Episode 2: Mike Siringer

Marietta Junior Mike Siringer lets us in on the Marietta/Muskingum rivalry, his feelings on MC's big year to come (hosting not only the 2008 OAC Cross Country Championships, but the NCAA DIII 2009 Outdoor National Championships), thoughts concerning a certain 20th year anniversary, the team's pack mentality in practice and much, much more.

Episode 2: Mike Siringer HD
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2 for 1 Opening Day/Gingerific Poll Challenge

Just wanted to let everyone know we're going to open up the site with two new interviews on the 1st. We picked the brains of OAC Juniors Mike "Saucey" Siringer of Marietta and Ian "the Ginger Warrior" Hankins of Muskingum and will spotlight their mindset going into the 2008 cross country season.

Also, since 'opening day' just so happens to be right smack in the middle of the Olympic Trials in Eugene (where two of our first three interviewees--Castrillo and Hankins--as well as contributor

JD Walters, will be) we thought we'd propose little challenge:

During our interview with Ian, the topic of Eugene naturally came up. We eventually began discussing the 1500 and he told us who he expects to qualify and represent the USofA this summer. We've created a new poll (bottom of page) that includes Ian's predictions. We'll take the poll down when the site debuts next Tuesday. Until then, your job is to guess which three runners he guessed--not your own personal predictions (make sense?). The correct answer will obviously be unveiled

when you watch (listen?) to his interview.

Happy trails (and roads, meadows, fields, et al.).

Episode 1: Jimmy Castrillo

What I had originally planned to be about a 10-minute interview turned into over a half-hour of raw footage. Yes, even this "full" version is somewhat condensed, as I spared you all the typical "hi's and hello's" that generally start typical conversation (though, now that I think about it, it would be humorous if I skipped that part entirely and just started asking questions...maybe I'll go that route in the future).

Episode 1: Jimmy Castrillo HD
Uploaded by OAC_Distance

Jim was a great first choice to interview. I wrote a few notes before calling him in attempt to steer things a little but the entire thing basically just turned into a casual conversation. He was hitting a lot of the stuff I was hoping to know all on his own--there was no need to prompt--and as you'll find or perhaps already have, his answers were in-depth and honest.

While the site won't open until the 1st of July (basically a week from now) I've decided to go ahead and make this connecting page (Cellular Talk Shows) public for two reasons:

First, because I'd like to give you an idea of the format for these interviews and second because within the next few days I'm going to post a short list of our upcoming interviewees so that you can post questions you'd like us to ask the future guests. When I blog the list, just leave questions in the comment box following the post and make sure to let us know who the question is directed to (maybe you'd like to direct it to all of them). Be creative. I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to ask these guys everything you'd like to know, so help me out. Again, I promise to ask every proposed question as long as it's not out of line.

Thanks again to Jim for being the first ever OAC Distance.com Cellular Talk Show.

PS: I'll try not to breath into the mic so loudly next time. That was kind of embarassing. Bare with me.

PPS: If anyone has any ideas on how we might be able to improve the quality of the interviews (especially the sound quality) or would like to see us try something different in terms of the look of the interviews, etc., by all means let us know.

After all, this is our site.

Get to Know 'Em!

As I'm sure most of you remember, not so long ago Flotrack stamped the slogan "a new video everyday" all over the front of their site. Now that it's grown from cult/grassroots status to arguably THE premiere running site on the internet, (well, Let's Run might have something to say about that) the motto goes without saying. So many registered members now download their own personal videos, Mark Floreani and the gang have morphed into the McDonald's of distance running sites: billions and billions served (videos that is, not ground beef).

Allow me to digress...

Growing up I went through a bit of a rap phase. Nas was one of my favorite MC's at the time and taught this young distance runner several life lessons. An example of Nassir Jones' teachings? Certainly:

no idea's original
there's nothin' new under the sun,
it's not what you do, but how it's done.

Now I never agreed with the profanity, violence or profligate use of Cristal ("one for me, one for my homies"), but these words of wisdom make plenty of sense to yours truly. It's for this reason I have no problem stealing Flotrack's innovative idea to share at least one video per day for the first week.

What better way to keep people coming back right?

Now, we don't have the resources, manpower or budget at this time to go traveling around the grand state of Ohio interviewing OAC athletes daily, but we do have cell phones. Therefore friends, family and OAC running fans, we will be posting low-quality phone interviews! Don't fret, the plan is to put all of these interviews in a format that is also viewable, kind of like the teaser videos we created to open the site. We'll provide still photos as eye-candy, and maybe even a little transition music between questions. If it shall so please some of you I don't see why it wouldn't also be an option to transfer these interviews to text in case some of you aren't auditory learners.

We hope you enjoy these interviews. Please send feedback via blog comments if there's anything you'd like to let us know. Any ideas, questions, criticism, proposals, etc. All comments are welcome.

The plan is to eventually post a lineup of the interviews that are to take place in the future. When we do this we'll simply title a post with the interviewee's name a couple of days in advance with hopes that readers can post the questions they'd like us to ask that person on the comment section of the blog. We'll try our best to ask each and every question you, the reader propose--barring only the unreasonable.

Recap:

1) Beginning the launch date of the site--July 1st--until the first gun goes off to start the 2008 NCAA Division III Cross Country season, we promise to post at the very least a phone interview (don't worry, there will be live interviews as well) every week to this, the interview page of OAC Distance dot com. Again, the first week (Tuesday July 1st - Monday July 7th) we'll post at least one video a day. If there is a positive response we'll most likely just continue the at least one video per week trend right on throughout the season, meaning you'll come close to meeting about half the conference before things are all said and done.

2) When the site gets rolling we plan to post a schedule of the upcoming interviewee's on this blog in advance so that you might leave any specific questions you'd like us to ask them. Unless there is just an absurd amount of questions (we doubt this) we guarantee to ask your question when we interview that person.

3) Feel free to keep this blog interactive. Tell us how good or bad you think the interviews are. Let us know what you'd like to see more of, less of, etc.

Thanks for your support! Let's have an awesome cross country season!