Dakota Ridge Invite Schedule

Above is the meet schedule for the Dakota Ridge Invite this Saturday. (I just don't understand why they can't run a normal track meet, instead of switching all the distance events around. Oh well, we will just have to deal, I guess....) The meet is being held at the state-famous JeffCo stadium, where the Colorado State Meet is held every year. With the coaches meeting at seven, and field events starting at eight, you can expect a very early bus departure. Probably something in the vicinity of 6:00 am. This has ballooned into a huge meet, from 8 teams to over twenty, so we will have some great competition, and winning this meet with be a challenge. One we certainly are up to, however.

See you this afternoon, we are picking up 10 km relay teams before we start practice, don't let me forget.

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Triathlon Alumni News

Wow, CHS distance alums are really tearing it up on the college scene, in all areas!

Will Nabours, class of '07, state champ in the 4 x 800 that year, is up at CU, on their powerhouse triathlon team (You know, the swim/bike/run team.) They had their national championships this weekend down in Lubbock TX, and Will texted me to thank me for training him to handle adverse weather conditions. I guess it was raining so hard, the area was getting flooded. We never experienced flooding, but I remember that spring, we had some brutalweather days.

That did not deter CU, however, as they got three spots in the top 25 and won the overall national title! University of Colorado, national champs in the triathlon! Awesome!!

You can check out results on the link below, and you might want to scan down to 21st, where Will was the third man for the Buffs, which is fantastic. Great job, Will, I know how hard triathlon is, those are some impressive splits!

COLORADO TRI TEAM

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Dakota Ridge Line-Ups

Above are the varsity line-ups for this weekend. Yep, they are kind of early, but the meet director at Dakota Ridge needed them last night. Things might change over the course of the week, but I do not see them changing much. Sub-varsity line-ups will be up as soon as I finish them!

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Weekend Re-Cap

Some short thoughts about this weekend:

Friday night at the JV meet was great. Lots of PR's from the distance side, and Rangeview HS were very gracious hosts as always.

No athletes, coaches or anyone without a Valor logo on the field, even before the meet started? That is a little too much.....

Two huge PR's in the women's two mile, yeah Janey and Janelle!

Two close PR's in the men's mile and two mile, yeah Alec and Keagan!

The goose was loose in the 400, Zach is **this** close to breaking 54 flat!

Julia was second in the shot, which was great, but was the discus champ!!

As was Paige in the high jump!

And finally, it was fantastic to see Katelyn run a blazing 400 leg to get the sprint medley team ranked to third in the state, awesome!

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More Alumni News!

So, my embedded correspondent in Kansas sent me alumni update about Kelsey Grimm, class of 2008, competing in the prestigious Kansas Relays in the heptathlon. The link below has some video of Kelsey running the hurdles and high jumping, putting herself in a very respectable 14th place after the first day. Very, very awesome! She was a super talented athlete at CHS, now she is doing it for the Jayhawks!

Jump started: Ex-Husker leads decathlon; Lincoln senior top heptathlete

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Line-Ups

Even though it has been a super hard week of practice, we still are competing this weekend, both on Friday and Saturday. Here are the line-ups for the distance kids, both JV and varsity.

The wind has been tough, the intervals have been tougher, plus weights, ice baths, long runs, and everything else, trust me, the coaches know you all have been busting your butt this week. We got two easy days in front of us, and that will allow all of this hard training to soak in. Let's start getting our relay hand-offs down, our glycogen stores nice and full, and our brains mentally prepared to race. This will be a great weekend, and not just because of prom!

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Nike/Valor Invite meets CHS Prom

I have texted as many athletes as I can, but I wan to ask again. This Saturday is the CHS prom, and I am sure many of you are planning on cutting a rug. Since I never went to prom in high school, I never really realized what an all day endeavor it truly is. Hair appointments, nail appointments, make-up sessions, (and that's just the guys) along with pictures, limos, dinner, it is a pretty big deal!

What I need from all of my athletes is that open line of communication again. If you have things scheduled for this Saturday, please let me know via text or email, as soon as you can. This meet's entries are due on Tuesday, and if you need to leave early to go vacuum out your parents station wagon, please let me know so I can make arrangements on the track side of things. The only time I will be upset if there are surprises, please keep me in the loop so I can make everyone as happy as possible.

And of course, DON'T do anything stupid. You all have my phone number, and you all know you can call me if you need anything over the course of the night at any hour. No questions asked, no parents told. I don't want anything bad to happen, so use your brains, just like you do when you race.

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Weekend Improvements

Wow, that chart above is pretty impressive!!! It just goes to show that hard work, dedication and preperation will awlays result in success. I have coached nationally ranked college scholarshiped state champions, but seeing improvement like this across the board is what makes me the proudest. Great job, distance kids, let's keep it up!

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Mullen Minor Mistakes

In the Mullen invite line-ups I listed the start time as the check-in time. Oooops! :) Anyway, I have uploaded the official Mullen Invites, with check-in times and start times listed. The line-ups stay the same, but the start times are actuall 30 minutes later than what I listed. Thanks for understanding.

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Distance Line-Ups

Here are the distance line-ups for the JV meet this Friday at Chaparral.

Here are the line-ups and order of events for the Regis Invite on Saturday. Bus leaves at 7:15 from CHS.

Here are the line-ups for the Mullen Runner's Roost on Saturday. Bus leaves at 6:15 sharp!

And of course, pasta dinner at Carino's on Thursday at 5:30, hope to see you all there.

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Guilty Pleasure

One of the guilty pleasures is my subscription to Esquire magazine. Yeah, I'm already such a fashion, politics and ladies expert, so why read it, but I still like flipping through it. This past month they had this great article on Usain Bolt, and the editors finally linked to it on the web. (I actually got the link from the runnersworld tweet account, so thanks @runnersworld)

Even though Usain is not a distance runner, (although I bet he could easily go under 2:00 in the 800) this is a fantastic article to read, it really sheds some light on how Usain got to be so fast, how he approaches his training, and how he balances his life with his running fame. Take a couple of minutes and check it out, you won't be disappointed.

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Alumni News

Steven Busch, a Drury Panther, texted me yesterday, saying he had run a 9:24 in the 3000 m steeplechase, which provisionally qualifies him for D-II Nationals in Charlotte! Wow! That is fantastic!

Last week he also won his steeplechase race, you can read about it here:

Steven Busch Wins 3000 Steeplechase in Day One at Mizzou Relays To Pace Panthers

In other news, Kirsten Lake ran a 2:17 open 800 yesterday for the Drake Bulldogs, which is a fantastic time, especially this early in the season, yay Kirsten!

Is there any other alumni news out there? Let me know!

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Windy Day Yesterday, huh?

Meets like yesterday are crucial in the development of you as a runner. Yep, it was windy, and by the end of the day, I was pretty drained. But, learning to run in the wind is a skill we all need to learn. Learning how to draft in a pack, when to move up places, when to lead, how to run with wind-cutting form; those are all pretty important running tactics, and I thought we got a good dose of them yesterday. So even though you might not have PR-ed, or you might not have won a race you expected to win, take the positives out of yesterday. and the next time it is super windy at an interval practice, or a Saturday meet, use what you learned and hold that as an advantage over your competition. After all, wind is just a bunch of air molecules, really nothing to be afraid if!

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Mustang Invite Distance Line-Ups

Here are the distance kid line-ups for the Mustang Invite this Saturday.

Not an April One Joke

Even though this is a blog for distance runners, I am so excited about last night's development, I have decided it belongs out in cyberspace.

We put my 10 month old daughter to bed last night, and as of 6:40 this morning, she was still sleeping through. In other words, she finally had her first entire night of straight through sleeping!!! Not five hours, not eight, but close to twelve hours of sleep! Beth and I woke up this morning, looked at each other, realized Chloe had not woken up during the night, and almost broke out the champagne! We were so pumped, hopefully this develops into a habit and she starts getting good sleep every night. If you are a parent, you understand this was an AWESOME occurrence.

Yay Chloe!!!!!

Chloe and I cross-country skiing. She hits me like a jockey.

Chloe climbing on the monkey bars, pretty soon she won't need my help.

Chloe in the baby swing at the park, she can go for hours in this thing.

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