Cailies Blog #9, In My Blood

Blog 9- In My Blood

"You were specially bred for this" or "Man, I wish I had your genes" were phrases I
heard often as a young runner. I grew up in a family of runners. Both of my parents ran and
their fathers ran too. When I met my parents' friends and coworkers as a young kid I was
frequently asked, "Are you going to be a runner like you momma and your dad?" At the time, I
wasn't so sure, but as I grew up and discovered my own enjoyment of the sport, I pursued it,
and my dedication to the sport grew after being fully immersed in a running culture with
friends and family who could tell me about all of the opportunities and relationships running
had provided them.

My training this week left me feeling refreshed with some pop in my legs as we taper for our
final time trial on Wednesday before taking a break before beginning cross country training.

June 1-7:
Monday: 10 miles
AM-6 miles
Post-run: core
PM-4 miles
Post-run: strides, in-home gym

Tuesday: 8-9 miles
Warm-up: 3 miles
Ladder: 400-600-800-800-600-400
Cool-down: 3 miles
Post-run: core, lower lumbar stabilization

Wednesday: 10 miles
MW long run, nice and easy
Post-run: 10 min. core, stretching

Thursday: 11 miles
AM-7 miles
Post-run: Core
PM-4 miles
Post-run: Strides

Friday: 7-8 miles
Warm-up: 3 miles
10 x 300m at race pace
Cool-down: 3 miles
Post-run: stretching, core

Saturday: 8+
60 min run.
Post-run: stretching, 10-min core

Sunday: Optional Off Day
4-mile shake-out, lower lumbar stabilization

Another characteristic that seems to be "in my blood" or in my family is storytelling. My family loves to tell stories, so as I thought about what to write about this week, I really wanted to emphasize the important role my family has played in my experiences and tell their stories too.

The first people in my family to run and compete in track & field were my grandparents. My grandfather, Leon Allen, was recruited to Labette Country Community College to pole vault on a track & field scholarship while the team was in its early stages, although he had to have his appendix removed and never got to participate. In high school, he participated in track and ran around 4:40 in the mile, without much base training. He went to college with the help of an ROTC scholarship and went on to get an engineering degree at KSU. He was incredibly tough and understood much about the discipline it took to be a good student, athlete, military pilot, engineer, and eventually a supportive father. He has four daughters: Christie, Tina, Suzanne, and Rhonda, all of whom ran in high school. All of them qualified to state in high school and had a bit of natural ability when it came to running. I grew up hearing many stories about my aunts and mom running, with varying amounts of resolve, from my aunt Tina running to true exhaustion at a state meet to my aunt Rhonda being bribed by my father with a new pair of sandals so she'd run during the summer offseason. Both my mother and my aunt Rhonda went on to run competitively in college. My grandfather and my grandmother, Rebecca Martinie Allen, supported them all, in many of their endeavors, and traveled the country to see their meets, just as they do for me today.

Although women's athletics was not quite as developed as it is now my grandmother, Claudia Wright Logue, was also an athlete. Sports were intramural at the time but my grandma was highly involved, mostly in swimming and basketball. She was involved enough that she was the fourth girl to earn a sports letter at Wichita South high school.

My grandfather, Errol Logue, began his running career after realizing he just wasn't quite thriving in football and became the cross-country team manager. As the manager, he started training with the team, and his coach asked him to join a team time trial, and he agreed to run it. When he ran the time trial, he made the varsity team and decided to become a team member, rather than just the manager. From there, he continued to participate in cross country and track for the rest of his high school years. He had continued success as a runner, and when his senior year came around he was offered a scholarship to Friend's University. My grandpa Logue repeatedly told me his first love in sports was basketball, but that wasn't where his talents were, and he grew to love running too. My grandfather would tell me that "he wasn't any good" and never boasted about his running abilities, but he had a gift, and he had a work ethic, and it provided him with great opportunities.

However, I knew my grandfather more as a coach than a runner. While competing and running at Friends University he studied theology and shortly after graduating, he took a job as a pastor of a small church, but after some time, he realized that being a pastor was not his calling and went back to school for a brief period of time to get his teaching degree. Not long after, he became a teacher and a coach. My grandfather was a natural coach. It was like he was hardwired for it. It was his ministry and his passion, and I continually saw how many people wrote him or called him and thanked him for the impact he was able to have on them as a coach. My grandmother Claudia, was supportive of my grandfather through all of his long hours of coaching and teaching even though she laughed and joked about being "a track widow."

A particular athlete whom my grandfather impacted was my father. My dad was a dedicated runner from his freshman year of high school, with goals to win the state. My dad is a very analytical person and a student-of-the sport. He has told me stories about his running role-models as a young athlete: Jim Ryun, Sebastian Coe, Lynn Jennings, and John Ngugi. As a junior in high school, he once read about one of the collegiate runners at the University of Arkansas doing a 20-mile long run on Sundays, and he proceeded to mimic this and run a 20-mile run once a week. In high school, he was a member of a three-time state championship cross country team, a four-time state champion, and a KU Relays champion in the 3200. He was highly motivated and disciplined, and he continued this as a student and an athlete at Pittsburg State University where he became a 3x All American in cross country.

As a coach, he wised up and realized that a 20-mile run once a week might not be ideal for a 16-year-old boy, and his knowledge-base from both being an athlete and having a great role model in his father as a coach, led him to be a passionate coach too! He learned not only from his father, but also, Russ Jewett, both his coach and my mother's coach at Pittsburg State University. As a coach, he also had role-models which he constantly learned from like John McDonald, Damon Martin, Bob Timmons, and Joe Vigil.

Left Photo: This is my dad and me holding our KU relays medals. We both won the KU Relays 3200m in our senior year of high school.

Right Photo: This was a painting of my mom done by Ted Watts at the end of her running career, as part of a recognition from the city of Pittsburg. 

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My mother, Christie Allen Logue, had a different mentality when it came to running. She experienced success at her Jr. high track meets and continued to run in high school, but unlike my father, she wasn't a student of the sport. As a young runner, she swore she wouldn't ever race anything longer than an 800m. She believed what she heard many say about girls at the time: they may be good young, but as they get older, they don't improve much. She finished from 6^th to 2^nd in the state high school CC and the 3200m in track. She was a member of a traditionally successful distance program who placed as high as second at state, and she participated in the 4x800 and in distance relays at state and at the KU Relays. However, she didn't set high individual goals, and she didn't implement the principle of gradually overloading and base building. As a HS senior, she was offered two division II running scholarships. Still, she wasn't fully committed to running and had to be influenced by her father to continue to run. She was nervous about her first college practice, since she'd never run longer than 4 miles without stopping to walk. Nevertheless, it was clear that collegiate training at PSU benefitted my mother. With gradual progression and goal setting, by the completion of her Division II collegiate career, she had become an 11 time All-American, an 8-time national champion in events ranging from the 1500m to the 10,000m, and a winner of an NCAA Today's Top Six Award. By the end of her running career, she considered her strongest race to be the 10,000m, and now she cringes when she hears runners say, I'll never run anything longer than... In college, she took a different approach to the sport than my father. While my father researched stats and role-models, my mother brought her work ethic and disciplined nature to practice each day, but she was more likely to listen to her body and rest if she was tired. She didn't concern herself much with other's performances and didn't compare herself to her competitors. She just worked and got better, and that seemed to be a pretty good way to do it. After college, she also became a coach for a few years. She and my dad even coached against each other one year while my mom was pregnant with me (my mom's team won the cross country league, sorry Dad.)

Left Photo: This is my dad running a 1500 in college as an athlete at Pittsburg State University. He is the one in the lead.

Right Photo: This is my mom on the PSU Women's team. This picture was after the team won their region in cross country. (Mom has the green headband around her neck)

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Once I was born, I spent more time at track meets than the average kid. As a toddler, I had my own specially printed t-shirt that said, "Have I told you about how cool my Aunt Rhonda is?" with a picture of a runner to wear to my aunt's college track meets. My dad was running for enjoyment post-collegiately, and we also traveled to his meets sometimes. On top of that, we even visited my grandpa Logue at his track meets when he was coaching, and I got to know some of his runners and cheer for them.

When I transferred schools in the third grade, my elementary Physical Elementary teacher, Rich Weins, encouraged me to run. After an 800m time trial around the church parking lot, he said that I should try Hershey's track and field that summer. From our occasional time trials in elementary school shortly after coming to this new school, at the age of 9, I became known as "the runner girl." That summer, I competed at the Hershey meet in the 400m. I still remember the first time I felt lactic acid in my legs, but I actually remember thinking it was really fun. At the beginning of the last 100m stretch, I looked up into the stands and saw my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Belcher. I waved big until she acknowledged my presence, and then after the race, my parents proceeded to teach me that I should be running so hard that I couldn't wave. I told them I just wanted to say "Hi" to Mrs. Belcher.

This was the final home stretch of my first 400m race in Hershey Track and Field as a 3rd grader.

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I wasn't by any means a natural runner. As a fifth-grader, I qualified for state in the 400m. I went to stay with my grandparents as they were going to take me to run the race, and I was swimming in their pool the night before my race. I was having so much fun swimming, I called my parents that night and told them I didn't think I was going to go and run in that race the next morning, I was going to stay and swim instead. They said: no, I had qualified and taken someone's spot in the field, and I was going to go race. However, I actually did not end up going to race. I woke up the next morning with both of my eyes swollen shut, as I got stung by a bee in the pool the night before, and discovered that day I had a bee allergy. I was actually really disappointed when I couldn't go and run the race. I now realize my sudden urge to not go run the race the night before was my first case of pre-race nerves.

This was an article published when I was younger about our little "running family."

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Growing up in a long-distance running culture made it so I didn't fear running. When I went to track practice one day after school with my dad, I decided I didn't want to sit around anymore, so I asked my dad if I could go run with the girls. Looking back those high school girls were so patient and nice to me, as I proceeded to go out and run three miles with them in my blue jeans. They told me that it would be much easier if I would run the same pace the whole time, but I proceeded to ignore their advice and sprinted ahead of them and then walked until they caught up; then I'd sprint ahead again. I liked hanging with the high school girls. One of them, whose name happened to be Kaylee, let me ride around the parking lot in her car with her, which I thought was so cool! I remember watching hill sprints when I was a little older. The girls on the team were working so hard, and I am inspired by their efforts to this day. That year the team's t-shirts read, "If peeing your pants is cool consider me Miles Davis" to quote Billy Madison, as it was not unusual at all for many of the girls on that team to run hard enough that they peed their pants. Another t-shirt I remember the high school cross country team making was "Puke makes the grass grow!"

By the time I reached middle school, my friend Layne and I began running 2 miles together each day. I remember we were so proud of ourselves. We often ran one mile, stopped to play with a puppy at the end of the road for 5-10 minutes, and then ran the second mile. We had so much fun running together all the way through high school! We eventually stopped taking breaks to pet puppies as we both had aspirations of medaling at the state level!

My brother and my grandpa Logue watching the rest of the track meet together after my brother competed.

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My brother, Cormick, grew up in this culture too. When we were competing at the fair one year, my brother was showing his goat, and it didn't cooperate well in the ring. When he came out very disappointed, a little guy on the brink of tears, Grandpa Logue walked up and said, "Relax, Butch, it's not like this is a track meet!" He also grew up watching me, which I'm sure at times was kind of annoying to him. Not only was he asked if he was going to be like his mom and dad, but also his over-bearing older sister too. However, I don't feel all that guilty as he got to learn from many of my mistakes. He has watched me go through my career just years before he did the same. For example, he came on many of my college visits and while it seemed monotonous at the time, as he goes to search for what college he would like to attend now, it's a good experience to have in his back pocket.