Friday the 13th

Well it's Friday the 13th and I'm already feeling a tad unlucky. First of all I'm not racing today at my team's first meet because of my recent sickness so I'm a little down about that. Second my sleep cycle is kind of thrown off because I stayed up a little later than intended to last night (4:15ish). And probably the worst thing is that I have no idea what to make a blog post about today.

I'll try my best here to make a halfway interesting post. Continuing with the theme of "Friday the 13th", let's look back at some guys who have been quite unlucky. BUT because I don't think it's fun to be negative, let's find guys whose unlucky fate was quickly changed into a great fate.

We look at guys like Quinn Devlin, Sam Hibbs, maybe more, guys who have been banged up or struggling to hit the big expectations that have been set on their shoulders, and show everyone that there is always still hope for a glorious return.

How about Matt Fischer? Huge injury at the end of spring for the 4:20ish miler. Looks like he is going to miss XC and ruin his chances at a big spring to follow up his break out season of a year before. But Matt got to states in XC just barely by the skin of his teeth, and followed it up with an impressive run to 24th place. Then Fischer went into spring track without the same XC base as many of the other 2 milers, even teammate Glenn Burkhardt, who bested him at the District Championships. But at states Fischer pulled off the big upset over lots of Footlocker Qualifiers and big names to win the state championship in the 2 mile in 9:03.

How about Glenn Burkhardt? The very next year the Unionville stud missed almost all of XC and all of indoors. Despite missing all this training, Burkhardt still stepped onto the track in the spring and pulled out big wins at districts and then states, again upsetting a footlocker finalist and plenty of big names with nice indoor and outdoor resumes.

How about Ryan Gil? Gil broke his toe in XC and missed time as North Allegheny's #1 man (a team that was a state title contender with him in the line up). When he finally came back he struggled at the District Championships, getting beat by the North Hills monster. But when Gil got to states he turned up the clutch meter and surprised 2 future Footlocker Finalists and one NXN finalist with a great run to the title.

How about Ben Furcht? After being a dominating force all XC season, a boxing start at the state championships caused Furcht to fade hard over the last mile and he fell to 11th. But Furcht had the last laughh when he ran hard to a 10th place footlocker finish and a trip to Nationals.

How about Dustin Wilson? Dustin Wilson, one of the top seeds in both the 3k and the mile last indoor season, passes on both to try and help his DMR get a state medal, unfortunately they did not quite get there. Ultimately though Wilson had the last laugh, winning his heat of the 2 mile at New Balance Indoor Nationals and anchoring his DMR to a huge time and a win in their heat with a super final leg. Also the DMR went on to run very fast at outdoor nationals.

Happy Friday the 13th

-train