The Challenge: NYC Marathon 2009, Sean Hopkins vs Chris Camp

On a Sunday morning early in November 2009 I will be running the NYC Marathon for the first time. It's much more than me just simply running a race, this race represents a challenge that has been set for quite a while now.

In the year 2002, I was a sophomore in college. I was a member of the Marist Cross Country & Track teams. Granted it has only been 6 years since that time it does feel like an eternity ago. I was filled with energy, optimism, a sense that I could never be beaten. It was then that Sean Hopkins and I agreed to a challenge one day while contemplating the marathon distance. It was written on a small piece of paper that in the year 2009 we would run the NYC marathon and the winner between the two of us would get to punch the other in the face... really hard. Imature? Yes. Are the stakes even that high? No... I think I can still take a pretty hard punch in the face. I think it goes deeper than that though. It's about pride. We haven't forgotten our bet over the years. And now we are merely a year and 3 months away.

Some things have happened since that fateful day sophomore year. Basically the rest of college I either was injured or just plain sucked at running. In May 2005 I graduated Marist College and moved to NYC. For essentially 3 years I ran hardly a step. Instead I ate a ton of burgers, drank a ton of beer and engrossed myself in the NYC Improv community. My weight rose to a gross 180+ lbs (I'm only 5'9"). People were telling me I looked fat every single day.

Sean Hopkins kept running. He has set Peronal Records (PR's for those of you savy) in nearly every distance since he graduated. In November 2007 he ran his first marathon, coincidentally the New York City marathon. He ran the 26.2 mile distance in 2 hrs 53 mins 7 seconds. That same month I ran a 5K (3.1 miles) as a joke. The Cardiac Classic in Schenectady, NY. My time... 19:40. Just barely faster than the pace Hopkins ran his full marathon at.

The last week of February 2008 came a long and I realized that I had little time left before my eminit humiliation. It was at that moment that I decided to start running again. And not only start running again but race the only race I've never raced before. The marathon. 11 weeks. That's all I had to train. In May I got my fat ass in shape enough to actually finish and I ran 3 hrs 2 mins 57 seconds. I lost 20 lbs.

The real question at hand is can I beat Sean Hopkins? Everyone on that Marist Cross Country/Track team who has known me and my life over the past 4-5 yrs will most certainly tell you that there is no chance in hell that I can win. Maybe they are right. But if I were Sean Hopkins I would be careful. Sure you've been training hard enough Hopkins. But watch yourself. Don't be getting hurt. Don't overtrain. Be aware. Because, yes my friend I have more than a year still to train. And in the last 5 or 6 months I might take some extreme action in my life to shorten this marathon gap.

I will defeat Sean Hopkins. I know this. I'm a little bit crazy. Well rested. Out of hibernation. And as our sophomore year housemate Kevo once put it while playing Sega's Altered Beast, "Camp is fueld by his boundless rage". Sean Hopkins will never see me coming. I will strike in mile 23.6. It will be the athletic upset of the century and no one will ever know except for about 10 people.

VS.