Michael Totaro seems a little conflicted about being labeled a newbie. “I have no problem with it, but when does the term stop?” he wonders. “Once I am with the club for a year, will I no longer be a newbie?” Ah, if only such discrete vesting schedules existed within Front Runners; it's just not as predictable as all that. Luckily, Totaro views the newbie cup as half-full not empty and continues to make the most of the opportunities afforded to his neophyte status. “There's an air of mystery when you are new,” he says. “You can cast a whole new persona.”

Sound intriguing? Any veteran member who's visited the club in the last six months or so has undoubtedly seen them—the fresh faces and dewy-eyed men and women who are part of the newbie nation. They might be found clustered in giggling trios and quartets, their twenty-something limbs akimbo on the floor mats at Rutgers. They're the next generation and a crucial element in Front Runners' future as a dominant force in New York City's running community. Just beginning to come into his own as a runner, the 27-year-old Totaro has the natural talent, self-possession and slight caginess to make him a leading light in this group. (And if he's as skilled at cultivating a mystique as he purports, then things could be even more interesting down the line.)

Totaro's effortless running style belies his relative newness to the sport. After failing at soccer, basketball and baseball due to a self-diagnosed case of “horrible hand-eye coordination,” he took to swimming as a sport throughout his high school athletic career. It was only two years ago that Totaro, a native of northern California, gave running a go, signing up for the Bay to Breakers—a 12K run through San Francisco that has, in many years, been the most popular road race in the world—“just to say [he] did it.” On the bus back home after the race, Totaro overheard some runners talking about their marathon training plans, and the seeds of a more ambitious endeavor were soon sown. Though his training for the Honolulu marathon was derailed when he fractured his foot, Totaro learned something about himself, and his running, from the experience. “I was forced to wear a boot and hobble around for six weeks…I was a bit more on edge and perturbed,” he admits. “Ever since then, I know my sanity depends on running.”

Girding himself for life as a stressed-out first year student at New York Law School, Totaro incorporated running into his New York routine from the get-go, debuting at FRNY just two days after landing in the city last August. Though he viewed joining the club chiefly as “a great way to meet people,” he was pleasantly surprised to find the club offered much more than social running. “I was impressed with the seriousness of the club and how many fast runners there were,” he says. Totaro also appreciated the fact that it wasn't all about the running. “I discovered that a lot of the runners were like me, where they like to work out hard, but like to play hard too,” he says, “[and] grabbing a beer can be the perfect way to end a good run.”

From the outset, Totaro regularly partook in the club's speed training sessions, first on the track at Riverbank Stadium and then, throughout the fall and winter, at the Armory's indoor track facility. Totaro sprinted interval after interval with the lead pack and showed no traces of the side stitches and dry heaving that often accompany speed training. But, anomalously, when he donned his singlet at NYRR races, he crossed the finish line well after the teammates whom he bested routinely in practices. Did Totaro suffer a case of performance anxiety? Not exactly. “I really enjoyed the shorter distances [in workouts] because I could push myself a bit harder,” he explains. “My problem with racing was that I wasn't used to sustaining a fast pace for a longer period of time.”

That all changed for Totaro this spring. Aware that he had been making a conscious decision to slow down whenever his race pace became uncomfortably effortful, Totaro adopted quite a contrary strategy – racing through the pain. “Everyone kept telling me ‘just muscle through and it will get easier from there,'” remarks Totaro. “And they were right.” Now when he races, Totaro visualizes the course beforehand and then, as the lactic acid and exhaustion set in, repeats a truism of the speed-time continuum that Front Runner Ryan Singer taught him: The faster you run, the sooner you finish the race .

The results immediately followed. In April, Totaro lopped 35 seconds off his four-mile PR, netting a 24:28 and coming within striking distance of scoring for the men's open team at the Tom Labrecque “Run as One” points race. In May, he was a mere second away from the fifth place spot at the Healthy Kidney 10K, racing a 38:24 to scissor almost two and a half minutes off his Kleinerman 10K time from just five months prior. And at the Prostate 5-miler in June, Totaro finally busted into the top five, finishing third overall for FRNY, snagging another PR and also hitting a 70% age-graded percentage for the first time. (As he kept narrowly missing this target throughout races in April and May, Totaro made reaching 70%–the designation for “local elite” status–a short-term goal.) 

Perhaps it's just the residue of some West Coast nonchalance talking, but Totaro swears his recent successes have not turned him into a PR junkie, the addiction that drives many new racers to compete week after week in the ceaseless hope of beating their former times. “I don't pay that much attention to my times, and I couldn't tell you any PRs,” he says. “Simple goals are what drive me.” Right now that means properly training for his next marathon, which will likely not happen until November 2008 due to the demands of law school.

A year and a half can be an eternity in running time, particularly for a newbie. By November 2008, Totaro will hopefully be an established entity atop the Front Runner racing roster. His running career holds considerable and varied promise. What the future does not hold is what he should savor now—the intangible wonder of being new to it all, the magic of unlocked potential. While no one can pinpoint when exactly a Front Runner moves from newbie to vet, everyone will agree it happens too quickly. 

 

Random Data

California Dreamin' – Totaro misses his home state most on Sunday nights, when he would traditionally have dinner with his parents and cousin amid pinochle, cocktails and pleasant conversation.

One Scoop of Totaro, Please – If Totaro were an ice cream flavor, he would be “organic dulce de leche with bits of dark chocolate (somewhat bitter, but tasty) and toffee (sweet and hard to break).”

Summer Job – Working for the New Jersey Public Defender's Office in Newark.

Single? – Yes. But don't get your hopes up; Totaro claims that with work, school and running he doesn't have much time for a romantic life.

Newbie Gossip – “It all revolves around who's into who…but if I shared what I did know, people would stop telling me gossip.”

Latest and Greatest Read – “Omnivore's Dilemma,” Michael Pollan's book about the horrors of a corn-based diet.