May 13, 2013
Hello Friends!
So, I have good news and bad news. The good news is it’s officially summer, kinda...the semester is over so it might as well be summer (: The bad news is this is the last blog of the season, so I’ll try to make it a good one!
Thursday through Saturday (May 2-4) the remainder of the trackies headed to Joliet, Illinois for NCCAA’s. I wanna give you some quick insight into the lives of the trackies during that week. Not only was it the week leading up to the long anticipated trip to NCC’s, but it was the long dreaded finals week as well (**cue horror music**).
So, just picture a bunch of stressed, amped up, caffeinated and sleep-deprived college athletes trying to survive the week. It’s kinda funny actually, you run into some teammates and no one is making sense, we’re all kinda just rambling and running around like crazy! Then imagine those same athletes loading a bus after all finals are over. The test stress is gone and you’re left with excited/sleep-deprived/espresso-filled/jittery/brain-dead zombies. That’s kind of a hilarious moment as well, everyone is either totally out of it or crazy hyper because school is over (and they have way too much coffee pumping through their system).
After six hours of bus gymnastic competitions, truth or dare or my personal favorite, sleeping, we arrive at the hotel. If you have an event the next day it’s off to bed, but if not then it’s time to parrrrtayyy! Just kidding, a lot of people either swim or chill with other trackies watching movies, it’s some solid team bonding time (:
On the track (and in the field), we had many great performances. It’s exciting to see what everyone can do after tapering the entire week. We had PR’s, broken records and a few All-Americans to boot, way to go ladies!
Despite the cold, rainy weather laughter and smiles could be seen through out the competition within the Cedarville team. Somewhere between the carrot fights, crazy pictures and that oh so wonderful question "What are the odds that you...", we competed to the best of our ability, but when our event ended it was back to hard core cheering and all sorts of shenanigans.
After the meet, the team boards the bus and heads straight to dinner, a pretty fancy dinner at that. It’s pretty entertaining to go to a restaurant where everyone is all dressed up and then in walks this meet-worn, sweaties-clad, rather disheveled looking track team. Ohh the looks we get, it’s nothing nasty, just confused. Then there’s those brave few who ask where we’re from, after explaining it’s all smiles (:
Once our bellies are filled with steak (or fish) and ice cream we load the bus for the last time of the season and head home. The arrival at school is a little strange as sleepy teammates say goodbye to friends and coaches, return uniforms and stagger back to our dorms for some quality sleep time (or packing time, or whatever trackies find to do at 3 o’clock in the morning). Most of us left for home after that weekend, but a small portion of the team stayed behind for one last shot at a qualifying time for NCAA’s, in a few days we’ll find out who made it so best of luck guys! We’ll all be praying for you!
Speaking of prayer, I’d like to thank y’all for praying us through our season! God kept us going strong even through some difficult injuries and thanks to him we had a fantastic finish to the season! We truly can do all things through him who gives us strength!
Peace out friends! God bless!
April 25, 2013
Hello Friends!
So this past weekend we had our second home meet, yay! However, the old Cedarville curse returned. The meet was very cold and very windy (luckily there was no rain!). There was an interesting mix of great performances and not so great performances, but in the end the Lady trackies came out victorious!
For many of our trackies (especially our seniors) this was their last meet of the season. It was great being able to talk to some of the graduating trackies and getting their view on the past four years. I think I can properly sum up their attitude as "I’m gonna really miss it, but I am so ready to be done."
Track is a brutal sport and our bodies get beat up, but it is also a sport that teaches us so much about ourselves. It teaches us to persevere. Even when you feel like you can’t go on, you learn to push through that and finish strong. It teaches us the importance of being a team. Nothing beats coming around the "corner of doom" and then hearing my teammate cheering me on and telling me to keep going, it’s such an encouragement. It also teaches us how to handle disappointment. Trackies are hard on ourselves, but if we can’t get past that, we will never get better. We learn from our mistakes instead of dwelling on them. And that’s only a few out of the many that we learn. From the whole team, we’re really gonna miss you, Seniors, and hope that the lessons you’ve learned from track will always remain with you!
Last night (Wednesday night) we had our end of the year track banquet! The Lady trackies love it because we all get to dress up and look nice. The men on the team love it because we get good food. In reality it’s just a great time to sit down and enjoy time together and reward trackies for all the hard work we’ve poured into the season. At some point during the night coaches come up and award different people with special honors for either their work on the team or in the class room. This year a new award was given in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Pete Reese. It was given to those who exhibit a servant-like attitude and who strive for excellence in all areas of life, just as the Reese’s have done. The award was given to Josiah Bragg and Rachel Herrera, both of which are totally deserving.
Coach then went through each of the years (freshie, sophomore, junior, senior) and gave each athlete a small gift. Then came the more humorous part of the night, senior wills. Now, this is a track tradition going back...for a while...and involves the graduating seniors willing something to an underclassman.
Let’s see if I can remember what went down:
1) Michelle Mead willed her "Team Mom" title to the Hulk
2) Joy Santos willed the Diversity Clothespin to Alex Whiteside
3) She also willed the "Lucky Baton" that Alexa gave to her to Brianna Ray
4) Meghan Terrell willed the Steepler’s Blanket to Melanie Redfield
5) Anna Schmid willed the "Legitimate Reason to Skip Practice All the Time" watch to Jasmin Banachowski
6) Joy also willed the Ridiculous Injury Bandaids to Brielle Pitney and Ryan
7) Carolyn Case willed the Over Active Bladder Awareness toilet paper roll to Corey Caldwell
8) Tabby Moore willed the "Pretend Your Sleeping to Ensure You Have a Seat to Yourself" sleeping mask to Mike Gardner
...There were others but I can’t remember...
So anyways, after all the laughter died down we presented our coaches gifts and expressed our appreciation and then were free to go, which is actually code for "Everyone take out your cameras and take pictures with everyone!".
At this point, many of the trackies are done for the season, but for those who still have that last meet:
Keep it up, we can do this! Remember who it’s all for and give it your all!
Peace out Friends!
April 16, 2013
Hello Friends!
This past Saturday the team took a nice drive over to The Hulk’s hometown, Athens, to compete at Ohio University’s All-Ohio Track & Field Championship. Our lady long jumpers, steepler, and multi all traveled down on Friday and competed well! Our very own Meghan Terrell placed seventh in the steeple with an 11:11:11 giving her a provisional mark for NCAA’s! On Saturday the rest of the team joined in on the fun. Shout out to The Hulk, who matched Cedarville’s outdoor shot put record! All around, our girls tried their hardest and did well at the meet!
On to the more-fun-but-less-important news! After all our events, we were surprised with some AMAZING cupcakes by Mrs. Pomento (The Hulk’s mother). It was fantastic getting done with my races, sitting down, and seeing little blue and yellow, tie-dye cakes of joy! Needless to say my tummy was very happy (:
Speaking of my tummy being happy, it’s about to get much happier after Valerie and I run a 1:05 in the 400 meter hurdles! Why? Well you see, one of the male distance trackies (*cough* Neil *cough*) severely underestimated the motivational power of food and said that if we both ran a 1:05 in the hurdles we would all go out for a steak dinner. At the meet we came only milliseconds away from a 1:05 (we both ran a 1:06), we have two more meets to bring our times down, it
will be done. Moral of the story: Never challenge a female trackie food, she WILL win!
As far as prayer requests go, I’m just gonna echo the past prayer request (:
Peace out, Friends!
See you this Saturday (at home!)
April 9, 2013
Hello hello, Friends!
Can I just say that these past couple of days have been absolutely gorgeous! Us trackies no longer have to make the life-or-death decision for our work outs (to go outside or not to go outside, that is the question...)! The weather has been so nice, we’ve been chompin’ at the bit to go run (and then try to run away when coach gives us the work out). The one and only unfortunate thing about about outdoors is the wind. Everything else is fantastic, really, but that Cedarville wind is a killer! It’s like your running and running and running and then BAM! You just get body slammed by a massive gusts of hurricane-like gales! I swear I start to run in place, despite my best efforts to move forward. Some of us joke about taking my running parachute, hooking it up to ourselves and seeing how far it drags us...who knows, we might become air born! That’d be fun trying to explain
that injury to coach:
"Hey coach you know Christina, right? Well she may or may not have become air born in her parachute..."
"oh??"
"Yeaa...and then got dropped somewhere in a field..."
"What?! Is she ok?"
"Ohh yeaa, no she’s fine....she just broke her arm...and leg...in three spots...but the trainers said she’d be ok in a week...or six....ok, two months tops, but I think she can tough it out for this next meet...Coach??"
...Yeaaaa, luckily most of our brilliant ideas don’t ever take flight.
So anyways, the meet! Last week the team took a nice trip to Miami...Ohio (if only it was Miami, FL...one can dream). Despite being the Ohio version of Miami, the weather felt as though it was Florida. Ok, maybe not. But it was in the 60’s or 70’s which is an improvement from the massive snow storm we got like two weeks ago! That was ridiculous. Wow, anyways (little A.D.D. tonight, can you tell?) the meet was pretty competitive (and by pretty competitive I mean really competitive), but we held our own pretty well! We had two fifth-place finishers (Meghan Terrell in the steeplechase and Ruth Towne in the javelin), one sixth-place finisher (Nicole Deneseus in the high jump) and a seventh-place finisher (Mackenzie McMahan in the triple jump). Keep up the great work ladies!
As far as prayers go, please continue to pray that our bodies would stay together/heal. Also, please pray that we’d quickly get acclimated to the amazing warm weather, as the weather gets warmer and warmer our bodies have to reacclimatize (oh snap! Try and beat that word!) to perform at their best. Thank you so much for your prayer and support, friends!
Until next week, Peace out!
April 3, 2013
Hello Friends!
Sooooo, this past weekend, while the majority of the campus was heading home to celebrate Easter (and the wonderful break that comes along with it), the Cedarville trackies were preparing for the annual Yellow Jacket Collegiate Open. Now, in all the years that this meet has been held, the weather has been rainy, windy, cloudy and cold. Any former Yellow Jacket trackie will tell you the same thing. I remember visiting the campus when this meet was being held and watching the poor steeplechasers jump into a freezing pit of death, run out (...or fall down...) and repeat. The meet was so cold my family bought an extra blanket from the book store and tried to huddle for warmth, which really didn’t do much (but I did end up getting the blanket to take with me to school. Score!) So yeah, this meet’s weather is never in our favor.
BUT, this meet was way different! I guess God decided to relent (from what, I couldn’t tell you), because he gave us 50 degree, sunny weather! It was fantastic (despite forgetting to lotion up and getting burnt to the point feeling my face radiating heat...that was a little uncomfortable...)! The meet was pretty small, but there was still a decent amount of competition in most of the races. I actually kinda enjoyed the smaller, laid back meet. It was a nice re-entry into the outdoor season (for me at least).
1) A quick shout out to some of our female first placers:
2) Anna Schmid rocking the 400 meter hurdles
3) Bethie Jones owned the triple
4) Meghan Terrell braved the steeplechase and came out victorious
5) The Hulk, despite injuring her elbow, still managed to steal first in discus (this girl is falling apart and still going strong)
6) My roomie, Nicole Deneseus, is once again jumping outdoors and taking first in high jump
7) And finally the 4 x 400 team (Joy, Valerie, Anna S. and yours truly) ended the day with the last Cedarville victory of the day
Way to go girls!
On a completely unrelated note (which I tend to include somehow in a majority of my blogs...I blame ADD...even though I’m not ADD...officially) the amount of cute at the track that day was unbearable! I’m not talking about the people either, everyone brought puppies, it was amazing! Any college student would agree that the lack of baby animals (or baby anything for that matter) on this campus makes its students go crazy when something fuzzy, small and adorable appears. Yup. It made my day. Also, despite the tiny crowd, our fan section did a great job cheering us on (primarily thanks to Jayson Brewin, who I swear you could hear even if you were a mile away and had ear muffs on. It’s great for mid-race motivation).
Oook...Before this gets any stranger, prayer requests!! Please pray that God will heal our bodies. There are not too many trackies that are feeling 100% great. We all have sore shins or bones moving in places they shouldn’t or weak joints that don’t seem to get stronger or just freak injuries that pop up. Pray that we will continue to rely on God and won’t get discouraged. God has been faithful in answering our prayers, so thank you for aiding us in prayer!
Peace Out Friends!
March 19, 2013
Hello friends! It’s been quite a while since I last updated you on all the shenanigans going down on the track team! Lets see:
- Starting off with spring break, me and the rooms (Nicole "Brenda" Deneseus, you’ll have to ask her about the name..) went home to good ole’ NJ for some much needed R&R . We passed the time sleeping, watching movies, working out (of course), baking, playing paint ball, sleeping, longing to be somewhere warm like some other trackies, freaking out over frozen chickens, cow tipping and sleeping. Ok, we never went cow tipping, but it would’ve made for a great story...and angry farmers...anyways!
- The first couple days of practice after break were a pretty gruesome reminder of what we’ve been missing. Those first couple days back are usually like a test to see who actually worked out over break. The problem is, I always work out over break and am always beat afterward! What a joke...
- As far as the meet goes, this past weekend The Hulk, Rob (one of our male trackies) and I were MIA so I don’t have much inside info, but I can make some up for you! Hmmmm... this weekend we had three team members qualify for the Olympics and...ummm our jumpers decided to run a 4 x 800 and placed second while...ehhhhh...the throwers ran steeple with an average time of...5:34...the distance runners all decided to try hurdles and the 200 and wiped the board...and the sprinters...well they just sat around and ate all day (: The End!
- Ok, but seriously I did hear that the weather (despite the terrible forecast) was beautiful and that it was a great day to test their wings! Even some injured trackies got to finally come out and rock it, which is always exciting! On a completely unrelated note: funny story about the meet, I heard that last year they put goldfish in the steeple chase water pit thingy. What? I see nothing good coming out of that!! I mean 1) runners wear spikes 2) these runners are jumping into this pit full of water (and apparently fish) 3) the poor goldfish have no where to escape the mass genocide which is about to take place! I say let’s take a stand for the least of these, no more killing of fish! Fish have feelings too! Just kidding (: but, I still don’t see the logic behind it...Hopefully they changed their tactics from last year.
- This weekend we do not have a track meet so instead we’re throwing a party for our lovely soon-to-be-married captain Michelle Mead! Let me just say that this girl is a super teammate who goes above and beyond for us and is just such an encouragement to the whole team! Keep it up Michelle, it’s what makes track so much fun (:
- As for prayers: Please pray that as we start our transition to outdoors all our shins, ankles, shoulders, hamstrings, backs (and everything else trackies somehow manage to injure) would stay strong and healthy. Also just pray that as the semester starts to wind down that we’d just continue to work hard (both on and off the track) and give it our all!
Peace Out, Friends!
February 19, 2013
Hello Friends! So, this week the CU girlies went to Indiana Wesleyan University for the NCCAA Indoor Championship! I know I say all the meets are fun for some crazy reason, but when it comes to NCC’s the level of fun (and anxiety) goes way up! NCC’s is a two-day meet, sooo that means a stay at the local Holiday Inn, which means one giant girls track sleep over, which equals unhealthy snacks, staying up late talking about cute boys and "A Walk To Remember"!!! Just kidding, we were good… and only had a dance party…and went to bed at a reasonable-ish time (:
But, before all the shenanigans went down there was some competing to get done Friday night. A lot of it was prelims and shorter races and a mix of field events. We laced up our spikes and ran our hardest for the Glory of our King! The second day was even more exciting as we watched our teammates break records (personal and school records!) and compete with everything they had.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the amount of love radiating from this amazing group of girls seemed amplified. Maybe it was because we were stuck in a room with two others for a night or maybe it was the amazing pasta dinner we had Friday night (let’s be honest, Full Bellies = Happy Girls). I don’t really know what it was, but the smiles didn’t seem to leave our faces and laughter floated freely around Cedarville’s pow-wow. We cried for joy with one another, we cheered each other on (even if the race took 8+ laps), and encouraged one another to go faster, throw farther and jump higher even if it seemed impossible. And at the end of the meet the joy and laughter only intensified as we all piled together for a group picture.
The laughter and fun didn’t stop when we left the track, but continued all the way to dinner. Poor Outback had to feed 40+ runners (not including our coaches and trainers). If you’ve never seen a track team eat, then consider yourself lucky. It’s really not a pretty sight! To give you an idea, just picture a whole herd of college students walking into a restaurant who have just spent all their energy and ate very little food up to that point. God should’ve sent hungry runners to Egypt as a curse instead of locusts.
I mean, the way we go through bread is absolutely incredible, and then we get our meal and we shovel that down as well! I honestly am very impressed with all of us sometimes! I may or may not have went through three loaves by myself. No shame. On top of that, we were still on that runners high and so the sound of laughter filled the little restaurant as we talked and joked and...ehh hem...STOLE CHRISTINA’S SHOE! I love going bare foot and all, but there are some places that aren’t as accepting, like Walmart and
especially restaurants! But I’ll spare you the story.
At the end of the day we packed up the bus (or the van) once more and headed home (pretty sure we laughed the whole ride home as well). Thus concludes the 2012-13 indoor track season (with the exception of the select few going to NCAA’s!). Thank you for praying us through our season, we truly appreciate it! Can’t wait to write about outdoors! Until then:
Peace out friends!
February 12, 2013
Hello Friends! Might I just say that this is possibly the most last minute I’ve ever blogged so if it’s more sporadic and unorganized than normal, I apologize (:
Anywho, this past Friday the Yellow Jackets took a nice trip to Indiana University (home of the Hoosiers) to compete. Now, if there is one thing you have to know about IU, it is a crazy fast track. Maybe it’s the banked track or maybe it’s the D1 schools competing there, but either way the meet is quite an experience! To give a little insight as to what goes down at that meet, this year the Olympic bronze medalist in the high jump was competing for IU. He cleared 7’7" and made it look so easy! It was ridiculous! And with Valentine’s Day being right around the corner, some of the girls agreed that they would not mind having him as their Valentine (;
Speaking of Valentine’s Day! This year instead of celebrating Singles Awareness Day..umm I mean Valentine’s Day, the usual way (sitting in the room with beloved homework) some of the single ladies (and not so single ladies) on the team decided to hold a "Secret Valentine". In other words, we are each given a name of someone else participating and we send them either chocolate or Oreos or really any of the delicious food being sold in the lower SSC! It’s great primarily because we get food, and if there is one thing you need to understand about runners, it’s that we LOVE food! Anyways...another great thing about Valentine’s Day is that it falls on a Thursday! And why is that significant? Because every Thursday is Tall Sock Thursday! Sooooo that means Valentine’s Day tall socks! Yay!! I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty stoked (:
So back to the meet! One of the girlies who I’d like to highlight specifically is Neola Putnam who rocked the mile as she pulled in with a third place finish! Also, during the meet I learned that taking splits is a lot harder than it looks! It took three sprinters to yell the splits of one of our 3,000 meter runners! Not only did it take three of us, but we were all yelling and taking times at slightly different lines (which we discovered half way through) andddd we would occasionally yell different numbers. In the end we decided that we should leave split-taking to the pros and go back to simply just cheering our teammates on. I mean that’s important too, right? Right.
As far as the rest of the season goes, many of us have our last meet of the indoor season this Friday and Saturday as we head off to the NCCAA Indoor Championships in Marion, Indiana! I’m excited to see what this meet holds in store for us and how well everyone will do! As usual, please keep the team in your prayers as we head to our last meet and that our bodies will hold out until the "break" between seasons (:
Peace Out, Friends! See y’all next week!
February 5, 2013
Home meets are fantastic. It’s not because of the home field advantage, although that is nice. It’s not even because our dorms are only a short walk away, even though it’s pretty convenient (especially when you suddenly are craving a smoothie mid meet)...No, home meets are so great because we finally get to show Cedarville what we do best.
Everyone at school only ever sees us sprinting in circles as fast as we can or running crazy amounts of miles in the freezing weather or beating poor helpless tires with hammers. They have this idea that we live on the track and in the weight room. Then we leave for an entire day just to come back totally beat. For all they know we could’ve went on a top secret mission to protect the world from sure destruction. I mean, I’m not saying that’s not a possibility, but people just don’t get what we do. When the meet finally comes to Cedarville, though, it’s time to show everybody what’s up.
And that’s exactly what the lovely lady trackies did this past weekend. Out of the first place finishers were Alex Archambault, Neola Putnam, Mackenzie McMahan, The Hulk (who once again broke the school record), the 4 x 800 and 4 x 400 teams! Pulling up in second place were Bethie Jones, Anna Schmid, Meghan Terrell, Nicole Deneseus and Abby Wong! Way to go everyone!
Oh just wait, though! The fun is just getting started! Ya see, after our home meet we have the opportunity to put on a meet for high schoolers from all over. As a result, little trackies from where ever get to hang with us until their meet! This means having to spend a night or two in our rooms, which is actually a test. shhh! If they can handle the energy of one trackie (or two if their really lucky) for the whole night then they can survive the team. On the flip side, if they can’t handle the intensity of our absolutely crazy personalities we then proceed to tie ‘em up rodeo style and have them sleep in the wardrobe...Ok, not really. We make sure each of the runners have a good time, no tie-down roping involved, and as a result we get to meet some pretty great people!
Before I close this thing up, may I just say that running the check-in station at a meet is A LOT harder than you think. During the high school meet everyone on the team comes out to help run it. I’m just gonna ‘fess up here and say that I thought working the check-in station would be super easy, to the point that I actually brought three books with me. I thought to myself: "Hey, all I have to do is tell kids where to go and hand out numbers, this will be so easy! Heck, I may even get some homework done!" HA! Boy, was I wrong. I think God was just watching and laughing at me during this time because of my ignorance. I got there and was highlighting names and thinking I was doing great. Little did I know, I was in charge of getting sheet 1 (just names, no heat assignments) to people who would make sheet 2 (heat assignments) while at the same time posting sheet 3 (results) AND calling 1st, 2nd, and 3rd calls. I don’t even know when you’re supposed to make those calls! I kinda just used the microphone when the time seemed right...
So anyways, what people probably don’t know is that the lull that took place on the track between the 800 and the 200 may or may not have been as a result of me and my roomie not handing in sheet 1 to get sheet 2. My b. I have now gained immense respect for those people who check us in. Besides our blunders though, the meet was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to work it next year (just not check-in’s...ever again.)!
On a more serious note, thank you to all those who have been praying for the team! It looks like most of our athletes are once again up and running (or jumping, or throwing) as the colds subside and the injuries are healed. Please keep praying for those who are still injured and that we can all get back to giving 100% for the glory of our King!
Peace out, friends! See y’all next week!
January 29, 2013
I think I’m going to tell you a story today (: Let’s go all the way back to last Friday morning, shall we? Once upon a time, whilst most of the trackies were safe in their beds, some clouds decided it was a great day to drop a fluffy white blanket of snow. The multi’s were the first to see the lovely white landscape as they arose and left for their very own meet in Findlay, Ohio. Not long after, the rest of us awoke to find the snow still falling, as we headed off for a toasty team meal in Chucks.
The herd of bundled up runners, stomachs all full, then made the trudge over to Callan to wait for the bus. We had hoped to pull out by 10:15 a.m., but it was not until 10:30 a.m. that the warm, cozy charter bus rolled up to greet us. We watched, with eyes wide, as our fearless bus driver, Debbie, maneuvered the large machine through the snow packed roads. It was then that we feared that because of the snow, we would miss our races *dramatic music!* To distract ourselves, we did as any great runners would and watched Monsters Inc. Despite what you may think, it is a great movie to get you prepared to run..kind of.. ok maybe not, but let’s be honest here, it is a pretty fantastic movie!
Anyways.. The bus slowly rumbled up to Youngstown’s facility at 3:00 p.m., the start time of the first events. *gasp!* The jumpers and distance runners were already on their feet (as they had been for the past 10 minutes or so) jumping and stretching (while still on the bus) so they could be ready to compete the moment they stepped foot into the building.
We stepped into the building not knowing our fate. Although, to our great amazement the track events had not yet started, but instead were pushed back! Also, the jumpers and throwers were able to hop right into their events! Wahoo!!
The rest of the meet was rather exciting! Some of our injured trackies competed for the first time this season and did a wonderful job! Not only that, but records didn’t stand a chance against The Hulk (who, by the way competed with a torn rotator cuff and pulled hamstring. Do you understand the name “Hulk” now?) and our hard core multi Laura Farleman (who competed while coming down with a sinus infection).
At the end of this very exciting day, we once again packed up and rolled onto campus around 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning. Sluggishly grabbed our bags and headed to our welcoming beds.
The End (:
January 22, 2013
Well hey there friends! So I must apologize about the whole ‘sleeping on the bus’ thing. You see, the rule of thumb for sleeping is that you should be awake for at least 2-3 hours before your event. Needless to say, I may or may not have scared some of the younger trackies into thinking that sleeping on the bus was one of the seven deadly sins...my bad (:
Anywho, this past weekend the Yellow Jack
ettes (see what I did there) pulled up to Tiffin University’s new track facility to test our wings. It’s always great to watch people (in a totally non-creepy way) at the season’s first meet. Everyone handles the stress of a meet differently and at the first meet it’s ten times worse. For instance, the new runners tend to ask a lot of questions (which is good, guys! We don’t want you missing anything because you’re afraid to ask).
They tend to ask questions like: Where do I check in? How do I check in? Where do I go when I’m called? When should I warm up? Can I eat? All good questions that us older trackies are more than willing to answer. Then there are those of us who look as though we’re in deep meditation. Don’t be fooled! Inside, the thought of competing is eating us alive as excitement and terror are at their peak, and so to deal with these intense emotions we try to block out everything else and mentally prepare for what’s ahead. On the flip side there’s some who choose to be on their feet and are described as one of three things:
1) The Excessive Warm Upper: there is no way they’ll be unprepared for this race!
2) The Pacer/Wanderer: They probably don’t know exactly what they’re doing or where they’re going, but they just can’t sit still! The thought of just sitting there and simmering in their own thoughts about the race will drive them insane!
3) The Statue: They’re frozen. They just stand and stare into space wondering what they should be doing. They just don’t know.
And finally you’ll see many of us warming up for an upcoming event. Here you’ll see a series of bizarre moves. It’ll look like a strange tribal dance of some sort as we swing our arms and legs in ways that may look humanly impossible.
Hopefully now you can get a lovely picture of what the team looked like this past Saturday. As with many first meets, this meet helped us just get back into the meet momentum. Our throws, jumps and times may not have been our best, but it gives us something to build off of and makes us work even harder for the next meet! A quick shout out to Beth Jones who placed third in the triple jump and fifth in the long jump! Way to go! Alex Archambault was the runner-up in the 3,000 meter race, like a champ and some of our girls even PR’d! As opposed to popular belief, Anna ‘The Hulk’ Pomento did not run the 3,000 meter race, but instead threw. Don’t worry Anna, I still think you could run an 11:31 in the 3,000!
As far as prayers go keep in mind the girls who are still recovering from injuries and those who were running fevers instead of races.
Peace out, friends!
January 17, 2013
Not gonna lie, having the privilege to write the blog for this season was a responsibility I was incredibly nervous to take on. I mean lets be honest, I’m following in the footsteps of some pretty great bloggers, there are some pretty big standards here! But, if you’re patient with me and persevere through my corny jokes and bad grammar, I promise you will find at least a few gems in here!
So, I’m sure your wondering who in the world is this (or not..but I’ll tell you anyways, Ha!) I come from a little black hole in New Jersey called Shamong. I know it’s a funny name, it’s even funnier to hear people try to pronounce it haha! But despite its funny name it’s a great place mainly because it’s crazy close to the beach, where I spend most of my time if not busy life guarding or cleaning out barns. Back in Ohio on the track I’m the hurdler/400 meter running hippie who is consistently “losing” her shoes. Off the track though, I’m a tree hugging, mud playing, organic molecule building environmental sciences student (with a minor in missions, might I add).
Now back to the exciting stuff! This upcoming Saturday our season will kick into high gear as we cram all of our over-stuffed track bags onto the bus and head off to the Tiffin Open. Regardless of the ridiculously cozy seats on the bus, not a soul will be found snoozing 1) because Coach would go bananas and hurl us from the bus...just kidding, but he did tell us we shouldn’t sleep and 2) The butterflies...scratch that...the rabid bats flying around in our stomachs keep us WIDE awake, nerves can be an ugly thing. I mean, this is the beginning of what we’ve been training for the past couple of months. All the sweat, tears and blood we’ve poured into moving these beaten bodies through hours of intense workouts in the sweltering heat will finally pay off. Ok, so I exaggerated a little, but trust me when I tell you those circuit workouts were killer!!
Anyways...I’m excited to see what will happen this season. If you haven’t heard, Cedarville is now a D2 school in the NCAA, which means more competition and higher standards to reach. I think we’ll have no problem leaving our mark though. The team picked up some pretty skilled freshies in most areas including distance, throwing, pole vaulting and sprinting (but no hurdlers). Not to mention we got one of our long lost high jumpers back, Nicole Deneseus, after battling an ankle injury. We’ve also managed to steal a former D1 athlete, Anna ‘The Hulk’ Pomento, to add to our throwing artillery! So Bring It On, D2 competition! Although, like Proverbs 21:31 reminds us we can be totally prepared, but in the end it’s all God who gives us our strength to win.
So please keep us trackies in your prayers as we race towards the beginning of this season! Peace Out, friends! I’ll see ya in a week!
Christina Gall is a sophomore hurdler from Shamong, N.J. She is in her second season with the Lady Jackets and is majoring in environmental sciences.
