Down Under, But Not Out

Kia Ora! Greetings from New Zealand. It has been a month now that we have been here in New Zealand and though our schedule has been busy the last couple weeks, we have been enjoying every minute of it. The weather has been beautiful and warm and has been a nice escape from the cold, snowy winter we left in Michigan. We only have one more week here in New Zealand before we fly back to Michigan where, hopefully, the weather will have warmed up a bit since we left.

As many of you may already know, Nick is taking some time off his running due to a hip injury. We were pretty disappointed to discover this injury a few days into our time here in New Zealand. The hardest part about this was that it meant that Nick was not able to compete in the races here that he had planned to. Originally he had planned to compete in the Milestone Mile down Jackson street in Petone and the International Track Meet in Christchurch. After discovering that Nick would not be able to run for several weeks, he had to make the tough call to pull out of those races. But even though Nick was not able to run in the races, we still were able to attend and Nick helped with some of the meet promotion beforehand.

The Milestone Street Mile was a great event with kid’s races beforehand and then the men’s feature race won by Nick’s training partner, Rob Myers, who is here from the USA training for a month.

The International Track Meet was a great success held in Christchurch featuring some of New Zealand’s best athletes. Nick was able to help with some of the announcing and commentating during the mile which was won by Australia’s Jeff Riesley in 3.54. We were really impressed with the meet and are very excited for Nick to be able to compete in it next year when he is healthy again.

We are also looking forward to Nick’s coach, Ron Warhust, coming down to New Zealand in a few days. He has been invited by Athletics New Zealand to come give a coaching seminar for New Zealand coaches during the weekend of the New Zealand National Championships.

On a more personal note, Nick and I are enjoying this unique time of exchanged roles in our daily life. Usually Nick is the one running and training hard while I am the support. But the last few weeks, I have been focusing on my own running training more than usual, and Nick has been able to help coach and support me as I train. My goal is to run a sub-20 minute 5k. I’ve run half marathons before, but I’ve never really trained hard for a race--other than going for a few jogs to get in shape. I am often very tired from a hard workout or run and am understanding more and more how Nick must feel after his training. While Nick is still training hard with drills, stretching, and swimming, he has not been able to do his usual running training and has to settle for watching me do workouts on the track—quite a far cry from the caliber of workout he is used to doing. But none the less, we are enjoying getting a glimpse of each other’s worlds for this short period of time.

An Intermission

As Nick and I begin to look forward to the start of his indoor racing season, I am caused to reminisce on the last few months and consider how they have been such a well-needed rest for us. It is easy to forget how important this intermittent time is for us and eagerly fix our gaze forward on the next part of our year. Naturally, we are quite excited to begin Nick’s indoor—and down-under—racing season. But while still anticipating a new season, we have suddenly become aware of how quiet and precious this time is before we begin the next several series of races—each one complete with it’s own travel, hotel(s), preparation, and emotional ups and downs.

Yes, I am confident racing season will come soon enough. But as for this moment, and as for this season in our lives, we are taking a minute to pause, breathe, relax and soak up the peace of this moment in our lives.

The last few months have been relatively quiet ones for us. Nick has been very dedicated to his training and steadily working hard every day. Having achieved many of his greatest goals last year, and with his new title of “2008 Olympic Bronze Medalist”, and his end-of-year world ranking at fourth, he is excited to uphold his new reputation in this year’s upcoming season. At the same time, while looking forward to having a great season, I have often heard him say that he wants to be cautious not to allow the pressure of that expectation to tempt him to over-train and over-work himself early in the season. He did such an amazing job of timing his peak perfectly last year, and I know one of his goals this year is to be able to have the good judgment to do that again—even with the new exhilaration of obtaining an Olympic medal last year. One of the great things about Nick as an athlete is that he is a competitor who thrives off of high-pressure situations. Not only does he somehow manage to remain cool-headed and calm under public expectation, but he actually manages to produce his best-ever races under the weight of that pressure. So, with that in mind, I feel confident that his season this year is going to be a phenomenal one.