Percent Back Data

The actual data results from the State Meet have finally been posted!

I have the percent back data if anyone wants it. If you are interested, shoot me an email, and I will email you the numbers.

Or, you can always figure it out on your own.

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Regional Championship Analysis

Regional Championships were held yesterday, and both the CHS teams did pretty well yesterday. The boys came in second overall, qualifying for State, and the girls team came in 7th in their region.

Above is the percent back sheet, and here's a huge shout-out to the the one athlete who improved from League Championships to Regional Championships.

J. Kadolph: 7.45 to 6.58, that is improvement two weeks in a row, (he got faster from Titan Invite to League Champs as well), so awesome job James!!

A lot of athletes were close to improvement, they might have only regressed by a couple of hundredths of percentage points. The competition is getting tougher, but that is they way any championship season goes. You gotta improve along with your competition if you are going to do some damage at the State meet. I think this boys team can do that damage, they got one more week of hard training and then we'll see what happens!

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P,.S. As usual, for primary source material, head on over to co.milesplit.com!

Denver Marathon Highlights

A couple of shout-outs from the Denver Marathon, which ran through downtown D-town today.

Coach Hawk ran the half marathon version of the race, running a great time of 1:47, for about 8:15 miles. Great job Coach Hawk!

And most of us know the winner of the race, Mike Aish. He works at B.R.C. and is always willing to help out us much slower runners reach our goals. Congrats Mike, running a 2;30 at altitude, that's a great win!

Weekly CHS Alumi News

Couple of quick updates on the college scene....

Alex Balsiger ran with the Colorado State University JV runners at Wash. Park this weekend, heard he ran a 27:32 for five miles. Not bad for not racing all season, not bad at all.

Katelyn Wojan tried to compete for Drury this weekend, but a creaky knee made her coach shut her down. I believe Coach Van Arkel knows best, he is making sure Katelyn is ready for championship season.

And good ol' Steven Busch ran this weekend for Drury as well, running a 10km in 31:51, a new personal record. His comment was, "I can improve on that, easily." Wow, sprinkle in a little speedwork, and will he go under 31:00?? I certainly hope so!

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CHS XC League Championship Results

The CHS harriers ran their League Championships yesterday, and we have a League Champion! Keagan Vargo was the first place finisher in the boys race, by over 13 seconds. Nate Purdue also dropped a top ten finish, which is really great. But, let's look at the percent backs, which is what I think really tells the story.

Here is the %-back from the Titan Invite compared to two weeks later, here at the League Champs.

Vargo: -0.53 to -0.95 Improvement!

Purdue: 5.21 to 3.10 Improvement!

Kadolph: 7.7 to 7.45 Improvement!

Anderson: 7.97 to 8.82

Ingram: 9.2 to 10.95

Ferguson: 10.66 to 11.97

Harris: 11.00 to 11.90

Foster: 6:02 to 6.84

Ferguson: 10.6 to 7.14 Improvement!

Heard: 9.12 to 10.88

Nyiro: 15.59 to 13.96 Improvement!

If I may offer a little commentary here, the boys team yesterday came in third overall with 101 points, (and the girls came in 6th) which I think is a little bit of a disappointment for that boys team. I think they are better than that, but if you look at the numbers, it is up to those 4, 5, 6, & 7th place runners to push that team up into the higher place spots. The 4-7 runners did not improve from two weeks ago to today. Maybe that has something to do with training through this race, or maybe other factors I am not aware of within the team. (Not saying anything is going on, just saying I am not in the inner XC circle!!) But, this data shows that you can have two guys in the top ten, three in the top twenty, and you will not succeed as a team unless your slower guys race lights out. That has been, and always will be the key to XC; it's not the top guys, it's the 4-7 guys that make the difference in a race. I think if those 4-7 boys put in a fantastic solid week of training, then watch out, Colorado, CHS at State is going to do some damage!

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P.S. Here is the %-back sheet, as usual, head over to Coach Versaw's page for the primary source material.

Falcon Invite Percent Backs

Here are the percent back results for the latest race, the Falcon Invite. (I'm a little late, I admit, due to weddings and such this weekend.) As usual head over to Colorado milesplit.com for the primary source material from Coach Versaw.

But, overall, it looks like a lot of the JV kids stepped up pretty well running against some tough competition. These varsity competitions are more about racing, it's about preparing for your race, getting mentally ready to run the best race you an, and learning tactics that will help you eventually win some races. The more experience the younger kids can get at this level, the better.

Can't wait till next week at League, I wish everyone great luck! And I heard a nasty rumor that Alex Balsiger will be running a race at Washington Park Saturday morning with his CSU mates. Run fast, Bals!

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Collegiate Results

A quick post on some recent CHS alum racing news.

Ryan Bull ran in the Rocky Mtn. Shoot-Out up in Boulder this weekend. Over the difficult 8 km course, Ryan ran a very solid 30:14, which improves upon his 8 km time by 40 seconds! Wow!

In Chicago, in howling wind, blowing sand, and overall brutal conditions, Steven Busch ran a eight kilometers in 25:39 to snag a top 20 in the race and be the second runner on the Drury men's team. Katelyn Wojan, after a particularly stirring pep talk from her teammate, ran her five kilometer race in 19:44 to be the third Drury Panther to cross the line.

Excellent work everyone, those are some really great results. And if there are any other alums out there competing, shoot me a text message, I want to hear about how you are doing!

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EDIT: Go to Coach Whitenack's excellent blog for more alum news!

Titan Invite Data

The CHS XC team went down to the Springs yesterday to run in the Titan Thunder Invite. On the right is the latest chart of the finishing times, places and percent backs. Of course, you can get all the primary source information from Coach Versaw's wonderful and detailed Milesplit.com page, as well as a short little article, and a great picture gallery.

I want to say right now, I would love to have Mr. Anderson & Mr. Harris come run for the CHS track team in the spring. Consider this a formal invitation gentlemen, I know you love baseball, but both of you guys are very talented runners and you would help out the track team immensely with your running skill. To paraphrase Lebron, bring your talents to the CHS track!

Even though it takes a little bit more time than I always figure, I really enjoy crunching the number for the JV kids who run. If you look at the successful programs in track and XC, (Ft. Collins, TCA, Battle Mtn.) they all have very deep and talented JV squads. Look at the JV girls race, I think Ft. Collins took the top three spots, that is amazing. I think the key to long term success in track/XC is to always work on developing your JV runners, making sure they are valued, and to avoid a break in the pipeline from the middle school to the varsity level . I know that is one thing I plan on becoming better at as a track coach, as we need to build for the long haul, not just one year at a time.

Having just said that about the JV runners, I want to now focus a few varsity kids. I figure they have run three races so far, at the highest levels. Now we can start seeing if they are getting better compared to the leaders as the year progresses. That is what %-back measures, how close you are to winning the race (which is always the ultimate goal). The three races I am looking at are New Mexico, Liberty Bell and Titan Invite. Here is the data.

Vargo: 1.16 / -3.2 / -0.53

Purdue: 5.5 / 4.2 / 5.21

Kadolph: 9.4 / 8.7 / 7.7

Ingram: 10 / 13.1 /9.2

Ferguson: 12.1 /11.6 /10.66

Rich: 12.2 / NA / 11.66

Anderson: NA / 10 /7.97

Foster: 7.2 / 12.4 / 6.02

Heard: 8.2 / 9.6 / 9.12

Ferguson: 12.4 / 14.6 / 10.60

Mansfield: 12.5 / 15 / 12.51

Nyiro: 14 / 15.3 / 15.59

I am very psyched to see kids consistently improving over the course of the season so far. Runners like Kadolph, Ferguson, Rich, Anderson, all those guys have been getting better and better compared to top flight competition. That is excellent. And to see Foster, Ferguson and Mansfield come back and get those %-backs low again, that is a job well done. It's hard to be consistent from race to race, week in and week out. And when you are already a top-flight runner, it is hard to keep improving, to keep dropping that %-back. It can be done however, it just takes a lot of discipline and dedication, which I know you all have tons of.

So, have a great week of training everyone, I am eager to see what the coming weeks bring in terms of fast racing.

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P.S. And best wishes to Bills, I heard he fell victim to a stress fracture. I know he will bounce back stronger than ever for track season though, he is a tough, tough runner.

CHS Results @ Rock Canyon Invite

Below are is the percent back data for the CHS race this weekend at Rock Canyon. It looks like the top boys did not race, which I think is a great idea. That allows Purdue, Bills, Vargo, and the other guys to get a week off, therefore giving the younger kids a chance to gain some varsity experience.

On my clickable chart, you have the name of the racer, their actual race time, then right underneath it, how far back from the leaders they were. We had another negative %-back, with Miss Devan Foster winning the girls race, being 3/4 of a percentage point faster than the average of the leaders! Way to go Devan!

If you want to see the actual results, go to Alan Versaw's page at Milesplit, he has the original file.

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Percent Back Thoughts

So, if TAnderson in the last race was 10% back of the leaders, how does that relate to training?

We know that if *races* 10% faster, then he will be on the podium, but how does this translate during the week?

Does he do 10% faster intervals? (Instead of a 60s/400m, he runs a 54s/400m?)

Or does he do 10% more intervals? (Instead of ten intervals, 11 intervals?)

Or does he run 10% longer? (Instead of a kilometer repeat in 2:00, he does an 11oom repeat in 2:00? Or, he runs for 11 miles on his long run instead of 10? Or he runs for 1:22 instead of an hour-fifteen?)

Or maybe he should reduce the rest between any type of interval by 10%. (Instead of 3 minutes rest, he only gets 2:40?)

Hmmmmm..... how to get 10% faster??

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Liberty Bell Results (updated)

Below are the results for the CHS XC team at Liberty Bell yesterday.

But first, major congratulations go out to Keagan Vargo, 2010 Liberty Bell Division 1 Champion!

Division 1A:

Vargo : 1st : 15:35 : -3.2%

Purdue : 18th : 16:20 : 4.2%

Kadolph : 48th : 17:08 : 8.7%

Anderson : 68th : 17:23 : 10.0%

Ferguson : 86th : 17:41 : 11.6%

Bills : 89th : 17:42 : 11.6%

Ingram : 106th : 18:00 : 13.1%

Heard : 35th : 20:05 : 9.6%

Foster : 66th : 20:43 : 12.4%

Hirsch : 78th : 21:02 : 13.7%

Ferguson : 87th : 21:16 : 14.6%

Mansfield : 93rd : 21:22 : 15.0%

Nyiro : 95th : 21:26 : 15.3%

Corlett : 105th : 21:51 : 16.9%

Division 1B:

Rich : 18th : 17:58 : 7.5%

Richards : 29th : 18:21 : 9.7%

Harris : 30th : 18:24 : 9.8%

Kade : 31st : 18:25 : 9.8%

Bacovin : 33rd : 18:26 : 9.9%

Kwiatokwski : 39th : 18:36 : 10.6%

Young : 77th : 19:27 : 14.6%

Nelson : 23rd : 21:12 : 4.9%

Nyiro : 26th : 21:22 : 4.9%

Neilson : 42nd : 21:41 : 7.0%

Hedges : 44th : 21:52 : 7.8%

Huff : 45th : 21:56 : 8.0%

Lundell : 60th : 22:49 : 11.6%

Great job, CHS harriers!

And in other news, alums Katelyn Wojan and Steven Busch raced this morning. Katelyn ran her inaugural university 5 kilometer course in 19:23, and Steven ran the university 5 mile course in 25:35. Excellent work from the alums.

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EDIT: Just got word that Ryan Bull, for the Colorado School of Mines, just ran a 30:53 in his inaugural five mile university race. Congrats Ryan!

Middle School Cross Country Banquet

(Coach Thornton and I "dropping some knowledge" on the 7th grade ladies before the race.)

I just got home from the middle school cross country banquet, and I need to tell everyone what a successful year the athletes had.

The 7th grade boys won their district division, with Jack D, James B. Sean R. and Nick F. all coming in the top ten in the district varsity race. The 7th grade open race had Tanner F. and Tanner S. coming in 1-2, so even out 8th & 9th guys on the team were super strong.

The 7th grade girls came in third, and we had an individual district varisty champion in Kat K, plus top tens from Megan G. and Erin G. As for the open race, we scored four girls in the top ten, Kaylee H., Emma R. Erika C. and Meridith N. Amazing job ladies!

The 8th graders also fared very well, with Dominic C. coming in 9th in the boys varsity race, and the ladies improving throughout the year to finsih in the top five as a team.

I was wicked happy with all the improvement shown throughout the year, both from the 7th and 8th graders. I am also very excited to coach all of you next year, either at the high school, or one more year at the middle school.

Congratulations Sierra Eagles, superb job this year!

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Percent Back

A statistic I like to use when comparing cross country runners and skiers is called "percent back". Percent back measures how far off the podium you were in any given race. It also tells you how much you would have to improve to be with the leaders.

The calculation is simple. Take the top three finishers in any given race, and average their times. Then divide the average time by the racers time. Subtract that number from 1, and there you go.

For example, in the latest CHS XC race, the top three boys ran an average time of 945 seconds (15:45). Keagan ran a time of 956 seconds (15:56).

Dividing 945 by 956 gives you 0.9884 and subtracting that number from 1 equals 0.0116. That is a percentage of 1.16% back.

So, if Keagan runs 1.16% faster, which is 11 seconds quicker, he comes in the top three. He would have run a 15:44, which would have gotten him second place.

I like this formula, because it neutralizes the weather, the hills, the footing, the course, every variable on a XC course. You can look at this from race to race to race, and see how well you are doing in comparison to your competitors. You see how close you are to actually winning the race, which is the goal. Times are important, but if you run a "slower" time on a harder course, and get a lower percent back to the leaders, that is a better accomplishment that running a "faster" time on an easy course, and getting blown away by the competition.

Below are the percent backs for the CHS varsity racers this weekend. Traditionally, anything under 5% is an excellent percent back.

Vargo - 1.16%

Purdue - 5.50%

Kadolph -9.40%

Ingram - 10.0%

Bills - 10.3%

Ferguson - 12.1%

Rich - 12.2%

Foster - 7.2%

Heard - 8.2%

Ferguson - 12.4%

Mansfield - 12.5%

Nyiro - 14.0%

Barringer - 16.3%

Again, great job everyone!

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CHS XC Team

Teh CHS XC team went down to New Mexico this weekend, running in the Lobo Invitational. Below are the great results from the team!

Boys:

K. Vargo- 5th - 15:56

N. Purdue - 20th - 16:40

J. Kadolph - 46th - 17:23

M. Ingram - 48th - 17:30

J. Bills - 53rd - 17:33

C. Ferguson - 78th - 17:54

B. Rich - 79th - 17:55

Girls:

D. Foster - 20th - 20:03

J. Heard - 24th - 20:16

S. Ferguson - 47th - 21:14

J. Mansfield - 29th - 21:17

J. Nyiro - 63rd - 21:38

H. Barringer - 86th -22:23

Excellent job by everyone, hope you all keep running fast and we see you out for the track team in the spring!

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Sunday Night Thoughts

Triathlon on TV is sooooooooo freakin' boring. Figure it is good background noise to blog to.

Got back from vacationing on Shelter Island (the island between the north and south forks of Long Island NY) a couple days ago, and I got quite a bit of running in. I ran with the Shelter Island Running Club, which consists of any high school athlete who summers on the island. They were nice enough to have me, and I got to know all of the guys pretty well, as we suffered through a checkpoint workout of two one mile repeats, and then two half mile repeats.

I think I ran OK, but there was one runner, Tyler Cardillo from Florida who the week before dropped a 15:44 in a road race 5k. He was a very talented, very polite boy, and when I asked him what is favorite workout was, he talked about progressive runs, which are essentially what we call Kenyan runs. It was pretty cool to hear him talking about them, as he does them a mile at a time, for 5-6 miles, but it is the same principle we use when we do them for 800's.

Update: triathlon is still boring.

So, with my school starting next week, I know most of you are preparing to go (or go back to) college and run, or get ready for the HS XC season. I hope lots of you have gotten lots of miles under your belt. Time spent running has no substitute for success in racing. Whatever the distance, 800 meters to 10,000 meters, the only way you can hope to improve is to have a huge base under your proverbial belt. If you many miles have passed under your shoes, or your watch has a huge number on it, then you are all set. You will be able to handle the intervals, handle the tempo runs, and be able to recover quickly so you can do it all over again. Good luck to all of you, I know you will all do well, and I will be stalking your results over the internet!

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