In the spring of 2005, Kelsey Louie found himself at a crossroads. After three years of service to the club, coach Brady Crain had somewhat abruptly rendered his resignation.  For some time prior, Front Runners had tried unsuccessfully to push Crain, a speed demon by design, to focus workouts on endurance and the longer intervals needed for distance running. While the parting of ways made practical sense for everyone involved, Louie had to figure out, as both the club president and a staunch proponent of the speed training program, how to quickly pick up the pieces with Crain now gone.

Never fearful of donning multiple hats, Louie stepped in as the interim FRNY coach—a stopgap measure until the team found a replacement for Crain.  “Although it came on suddenly, I think it was a natural transition,” says Louie.  “I was already helping others, giving little tidbits of advice ... even before I became coach.”  The membership responded so favorably that any thoughts of hiring a different coach were promptly jettisoned.  Louie's personal record of success as a runner knitted together so neatly with his intimate knowledge of Front Runners and its members that he had the trust of his team, which can take a coach years to build, from the very outset. “Having a top-notch competitor and Front Runner as coach is vital to me,” says training maven Mark Mascolini.  “A coach-member is always going to have an emotional investment in the team and in individual racers that a hired hand could never approach.”

Over his three years as coach (affectionately written “koach” at times), Louie has remained committed to training the team even as he endured many life changes, including switching jobs, entering a relationship and returning to graduate school. He stuck with the role even as it defied all logic and thwarted common sense.  Understanding Louie's own need to run and the role this sport plays in his life can be likened to solving for the digits of pi, a never-ending pursuit that beguiles and lures and hoodwinks.  Louie's determination to keep revisiting the equation, even as it foils him, has made him an invaluable asset to Front Runners, both as a runner and a coach.

As the youngest of four children in a culturally Chinese household in Bay Ridge, Louie learned the value of hard work early in life.  “Growing up, academics were stressed,” he says, “certainly more than athletics.”  This may explain why Louie spent most of his free time freshman year at the notoriously nerdy Stuyvesant High School canoodling with the math team and not cavorting with the jocks. But an admiration of his older brother's track trophies and a sibling's competitive desires sparked an initial interest in running that led to his joining the track team sophomore year.

“I also wanted to lose weight,” Louie says of his early goals.  “I was a chubby little kid—I mean, really chubby.”  As with many runners' goals, initial success devolved into unhealthy compulsion, with Louie pursuing a goal of hitting 99 pounds. (By his early 20s, Louie successfully battled anorexia; he currently weighs 125 pounds.)  Louie quickly morphed into a runner and ascended the ranks of the high school running scene, winning the NYRR “Male Junior Runner of the Year” award in 1993, as a senior.  

A local celebrity in the New York City running scene, Louie found himself in a very odd and lonely place as a freshman at Stanford University that following fall.  Still in a quest to break 2 minutes in the 800 meter (a goal that he would not achieve for another eleven years), Louie immediately realized the titans of the Stanford  track team were in another league, racing in the low 1:50s—an eternity of difference on the track.  “Up until that point, running had been a confidence booster,” admits Louie, “but running at Stanford made me a much mature runner, forcing me to take stock in why I ran.” 

Due to personal and family events, Louie would return to New York City and finish college at New York University, where he not only had a much warmer athletic experience but also had the room to focus on other aspects of his life.  Immediately one of the top members of his new team, Louie played a key role in many successful relays, including a 4 x 1500 meter race for which he helped score a school record that still stands and is commemorated in the school's gymnasium.  Louie's coach quickly nicknamed him “Killer” because of the fierceness with which he trained and competed. During this time, Louie began the coming out process with his teammates and his coach, which led to his being rebranded “Special K,” the moniker that stuck.  “The athlete in me wanted so desperately to be ‘Killer,'” he says.  “It made me train harder and harder.”

The importance of nicknames soon faded with the onset of adult responsibilities like working both a full and a part-time job to pay for his graduate program in social work.  Running now took a backseat to real life.  Louie's entrée into gay nightlife did, however, help keep him fit while on a hiatus from running.  “The four hours of non-stop dancing every Friday and Saturday helped me cardiovascularly,” he jokes.  Even during this busy time, Louie managed to run the Chase Corporate Challenge and the Gay Pride Race each year.

Like many great runners before him (and scores to follow), Louie began his FRNY career as that really fast guy who vanished into thin air upon crossing the finish line first for the team.  This had been the case with the Pride Run in both 2000 and 2001, but a turning point came when Louie decided to partake in the member-led speed training sessions in Central Park. (At the time Jeff Singleton, Geoffrey Perry and Donna Checkan were coaching.) A fast friendship bloomed between Louie and regular Marty McElhiney, which ultimately led to the two training together for the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney.

His participation in those games, including a gold medal performance in the 800 meter event, vaulted Louie into the FRNY limelight overnight.  Though a member of the club since 1998, Louie became ubiquitous after Sydney.  And the timing could not have been better for then-FRNY president Michael Orzechowski, who seized the opportunity to make Louie the much needed poster boy for the young, fast gay runner demographic he'd been targeting.  “I like to think that Kelsey and I had one of those great partnerships people talk about,” says Orzechowski.  “I think we both helped each other be more than we thought possible—at least where it concerns FRNY and running in NYC.”  In helping to promote the club within citywide racing, Louie went from running four races in 2002 to a whopping 28 in 2003.  His amped up involvement also included acting as club treasurer under the Orzechowski administration.

After winning the club's highest honor of Front Runner of the Year for 2003 and helping the men's team win the NYRR “B” division championship that same year, Louie refused to rest on his laurels, continuing to race heavily in 2004 to support the club's speed training program.  “The small speed training groups were very nurturing to me,” he says in reflection on that time.  “In many ways, I feel like I grew up within Front Runners.”  Part of that maturation was finally, after more than a decade of near misses, achieving his goal of racing the ½ mile in under 2 minutes—a feat made all the sweeter by its being accomplished at the FRNY annual spring track meet.

But as any runner knows, this sport turns fickle and fair-weather with little to no warning.  After training for months in preparation for his first marathon in NYC that November (2004), Louie became hobbled by leg cramps the final third of the race and finished in a personally disappointing time of 3:18:58. Unbeknownst to him then, Louie had slipped into a new phase of his racing and would, for the first time in his FRNY career, be regularly challenged and on occasion beaten by his fellow teammates.  Bear in mind, Louie now led and coached the team while holding down a full-time job.  It's impressive that he raced at all.

Over the years since, Louie's star has burned more brightly than ever in the Front Runner firmament. Any adoration that had been reserved for him as a racer only magnified for him as coach, with a chorus of delighted Front Runners regularly singing his praises.  “Kelsey has been an unbelievable asset to my running,” says Lucia Muntean, a training aficionado and the club's “Middle Distance Runner of the Year” for 2007.  “Kelsey has challenged me to challenge myself, to train and race outside my comfort zone.”  The payoff for Muntean includes breaking 25 minutes in the 4-miler, knocking off almost three minutes from her time in the past year and a half.  Louie also coached Barry Abrams to his fastest-ever mile. “I never could have run sub-five (minutes) without Kelsey,” says Abrams.  “There was a level of personal investment on his part that really inspired me to work hard.”

As coach, Louie has certainly enjoyed living vicariously through these runners.  “I absolutely love it when I see someone excited about their own accomplishments,” he says.  “I know exactly what it's like to achieve a goal.”  And Louie can take further pride in knowing that the recent onslaught of talent runners – the Ryan Quinns and John MacConnells and Brad Gaymen – is, in many ways, his legacy.

But that may not be enough to satisfy the fierce competitor within.  “Another coach told me that I couldn't do both—run well and coach,” says Louie.  “I have been trying to prove her wrong ever since.”  Louie has not recorded a PR at any distance other than the marathon since he became coach, leaving one to wonder whether there was truth in that cautionary advice.  Then again, Louie has shown glimmers of his racing past this spring, running the TGL Classic 4-miler a full minute faster than he did last year and hitting sub-5:40 pace for the first time in three years.  Special K, Killer and Koach may still be battling for Louie's soul—which Kelsey will win out has yet to be seen.  

Random Data

What do you do after a disappointing race? “First I allow myself to be upset … then I start to look at why the race didn't go well, and prepare to avoid that very same thing again.”

Racing goals of which you are proudest? “Breaking 2:00 in the 800; winning the Reach the Beach Ultra Relay; winning NYRR Male Junior Runner of the Year in 1993”

Running goal you most want to achieve? – Breaking 3 hours in the marathon

Coaching goal of which you are proudest – “Running the entire Chicago marathon with Mike O., helping him to achieve something he didn't think was possible – a Boston qualifier.”