FORT COLLINS – John Hallagan started his day throwing up the peanut butter toast he ate for breakfast. He had food poisoning. Still, it didn’t stop him.
By 4:30 p.m. he was in half tights and a black Hayward athletic shirt at Loch Lawn Park, a little expanse of grass near Lake Loveland where the 21-year-old met up with the Thompson Valley High School cross-country team he coaches.
The weather that day was gloomy and dark – and wet. Drizzle became a downpour. “One of those days,” he thought as he pushed through it.
He and his team ran two miles of warm-up before moving into their “reps.” Running as fast as they would during a 5K competition, they took on 1,600 meters, then an extra 200, then a jogging break, before doing the same thing again. They repeated this three times. Then: on to hill running.
The rain never ceased. The green of the grass was blotted out by the mixture of water and dirt.
Hallagan switched his shoes three times to handle the increasingly damp ground.
Eight hundred meters of hill running plus a two-mile cooldown made the workout over 10 miles. As they made it to the end, he was smiling.
Asked why he chose to go train despite the conditions — and the food poisoning — he said, “To be a badass.”
He said that even though he felt so bad, “Something is better than nothing,” and that if he chose not to train, he would be sitting on the couch while his competitors continued to get better.
He grew up playing baseball, basketball, and soccer. Now he focuses on running and biking. Coming from parents who were both athletes, and living with three adopted brothers who were as well, he said, “It was the general expectation that you played sports.”
Through races in Arkansas, New England, and Alabama, plus connections in Colorado, he’s gained sponsorship deals: Oakley sunglasses; Skratch Labs sports nutrition; and Altitude Running. This is how he makes his living.
“It’s the best job in the world,” adding he pities those who work jobs they hate, saying he’s “blessed” to not be one of them.
He said that the biggest thing separating himself from people who live unfulfilled is that they give up too easily.
“It’s like that saying in a casino: Most people step away from the table when they’re about to win,” he said.
He said he loves to win, but that it’s just the cherry on top. For him, running, biking and sports in general are about gaining a platform and giving spectators an athlete to live through – and win with.
But it isn’t entirely shiny medals, he said: “Running is a sacrifice.”
When his high school friend invited him to be in his wedding, he almost decided not to go — just because he needed to train.
He went anyway. But the idea that there was the possibility of choosing training over his friend is one he said he hates.
He knows he can’t do sports forever, so he is planning on how he can make money in a new career. That’s why he is studying journalism at Front Range.
Even during the school year, he continues to travel the world to race in various competitions. Right now he is training for multiple upcoming races, such as the Bellringer four-miler (Nov. 9, in Loveland) and the Pumpkin Pie 5K (Nov. 16, in Denver).
