The Diary of Seth Hall (2)
GREAT SPILLWAY CLASSIC 2008
Destination: Norco, LA
Start: 3902 ½ Harrison St.
Monroe, LA
Warning: I’m just going to go ahead and let everyone know that most of what I will say in this diary won’t necessarily have anything to do with running, but it most definitely has everything to do with a runner! I will describe in detail several things that I came across while on my trip to run the Spillway. Before I dive into my trip, I need to introduce a few characters that come into play during my trip. First off is Jamin Hall. Jamin is my older brother. Jamin ran for West Monroe High School for four years under the guidance of Coach Dwain McDuffie (10:09 high school 3200 meter guy). Next off is Jessica Deutsch. Jessica also ran four years at WMHS and is planning to run for LSU next year as a sophomore (finished 6th place her senior year in the 5A cc meet). I hope you enjoy what you read…and I hope I keep you interested enough to read the whole thing, ha!
Story time:
At about 10:13 this morning (Saturday, July 19th), Jamin and I jumped into his yellow X-terra and hit the roads. We took about 10-15 minutes to throw all of our stuff together for this trip….hopefully we got everything we needed! With no exact plan or stops in mind we took off. As we left our drive way, Jamin threw some Outkast in the cd player. Yeah….we were listening to “The Love Below.” We did have to make a quick stop at the bank (for some cash money) and at the gas station while we were still in Monroe. Jamin totally surprised me by buying 2 Nehi’s at the gas station….a red one and a blue one. So I had to throw a surprise back his way….I broke out a snickers bar and we split that guy! We had a nice little drive set out for us today. We were pretty sure that we would be staying in Baton Rouge tonight at Mike Meyer’s apartments (Jessica’s boyfriend who we actually met when Hurricane Katrina brought him to WMHS for a semester…..Mike was a Crusader from Brother Martin and he actually was West Monroe’s fifth man our senior year when we got 3rd a mere 5 points behind his truly, Brother Martin at the state cc meet). I had originally wanted to stay with Andy Florek in the NOLA area, but that little woman sold me out!!! He had to go fishing or something! Anyways, Jamin and I had a few hours to drive and had many things to talk about. Our first conversation was about our older brother Nathan who just asked his girlfriend to marry him last night….she said yes! About an hour into our drive we decided to eat lunch. Around 11:11 we stopped at a burger joint called Big John’s in Winnsboro. I paid $6.89 for a burger meal….although that is a questionably high price, it was a very tasty and humongous burger and they gave me a ton of fries. I will say that I felt a little cheated for paying 7 bones! We busted that joint at 11:35 and were back on the roads! When we hit Ferriday we threw in a new cd…we toned it down a bit with some Jack Johnson. As we drove down the highway some more, I began to think about my future coaching situation at ULM (University of Louisiana at Monroe). Earlier this week I received news from my coach that he took a job at the University of Memphis and obviously the head track coach is in the process of finding a replacement. I had mixed emotions when I found out the news. I had a decent cross country season this year (27:19 on the pancake fast Auburn 8k), but my past two track seasons at ULM have been pretty horrendous. I’ve never been much of a track guy, but dang I was sucking big…..I was happy to run 16:22 for the 5k this indoor season…….I was happy to run 9:25 for a 3k too. Anyways, maybe we’ll get a new coach who can figure me out, ha! If anyone out there knows of someone who’s looking for a CC coaching spot at a D1 college, throw a shout out to ULM! I told Coach McDuffie and Coach Anderson from Ruston High to be on the look out for a new coach for us….those guys are both ULM alumni. As we drove on, Jamin and I had many topics of conversation. We talked about girls, jobs, bands, friends, high school memories…you know, the good stuff! The 3rd cd we jammed to was Me Without You as we entered West Feliciana Parish. As we drove through St. Francisville, I noticed we had passed a good 10 antebellum homes in the past 5-10 miles…cool! As we noticed these houses, Jamin took his eyes off the road and ran a red light…it was nice and bright too. All he had to say for himself was “Ooops! By the McDonald’s.” Jamin and I both ducked as we went under this red light….and I’m completely sure that it hid us from getting stopped by a police, man we’re smooth! Jamin also realized that he had seen a big Oscar Mayer Weiner vehicle at that same red light 2 years ago on a trip to the state track meet. We got to Baton Rouge at about 1:54….to our only free place with Mike Meyer (as I stated earlier…thanks again Andy!). We ended up getting to Jessica Deutsch’s apartment at 2:04! Rest time!!! We also had thrown our 4th cd in the cd player in the past few minutes….we were now listening to The White Stripes. So we chilled out with Jessica for about 2 hours….mainly just catching up on the past couple months and even told a few high school stories. At about 4:33 we jumped back in Jamin’s X-terra and took a trip to Varsity Sports….my 1st time 
ever!!! Dang that place is pretty freaking awesome! I’m sad to say this, but I think that was the first time that I’ve ever been to a store that was devoted solely to running….and it was amazing! Not only did they have trainers, but they had racing flats, racing spikes, dry fit t-shirts, singlets, peanut butter and jelly t-shirts, magazines, watches, speedos, sweet pictures, a nice location (2055 Perkins Rd. to be exact!), and most importantly they had extremely nice employees! I wasn’t able to talk to them about shoes, but I’m sure they were well educated….I mean, they shared stories of Pat Gavin with us….anybody that can share a story about Patrick has to know something about running….right? We would have stayed longer, but we got there at 4:41 leaving us approximately 19 minutes to spare ‘til closing. I definitely have to throw a shout out to some of those female workers….I didn’t catch any of their names, but they definitely gave me a free Varsity Sports t-shirt. RUN HARD, LIVE EASY!!! We headed back to Jessica’s apartment and chilled for another couples hours before supper. It happened to be Jessica’s roommate’s birthday, so we celebrated with her (Jill). We headed to the Bonefish Grill arriving at 7:41 this evening. Driving down earlier today, I was informed that it was Jill’s birthday so I knew I had to gear up for one of my world famous lap dances……but her boyfriend showed up!! Way to ruin a party right? We ended up having a 30 minute wait, so Jamin, Jessica, and I decided to take a few fun pictures outside to kill some time. I ended up eating a shrimp fettuccini and Jamin had a sirloin steak. I paid $32 for the two of us ( he was getting the raw end of the deal by paying for gas). I tipped our waitress 5 bucks, which probably wasn’t fair because she had to refill our waters about 9 times apiece. I feel inclined to tell a story about our waitress….there were 5 of us at our booth and Jamin and I was sitting next to each other looking a little bit like we were a couple, so I felt the need to make sure our waitress didn’t think we were. I simply told her that we were brothers and that I didn’t want her to think we were together….like that. And she gave us the greatest reply ever….she said “Oh good…both of you guys are cute.” That’s right, put a mark down for the both of us! So we left the restaurant at about 9:45, but on the way home we got stopped by a train…forever!!! I need to get to sleep people! We finally made it back to the apartments and had a quick piece of cake and headed to Mike’s apartment across the street. After eating such a big supper, Jamin and I left my buddy Mike a nice little surprise in his toilet….sorry Mike! We got to bed at 10:51….and obviously my Monroe friends didn’t realize I wasn’t in Monroe because I got 3 text messages that night waking me up…..and I never get text messages!
Day 2 – Race Day
We woke up to my oh so obnoxious phone alarm at 5:30 Sunday. I wanted to kill my dumb phone! We met up with Jessica and were on the road by 5:43…NOLA here we come! We threw on our 4th cd….a race day cd! We listened to some Cake. We were taking directions from a text message/GPS system that we had borrowed from our brother-in-law. We made one pit stop in LaPlace at 6:34 and made it to the race site by 6:52. I had pre-registered, but Jamin and Jessica had to register today.
Race thoughts: Going into this race I knew I wasn’t in any special shape, but I still wanted to run well. I ran a 5k about 2 or 3 weeks back in 17:17 as a pace run and felt like I could open up today and run quick. I told Jamin I would be pleased to finish in the top 10. I haven’t done any speed work this summer, but does that really matter?
Actual Race: The announcer said the race was only ranked a 2.5, and that it was an 8.0 last year (my first time running this race). So I figured the race could be quick. As I had warmed up this morning and done some strides, I saw several familiar faces (before I seem like a complete stalker I should probably let everyone know that I’m a complete track stat guy and I pay attention to details…if you were good in high school or in college the past 7-8 years, I probably know who you are and what you look like…I’m just a fan of the sport). I saw Brendan Minihan (sp?), Mark Mendrek-Laske, Nathan Davis, Kenneth Pierce, Sean Swanner, and a few others near the starting line….I also saw Malia Cali and the oh so fast 800 female runner from LSU, Lindsey Day before the race started as well. The gun shot and I was standing just one person back from the starting line. I had a clean start as well as everyone else I saw that was near me. Within the first 250-300 meters a pack of about 8-10 guys formed the lead pack…me included. I could tell the pace was pretty quick (atleast for me). I had already made the mistake of taking out with the leaders the first 400 meters, so the damage was done….I might as well go ahead and hang on for as long as possible! I ended up hanging on for dear life for about 7-8 minutes….just before you take that hard left down the levee. The only problem was….I knew I had blown my wod at that point! I just went down the hill as easy as possible then charged threw that first water pit (that was much smaller than the previous year)….and as soon as I stepped out of that water I knew for sure I was a goner! I was just hanging on!!! I checked my watch and realized that I had a good 8-10 minutes left and I was just about in jog mode! I looked ahead and realized that lead pack was so far up on me at this point that I couldn’t even see them! Now my goal was to not look back, but more importantly not get caught by a girl (I mean, I was creeping at this point…6:30 pace at best). I ran a few more minutes and realized that I heard a very soft breath behind me…it sounded very lady-like….which isn’t good! I wasn’t going to look back though! 2 seconds later a short little female passes me….it was Malia Cali! Dangit….a high school is passing me (atleast she’s a national champ though right?). She came by me and I ran behind her for all of 30 seconds before I realized that my body was completely destroyed from the early pace I had run (I’m thinking that first mile was close to 5 flat…which shouldn’t kill me that bad, but at this point in the summer it did) and she started to gap me! I can’t talk about the rest of the race for too long because I actually do have pride and I want to keep a little bit of it, ha! Yeah yeah…she beat me….by like 20 seconds! I think she ran 18:28…a new course record (I think it was a new course anyway). Let me say this though, I ran 15:24 for 3 miles when I was in high school and Malia put the beat down on me….sure I’m not in fantastic shape, but she still beat me. Can you say Footlocker Nationals this year!!! I sure hope so! I ended up running around 18:48-50ish…ugh! Seriously though, the NOTC does a great job putting on this race! This is really pretty sorry on my part, but I never even actually found out who won the race! I would assume that Brendan won….seeing as he has won this race 6 times in the past, but he definitely had a pack of guys with him at the half way point!
The race was fun and the atmosphere was great as well! Free hot dogs, snow cones, sierra mist, water, powerade, bananas, chees wees, cool t-shirts, beer (even though I don’t drink)….all kinds of good stuff….that Monroe never gets to see! After the race I hit up the big water hose and walked to Jamin’s car with my head down, ha! I changed into sandals and enjoyed the fellowship for a little while. We left the race at about 9:30 because we needed to get back to Monroe at a decent hour…Jamin has to be at work at 6 Monday morning. We did get to stop at a Nike and Reebok outlet in Gonzaga on the way home…that was good stuff. The 5th cd we jammed to was Oasis…can’t go wrong there. We dropped Jessica back off at her apartment just before noon and we were back on the roads headed back to Monroe. We stopped at 1:10 at the McDonald’s in St. Francisville (you know, the same place Jamin ran the red light yesterday). We just hit up the drive-thru. I got a large powerade, a double cheeseburger, and an apple pie. Quickly back on the road, we were making good time. We threw some Ben Folds in the cd player (I’ve actually seen this guy live!). The trip home from there on out was pretty much just driving, but a couple cool things happened. As we were driving through Dolorosa, we saw this big freaking dude (at least 320 lbs.) peeing on the side of the road. Jamin gave him a few good honks…just enough to give him a little scare. Had I not wanted my large cup of powerade I would have given him a nice little bath. When we got to Vidalia, Jamin and I played a little Chinese Red Light and switch seats….I drove the rest of the way home…only about 80-90 miles. We got back to Monroe at 3:48 and were impressed with our weekend!