Well today Louis I ran my first 30 minute post marathon recovery run. It was surprisingly easy and enjoyable. It was my first opportunity to really reflect on my marathon journey that started back in July when John “committed” me to the Chicago marathon and it was kind of an emotional run. I am truly filled with appreciation and pride and wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your knowledge and investment in my development and everyone in the running club. You prepared me so well and it was apparent throughout the entire race. I can’t say what part of the training was the most beneficial although I did spend a good portion of it under marathon pace. I felt strong until 20 though. Chicago was such a wonderful experience and above everything else an accomplishment in competing. I am very proud that on Sunday I competed to the best of my ability on that day. It’s been five years since I ran a marathon, which ironically was the 2006 Chicago Marathon. Until Sunday, I wasn’t sure if I could run a marathon let alone truly compete for the 26.2 miles. I now know I can confidently say I can and thanks to your training the marathon only really hurt for 6.2 miles!

Sharing the experience with Michele and John made the trip a memory to cherish; both fun and entertaining as was the pre race and post race dinners with Edwin and Vera. Michele can bring levity to most any situation and John brought entertainment, though most times he didn’t realize he was the brunt of the laugh. They even made the Sunday morning pre race breakfast lighthearted which has never been my experience. Michele was able to help me understand on Saturday, during our fifth reading of our expected splits, that if I ran the race as scheduled I only needed to run the last 6 miles in 47:11. It became my mantra when I hit the wall at 20 and 7:17/mile was not an option. Louis I’m sure you’ve written it and repeated it for years, but Saturday it finally stuck!

The race itself was almost a comedy of errors, something I could never have prepared for or anticipated. First, the corrals were a zoo! Probably avoidable, but that’s admitting to John he was right and we should have been there a half hour earlier!  I had to literally scale two cyclone fences to get to my corral. My only thought, don’t pull my hamstring! Finally once I pushed my way into the corral, the 3:10 pace group was way in the front and I could not get close enough. I had to wait and hope to catch them once the race started and things opened up. Corral B is so much more crowded than A. I have new found respect for all runners in C-open; it is so much harder the deeper in you start.

 My first challenge was a mile or two into the race. We hit a hairpin right turn and as I ran to the inside of the curve the pack slowed almost a stop and the guy behind me stepped on my right shoe heel. I had to fight to keep on my right shoe! I stepped off the course, remove my shoe, and untie it after having knotted it as tight as I could so it wouldn’t come loose during the race, retie it and jump back on the course. Standing there shaking, struggling to get my shoe untied was a surreal experience and I wasn’t sure how to overcome the challenge. When I got back on course there were so many runners and I was well behind the 3:10 pace group, running with the 3:20 pace group. I spent the next ten miles running sub marathon pace chasing the 3:10 pace group.

 At the 10k I caught sight of the pace team about 200 meters ahead, but realized they weren’t stopping for water and I had to. In fact, by the half I was taking two to three cups every water stop which was at least every two miles. My pace was way too fast, but it was a calculated risk because I felt I needed the pace group to get me through the last 8 miles after 18 where I struggled at in 2006. By mile 16 I was barely holding my marathon pace and never caught the 3:10 pace group. I did make it to 18 and then 20 before I could no longer hold my pace. Louis my aerobic training worked and carried me further than I expected. I was so pleased I made it that far before the wheels came off. By 20, Michele’s voice saying you only need to run a 47:11 was all I kept hearing and I focused on maintaining a sub 7:40/mile. Those last six were tough. I could only take water, the gels were no longer going down and at one point I had to catch my self from throwing up. It was not pretty. I had gel all over my face because my last gel at mile 21 shot past my mouth and up my nose and on my salty eyebrow. My face was a caked mess of sweat water and gel. At mile 23 or 24 I was spilling water all over my face and down the front of my jersey. A woman yelled “you look great” and I actually laughed knowing she was looking at me thinking “OMG she’s a mess”!   

At mile 24 Nike had a block party going and it was so helpful. People yelling its only 2.5 miles to the finish! Somewhere in those final miles, as I struggled to find any motivation, a woman wearing a Canadian outfit ran past and I fought to hang on to her. I held on until the final right turn onto Roosevelt Street. The final turn my right calf cramped and it took every effort to run the final 100 meters to the top of Roosevelt. The spectators were screaming “its 300 meters to the finish”. When I turned left on Columbus I decided to move to the far right and find some open space. I looked at the clock and saw 3:13, I was so happy that I sprinted all out to the finish. I was so surprised I had it in me; I really thought I was going to end around 3:15. I’m so pleased with the outcome, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit my second thought was, 3:10 was so doable! I guess that’s a discussion I’ll have to have with you at a later date.

Thank You Coach

Hi my name is Sanjana, I would like to share my experience in track & field and my coach and family helped me to get the best out of me. When I first started track and field in 3rd grade, I was STRUGGLING. I didn't even like the idea of running! This was mostly because I was always lazy, ALWAYS behind, and VERY VERY slow. I did not like the ideal of being last against my brother. My parents and brother tried to get me to run at a very early age, but I would like to cuddle up in a blanket and read a book, the eight year old me wasn't having any thought of running. I would cry and whine until they said you don't have to do it any more (I was very bossy).

One day at our local park a track/cross country team was practicing. My dad said to my brother "Check with the coach if you and your sister can join the team". One week later my brother and I are out at our first ever track meet. This is when i first met Coach Koa. At first he seemed to be strict, but in time I realized that he was very kind and encouraging. Coach Kao is in later 70's and he still runs at 8 min pace. The first week was very tough. It went like this: cramps, tired, water and cramps again. In the second week I was completely sore. My legs were aching when I started to run again.

The way coach always encourage me. When everyone else: is doing a 400meter me: is doing a 300 meter. I got tired before anyone else and that made me sad, Coach would notice that I was low energy and would explain that "A Boys heat beats 3 times faster than a girls heart, which make them breath faster than a girl." This made me feel better. I was the only girl of my age and was the youngest I often felt lonely.

I like track because all my teammates are really nice, and my perspective about run from third grade has completely changed. I like the workouts now, they are hard and they bring the best out of me, but sometimes I am not at my spirits and lag behind at that moment my brother would calls out to go faster which encourages me to try and catch up with him.

This is how my coach and my family encourage me to become the third fastest in my family (my dog being first and my brother being second). I am thankful to Coach Kao, who is my best friend as well!

Through my journey as a competitive athlete, I have had my fair share of struggles, both physically and mentally. Especially after I began my high school athletic career, the performance pressure was greater. But, from my freshman year on, I was fortunate enough to have the greatest source of inspiration going forward: my club coach, Louis Kao.

Among all the coaches I have encountered, there is truly none as dedicated as Coach Kao. No matter what time of the year it is, he is on his feet for hours a day, doing what he loves: fostering a love for training in young athletes. I remember our rainy April practices, where Coach Kao would spend over five hours a day coaching outside, without an umbrella or chair. When we asked him to bring a chair, he told us that he preferred to stand and watch. We all thought he was crazy, but he was just doing what he loved: coaching us, while expecting nothing in return.

He has always been one to get right to the point: he will tell you what you need to improve, and give you the guidance to work towards the improvement. “Use the hammer!” is a phrase I hear on the regular. It’s basically a way of reminding us to fix our running form, focusing on our arm movement. This is just one of many of the suggestions we hear from Coach Kao almost daily, intended to improve our form over time through constant reminders.

His recipe is almost too simple: hard work and discipline leads to positive performance. Yet behind this simplification of “hard work” is the countless hours he dedicates to writing five-page long articles and workouts, and analyzing our performance to produce individual training plans for each athlete. Through the personalized weekly training charts he sends to us at the start of every week, I have come to realize the precise meticulosity of training. No longer do I only strive for new personal records and winning times (although those are great); instead, I have fallen in love with the beautiful process of training. Each and every practice session with him is a step towards success. Those team talks, where we’d sit in a circle as Coach Kao explained the workouts to us, making sure we understood every last detail. Those tempo runs that ended at his house, where he’d have enough food to feed the entire team twice waiting for us. Even those grueling workouts that left us on the floor, where Coach Kao would tell us, “This is where you’re reminded of your love-hate relationship with your coach;” but all we could think about was how we could never hate him despite the pain we felt.

I can still picture him on the sidelines at every high school track meet, beaming with pride behind his incognito outfit and dark sunglasses as I cross the finish line. He does not get the credit for my performance because he isn’t my in-season high school coach, but it is only through his dedication to my individual success that I am able to attain this new personal record. He takes pride in each individual athlete, understanding that the greatest glory is to those who put in deliberate, consistent work and show improvement. When I perform well on a certain day, Coach Kao will always be the first one to stop me before my cool down with praise for my hard work. When I’m not feeling great, he will console me with encouraging words and a reminder that one bad day does not make me an incompetent athlete.

Coach Kao truly has a passion for what he does, and I hope to carry the same passion into my future endeavors. Having dedicated years of his life to both training as a competitive athlete and mentoring other athletes, Coach Kao has taught me that through hard work and discipline, I am able to achieve my short-term goals and work towards success in my long-term goals, both in athletics and life itself.

If you are ready to work hard to achieve your running goals, then you must join 2ndWind!!

An essay I wrote for school about someone who we look up to.  

It was the first day of August and the sun beat down brightly on California High School’s track. Out on this 400-meter loop, Louis Kao was preparing for the first day of a summer camp with several students who had coached during Hart’s track season. As the athletes began to walk in, the seventy-year-old Chinese man greeted everyone in his choppy, broken English. Long after that summer ended, the summer camp would live on, and over the course of the next year, his new athletes would continue to train with him, and learn to trust their coach, who would be a bit of a prankster, but would always remain organized and show generosity for them.

Never did a day go by where Louis did not joke around a little. One day in the middle of June, all of the team was gathered around a small indoor hotel pool. It was the night before a big meet, and everyone was getting ready to go to bed. Suddenly, out of the blue, Louis pushed in a teammate, who was not planning on swimming, clothes, and all. For the rest of the evening teammates kept pushing each other in before everyone finally went to bed in anticipation for the meet. Louis had left with a light-hearted grin and his whole face seemed to sparkle. He had lightened the mood, and everyone was in good spirits heading into the next day’s meet. It wasn’t the least uncommon. Throughout many practices, the white-haired Louis had made fun of all his athletes many times over. Despite being the coach, Louis also occupied the position of team clown. Through many tough practices he rarely let there be a sullen mood.

It is impossible to have success without being organized, especially during one hilly race in November. A cold air swept across the open field as the meet was about to start. With sweatpants, a windbreaker jacket, and his beanie on, Louis was instructing his athletes on how to run the race. He had their strategy all planned out from a fast start to a steady middle before kicking towards the end of the race. From race strategy to preparation, Louis had trained them well. After weeks of planned out workouts and runs, he had left his runners best prepared to run the best race they could. Without their coach’s organization and experience, Louis’ athletes would likely not have done as well as they did, and it made Louis glow inside to know he had helped them get there.

Above all, Louis has shown his athletes more generosity than could have ever been asked of a human. On an unbearably hot day where everyone could sweat just by standing under the scorching July sun, Louis knew his athletes would not be able to handle more than a few laps around the track. After a quick practice, everyone quickly fled to the air-conditioned car before being treated to frozen yogurt by their coach. Louis sincerely cared about his athletes and wanted not only for them to succeed but also for them to enjoy themselves. An open heart had always accompanied Louis, whether it is in giving the team new uniforms or taking them out for dinner. His big heart contributes so much to his personality, and as a result only love and gratitude is felt for him.

Just over a year ago, a group of Hart kids first saw their beloved coach standing by the track. Back then they would not have guessed how much of a prankster Louis Kao was, nor could they have seen how organized and generous he was. Soon they would learn from their coach’s example that hard work results in countless memories to be cherished and that it will create many more to be had.

In February of 2019 I joined 2nd Wind, and after having my body suffer for a month, became gradually amazed with the authenticity of your program. You and Coach Brian were able to satiate my curiosity, and get me invested in my running future. I also discovered how running with teammates can create lasting bonds. Throughout high school, running was an outlet to escape from my often tedious and useless schoolwork, giving me something I could be sure wasn't useless. That kept my mental state in check no matter what else happened in my life.

I should clarify I didn't have only positive experiences. If I could change a couple things, I'd tell my younger self to go to physical therapy sooner, in 10th or 11th grade. I also wish it hadn't taken me so long to realize running is mostly about having fun. In addition, it was also a nightmare dealing with my high school coaches for so long, but I believe that experience will still be useful in future interactions.

Overall, you were such a great coach, helping dozens of kids at a time, and I wanted to thank you for being there for me all... five+ years. Above all else, you showed me that authentic, well thought out people and plans do exist in the world, and I can't thank you enough for the hope that continues to give me. Though I didn't race as well as wanted my last two years, I feel that I've learned plenty during my time with you, including the powers and limitations of even the best laid plans.

For my future, I'm attending Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo for a (hopefully) 4-year Civil Engineering degree. I have my sights set on improving, or even saving the world, especially in the face of climate change. I can't imagine quitting running, and I'm planning to run with the distance club at Cal Poly, and tackle marathons after college. At the very least, running will always be a hobby, even if rarely enter any races. So once more, thank you Coach Kao for all the knowledge you've passed down, and for shaping my lifelong running mindset. I hope you continue to find purpose in guiding others like me.