Nick Symmonds book excerpt, you're gonna want to read this!

kipisfast wrote:

Are women subjected to the same treatment? Can male testers collect from female test subjects? If so, where do I sign up?

me too, yay!

Of course they don't tell you,your girlfriend,wife has been on the

Black pony.

lpd wrote:

Of course they don't tell you,your girlfriend,wife has been on the

Black pony.

The data is not self reported, it is based on response rates.

And the data tells us the only thing that has been on the black pony is the hand of the person who owns it.

Ask Sarah Palin how the Black pony feels.

I knew Nick in undergrad too and I agree with the previous poster that he is pretty self-absorbed and obsessed with his image, but otherwise not a bad guy. However, the company he keeps or kept really bothers me. The frat Nick was in at Willamette U was recently shut down due to numerous sexual assaults by the frat brothers. I am fairly sure that I know the Cooper mentioned in the excerpt, and I have heard of incidents in which he at least attempted to sexually assault students at Willamette. Cooper's former roommate and friend at Willamette (as well as a Willamette track runner), Scott Sierra, raped a girl at knifepoint and has spent the last nine years in prison for it. I don't know if Nick and Scott were friends, but I do wonder why he hangs out with people that think rape is A-OK

Not buying it wrote:

New Nick in undergrad at Willamette, partied with him some. He was known on campus as a huge exaggerator and pretty full of himself... but honestly, it was kind of endearing, and if you didn't take his stories totally seriously, they were at least fun stories. I have no doubt this book will be the same. Mostly half-truths, told in a fun manner to make him look like the epitome of macho. And it will make for an entertaining read. Just take it with a grain of salt.

[quote]oldrunnerguy wrote:

I thought the same thing. Jesus, this sounds like a 7th grader wrote it. He should have at least had it edited by a ghostwriter.

[quote

Or an editor

A ghostwriter actually writes the book

Doclove wrote:

[quote]oldrunnerguy wrote:

I thought the same thing. Jesus, this sounds like a 7th grader wrote it. He should have at least had it edited by a ghostwriter.

[quote

Or an editor

A ghostwriter actually writes the book

Read the ESPN article. For some type of legal reasons, NIck had to write the book himself.No ghost writer.

Where's the guy who was writing the fake excerpts awhile back? Those were fantastic! Stuff like this:

"Scarlet's hair was as red as my persistent canker sore. I snapped her bra like a Concord taking off, and she was unhooked for love."

Were you guys on the team? It doesn't sound like it. It probably shouldn't, but it surprises me that multiple Willamette students that weren't on the team are here posting on Letsrun. Nick said in one of the recent interviews that he was kind of an a$$hole in college (and Cooper definitely was). Nick has matured and hopefully Cooper has, too. Keep in mind, though, now it's Nick's job to be obsessed with his image.From my perspective, Nick was a great guy to be around. He made the team experience the blast that it was.As for his writing, why do you all have such high expectations? Look at his Runner's World posts. His writing is intelligible and he has fun stories to tell. Don't go in expecting smooth and nuanced prose - just expect to be entertained and to get some insights into the life of a pro runner.

God, that writing was mediocre. Not totally horrible, at least he tried, but not good. I can't believe that is going to be published in that form. A decent editor should clean that up before it is published. Heck, I could clean it up, even with my glaring lack of qualification beyond reading a lot and doing some writing for fun.

I was on the team and I am proud of Nick's athletic accomplishments. I just wish he was discerning enough not to be friends with people who engage in sexual assault. You want to be macho? Stick up for women, even if it means calling out your friends.

You people are hilarious. First, go write a book. Second, get anyone outside of your Mom to care about what you wrote. Third, proceed to judge as you like.

Nick wrote a book in a few short months and churned out a solid grouping of stories and insight into our sport. He's not perfect but anyone that has met him knows that he is a good guy. He is also a professional runner and not Hemingway. who gives a shit if there is an error here or there? It doesn't change the context or the narrative.

Nick has done more (domestically) for the sport than anyone in the last 10 years. His fight for athlete rights, professionalism, better track meets, and transparency from our governing body are almost as impressive and influential as his running accomplishments.

I've grown to expect 95% negativity on this board so I don't know why I bother. One day someone will cure cancer and this board will go ape shit about how shitty this person is for curing cancer. I mean, now all of these foundations and research centers have no purpose. Screw that guy

Seriously? It sounds like you are just echoing what I said? I thought I said he was a fun guy, that his machismo was kind of endearing, but a bit over the top. And if you did actually go to Willamette, you'd know that what I said is true - known as a huge exaggerator, full of himself, but in a fun way. Where am I wrong?

No worries man. I'm not really disputing what you said. I just wanted to give my positive perspective.

Nothing really to add to the discussion. Want to mention that I'm eskimo bros with Symmonds. He got my seconds.

fan of US distance running wrote:

Not any different than a hernia check for a sports physical. Both are strange, both cannot be accomplished a different way and both are required to compete at a certain level. You do understand why they have to watch the urine come out of you right?

Except it is nothing like that.

Hernia checks are scheduled by you at a time you choose. And you are seeing a doctor.

Pissing in a cup in the manner I described above is done randomly, by someone who is not a doctor.

It is weird. It is very strange you're acting like it's not.[/quote]

Alright, I'll bite. I am not acting like anything. I don't think THIS PROTOCOL is weird if you want to collect a sample that has not been tampered with. Do you know how people tamper with samples? They use a fake bladder, they put a condom full of clean pee up their anus, they put something on their finger that will foul their test. They put a bladder full of urine under their armpit and squeeze it through a tube.

You need me to go on? So that is WHY someone needs to watch the urine come out of your body, to make sure it REALLY IS coming out of YOUR body.

Do you suggest a way this could be accomplished with random testing? If you do, nobody cares because random drug testing is not organized around what you feel is comfortable or convenient or NOT WEIRD for you. It is designed to catch drug cheats and that is the best way to do it.

Why is it so different from what I said? Because the drug tester is not a doctor? It IS STRANGE to get a hernia check for a physical, every sports physical I ever got was put on my the school and I did not know the doctor. So YES, I signed up for the physical, I knew they were going to be touching my groin, but there is NEVER another situation where someone I have never met touches my groin, for money NO LESS. So YES, this is an UNUSUAL SITUATION.

But you know it is going to happen and you pay for it and it is part of playing a sport.

Drug testing for athletes is THE SAME in that respect. What other situation will you be forced to have someone watch you pee into a specimen cup, with you clothes pulled down? NONE.

But you know it is going to happen and you pay for it and it is part of playing THE sport.

Ca$hclay wrote:

newname wrote:

His writing is cringe-worthy:

"had developed a taste for the bitter white powder on the Costa Rican trip we had taken together during college, and he occasionally still made the financial transaction to acquire the illegal substance."

Made the financial transaction? Jesus Christ.

Painful. How about . . . "My friend started using during a Costa Rican college trip and still picked some up from time to time."

Did anybody edit any of his work?

Yes, THIS. If I were writing a book I would have someone or a few people EDIT it for me.

So, what, now we can't criticize anything we aren't doing ourselves? If I walk out of a shitty movie, am I supposed to say, "well I haven't made a film myself, so 'No Comment'"?

If you're selling your work as a real book, you pay someone to edit it. I don't know why he didn't bother, since editors aren't expensive, but it's too bad. It sounds like the book could've been interesting, but screw plowing through a couple hundred pages of this stuff.

I got drug tested when I was in high school when I made world juniors.As a 17 year old, they made me pull down my pants and show this dude my under age wiener. While I pee'd in a cup. Usatf....

fan of US distance running wrote:

"If they want urine, then a DCO follows me into the bathroom and asks me to wash my hands. The DCO then asks me to pull my pants down to my ankles and lift my shirt up to my armpits while he or she stands inches away to watch the urine leave my body and enter the little plastic cup they have provided me with. Needless to say, this can take some getting used to."

WTF????

That is a HUGE invasion of privacy. Wow.