JV Line-Ups for Douglas County Tri-Meet (Updated Again!)

This week, the JV meet is on Wednesday, April 1st. Since we only have two entries in open events in this week's varsity meet, we will have more than the usual numbers for the JV meet.

On the distance side, I have thought about it, and this is what I want you all to run in on Wednesday. A lot of us need to race, to get that meet experience.

1600 G: Neilsen, Janey
1600 B: Doubet, Barenberg, Richards, Hecker, Bills, Bull, Kade, Nate, Brenden

400 G: Mallory, Edgington, Yeager
400 B: Oaks, Heitmeyer

800 G: Kendall, Neilsen, Bri, Janey
800 B: Hecker, Barenberg, Doubet, Richards, Heitmeyer, Bills, Oaks, Bull, Kade, Nate, Brenden

3200 G: None
3200 B: None

No relays, I need to get accurate times on you, both for your training levels as well to see how you compare to the varsity kids! The only way to get that is through open events. I will be there as the coach, along with Coach Hawk, so you will be all set to run some super fast times! There are a couple of kids coming along who are also running varsity on Saturday. That is OK, we are working on building race experience, especially since we missed the meet last weekend. Now, let's just hope the weather holds out for us!

SEP

P.S. Bus leaves at 2:15, dismissal at 2:00! Don't forget your uniform and your spikes!

Distance Line-Ups for Wasson Invite (Updated)

Here are the distance line-ups for the Wasson Invite, to be held this Saturday in Colorado Springs. Cross your fingers for some good weather!

4 x 800 G: Waite/Hanrahan/Bergen/Wojan
4 x 800 B: Eidt, D/Purdue/Eidt, T/Balsiger

4 x 200 G: Schmidt/Yeager/Bergen/Grimm
4 x 200 B: Clark/VanHorn/Whipple/Petty

1600 G: Wojan, Nelson
1600 B: Balsiger, Edit, D

400 G: Yeager, Hartman
400 B: Cottingham, Brost

800 G: Hanrahan, Bergen
800 B: Burt, Eidt, T

3200 G: Nelson, Heard
3200 B: Cottingham, Lake

4 x 400 G: Yeager/Larsen/Wojan/Hanrahan
4 x 400 B: Brost/Burt/Balsiger/Eidt, D

This week, for the JV race in Castle Rock, I am going to assign some events for kids to do. Those listings will be posted later today.

SEP

Wide Awake

It's about three in the morning, and I am wide awake. I am writing this little post on Beth's iTouch, which is pretty amazing. Almost as amazing as Tiger's putt on the 18th hole to win the tournament. It was so dark there, the TV does not really show it. And then, 5 seconds later, UNH loses with 16 seconds left in the game! :( Talk about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!

UNH Comeback

Huge comeback by the UNH hockey team, next up, Boston University!!!!

Runner's Roost Meet Cancelled!

The Runner's Roost Meet for tomorrow has been canceled. It was canceled not by the meet director, but by the Ft. Collins School District. The meet will be made up on Tuesday the 31st, but we will not be attending. Going to a mid-week meet in Ft. Collins impacts our training and our race schedule too much. So unfortunately, we will have lost a meet.

Today for practice, shovel your neighbors sidewalk. Tomorrow, go for a one hour run, with ten 30 second pick-ups thrown in. Sunday, normal recovery day. Monday, practice at the track after school.

I know this is crappy news, and I am very bummed we don't get a chacne to compete, but here is some good news!



The CTOYS shirts are in, you will get yours Monday at practice if you ordered one!

Runner's Roost Varsity Distance Line-Ups

Sorry everyone, little late on the line-ups for this week. Beth and I bought 8 interior doors for the upstairs. I started painting them and hanging them yesterday afternoon. Even though we took meticulous measurements, so far, none of them fit. :( They all need trimming off the top; or they are too thick and we have to remove some frame trim; or the frame is not square, and they need some planing on one side. Ugh. On a good note though, we had a newborn care class last night, and it was really awesome! Best baby class I have been to so far.

But, I know you really don't care about that, so without further adu, here are the line-ups for this weekend.

4 x 800 G: Hanrahan/Hine/Bergen/Wojan
4 x 800 B: Eidt, D/Purdue/Eidt, T/Balsiger
(I love starting the meet off with this race, let's go out and get some big points here!)

1600 G: Wojan, Nelson, Heard
1600 B: Balsiger, Eidt, T, Eidt D
(This is a chance to be in a fast race to get a high ranking in the state.)

400 G: Yeager, Hartman
400 B: Barringer, Brost
(Only two entries for the 400 m and the 300 m H)

800 G: Hanrahan, Hine, Bergen
800 B: Cottingham, Purdue, Bull
(It is still a very close in the race for the fourth boys 4 x 800 spot, the competition will continue this week!)

3200 G: Nelson, Heard
3200 B: Lake, Vargo, Doubet
(The meet schedule is funky, there is a 2 mile race in the morning and the afternoon. I bet we race early in the morning based on our seed times, but we'll see.)

4 x 400 G: Yeager/Bergen/Wojan/Hanrahan
4 x 400 B: Brost/Balsiger/Barringer/Edit, D
(Let's get some good times here, maybe get us ranked in the state rankings!)

The bus leaves at 5:30 am, I believe, don't be late! This a long meet, so please be prepared!

SEP

EDIT: My mistake. Purdue is only running the 4 x 800, Burt should be in the second open 800 spot. Sorry.

Panther Invite Distance Results

Wow, great racing yesterday by everyone! But, that is the past, we need to work hard this week so we can perform well up in Ft. Collins!

Spring Break Practice Details

Great racing yesterday by everyone, we posted some really impressive times. I will get those results up as soon as I can, but for now, here is the low-down on Spring Break practices.

Monday: An optional practice, we will meet at Sierra MS at 9:00 am. Weather looks horrible, so dress well. We will do at least ten 3-minute Eggs. Wear sturdy shoes, we will be running on the best running trail in Colorado!

Tuesday: This is a recovery day, a 45-60 minute easy run on your own. We will not meet as a team, but try to meet up with a small group to run with. The varsity line-ups will be posted here on the blog by then as well.

Wednesday: Again we will meet at Sierra at 9:00 in the morning. Again this is optional. Then we will carpool up to Mackenzie Hirsch's place back behind Ponderosa Hills. She has a 3 mile community trail and we will use that to do a long overdistance run. Bring dry clothes to change into afterward, this will be a long hard day!

A note on optional. There has never been a successful person in any field who saw the oppurtunity to work as optional. In order to be great, you must work harder than anyone else, and that means you treat every practice as definitely, not optional.

Thursday & Friday: These practices are mandatory, and we will be at Chaparral instead of Sierra. Thursday will be our typical recovery day, and Friday will be some short speed work to get ready for the meet on Saturday.

Saturday: We head up to Ft. Collins for a big, big, big meet. Bus will leave very early, I am guessing around 5:30. This is a long day, and the distance kids should expect to be very busy!

SEP

Spring Break Practice Times & Locations

Practice over the first half of Spring Break is essential to running fast, but it is not mandatory for participation. In other words, you are not required to come to the practices, but if you want to be fast, you better well be at those practices. Practices on Thursday & Friday are mandatory however.

Monday-Sierra MS-9:00 am

Tuesday-On Your Own

Wednesday-Sierra MS-9:00 am

Thursday-Chaparral HS-9:00 am

Friday-Chaparral HS-9:00 am

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Weather for Saturday

"There is no bad weather, only bad clothing"

Little Shorthanded...

For our meet in the Springs this weekend, we are slightly shorthanded. Lot of kids on vacation, but we will survive. We need to have some versatile kids running some events that might not be that familiar to them.

Any athletes not running Saturday are expected to run Friday at the JV meet at CHS. We will be running a full schedule of events, and distance athletes can choose which events they want to participate in.

The varsity bus leaves at 6:30 in the morning, it takes about an hour to get there, and once we are there, here is what the distance kids are running. Make sure to bring plenty of warm clothes, this race got snowed out last year. :(

(This is not the exact order of all the events, but it is the order of events that the distance kids will be running. For a complete order of events, see the left sidebar.)

4 x 800 G: Hanrahan/Hine/Bergen/Wojan
4 x 800 B: DEidt/Cottingham/Bull/Lake
4 x 200 G: Bergen & Wojan
4 x 200 B: Barringer
1600 G: Nelson & Hine
1600 B: Balsiger & TEidt
4 x 100 G: Wojan
400 G: Heard & Wojan
400 B: Barringer & Brost
800 G: Bergen & Hanrahan
800 B: Burt & Purdue
200 B: Brost
3200 G Nelson & Heard
3200 B: Vargo & Lake
4 x 400 B: Barringer/TEidt/DEidt/Brost

See you all Saturday!

SEP

Beating your Seed Time

When competing in track, one way to measure yourself is to try and "beat your seed". For the kids going to Orlando, I had to enter seed times, let's see if anyone could do better than what I thought they would do.

Alexis Grimm - HJ - Seeded at 4'6", 21st, came in at 4' 8", 12th place I believe. Check!

Josh Lake - 3200 - Seeded at 10:30, 8th place, came in at 10:13, 5th place. Check!

Katelyn Wojan - 1600 - Seeded at 6:00, 8th place, came in at 5:38, 1st place. Check!

Melanie Bergen - 1600 - Seeded at 6:00, 9th place, came in at 5:46, 2nd place. Check!

Alexis Grimm - 100 - Seeded at 14.5, 64th place, came in at 13.88. Check!

Ashley Hertzler - 100 - Seeded at 14.5, 65th place, came in at 14.46. Check!

Alex Balsiger - 1600 - Seeded at 5:15th, 27th place, came in at 4:40, 1st place. Check!

Tyler Brost - 400 - Seeded at 53.00, 22nd place, came in at 53.22, but 7th place. Check!

Alex Balsiger - 800 - Seeded at 2:02, 8th place, came in at 2:02, but 4th place. Check!

Not only did we have some great performances, we learned a lot down there about how to attack meets of this magnitude, and how to run within ourselves. It was hot, it was a long meet, and we were a slight disadvantage because this was our first time there.

But, we came up with some good strategies to handle the long meet at the end of the year (State), we developed some new techniques for getting ready for races, and all of the athletes repalced their Hyundai engines with some Ferrari engines. Now we just gotta learn how to drive them. :)

I knew this would be a learning experience for us, and it was, but it was a very successful meet, and I am very glad we went. This is going to be a springboard for some amazing times later on down the road!

SEP

Quick Update on Orlando

Great day down here in FL! We ran awesome. I got a ton of pictures, but won't be able to upload those until later tomorrow.

But, we had some major breakthroughs in the boys and girls mile, as well as the boys and girls 800.

Alexis got a new PR in the HJ, Josh got a huge new PR in the two mile.

Tyler made finals in the 400, coming in 7th, and the girls 4 x 100 was 0.14 seconds away from qualifying for finals there. Pretty amazing!

It was hot, is was long, but we preserved and made it through and ran really well on the side.
So, I am so proud of the kids for making the commitment to run down here, for making the commitment to embrace their abilities and talent, and for representing Chaparral HS to the highest standard!

SEP

Tying Loose Ends Together

Wow, this Florida trip really came out of nowhere for me. Even though this has been a three day work week, I have been straight out the entire time! But, tomorrow very early morning, I will be at DIA getting everyone ready to go to Orlando and run real fast! I am pretty excited, to say the least.

But, there are some loose ends I want to tie up here before I go. Here is the line-ups for this Saturday's meet at ThunderRidge. Remember, be at CHS by 8:00 to get on the bus! Coach Hawk will be getting your times, as well as Asst. Coach Mackenzie Maroney!
Now, for your splits. This is the 800 m split chart, make sure you know what you are capable of, and how to achieve that goal through intelligent racing.And here is the 1600 m chart. Again, use your brain when you run this race, don;t put yourself under in the first lap.
And finally, the 3200 m pace chart. Run a smart conservative first mile, then start reeling them in the last mile!


So, make sure to have a great successful day on Saturday, wherever you are!

SEP

Sunday afternoon TV watching

I am watching one of the greatest “Cheers” episodes of all time, the one where they go to Carla’s for Thanksgiving. That show was *so* funny!! Food fight at the dinner table, Dianne in the Pilgrim outfit, finally “seeing” Norm’s wife. just classic.

Last year, the boys 4 x 800 ran a 8:23, this year, a 8:18. Great improvement! But, we are not there yet. The team is not set in stone yet, I still want to see what all the guys on the distance team can do. We still need to train very very hard, as we need to improve by at least 6 seconds per guy to be competitive in that race, by my estimation. In addition, our two mile team is as strong as it has been since Steven B. was around, and the sprinters were really running very well yesterday. Just an exciting thing to watch!

The girls team, (which came in first for the fourth year in a row at the meet BTW), is incredibly deep. The coaches were interchanging athletes left and right, and there was no drop-off whatsoever. We have great distance runners, great sprinters, great field events. We are going to be a team to watch this year! It is pretty awesome, but just like the guys, we still have a lot of improving to do.

Both teams have a great mix of young kids and older kids, but one constant remains, we need to work as hard as we can every day at practice, and that starts tomorrow at three. Even though we don’t have school, we will have normal practice.

Please check out the CHS T & F web page for all of the official results and personal bests. There’s lots of great information Mr. Lake puts up there.

This week, we do not have a standard meet, but rather a scrimmage at Thunder Ridge. Coach Reyes is allowing up to six entrants per event. Combined with the Orlando kids that will be flying out Friday morning, I don’t think we will have any distance kids at the JV meet Friday afternoon. I would rather get all of the distance kids some varsity experience. Official line-ups will be announced Tuesday at practice.

Get some rest tonight, sleep in tomorrow, a big week of practice is ahead of us!

League Relays 2008

Most of you competed in League Relays in 2008. I looked up some results, and they were very interesting. (I’ll let you figure out which races go with which times.)

2 Mile Team Race - Lake:10:47, Cottingham:10:30 (We came in 6th)
4 x 1600 G - Hanrahan:5:45, Hine:5:36, Bergen:5:46 (2nd)
4 x 1600 B - Eidt, D:4:43, Eidt, T:4:53, Balsiger:4:42 (2nd)
4 x 800 G - Hanrahan:2:29, Wojan:2:30) (1st)
4 x 800 B - Balsiger:2:02, Eidt, T:2:06, Eidt, D:2:05 (3rd)
DMR G - Bergen:2:28, Wojan:4:02, Hine:5:35 (3rd)
DMR B - Cottingham:58.39, Burt:3:37, Lake:5:08 (5th)
4 x 400 G - Hanrahan:63.34 (?)
4 x 400 B - Brost:54.72 (?)

I am not expecting anyone to be better than any of the times we had last year. That is not a goal of mine. My goal is to have you prepared to run your best at this time of the year. I am just putting these times out there to give you a sense of where we were at last year fitness-wise, and to give you a vague goal of where you could be this year. I do think if we run faster than these times, we will be right in the hunt for a team title at this race.

In essence, this is just information, I encourage you to use it as a motivator, not as a discourager.

SEP

P.S. Bus leaves at seven Saturday morning, DO NOT be late!

League Relays Line-Ups

After much deliberation and back-and-forth, the coaches have finally decided upon the line-ups for the League Relays this Saturday. Even though most of these types of relay races will not be run again this year, we wanted to put our fastest athletes in them. We also had to balance put proper rest, and figure out how to prevent overloading anyone with too many meters of racing. Believe it or not, it is quite a difficult task, especially this early in the season. We will be practicing hand-offs today, as well as starts, after our normal workouts. (Sorry, no High 5 on the speakers just yet.) Today needs to be a great day of practice, bring your fast shoes, and the weather will be great, so let's make the running just as great!
Wow, lots of kids, huh? :) The coaches think this is the best way we can run our athletes in order to score the most points and try and win the meet. Remember, that is always our goal, to try and win the meet as a boys team or as a girls team. Right Herm? We need to focus on the name on the front of those nice uniforms you got yesterday. Make it your goal to get in front of as many runners who are not from CHS, because every single point counts. Don't worry about anything else, put it all aside for one day, and do your absolute best to help us win another League Relay title!

SEP

P.S. Only three more days until League Relays!

Scrimmage Results

Above are the distance results from the scrimmage yesterday. If it had been a scored meet, we would easily won it, as we got a couple of races where we were 1-6 in placing. I am working on setting the line-ups for the League Relays this up coming Saturday, it is always a difficult tasks. But, we need to have a great week of training, as we really want to represent CHS extremely well at this meet. Hopefully all of you went for a nice easy recovery run, and the line-ups for the Relays will be posted Tuesday.

SEP