About the Author

Matt Fleckenstein – matflec@live.com

 

In sixth grade gym class, I broke 6:00 for the mile.  I knew I wanted to run track & field.  However, I went to Catholic School, and we didn’t have a team.  I wasn’t allowed to run on the public school team until 9th grade. 

So, when I graduated from Catholic School and attended Punxsutawney Area High School (aka, Punxsy) as a freshman, I joined the cross country team.  For being on the team, I was able to get a pair of “trainers” — so, I got a pair of Brooks Chariots.  And, in lacing up those shoes, I became a runner. 

Most people know Punxsutawney for our famous Groundhog, Phil.    However, it was also a pretty good running school.  I didn’t know it at the time.  I just showed up for practice 5-6 days a week and ran a billion 400m repeats as hard as I could…just trying to keep up.  Our  coach, the legendary John Smith was big on 400m repeats…they were his bread and butter.  It wasn’t until my sophmore year, when we finished second in the state in Cross Country…losing to State College, that I realized our team was really good and that being top-10 on that team really meant something.  Then, that spring, my good friend, Mike Hampton, became the #1 1500m high school runner in the nation by running 3:50.  We also had a lot of depth for a small school (we were one of the smallest AAA schools in the state).  Our 4xmile team was 3rd in the country, with 5 guys running in the 4:20′s.  It was a great place to run…a place where I made lasting friends, learned a ton of lasting lessons from Coach Smith, and most of all, learned to be a runner.

 When I graduated from Punxsy, I knew I wanted to keep running.  So, I followed my good friend (and the guy I looked up to), Marc Hudock to Shippensburg University.  I ran there for two years, while assistant coach Steve Spence was just out there ripping it up.  When coach Bob Walker resigned at Ship, I left to go run at IUP.  I learned a ton during the two years I ran for “Walk.” They were simple lessons that I’ve never forgotten – there are no shortcuts, you have to run lots of miles to build strength, and race as a team/pack not as an individual. 

After IUP, I ran hard for a few years logging 120+ mile weeks for 6 months consecutively at one point gearing up to try and make the OLY Trials qualifier in the marathon (admittedly, a real long shot).  After blowing out my achilles, I backed down and have run on & off ever since. 

For the past two years, I’ve been living in Seattle with my wife Lynn (who was on the IUP cross country team with me) and our dog Achilles.   My running has slowly become more serious over the past year, since moving to Seattle.   I’m just resuming workouts with Tom Cotner’s Wednesday night group at Green Lake.  As mentioned, I’m also trying to run with Seattle Running Company on Sunday mornings.  We’ll see what happens over the coming months, but I’m working to get in ultra running/racing shape.