When a Half is Greater than Hole

It was not my longest run.

Not even close to my fastest.

I didn’t hear any cheering

or have any great epiphanies.

I remember being scared.

But I was excited too.

Scared it was going to hurt.

Excited that it might not.

February 4th.

I was a junior in HS.

I ran a 1/2 mile from my front door.

That’s it.

My most important run

was only 800 meters long.

Five months earlier, in September,

I opened my XC season with the

fastest time at the meet by a NJ runner.

That was followed by an invitation

to the 5th Avenue Mile in NYC.

Then my foot started to hurt.

Then it hurt worse.

Taping it alone, icing it alone,

screaming at it alone, throwing things

around my room alone – it only hurt more.

October. Misdiagnosed – again & again.

Told to take a few days off.

Told to run on it again.

Told it would get better. It didn’t.

November. I got mono.

I got over the mono.

My foot still hurt.

December. The bone scan said 4 cracks in the foot.

Explains the pain. Explains why I couldn’t run through it.

And it explains the knee high plaster cast I was put in.

For five months I knew that every time

I put my right foot on the ground it

would hurt. I would flinch even before

I put my foot down.

Every. Other. Step.

I anticipated the pain.

The cast came off in late January.

I put on my running shoes again.

I even wore the team jacket.

I wanted to feel like I had a purpose again.

I wasn’t afraid of hurting.

I was just afraid of still being hurt.

Please.

Please don’t hurt.

I knew that I was going to start & finish

this run at the same place.

I knew I wouldn’t be gone long.

And I knew one way or another

I wouldn’t be the same when I got back.

I want to run again.

Please. Give me this.

I started down my front lawn.

It was the only time my Mom

took a picture of a run.

I didn’t even know it existed

until she showed it to me after

graduation 15 months later.

Hundreds & hundreds of miles later.

Miles without a flinch.

State Championship miles.

All American miles.

So many miles.

But none of the miles that followed

were as special to me as this.

And it was only half of one.

You Only Remember What You Already Know

I went to a high school Track & Field meet last weekend. I needed to. Because I was tired. And I was worn out.  So, I went to the meet.

It was a beautiful evening. But it could have been terrible weather. It wouldn’t have mattered. I would have been able to get what I needed… a reminder.

If you find yourself beat up, torn apart, knocked down by life or work or your running just go to a Track & Field meet. If you lack inspiration or can’t find motivation go to a Track & Field meet. 

What you’ll find… is what you expect. You won’t be surprised. You won’t be shocked. You’ll see acts of sportsmanship all over the track and the field. And you will hear cheering from the stands, the track, the infield, the paddock. You’ll watch competition everywhere – real and pure and honest competition.

And you’ll see fear get its ass beaten every time the gun goes off.

That’s at every Track & Field Meet. 

Every. Single. One.

And as you walk away after that final finisher ends their final lap of their final race you’ll still be tired. You will still be worn out. But you’ll know you can get back on the line. Deep down you already knew that though.

You just needed to be reminded. 

Better than Fastest

I know I will never run a faster 1500m. I know I will never set a new PB in the Mile.But that doesn’t mean I can’t run a better one.

I know I can run a smarter first lap. I know I can run a more relaxed second lap. I know I can be more focused on the third lap. I know I can handle without complaint the battery acid pouring into my legs as I run down the backstretch on the final lap. I know I can look up and ahead on that final straightaway when all I want to do is look down. I know I can charge all the way through that damn line…and lean. Always lean. 

I won’t be the fastest I’ve ever been.

But there is the chance I can be my best – better than my fastest.

And that’s what keeps bringing me back to the starting line. 

Measure success as many ways as you can. 

 

Believing is Seeing

I’m sure some people will tell me that I’m too old to believe in magic. They will tell me that anything “extra” I felt when I first stepped onto the track at an empty Hayward Field was just the strong coffee I had just finished. Or maybe it was just the result of years of wanting and imagining and dreaming that this moment would be special. I’m sure that some people will tell me that I’m just seeing what I want to see and feeling what I want to feel.

There is no magic they’ll tell me.

But they didn’t run that first turn at Hayward and hear the echo of a starting gun that was not there drift behind me as I rolled forward. They will tell me it was just construction or a backfiring car or some University of Oregon student dropping a textbook.

They didn’t hear the sound of people clapping and stomping like I did as my heart beat increased and I picked up the pace along the epic backstretch.
They will tell me that’s just the sound of old wooden stands stretching and contracting as the sun and the wind do their dirty work on the structure.

They didn’t see and hear and feel the crowd rise to their feet as I came sprinting off Bowerman’s Turn like I did. They didn’t find that one extra gear like I did because Pre’s People demanded it.
They will tell me I imagined it all – I was awake and dreaming – I saw what I wanted to see.

Well, I was at Hayward Field and I ran a magical lap there.
Am I too old to believe in magic?
No.

Believing in magic is what keeps me from ever being old.

Between The Lines

(I originally posted this on Instagram before the 2014 NYC Marathon. I thought it might be a good idea to repost it now. Good luck to every runner racing this Spring. Enjoy the journey between the lines.)

*******************************

 It’s not going to be perfect. And it’s best to come to terms with that now.

You are going to go out too slow or too fast or fall asleep in the middle or come up short or have too much at the end. You may cramp because you drank too little and you may cramp because you drank too much. You may be sick and feel like crap. You may be healthy and feel like crap.

It’s not going to be perfect.

You have weaknesses. You screw up and make mistakes. You have doubts. You get scared.

Because you’re not perfect either.

But you’re not doing this because you thought you were perfect. You are doing this because you know you are getting Stronger. Because you are learning every day about yourself. And you Believe you can do this. And because being Scared is OK. Being scared reminds you that you are Alive. And sometimes you need to be reminded.

And you should celebrate that you are not perfect. That means you Always have something you can work on, Challenge yourself on. You know what you can be is Better.

You know what you can be is your Best.

You just can’t be perfect.

So this mile, this run, this marathon, this journey between these start and  finish lines can be Life Changing. It can be Inspiring. It can be a Triumph.

It can be so many amazing things.

It just can’t be perfect.

It doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be Extraordinary.

And neither do you.

Things I Remember So I Don’t Forget…How To Coach

I’ve been coaching for a little while. Which means it’s really important not to forget the things I learned – which are different than the things I thought I knew. I forgot most of those.
***************************
Coaches need athletes.
Take the spotlight on the bad days.
Go behind and direct the spotlight on the good days.
Don’t lie to your athlete.
Know what you don’t know and admit it.
Don’t make your athletes run to the finish line for you.
They will run faster to the finish line for themselves.
They will run to the finish line fastest for their teammates.
Teach them it’s OK to lose. It’s not OK to give up.
Your athletes will lose. Don’t give up on them.
Don’t worry about what the athlete wants to hear.
Make sure they hear what they need to hear.
If you do this right you will get your heart broken.
If you do this right your athletes will get their hearts broken.
If you do this right those hearts will heal.
The heart heals stronger after it’s been broken.
This sport needs a strong heart above all else.
It’s OK to be nervous.
Don’t be afraid.
Faith is stronger than fear.
Believe in your athletes.
Your athletes will draw strength from your confidence.
Sometimes athletes bury their greatness deep inside.
Dig, dig, dig and keep digging until you find greatness in each and every athlete. It’s there.
It’s OK for your athlete to run and be hurting.
It’s not OK for your athlete to run and be hurt.
Be your athletes’ biggest fan.
Respect and be open to the possibility that today may be the greatest day the athlete ever has.
Celebrate those days.
Make sure every athlete that comes to your practice leaves better in some way.
Thank your athletes for making you better in so many ways.
Remember that everyone is meant to be a runner.
That makes everyone an athlete.
Athlete’s need coaches.

It’s Not Easy But It Is Wonderful

“Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” – Clarence –  Guardian Angel, Second Class

It’s just not Christmas until I’ve seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. And it’s not until George Bailey’s guardian angel, Clarence, utters those words to a confused and distraught George that George gets it and he is finally ready to live again. Every year I watch it. And every year I finish it a little bit better of a person. Because I walk away having learned something different each time. A year of life passes between my viewings. I’m not the same person I was when I saw it last. So, in a way, I am always seeing it for the first time. And this year I teared up as always when Sam Wainwright’s telegram gets read and, well…I’ll just let you know what I thought about as I listened to the bells ring. (Attaboy Clarence!)

It’s not easy being there for someone else – when they need you – instead of just being there when you can. It’s not easy to stay behind when you want to lead. It’s not easy to lead the way when you’re just as scared as everyone else. It’s not easy to carry the load when you want to be carried. Life just isn’t easy. And maybe that’s what it’s about – those tough times where we get to lead and protect, the hard times when we get to stay behind and give the spotlight to someone else, the exhausting times when we get to take the burden off someone else’s shoulders, those moments when we get to carry each other.

Not HAVE to. We GET to.

It’s George Bailey who gets saved at the end. A man who saved people his entire life. It’s George there at the end who is the one needing to be carried and led and shown the light. It’s George who is surrounded by people willing to sacrifice for him as he had for so long for them.

We all have a few George Bailey’s in our life. Today seems like a good day to thank them and be thankful for them.

And WE are all George Bailey to someone else. Today seems like a good day to remember that and be thankful for that too. It’s a gift to be able to touch other people’s lives.

Be here. Fill up your hole. And you will fill up the holes in so many other people’s lives while your at it.

That’s a wonderful life.

Merry Christmas

What I Learned This Week

I try to learn something everyday. Sometimes I am learning something entirely new and other times I am merely re-learning something I already knew and had forgotten or I had warped and twisted in my head until I had convinced myself I learned something entirely different. It got me thinking…hmmm….what have I learned this week (May 23-May 29) that had to do with running in one way or another?

I already knew that Relays are awesome. Now I know that many other people feel the same way. The IAAF World Relay Championships were last weekend and they were amazing. Large and wild crowds greeted the teams that would compete over a number of different and sometimes rarely run relay events. That rarely run part is significant because it pretty much guaranteed some World Records were going to be shattered and shattered they were. The meet took place in the Bahamas and they did a great job. The crowds were electric for all the events – not just the shorter ones that the sprint crazed island nation love so much. If you have not already watched the races you should. Check the races out by clicking this link and watching races, highlight and coverage through FloTrack. My personal favorites are the US women and their 4×800 throw down and the Kenyan men ripping apart the hopes and dreams of the rest of the world in the 4×1500.

I already knew that the USATF has absolutely no idea how to manage the elite side of the sport. I also already knew that they fail the PR game on an almost daily basis. What I did not know was that the USATF was capable of making incredibly moronic decisions even though they knew that an ever brighter spotlight had been placed on them since USATF Indoors. I learned they were capable of picking a cheat-a liar-a drug cheating liar as a Coach for the US team and after being called out on it they were unable to formulate an exit strategy from this awful mess they had placed themselves in. Nor did they have the guts to admit they screwed up. It was a terrific insult to the other coaches and the athletes that went on this trip to represent the USA as well as an insult to every coach and athlete that has dedicated their time in this sport to achieve whatever greatness they can without cheating. Lauren Fleshman wrote a verbally eviscerating blog about it here. Fleshman nailed it. I have yet to see what USATF Head Honcho Max Siegel brings to the table. I must be missing something. Maybe I will learn next week why he is in charge. I’m hoping that all of this ends up being lessons learned for the USATF and someday (soon) we can look at them as the excellent organization that it needs to be.

I learned that breaking 5 while drinking is way more viewer friendly to non-runners than breaking 4 without drinking beer. James “the Beast” Nielson continues to get press and from larger and larger media sources for his epic WR Beer Mile. James was a fellow Nike Farm Teamer while I was out in Palo Alto, CA so I am biased when I say he deserves all the attention he gets. The latest article comes from the Wall Street Journal and it is interesting to say the least. I was totally unaware how big a deal the Beer Mile was/is. There is even talk of a Beer Mile World Championship taking place. I bet Canada won’t send a full team to that World Championship either.

I learned that I am in horrendous shape. It’s insane that I can literally be around running as much as I am and not be in better shape. Didn’t they tell us that you gain fitness through osmosis or diffusion or something? I curse biology when it does not operate in a way that benefits me! I should get some fitness brownie points for being such a running geek. So, I’ve realized I need a goal. A concrete goal – a race! I am in the process of investigating some options. I have no idea what distance I want to tackle though. 5k? Might be fun to do some speed work. Half-marathon? Manageable and I’ve never raced the distance. I’m sure it would be a nice feeling to put together 13.1 miles. Marathon? Part of me wants to do a marathon just so I can emotionally collapse on some poor freaked out volunteer who only wanted to put a space blanket on me after I crossed the finish line. I’ll keep you updated. I’m sure you care.

I learned that allergies suck and that Benadryl is really strong. I don’t really have allergies but Tuesday night while we ran our Tuesday Night Track Workouts the wind picked up big time. I saw the tress start waving and shaking. What I thought was an approaching torrential shower – an oddly yellow tinged approaching torrential shower – was in fact just pollen. Just massive disgusting amounts of pollen being blown off the trees. I thought this is not good. I woke up the next morning with eyes that looked like they had left my body while I slept and gone and starred in a Cheech & Chong movie. I was sneezing and blowing my nose all day. I finally took a Benadryl. It helped. It also basically knocked me out. I could hardly stay awake for the next 10 hours. Lesson learned? As a runner, if you have allergies and you have to run later make sure you are taking something that will not wreck you. (Also, if you are any good at running and compete make sure you know what is in EVERYTHING you take. Unless you are an American or Jamaican sprinter the odds are slim that the governing bodies of our sport will believe that you were merely ignorant and not actively trying to cheat.)

I learned that the Prefontaine Classic is Must-See-TV. The fields on Friday AND Saturday are insane. And it seems like Nike has upped the ante by really promoting the hell out of the Pre Classic online and through social media. Is it me or is running getting….edgy and cool? We’re close. Don’t get me wrong – I know that our sport will do almost everything wrong to destroy the momentum but you can’t help but be excited about the next few months of running. Just make sure you watch and Tweet and Email and Like and Share anything and everything you see about the Pre Classic. One of the great parts about our sport is how involved the fans can be so let’s make that great part be about how involved the fans are.

This was a nice exercise. Sadly it does not count as actual exercise. Damn biology. You may want to consider sitting down each week and jotting down what you learned. I learned this week that doing just that is a good idea.

 

 

 

 

What’s Wrong With These Kids Part II

This is the second part of 2 parts. If you would like to read Part I first, which is neither recommended nor not recommended, you can do so by clicking here. Triple negatives are as rare as white rhino’s by the way.

#6 – The Nike Farm Team – Biased? Yes. The Farm Team (along with the Stanford Team) basically rabbited every elite race at Stanford from the late 90’s all the way through 2007- when they moved the team to Eugene and became the Oregon Track Club Elite. Jeff Johnson, then Vin Lananna, then Gags (with help from Jack Daniels and Ray Appenheimer) took the reigns of the Farm Team. They understood that Americans needed fast races in America. Palo Alto was the perfect location. You know what happens when people start running fast? Other people have to decide whether they are going to run that fast. If you came to Stanford to race you came to run fast, really fast. The bar was just set higher. It was that simple. And if the bar was set higher at one level there is a chance that other levels (above and below) will respond. They did.

#7 – Jared Leto and Billy Crudup aka Steve Prefontaine and Steve Prefontaine – When those movies, Prefontaine and Without Limits, came out I was a 22 year old 5th year senior at North Carolina who had read the book Pre by Tom Jordan at least 20 times already. If I had read the book at age 9 or had seen Without Limits at 11 my career would have been very different. I would have been better. The movies were OK. Their significance lies not in their place in cinematic history but rather that they were real running movies. They were movies about a real runner. They were movies that legitimized our efforts on the big screen. I could have used a movie like that in HS. We were still watching Chariots of Fire. Great movie but you can only drink champagne and do steeple drills for so long. (Watch the movie for crying out loud!) I graduated HS in 1994. The Prefontaine movies came out in 1997. Running in the 90’s sucked. If you were an 8th grader though in 1997 when the movies came out you would have been a senior in the Fall of 2000. You would have had to run against fellow HS seniors Dathan Ritzenhein, Alan Webb and Ryan Hall. Coincidence? Obviously not!

#8 – Social Media – (It’s different than the internet dammit!) Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. Tumblr. You name it. HS runners don’t even need to be rock stars to have a rock star presence on line. And if that makes them work harder well so be it. Just remember kids – If you want to act like a rock star off the track you better run like one on the track first.

#9 – Alberto Salazar & Jerry Schumacher- Alberto Salazar took a HS kid and said he was going to make him world class. A HS kid! What was this the NBA? He was so matter of fact about it happening too. Most importantly he was upfront that it would not happen until years and years later. Salazar made all of us that thought the Kenyans and Ethiopians were unbeatable feel like wusses. We were. He also changed they way we thought about ourselves and the time horizons we operated under. We needed to dream bigger, train harder, expect more and understand that this road to success we were on was not endless it was just a lot longer than we had thought. So keep going! He just did it again and this time with a girl. It seems to be working. Jerry Schumacher recruited Americans to Wisconsin and made them elite. Truly elite. And he was quiet about it. Which made it interesting. And they were midwestern kids. Which somehow made it more special. Like they were all farmers sons and were running world class times while also holding down a low paying investigative journalist job at the Daily Planet. It just seemed like American kids could now actually become world class runners. It had been awhile. Now, he rules the roost at the Bowerman Track Club elite. You may have heard of some of his athletes – Evan Jager, Shalane Flanagan, Chris Solinsky. And yes, I had to put Jerry and Alberto with each other. I had to. Besides, their rivalry is great for the sport.

#10 – The Rebirth of Eugene AKA Vin Lananna – It is ESSENTIAL that there is a crowd, an actual crowd, in the stands when a track meet is on TV. It is ESSENTIAL that meets are run professionally. It is ESSENTIAL that the sport is treated as legitimate by the people who run the sport. It is ESSENTIAL that Track & Field have at least one place that it knows it can go and receive all of these things. It is ESSENTIAL that we understand that the sport of Track & Field when presented properly can stand on it’s own two legs without gimmicks. And believe me, the resentment towards Eugene for getting all of these big time meets is great for the sport. It forces other towns and cities to put together some type of a bid that can compete with Eugene if it wants to host a meet. And when a city fails to put together a show that merits taking a great meet out of Eugene again it forces all of us to ask the question “What is Eugene doing that we are not doing anywhere else?” NCAA’s and USATF meets before Eugene was reborn TrackTown USA were poorly attended and looked unexciting and to be honest made our sport look like the peripheral sport it had become. Track & Field could not even FAKE that it was healthy for one or two weekends a year! Growing up with TrackTown USA there to take care of the big ones is a great relief and kids get to watch the stars of their sport compete on a stage that they deserve. Maybe, someday those kids will take that stage themselves. And that stage they get to compete on is a whole lot cooler than any stage they used 20 years ago.

#11 – The Jon Riley, Sharif Karie, Gabe Jennings Mile Showdown at HS National Championships in 1997 –

For the first time in a really long time there was talk, legitimate talk, about a potential HS Sub 4. Almost every year now it seems that there is a discussion about a HS boy breaking 4 or a HS girl running faster than Mary Decker did which to me is the same conversation. Before this RUNaissance (so proud of that word) if someone wanted to break 4 in HS they were told to address the wish to the North Pole. In 1997, everything changed. There was not 1 but 3 potential sub 4 runners in HS. This race was standing room only at NC State and local and national papers picked up the story. If my memory serves correct Ryan Travis took the pace early. The 3 studs came up short but Karie ran 4:02 in a HS only mile and we left excited by the spectacle and more importantly what may lay ahead for American Distance Running. If you want to look into the future just look at the youth around you. You have to be pretty excited about what’s coming next.

Bonus #12 – I will leave this blank. But, I assure you it is really filled with thousands of volunteers and new coaches and long time coaches and parents that drive their kids to practice and older siblings that inspire and grandparents that tell stories about John Walker and Joan Benoit and photographers that show up at meet after meet and charge little to nothing for their work or newspaper reporters that do amazing work writing about our sport and still have to worry about their job and officials that work at meets and put the kids first and race organizers that put in countless hours so we can compete and then put in countless hours picking up our paper cups and orange slices. So, yeah, there is a big blank but not empty #12 on this list.

Is this list, even with the Bonus #12, complete. No way. Not even close. Do you agree with the list? Probably not. Then again, you asked, maybe not you specifically, but you asked.

Maybe now you know why my family never did.

 

What’s Wrong With These Kids? Part I

I get questions. Seriously. People actually ask for my opinion. If you are not shocked by this I can assure you that my brothers, sister and parents are. I give them my opinion pretty much all the time on all sort of things. I don’t think they have asked for my opinion once in 38 years. I can’t really blame them – I’m the kid that stuck a Battleship game piece up my nose during the awesome 1980 Wimbeldon final between John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg. I’m still paying that one off. I was four years old! It fit. What’s the problem? The problem was getting it out. The whole family went for the hospital visit. No 4th set tiebreaker for the Bennett Family. No epic 5th set battle for the Bennett Family. No DVR back then either. Again, I was 4. We need to move on…as a family.

So, occasionally I get questions – mostly about running – How should I train for a marathon – what should I be having my 11 year old do – how much speed work is too much speed work – how long should a long run be – when did you start losing your hair?

One question that I get more than the others has to do with the quality of high school distance running. Why are these kids running so fast? Or, if you were like me and raced during the Dark Ages of US distance running – the 1990’s – then the question is one laced with a little bitterness – What’s Wrong With These Kids?

I figured it was time to at least attempt to answer this question, and a great question it is. I have to first say that I hold the right to add to this list as I see fit. I write off the top of my head. Which means I often leave things out and I tend to ramble. So, for the safety of your eyes I have decided to break this into 2 parts – #’s 1-5 and #’s 6-11. I imagine that this list will seem sufficient to me as I publish it and will seem lacking after I read it again a few days later. Let’s simply consider this a list as opposed to the list of reasons why I believe kids are so much faster and faster in such greater numbers than at any other time in US history.

We had way better music in the 90’s though. Like, way, way, way better.

Without further ado, I give you 1-5…

#1 – The Internet – The fact that teens can read about, hear about and watch other teens racing from around the country is in my estimation the most significant reason for….ready….I have a great word….ready….the RUNAISSANCE! Seeing is often believing and seeing a kid from New Jersey or Illinios run 8:45 for 3200 means the kid from California needs to get out the door and hit the trails if he believed 8:50 was going to get the job done. Reading about that State Meet 8:45 race 6 weeks later in Track and Field News while relaxing on the beach on July 4th did not have the same effect. Thank you Flotrack, Dyestat, Milesplit and Runnerspace! (And thank you Track & Field News for treating our sport like it was a legitimate sport and not just an activity to lose weight like some magazines did in the 90’s)

#2 – NXN – Man oh man did we have some great runs when I was in HS about a mythical national championship for XC. The Harrier Magazine and its US Top 25 list edited by Marc Bloom was the closest thing we had to that imaginary race we prayed for. We’d talk trash about Mead HS of WA and York HS of IL, and wonder aloud and angrily why someone didn’t put together a TEAM championship like Foot Locker had done for individuals. Enter Nike. This would have been #1 on this list (which is not in order of importance) but I realize that much of the press and coverage and build up in terms of excitement for NXN is done online. The quality of HS teams on the Boys and Girls side has risen dramatically in the last 10 years. NXN is to blame (if your team is falling behind) or to be commended (if your team has moved ahead) for being an integral part of that rise in quality.

#3 – NBIN and NBON – These meets have been around longer than NXN. The New Balance Indoor and Outdoor National Championships have become the Track & Field meet of the season. In the past, like ancient history 1980’s, there were a series of Invitationals around the country where the elite of the elite HS runners competed in June. They have for the most part disappeared. The NBON and NBIN have now given a date, time and place for the elite athletes to have their showdown. If you get enough studs together you can make some real noise. Ask Oppenheimer.

#4 – Coaches that listened to Pearl Jam – If you ran during the 90’s there are a couple of traits that you picked up. One, you listened to Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Two, you ran slow but thought you were good. Three, you developed an inferiority complex about runners from the 70’s and early 80’s. Four, you went to college and got tired of Americans sucking on the world scene. Five, you eventually learned that you did not work hard enough in HS. Six, you realized that you could coach kids to work harder than you did and not make all the mistakes that the guys in the 70’s and 80’s made. Seven, you have an affinity for making lists.

#5 – Bob Kennedy – He kept the light on when all around him the night was creeping in. Thank you BK. If you don’t know who he is shame on you. If you do but really don’t then take the time to learn. You can’t truly be great in this sport at any level if you are not a fan and a knowledgeable fan at that.

That does it for PART I. Click here to read PART II of What’s Wrong With These Kids