure many of you, hope that each year will be full of the best things life has to offer and that we will all become better versions of ourselves as we experience all that life brings over 365 days. I lived through some of the absolute best and worst moments of my life this year and am grateful for the times of learning and reflection that I hope to use to fuel me in 2016.

Below is a message that a loyal supporter sent to me a few weeks ago.  These heart-felt words describe how I want to feel and what my wish is for all of you in the upcoming New Year—a “meaning of life” statement that has changed my heart forever.

“Hi there Matt, I just finished reading your last blog entry. For some reason, earlier this morning I was thinking about you on my run. I want to share something with you (some things) that I don’t usually talk about. First of all, please don’t think that I am comparing myself to you, because I’m just a regular runner, not an elite athlete. But having followed your running career closely, and having read your interviews, and more recently your blog, I know you love running and that I can share with you. I have been running for 20 years, which is half my life, racing for the last 18. It is the single most important thing for me, I love it, I truly love my sport. Running gives me the best version of Anita. I am always a better person after I run. And yes, I am very competitive. I thrive on being able to stand on a starting line, even if I know I am not there to win the event. Running has helped me through several breakups, lost friendships, family quarrels, university, a master’s degree thesis, law school, bad days, awesome days, 20 Christmases, New Years and birthdays. But there was a hideous period of time when I couldn’t run. I got injured, and I did not want to stop running, it got progressively worse up to a point where I couldn’t run 5 minutes without pain. And I had knee surgery... then a second one, and a third. I had a string of doctors saying I should try swimming, because I would never run again. I remember a very famous coach here in Costa Rica (who wasn’t even my coach, just acquaintance) telling me that some people were not born to run. But I never gave up, because I knew that’s what I was born to do: run. It is that simple activity the one thing that makes everything all right. My coach never gave up on me either. We knew I’d be back. It was awful, it was heartbreaking, I was very angry at everything and everyone, especially at running. Then it happened. I started running again.... first walking 5 minutes and running 30 seconds... up to when I was running 10 minutes. Then 20. And so on. I learned to be grateful for running: 1 minute, 5 minutes, 20. I learned to be grateful for running at a 8 minutes per km pace, as much I was grateful for running at a 4:30/km pace. I was reminded of why I run. I got back to where I was, I became an even better runner. Most important, I became a better person. You will come back... a different Matthew I am sure, a better runner and I bet my life on this: you will be a better person. Running does that to us.”

Long time supporter—Ana Iris Paez

I want to thank my biggest supporters In the Arena and Brooks Running for allowing me to make connections like this one.  Running has allowed me to connect with so many people. I have always said that the “r” in running stands for relationships.  Almost 100% of the people I know and love so much today have been connected to me because of this sport. Running has changed my life, and I hope that you will invest yourself in something that changes you now and forevermore.  I want to thank all of you for sharing life with me through this blog this year.  I would not be where I am today without the encouragement and support I have received from the time and love you have given to me.  Onwards and Upwards to 2016!

Comeback

I wish I knew how to properly understand this word. And even more importantly, and albeit challenging, I wish and so strongly desire with all of the powers of my inner most being how to apply this word directly into my life. In essence, I would have thought this compound word was one of the most basic, simplistic creations of its kind.  However, the word “come” is actually rather complex as I found when I studied it for a brief time.  Its definition possesses three parts of speech: a verb, a preposition and a noun.  In the meaning I am seeking to decipher, “come” can be defined as “when a specified time or event happens.” All true things considered, the word “back” would also seem just as easy to understand.  However, “back” is slightly more complex than the word “come” as its meaning possesses four parts of speech: a noun, verb, adverb and adjective.  In the word “comeback”, the adverb form applies and can be defined as “expressing a return to an earlier or normal condition.”  The chaotic train of thought seen in the most elementary of words has led me to a state of struggle and feeling of uncertainty for the first time in my life.  Shall I digress?

I have been an athlete for the last 25 years.  I began playing baseball, “coaches’ pitch” to be exact, in Tabor City, NC, when I was in the first grade.  I loved sports and was always a competitive, contributing member of my teams.  Baseball was the main focus of my extracurricular life for the following seven years (along with piano lessons and enjoyable church children’s programs centering around music and service projects) and then the seed of running was planted for the first time in my life in middle school.  Although I was successful at every level of competition while attending Green Sea Floyds High School, I did not run fast—AT ALL—and remained injury free for the first time until I was 18 years old.  I was a freshman in college running cross-country for Presbyterian College and suffered a stress fracture in my left fibula bone about ½ inch above the ankle joint—a rather small four-to-six-week setback.  It wasn’t until I was 26 years old that I experienced what one would call a “career impacting injury” where I was sidelined for eight weeks as a member of Team Indiana Elite in January and February of 2012.  An injury that would rear its ugly head again in March of 2015 that leaves me at a point of confusion and disarray now in December.

Each of my prior injuries I described pre-surgery on June 1, 2015, impacted my life in very small ways in comparison to my current state.  I am sure my friend Jenni Bohn can remember the many hours we spent watching “Dancing with the Stars” with her sweet family in Bloomington as I tried to find some solace as to why my running journey would have taken a turn as soon as I had accomplished one of my most pivotal running goals to date—joining a professional running team.  This decision required me to quit my job, move out of state for the first time and solely devote my life to running and nothing else for the first time in my life.  After much reflection on those many dark days in 2012, they seem quite bright in comparison to my current daily mood.  Jenni and her family saved me that year and a golden opportunity arose later that summer in 2012 that changed my life forever as I was able to pursue a job as a full-time teacher back in the state I love the most.

Sorry to give a bit of my running biography here, but it is actually helping make some sense of why I am struggling today.  Flash forward to the Fall of 2014, after coming off the best season of my professional running career in 2013, I had the worst, most disastrous season imaginable (finishing off my European racing season with a 4:20 mile) and relinquishing some sanity due to the fact that my mind and mojo were essentially the only major injured pieces of my body at the time. Then another change occurred in my life—AGAIN.  I took an opportunity to move to Knoxville, TN, where I focused on running again full-time, but balanced the life change with giving back to a local youth track club that helped take the stress and pressure associated with thoughts of constantly “making it happen” and “me, me, me” off the table in my investment with so many young runners.  What ensued was a new era of fitness and an indoor track season that any rising pro would have taken in a heartbeat and then…it all vanished. 

My foot started bothering me for the first time all indoor season at the 2015 Indoor National Championship pre-meet tune-up.  It began to swell and feel like it did in 2012 for the first time in almost three years, but I was able to complete the race and the following months were filled with question marks. Several other life-altering events took place that I have yet to figure out how to handle.  Ultimately, there have been many days and many hours that I have spent wondering if a “comeback” is something I am capable of.  Of course, virtually 100% of the greatest athletes in any sport have had to overcome injury at some point in their careers.  But “HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO IT?”  I would love to know because I had a vision of getting back to running on September 1 and it is now December 3 and I am not in much greater standing than I was then. 

I know that setback is many times synonymous with comeback. I know that recovering from surgery is not easy. I know that there are so many people who have had or are currently experiencing far more devastating circumstances than I.  But that doesn’t make it any easier to run—to run free, to run fast, to experience the joy that only running can bring. Please don’t pity me, trust me, you shouldn’t. I have all the tools and resources necessary to begin this journey that I know I am meant to take once again.  I just need to see the light at the end of the tunnel that just isn’t as bright as I’d like it to be.  I saw a quote while driving in uptown Charlotte early this week that struck me in a unique way: “There isn’t a day of the week called someday.” I just hope my illusion of someday will become today or tomorrow or maybe even the next day—soon.

My New Family: A Family of Choice

RunningWorks Team pre Thunder Road Marathon with 5 full marathoners and 6 half marathoners

Time after time, I have written about the important role my family plays in my life. The stability I’ve always found at home has been the initial driving force for my success and happiness as a person and an athlete. That is why I am so excited to share this passion with a new family, a family I feel very much a vital part of now and who I would miss terribly on any given day just like I do my own. Now, don’t get too worried that I am abandoning my family of origin! I have simply found a purpose greater than myself with RunningWorks in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I am really looking forward to spending my first Thanksgiving with these special individuals.

For those of you who are not privy to who my RunningWorks family is, most of our men, women and children aged four to 60 years are homeless, jobless, severely impoverished or suffering from abuse, abandonment or neglect of some kind. The very fact that they choose to spend their time with us is a gift: a gift of time and trust that we will mentor them in their path to better lives. Trust is not something to be taken with a grain of salt with this population, and I am honored to among the few who get to spend time with all of them on a daily basis, let alone the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday.

At RunningWorks, we speak often during our life skill sessions about “family of choice” since many of our men, women and children have been forsaken by those many of us hold most dear. Thanksgiving is a time I have spent in reverie with my own family grateful for what an incredible gift God has given me. Take for one moment and imagine a life on the streets, in a shelter, severely disadvantaged—or all of the above and completely estranged from your family on a day celebrated for kinship. For some, it causes depression and loneliness.

Since its inception three years ago, RunningWorks has offered a solution to the solitude of Thanksgiving for its team members with several options, which are open to everyone on the team at all its programs. I am so excited to be a part of the fourth annual Thanksgiving activities with my new family of choice. This Thursday, we have been invited to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s (UNCC) Center City campus for a homemade feast prepared by its faculty and staff for all Community Works programs from the Urban Ministry Center where our program was founded. This includes homeless men and women from RunningWorks, StreetSoccer945, as well as art, choir and gardening. From what I have heard, it is quite magical and even includes a choir, which I will love! Charlotte never ceases to amaze me with their effort to make the homeless feel “a part of” the city rather than outcasts despite what you may read.

Thanksgiving 2014 at RW's Program Director Laura Foust's soup kitchen

On Thanksgiving Day, we will have a feast at our RW Program Director Laura Foust’s regular weekly soup kitchen, where she is the chef every Thursday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. They make our team feel special each year with a huge table set for 40-plus, flowers and blue-and-white napkins, etc. (our RW colors). To give a frame of reference, Chuck, a RW regular and team member since April 2012 who recently moved to D.C. for the winter since he is not “shelter eligible” here in Charlotte, made the trek home to us so he could run the Thunder Road Marathon with eleven RunningWorks teammates this past weekend and stay to spend Thanksgiving with his “family”. Those were his priorities and he was dead set on getting here.

Chuck at "The Wall", mile 20 Thunder Road Marathon

It really made an impression. Not only did it blow me away that Chuck completed his second marathon in two consecutive years yesterday (after having run the half marathon in 2013!), but also that he is one of the key organizers of our festivities in the coming weeks. He wants it to be special. He is intent on everyone being there and cared for and loved. Upon meeting Chuck last year, I never would have thought him to be the sentimental type. He has been on the street for eight years and is kind of a loner; yet, there is a spring in his step right now making me the most grateful I have been in a long time. I am more assured than ever that running works.

Happy Thanksgiving from our Family to Yours!

#RWTeam post marathon exhausted but still loving each other in Romare Bearden Park

No Greater Joy...

CCDS Bucs State Championship XC Team

            The last 14 weeks have flown by faster than I ever imagined.  After my surgery and time completely off in the months of June and July, August came and brought a type of joy I have never experienced before—my first team coaching experience.  I have helped many individuals with their running over the years and volunteered with various teams and groups of runners.  However, working with the Charlotte Country Day School cross-country team brought a fresh, new experience for me as a runner that I will take with me for the rest of my life.

            Coaching in a team setting is a very complex, challenging task.  The amount of moving parts and pieces to the overall team puzzle that factor into daily practices and weekly competitions are very hard to explain unless you have coached a team of your own.  Luckily, I am part of a coaching staff that has a mix of personalities and skills that helped make our team a unit, and solidified opportunities for me to learn and grow virtually every day at practice.  The planning and time spent trying to help each individual athlete reach his or her full potential was a mental battle that I have never experienced myself as an athlete.  A coach can only want so much for his athlete to succeed, and the rest is left up to the individual to take it upon herself to carry the rest of the weight of the task at hand. 

            Competing is why I love being an athlete.  The races are the test that measure the product of the plan and course of action in an athlete’s daily commitment to the sport.  The coach guides this process and the product is out of the coach’s hand as the day of the race approaches.  This fact is what makes the sport of running so beautiful to me.  I can’t do anything for my athletes on the day of the race except instill the confidence in them that I know they are ready to perform.

            Our final test of this 2015 XC season was on Friday at the State Championship cross-country meet here in Charlotte, North Carolina--on our home course at McAlpine Creek Park.  We compete in the 3A division of the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCISAA).  There were 21 teams that competed in each of the boys and girls championship races.  The CCDS boys team was ranked 9^th and the CCDS girls team was ranked 7^th going into Friday’s meet.  Cross-Country is a very unique sport in the fact that every place in the race matters, every runner is important, and every second can make or break your teams’ success.  A prime example of this was shown in the results of our two teams at the state meet.  Our boys finished 7^th as a team with 185 points, however, both the 5^th and 6^th place teams had a score of 184.  We tied our highest finish ever as a team at the state meet, but just two points separated up from the elite top 5 spots in the state.  Our girls team finished 11^th as a team with 250 points, however the 9^th and 10^th place teams each had 247 points.  Although we had some injury and sickness that plagued our girls’ team late in the season, only 3 points separated us from a final top 10 ranking. 

Junior Ella Dunn kicking to a 3rd place overall finish with a time of 19:12.

            I cannot express or put into words how proud I am of our team.  The first time trial of the season in August had me thinking that it would have been great progress to just field a team on both sides that just finished the 5k distance, and we proved that we can compete with some of the best teams in the state by season's end.  I hope that our athletes learned about training and taking care of their bodies this season.  I hope that our athletes learned how to push themselves beyond what their minds thought they could achieve.  But most importantly, it was beautiful to see this group transformed as actual runners within a few short months--truly enjoying the sport and working towards a goal greater than themselves individually and as a team. I know I will carry this piece of the sport with me forever--these months with my fellow coaches as well as the boys and girls of Charlotte Country Day School--and I cannot wait until 2016 for XC season to kick-off once again.  The Bucs will be in force greater than ever before, and I will be lucky enough to have a front row seat. Go Bucs!