Presented by Kathy Faulkner Youngren
The winner of the Male Performance Award goes to Eric Charette.
For those of you who don’t know Eric, he is a master statistician.
- He keeps track of every ½ mile split of every mile he runs.
- On any given day, he can tell you his weekly mileage, monthly mileage, yearly mileage, and total lifetime mileage
- He can tell you how many total hours he has run
- And he can even tell you where he has placed overall and within his age group in each and every race he has ever run
If anyone wants to see these statistics or read detailed write-ups and see pictures from just about each and every race he has run since 2005, check out his blog. In fact, this is just what I did.
However, upon close examination of his blog, I think I noticed that, perhaps, one of the most transforming races of Eric’s career has been omitted. I want to take you back to October 2, 2005, to the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. On the entrants list we find Eric Charette, the same Eric Charette that is here with us tonight.
Going into this race, Eric had been training some, and had a goal to finish in under 3:45. Luckily, there supporting him was his dear wife, Laura, who was meeting him every 5-7 miles during the race. As the race progressed, Eric was running following his schedule, and despite some pains which we all know is pretty normal, Eric went through the ½ marathon point in 1:45, ahead of pace. Feeling confident, Laura moved on to meet Eric at the 20 mile mark. She got there and waited on Eric.
And waited on Eric….and waited on Eric….and waited on Eric. I think you get the idea. Finally, she looked up and saw him coming around the corner. Before she could say anything, he immediately collapsed on the grass. At this point, Eric really understood what it meant to “hit the wall.” In fact, he just didn’t hit the wall, he was hit by a ton of bricks. He seemed like he was “stick a fork in me” done. It looks like Eric was suffering the fate of many marathoners: a big DNF.
However, Laura had a different idea. Knowing that Eric would hate himself if he quit, and knowing she would never hear the end of it, she decided, for the sake of both of them, to put on her running shoes and do whatever it took to get him across the finish line. Pulling him up off the grass and practically carrying him some during the last 6 miles, Eric crossed the finish line in 4:55, a little slower than his goal finish time. But when it takes 2 hours for the last 6 miles, 4:55 isn’t quite as bad as it seems.
I bet some of you are wondering why I said earlier that this was one of Eric’s most transforming races, when clearly he did not have the race he wanted. It is because this race proved to Eric the importance of training, preparation, and mental toughness: three elements that are required to be a strong, consistent runner. By internalizing the lessons he learned from this race, and has indeed become a strong, consistent runner. As Laura says, “that marathon created a monster.” In 2006 at the Chicago Marathon, Eric ran a lot better and finished in 3:17. Currently, his marathon pr is 3:07.
Now lets move to 2008. Eric has had a terrific year. He sets prs about every time he races, and since he has been training hard for the Rocket City marathon next month, he should set another pr for the marathon distance. This year he has run 38 races, has put in 453 hours of running, has run over 300 miles /per month for the last 4 months, and finished 4th in the HTC male grand prix. Besides just running, Eric is also VP Equipment for the HTC and is more than gracious to volunteer whenever he is needed.
Acceptance Speech by Eric Charette
Thank you very much Kathy.
I really am a private person and wasn't going to say anything, but... (pause for laughter) ... but I asked Harold to write my speech for me!
It really means a lot for me to be us here and honored with this award. To be a relative new comer to the area in the lat two years and taken in by such a welcoming bunch of people makes it easy to feel like a new home.
At the board meeting this summer when we started talking about candidates for this award, I never imagined that I would be standing up here. I felt like I was having a pretty strong year, my training was going well and I was getting faster, but there are so many others that probably deserve to be here instead of me. A few that I could think of and wanted to quickly recognize were:
Jon Elmore
- At age 42, ran a 4:55.86 mile in July setting a state age record.
- He moved up from 10th to 1st in the Gran Prix from last year to this year
Dwayne Satterfield
- At age 43, set a sate record for the marathon in February at Birmingham with a 2:46:30
- This goes along with his other 7 records
These two are low key guys who aren't blogging every 1/4 mile split from every run and writing elaborate race reports so you don't hear much about them, but they had great performances this year.
I guess that when the board was trying to figure out who should win this year, I was next alphabetically.
There are a lot of people I'd like to thank, but to keep it brief and in no particular order.
- Laura for putting up with me, well every day.
- Marty for believing in me and pushing me faster further and higher every week.
- Joey for driving me to the Shoals all summer so we could race every weekend.
For those of you who may not have read what I wrote about my experience at Boston this year (which appeared in the HTC Newsletter thanks to Harold), I talked about starting off as a scrawny and uncoordinated kid with no self confidence from small town USA. In concluding that story, I summarized it why I run, and I wanted to mention that again.
I run for all of the scrawny, uncoordinated kids out there to show them that with hard work, determination and a lot of heart, they can do reach their goals, weather they are in running or in life, no matter how high they may be.
Thank you again.