Running Times-LetsRun.com Road Trip of a Lifetime: The Conclusion
Look for the official recap of the trip by Chris Lear in a spring issue of Running Times 

Day 2: St. Louis
If you missed the 1st 24 hour recap it is here

When we left the famed RV crew after the first 24 hours, they were on their way to St. Louis after Dan Wilson broke Adam Goucher's course record at the Rim Rock NCAA Cross Country Course in Lawrence, Kansas.¹  

The destination for Day 2 was St. Louis (thumbnail photos are at bottom but at any point during the story you can click on the lin to be taken to the proper photo). The first stop was going to be the home of Steve and Chris Mrotek. The Mrotek's are the Ambassadors of St. Louis running as far as we're concerned. Steve emailed us and insisted that we stop by his house in route to Terre Haute, so we accepted the offer.  If anyone fast is in town, they stop by the Mrotek house. James Bungei, John Kipkoski, Eddy Hellebuyck, Jamey Harris, Tim Hacker, Patrick Kiptum, John Kariuki, and Sam Ngatia are just some of the luminaries who have stayed at their home.

The crew was antsy to hit the town for its 70's night at the bars on the Mississippi river, so it was anticipating a quick stop at Mrotek's house to say hello, relax a bit, meet the kids, and of course use all of their hot water up to shower.  But they were blown away by the hospitality.  After accidentally touring East St. Louis, the hometown of Jackie Joyner Kersee (no wonder she's so fast!), the RV was met by as close to a police escort as they good get, as Steve and his buddies informed the RV crew they were the car in front of them and would lead them back on track.

Upon arriving at the Mrotek's, the crew was met at the door by Steve's two son's Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein. Well that's not their real names, but there can not be a harder core track fan in the world than Steve Mrotek. He had made his sons their own personalized jerseys with the name Webb and Ritz on the backs. The kids were full of energy and Ritzenhein showed no signs of injury or resentment towards his brother who recently bought the house next door thanks to his new Nike contract.

Inside the house there was tons of food, beer, and many members of the St. Louis track club. The RV crew was amazed at the hospitality of the Mrotek's.  The crew all interacted quite well except for the anti-social Weldon, who immediately went and hooked up his laptop to the Mrotek's phone line to update the website and recap the 1st 24 hours of the RV Trip (apparently he believed that gave him a free pass not to do anything else on the website for the next 3 weeks).

Ignoring the Ritzenhein and Webb jerseys for the moment, Steve seemed fairly normal and was a great host. However, once we entered his basement, we saw that Steve has a terrible, terrible addiction (at least he tries to keep it in the basement), long distance running. On the basement floor, he has the lanes of a curve of a track painted on the floor. On his wall is painted the 12:59:04 finishing clock of Haile Gebrselassie's indoor world record back in 1997. Steve went on to tell us how one of his sons was born within 45 minutes of the record and thus has the middle name Haile. (PS we must admit we like the name, but we were only brave enough to think of possibly giving our dog the name). In the 2nd half of Steve's basement is a shrine of sorts consisting of the running trophies that he and his wife have won. No joke there must have been a couple hundred of them.  Kenyans who have stayed at Steve's house immediately have assumed he must have held the world record at some distance because he has so many trophies.  And to top it off, he has a huge collection of the finest porn (that's what we call track and field videos) you've ever seen.  But despite the terrible addiction, Steve and Chris have raised their kids well, as their kids hid their embarrassment when they watched Wejo get lapped on TV on the video of the 2000 Olympic Trials at 10k.

After the 2 girls of the RV crew took 20 minute showers apiece (sorry Steve we'll pay for the gas and water bills), and all 6 guys showered in 20 minutes combined, the crew put on it's 70s gear. When the crew left, words, the 2 Team Wejo tshirts, or the Boulder beer, were not nearly enough to the thank the Mrotek's for their hospitality (thank you Mroteks!).  The RV crew had a new bounce in its step and was ready to hit the riverfront for some partying in its 70s gear.

Leading the crew on Saturday night on the Riverfront was Elvis (John Carson). The crew was amazed with his costume. However, after after seeing how popular he was with the ladies, they realized that John probably wears the costume 50 weekends a year.  Well, if he doesn't he should, as the men on-board had an ephinany during the trip and realized that picking up women is much easier than the average guy thinks - all one needs is an Elvis costume.

The crew hit a couple of bars and Elvis was a hit everywhere he went.  The audience even cheered him onto the stage at one club, but the bouncers decided to ruin the fun. That night everyone on the RV had a great time. Well everyone except the married couple, but married people are supposed to argue aren't they?

Before the evening came to an end, a few members of the crew decided to be gracious and donate their money to the St. Louis economy as they went to one of the riverboat casinos. And to make matters worse the riverboats in Missouri make you pay for drinks.  But the crew had to get some sleep as NCAA championships were fast approaching.

Terre Haute
The crew rolled into Terre Haute just in time to get in a run on the NCAA cross country course. They were nice and decided to run easy letting the athletes the next day break the course records. They then went and showered up in the rooms of UT coach (remember the Johnson twins are from Texas so UT will always stand for Texas not Tennessee on LetsRun.com) Jason Vigilante and some of his athletes who are now officially deemed LetsRun.com NCAA Team of the Year. (Vig is a Mark Wetmore disciple and has rebuilt the Texas program into a national player in just a few years, so if you don't want to go run for Rojo at Cornell, then we recommend you go to Texas).  

Sunday night was show and tell time for the RV crew as they entertained others in town for the NCAA meet.  LetsRun.com's NCAA Coach of The Year (for this year and every year in perpetuity) Rojo arrived after his cross country drive from Ithaca, NY after coaching his Cornell team to a season-ending ICAAAA victory (For those of you who don't know, the ICAAAA used to be the national championship and it now serves as the sort of NIT of NCAA cross country. Cornell hadn't won the ICAAAA in 81 years but Rojo changed that in 3 months).  

Rojo was received joyously by the crew who broke into a personalized song to great him. Unfortunately, it is too lurid to repeat here. 3:50 miler Kevin Sullivan and his wife Karen (now the coach at Illinois) also came on board.  Kevin had flown halfway around the world (from Japan where he ran a low 28 minute 10k in an Ekiden) just to be onboard the RV. But that was not the most impressive feat of the evening. That belonged to Kanas State's Amy Mortimer (the Midwest Region individual champion, now officially the LetsRun.com NCAA Cross Country Runner of the Year) who came onboard the RV to say hello despite having to race the next day.

Monday: The Race
There was a race of some sort on Monday, but the RV crew was at first more concerned about getting in position for the ultimate tailgate. After securing a parking space right near the finish on the rail of the course, the crew could go about its business of tailgating and watching the race.  Of course before they could watch the race, they had to hook-up the computer and enter their picks in the adidas NCAA prediction contest .

In between races the crew had its first near fatality.  The place to be between races (and for the finish of the races) was on top of the RV.  Most people climbed up the hood to get to the top of the RV, but some genius decided it would be better to attach the mini ladder, meant for climbing up to the bed inside the RV, to the top of the RV.  After the mini-ladder was attached, Carlos Paradelo of Survivor Flagstaff fame was told to jump on the mini ladder and climb on up, but when he jumped up on it, the plastic vent it was attached to shattered, and Carlos came tumbling down onto his back.

Strangers nearby thought Carlos had really hurt himself, but when he broke out into a laugh while sprawled on the ground, everyone knew all was well. Thus everyone started to laugh and we decided that we had to get a photo of Carlos sprawled on his back.  Carlos tried to flee but thankfully his former coach, Ron Warhust of Michigan, happened to be walking by and Ron kept Carlos on the ground for us as we loaded the batteries into our camera and then took pictures of the spectacle.  Ron then proceeded to coach his team to a very impressive top 10 finish.

The races themselves were of course incredible.  Much of the RV crew was from Colorado, and they swore that Jorge Torres would not be beat and they were right. He and Alistair Cragg waged a fierce battle that caused anyone who tried to go with them to blow up at the end. Shalane Flanagan dominated the women's race, but it was great for the Ivy Leaguers on board the RV to see Kate O'Neil of Yale finish 2nd overall (who says you need a scholarship to be fast?). And the Stanford men put on an absolute clinic on how to run as a team.

But this article's focus is on the journey not the destination (the NCAA cross country race), and half of the trip (distance wise) remained. But before the RV could pull out of the parking spot, banging was heard on the door.  The door was thus opened and Michigan's young phenoms Nate Brannen and Nick Willis entered - demanding refreshment.  They quickly chugged two drinks - Gatorade and Propel of course - before leaving to celebrate their team's surprising top 10 finish.

Upon leaving the meet, the crew realized just how popular letsrun.com is as they were followed for 30 miles by 2 fans of the site who drove in the complete wrong direction just to get the crew's attention. The stalkers' perserverance was rewarded as the RV stopped in the town where the Colorado Buffaloes had stayed and met up with Torres brothers so the fans got to meet an NCAA champion (Side note: The motel that the Buffs stayed in had to be one of the worse motels in history.  It didn't even have ESPN on the tube. We guess they are saving their money for the Spring as last year after the NCAA OutdoorTrack and Field championships they stayed at the Ritz Carlton).

And in case you wondered, NCAA champions do not go to Disneyworld, they go to....... Kentucky Fried Chicken (well the only other place to eat in this town was Wendy's).  Jorge Torres, the newly crowned NCAA champ, and his brother Ed, and about 20 friends and family were celebrating at the KFC's all you can eat buffet.

After a great meal at KFC, it was time to hit the road. That's all there was to the trip, really. Nothing else of note happened at all. We can not confirm that Ed and Jorge Torres were on board for the trip back home.  We can not confirm that the crew drove straight back through the night to Colorado only stopping at the riverboat casino in Illinois (no free drinks either).  We can not confirm that top 5 teams in the nation have very nice parties the day after nationals. We can not confirm that many NCAA coaches like to pretend that they do not read letsrun.com or its message boards. We can not confirm that they like to believe their athletes do not either. However, we can confirm that the LetsRun.com-Running Times Road Trip of a Lifetime was appropriately named and that the entire crew made it back to Boulder safely.

We'd also like to extend a special thank you to the sponsors of the trip. Cruiseamerica.com (this is the 2nd time Rojo and Wejo have rented for them and it is the place to go if anywhere in the nation you need to rent an RV), adidas (check out how well dressed the crew was), Boulder Beer, and Gatorade (with the Gatorade bars, Propel water, and Gatorade the crew was well hydrated). And last and definitely not least, don't forget the title sponsor Running Times and Chris Lear who made it all possible.  Without them the roadtrip of a lifetime never would have been possible.  Great job Chris and thank you Running Times. Look for the official recap of the trip by Chris Lear in a spring issue of Running Times 

Running Times - LetsRun.com Road Trip of A Lifetime: The Conclusion Photos
(click on any photo to be taken to a bigger one)

The destination: St. Louis	Gotta Clean up for the Evening Festivities	The crew with our gracious hosts, the #1 Family in St. Louis Running the Mrotek's
Another Shot	The Mrotek's Love Elvis	The King
The two hottest guys in track and field	Sexxxy!	The 2nd and 3rd hottest guys in track and field
Elvis about to get his ass kicked by abouncer	Bow to the King!	Ladies Love Elvis
Double Fisting the Lemonade	The answer to the thread: What's Up with Dan Wilson	St. Louis' Finest and Boulder's Finest
On board in Terre Haute the Night Before the Meet	LetsRun.com NCAA Athlete of the Year Amy Mortimer	Kevin Sullivan on board straight from his 28 minute 10k in Japan
Pre-race concentration	Jeff showing his support to the sponsor Running Times	Mike Friedburg of Running with the Buffs Fame
The Crew at the meet in front of the CruiseAmerica.com RV	Best Seat in the House	The Crew
A Man every college runner in America should try and get to know: Todd Klein of Adidas	LetsRun.com Super Fans (We can't remember their names) but we promise they had a sign saying: LetsRun.com Where Your Dreams Become Reality	The Accident and Carlos with the Help of His Former Coach Ron Warhurst
The hottest women in track and field	You want the Roadtrip of a lifetime to continue? Subscribe today Running Times: Subscribe Today! Use code "letsrun" to get a special 10% off the already lowest price.	Look Wejo (needs a haricut) and has switched allegiances. Apply to Cornell University. Not only will you be smart but you will be fast!

Footnotes: 1 Well after many nights sleep and time to reflect the judges have determined that Dan could not have broken Goucher's course record since he did a fartlek on the roads.  But he did break Scott and Weldon and their fragile egos.  And since some of you seemed to believe everything that is written on this site we felt obligated to come clean