June 1, 2010
[Warning, this is my last blog ever.....so it’s really long. Surprise, surprise.]
It’s June 1st. It’s a day I had marked on my calendar and waited expectantly to arrive for many months. For me, June 1st was that magical day when I would finally be relaxing at home, school work far behind me and track officially done for the season. It was a day where I would have absolutely nothing pressing upon me to do, save endless loads of laundry and finishing this blog entry.
Right now, June 1st finds me sitting at my kitchen table at home in Windsor, struggling to figure out a clever or grandiose way to end my 2010 track blog. And with this burden, I’m beginning to feel the small waves of writer’s block starting to swell in brain; after such an exciting, emotional, up and down past week of track and field, I can’t help but wonder where to even start.
So I guess I’ll start at the beginning.
Exactly a week ago today, the Cedarville track team headed from campus in a caravan bound for Indiana. Our first stop on the cornfield lined highway, however, found us in Ohio at none other than America’s finest bike museum.
Fun fact about the Cedarville track team: we have several people on the team obsessed with bikes, Coach Scott being the king. In fact, Coach Scott led us on a whole tour of the museum where we learned about the evolution of the bicycle and that penny farthings rock.
We arrived at Indiana Wesleyan a few hours later and our true Nationals adventure began.....and right from the beginning, that adventure was hot and sweaty.
Instead of taking you through the entirety of our Nationals stay, I thought I’d let you into our experience talking about some things I learned on this trip. After all, three of five days for me were pretty much exactly the same (sleep in, eat, stem and heat, warm up, run the 400, ice bath, eat, sleep, repeat).
The first thing I learned at Nationals this year was just how much I love water. This was definitely the hottest meet we have competed in this year, with everyday in the high 80's. Even though I love the warmer weather compared to NCCAA-like cold, the heat can definitely make warming up for a race feel like someone placed you on a cookie tray and stuck you in the oven.
It was the kind of heat that makes the check- in workers in the marshaling tent tell you, "Don’t put your hip number on too early before your race or it will slide off," and makes your fingers burn against the Mondo while poised in set position. The kind of heat that seems to sit on your shoulders and, as I experienced before my 400 prelim, makes you have to yawn 10 times a minute just to fight feelings of suffocation.
And even though Michael Beight told me that Apollo Anton Ohno yawns profusely before his races as well, it still didn’t change the fact that it was hard to breathe in the swelter. Thankfully, IWU provided us with an abundance of water and I drank (as I’m sure Mikey and Sammy would agree) like a horse. I’ve never been so thankful for water or ice baths in my life, and let me tell you, if you want to have the best water you’ve ever tasted, run the 400 in 80-90 degree weather and grab any old water bottle.
The second thing I learned is that I hate mascots almost as much as I hate ice cream trucks. Especially after being accosted by a giant tomato named Tony in Fazolis (Sammy has picture evidence). And as if fate wanted to combine two of my slightly irrational fears, I was also met at the track by a giant dancing ice cream cone.
At Nationals I was also reminded of the fact, more than I learned, that Coach Scott tells the best stories. The second day of Nationals while chilling in the apartment suites, Coach Scott entertained a group of us for almost a whole hour with his jokes and stories about days as a track athlete, like the one about the popcorn-eating miler.
Side note, if you’ve never talked to Coach Scott or heard his stories or outrageous similes, this is something you must do before you die. You’ll probably drop to the floor laughing like "Jimmy Hoffa in Lake Erie with cement blocks tied to his feet" or you might jump out of your seat "like a pop tart" (I quote...).
But seriously, we love Coach Scott so much for his endless supply of jokes and stories and truly profound wisdom about track, his admitted obsession. I know the seniors are going to miss not only his cheek-pinching and ruptured leprechaun jokes but also his care and concern and genuine interest he shows to each one of us.
One of the more specific "lessons" I learned last week is going to sound cliché and something I have talked about many times in my blogs, but it’s the fact that track is so much more than an "individual" sport. My mom coaches track at the elementary school where she teaches and told me about some students she’s been dealing with who can’t grasp this idea of team and track being intrinsically linked.
For instance, some of her athletes want to spend so much time training for individual events that they try to skip out on relay practices. Now this is elementary school, where track meets are, no offense, just fun for the parents to watch more than they are serious. Multiply by about 1000 to the seriousness of a high caliber meet like Nationals and there is definitely the temptation to approach competition with a singular, individual, "I only care about me and my results" mindset.
However, this was not true for the Cedarville track team this weekend. One person I have to mention who really made me think about all this was Justin Hoffman. He was ranked high in his individual events, but still wanted to run the 4x4 relay because they had a great shot to make finals. This meant he had to run 8 races in three days, 5 of those being 400m.
For anyone who doesn’t know what that feels like, it feels terrible. Just terrible. I was hurting after only 3 races in 3 days, and that wasn’t even half of what Justin ran. He still achieved great individual results, but he took the harder route to get there because he was a team player.
And for me, this is what being part of the Cedarville Track Team has been about this year and something I am increasingly learning at every meet. Whether it’s screaming wildly at our boys in the relays or someone simply telling you they watched you run, hearing people like Tara or Hannah yelling at you in the 400, knowing that others are cheering for you as well, I can’t leave a meet like Nationals without feeling a strong bond with this team. And even though I wasn’t a part of any relays and my 400m experience was, in all honesty, very isolated and individual, I didn’t feel alone.
And with that I am nearly finished (I promise) as I come to my final "lesson," because Nationals for me this year was a lot about saying goodbye. I’ve learned that I hate saying goodbyes; they are awkward, they are sad, they are never dramatic or grand, and more frustratingly, they never encapsulate all the experiences that led you to the point of saying goodbye. Whether its watching seniors say goodbye to track and running a final race, or saying goodbye to people you have spent so much time with training and groaning over hard work outs, it’s never the big "fireworks, slow motion, say everything eloquently and perfectly" moment you think it should be.
I’m realizing that in college things like track and people and track people move fluidly through your life and when things are over, they’re just over. There are no grand farewells, no absolute closure...things just move by you, and people move on. I’ve learned that it’s never really the goodbye you remember anyway but rather all the good times before that last moment where you had to leave it all behind.
Sorry if this is getting too sentimental for a track blog...I’ve just been thinking about this because we are losing such a marvelous group of talented dedicated seniors and we are all going to miss them. So I’m going to write a little something for the leaving seniors; feel free to skip to the end if you are getting tired of reading and you are not a senior.
Tara, I will miss having a "mom" on the team and asking you a hundred thousand questions when I don’t know what’s going on, because you always know the answer. I will miss your high-fives and your intense cheering at the last corner when I’m running the 4x4. And we will all miss thinking of you as our fearless leader.
Lydia, I will miss watching you run at practice around and around and around and around the track and being amazed at how you never look tired. I will miss cheering for you with everyone else as you dominate every single race you run. And the team will all miss making jokes about what you’re going to do with all those NCCAA Athlete of the Week T-shirts you get at every Monday meeting.
Brandon, I will miss the times I had a Father at Cedarville, but I hope to see you around at practices some time. I will miss you when people make fun of me and there is no one to defend me (although Beight and Sammy are going to be gone so I might be ok). I will miss eating at restaurants with you when we order the same meal or when waiters give me two bottom buns on my hamburger. I will miss yelling, "Go B-Tress!" because that sounds really cool.
Sammy, Grandpa, I will miss calling you my favorite. I will miss your sound effects, your facial expressions, your funny shoes, taking pictures of you sleeping with one eye open, and discussing my irrational fears of Orca Whales and being rocketed into outer space. I will miss warming up for the 4x4 after a long meet and talking with you about how much I don’t really want to run but then watching you run like it’s your job. I hope Europe is amazing and that you find a pet monkey somewhere over there, because you’ve always wanted one.
Mikey, I will miss writing this blog with you and our occasional competitions to see who could most inconspicuously write in difficult, random words, like marijuana and poinsettia. I will miss giving you Canadian Corn Pops, listening to angsty music on bus rides, and the texts resulting from freezing cold ice baths (of which Sammy says, I am Queen). I will miss running three hundred repeat workouts with you, even when you make me run three seconds faster than I am supposed to and I die, although I don’t think you will miss that very much at all. I also hope Europe is fantastic and I will be jealous the whole time you are there.
So thanks each one of you for making my two years running track at Cedarville simply grand. Best of luck with your lives and all that good stuff. You are amazing people. And if you are a senior on the team and I missed you, I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t love you but I just never got to bond with you over nationals.
I should also say thanks to Coach Bo for all your patience and encouragement with me this year, for making me better, and for slowly turning me into a 400m runner, even if it means short sprint workouts are a thing of the past.
Also, thank you Leyna for being the best athletic trainer I’ve ever had! My compartmentalized shins thank you greatly for all the stem and heat and massage that got me through this last part of the season. You are the best!
And so (finally you are probably saying) it’s my turn now to say goodbye to this blog for 2010.
I’ve had tons of fun writing it and I hope you’ve enjoyed my often long-winded expositions on this crazy sport called track and field. And since I hate saying goodbye, I will just say see you later, I will talk to you soon, it’s been great, and I’m going to go and enjoy this summer day sitting on my couch, drinking tea and getting started on my summer reading list.
Thanks for reading!
Peace and Love.
Your Canadian sprinter friend,
Alexa
Philippians 4:13
May 25, 2010
Dear blog readers,
You will be happy to know that after wading through traffic jams of Amish buggies and driving through endless stretches of cornfields, the Cedarville Track team has arrived safely in the bustling, lively metropolis of Marion, Indiana for the NAIA National Championships.
IWU is in the process of setting up for the big championships (which officially start on Thursday), and we’ve already had a chance to try out the lovely Mondo track a little bit.
If there’s one word sticking out in my mind right now with competition looming, it’s "sweaty." For once, it feels like real outdoor track, with the sun in the sky and the swelter of the late May sun...which I am completely fine with. I’ve had about enough of this sleet and freezing wind stuff.
Yes, I am definitely excited to run in the warmth, not only because I’m a sprinter, but because I am in desperate need to correct the beginning traces of an unattractive farmer’s tan on my upper arm.
Anyway, we are definitely excited to be here and finally get this big meet started! This is what we’ve been waiting for, training for, thinking about over all of May Term; I think a lot of us are feeling that it’s about time! The anticipation for these championship meets is sometimes almost more nerve-wracking than the meet itself.
Last week was our final week of training and I am pleased to announce that the sprinter group has survived and is officially done 3+1 and 3 x 300 workouts for the season! And if your name is Beight and Sammy, you are officially done with hard workouts forever....excluding any workouts that may include being chased by mad bulls in the near future.
It was definitely a solid week of training, all of us counting down the workouts, the ice baths, the dinners, the sleeps, until we would be here at IWU getting ready to compete.
Competition starts on Thursday, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers! As you know, this is our last meet of the season and we have some great chances for some great performances.
Lord willing: there’s Lydia in the 1,500 meters, the boys 4 x 400 and 4 x 100, the Hoff in the hurdles, girls 4 x 800, just to name a few.
I will be running the 400 on Thursday, and yes, I’m starting to get nervous, but I think that’s probably a good thing.
Well, the sun is shining, the air is warm, the track is fast, the flags are waving, the ice baths are cold, the corn fields are all-encompassing, and the Cedarville Track Team is ready to compete!
Thank you for your support and your prayers going into this weekend!
And I will be filling you in next week on all the results. Peace out, friends. May all the glory be God’s.
Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
P.S. Shout out this week goes to Mr. and Mrs. King! Thank you so much for the lovely barbeque dinner on Monday night! It was delicious and we are all blessed by your constant support for Cedarville track and athletics in general.
May 17, 2010
Dear blog followers,
I have an important question which demands a thoughtful, honest answer. Your answer is very crucial, you see, as the debate surrounding this question has recently become a real point of contention for many team members. And obviously, disunity and discord brewing in the midst of the Cedarville track team is the last thing we need before heading into NAIA Nationals next week.
So blog readers, the question is, how do you feel about ice cream trucks?
So far, there seems to be two camps split over this. There are first those who think ice cream trucks bring joy and fun and that receiving ice cream treats from a perfect stranger in a grimy uniform is an integral part of one’s childhood. Then there are others, like myself, who see past the shallow, short-lived joy of an ice cream cone to see ice cream trucks for the creepy, shady, and musically out of tune societal ills that they truly are.
Let me tell you, that ice cream truck we saw at Louisville on Friday at the Cardinal Twilight Classic was speeding off like someone found out about the drugs hidden underneath its tub of chocolate vanilla swirl.
But, in all honesty, the creepy ice cream truck we saw at Louisville is probably at the bottom of the list of things we will remember from that meet (yes. I am desperately attempting to segue.).....
There is no doubt that the highlight of the meet, the event we will remember from Friday, was the efforts of our men’s 4 x 400 team as they not only won the event, but obliterated a 30+ year Cedarville record. I know I already did a bit of bragging about these boys in my last blog, but I didn’t know that they were going to have such a stellar performance this weekend as well.
Essentially, the guys were gunning for that record; it was the purpose of their trip to Louisville. We were all excited for them, and positioned ourselves at strategic positions around the track to cheer.....though Marcus Benjamin tends to be the only one of our 4 x guys who seems to hear.
Our guys ran their hearts out, as the cliché says, each one taking at least a second off their times. It was so exciting to see Sammy coming to the 200 meter mark and realizing he’d have to run a 32-second 200 (which is really slow for a boy, maybe even a Grandpa...) for the boys not to get the record, they were so far ahead of the mark.
After Sammy crossed the line and we saw the clock said 3:12, we all flooded the track (as much as our little team could) to congratulate them, and revive Sammy who had just been speared and tackled by Beight.
It was probably one of the most epic track moments I’ve watched so far at Cedarville, and like I said in my last blog, Brandon, Justin, Mikey, and Sammy really deserved that moment.
Track is a sport where no matter how hard you work, sometimes you just can’t ever achieve all the goals you want to; so much of it is out of your control. That’s why when you can walk away from a meet saying you accomplished all your goals, it’s nothing short of miraculous.
These guys managed to do this on Friday, their relay season goals, for the most part as far as I know, completed: they got the indoor record, won NCCAA’s, beat Taylor and Bethel, set personal records, and finally managed to crush the outdoor record. To accomplish all this in a season after running together, for most of them, four years is truly a well-earned end result for all their hard work.
So I’m going to end my third to last blog on that note for today and also remind you to support the Cedarville track team as we head to nationals by letting me know your opinion on ice cream trucks. In exactly a week, we will be in Indiana for our last track meet of the year, the big one, and I promise to document all the excitement for you loyal followers (aka, my mom).
Also tonight, there is an epic game of bouncy ball hoot going down. You should come.
Peace and love.
May 10, 2010
Usually after every track meet, coach asks our team one question: What did you learn?
And even though our brains are threatening to turn rusty with the sudden downturn of school (save for the clinical girls), I have to say I learned two notable things from our weekend competing at Christian Nationals:
1. The importance of being disciplined when motivation starts to dwindle.
2. Girls are the champions of bus bathroom stuffing.
This time of year, for me anyway, can often feel like the most trying in terms of staying "motivated" - a term we love to overuse in the sporting world. This is often due to a variety of factors - it’s a time when you can recover slightly from the weeks of sleeping 4-hours a night writing final papers, release some of that end-of-school year tension, and a time to start thinking about summer plans.
Sometimes, admittedly, this just simply leads to a May term track drop in motivation - at least, that’s how I felt last week. Coming into NCCAA’s on Friday, I was especially having trouble pumping myself up for my races. And I think it’s fair to say I’m not the only one; I think it’s fairly normal after an already long season to suddenly feel like the fervor of competition is waning.
But, after this weekend, which was overall very successful on all fronts for the team, I see that motivation is not necessarily something that is "lost" or "found" - words we often throw around in these discussions - but rather something kept strong through staying disciplined. In a sport like track, where you are often doing the same warm-ups, practices, races, over and over again, motivation often relies on the level of discipline you put into the sport.
In track, if you’re disciplined to work hard at practice, to take care of your body, to warm up and warm down, and follow your pre-race routine, you’re motivation becomes simply part of what you do. It isn’t about how "up" or "down" you feel that day, it just comes down to something akin to that old Nike cliché expression of "Just do it."
Obviously, an athlete is going to compete the best when his or her mental and physical preparation are simultaneously peaking. But after this weekend I’ve really learned that even when motivation starts to slide, as it often can in the midst of long seasons, discipline and preparation are the keys to pushing through and keeping it together.
I think the success of our guys 4 x 400 team this weekend is a perfect example of this. Mikey, Sammy, Justin, and Father Brandon are some of the most disciplined guys I know when it comes to training for track. They set goals for themselves and they always do what’s asked of them.
This weekend, after running multiple 400's, I know they were all pretty tired by the time the 4 x 4 rolled around. It was even debatable if Sammy was going to run because of a sore hamstring. But when it came down to the race, they realized this was possibly the last 4 x 4 they’d run all together, and that they’d been training hard all year to beat Taylor and Bethel and get an A mark.
Both Sammy and Beight said the same thing, "How could I not run?" Their motivation came from the hard work and discipline they put in over three years; it wasn’t something they just magically found. And despite the fatigue and the poor conditions, it was their discipline to train and set goals for themselves before even stepping on the track that day that gave them the extra push they needed to come out and win the race.
Now that I’ve made Beight happy with my inspirational example of the 4 x team, I will say that I saw this kind hard work and discipline in multiple people on the weekend, as NCCAA’s met us with cold, rain, and tornado-like winds. Let me tell you, these conditions are very ineffective at motivating anybody to compete well. However, our team managed to still accomplish a lot of PR’s this weekend, despite the adverse conditions.
Lydia Wong, of course, beasted it up winning both the 800 and 1,500 and setting PR’s in both. Kate Lanphier got a PR in the 400 hurdles as well, despite the windy conditions down the homestretch. Our girls 4 x 800 also had an incredibly exciting race in the midst of pouring rain, with Rachel Wong running a 2:17 split to prove that she is officially back! Carolyn Case as well overcame adversity of another kind as in her 1,500 she managed to finish her race after being practically trampled upon at the start.
Each of these athletes, among many others I haven’t named here, really showed me just how much our motivation comes from being disciplined and prepared for whatever conditions we are met with. I know this probably sounds like a bit of a soap box sports speech, but this is a lesson I’m going to need to remember over the next few weeks in order to finish strong as the season winds down.
As for the other lesson I learned this week....
First of all, I have to declare here to the whole world in this very public domain, that the CUTF Girls are the champions of the traditional bus bathroom stuff and the boys simply cannot compete. As part of the twelve-part team to accomplish this task, I am very proud to say that we won, and Trevor still only counts as a half person, since, in Hannah’s words, "We have to fit in our child-birthing hips!" If you’re reading this and have no idea what I’m talking about....that’s probably a good thing.
OK, that’s all for this week folks. Sorry, it’s a long one.
Ttfn, tata for now.
May 3, 2010
Boy, Those 3+1s Really Drain You......
This morning I woke up with the semi-devastating, but completely liberating realization that I had absolutely no papers to write or think about writing today. This thing they call summer has seemed like the most foreign concept for the past month in the midst of the general craziness of finals; but I think I just might kind of like it.
After I fell asleep for another hour (just because I could), I woke up with another realization: I had not written my weekly blog yet. It appears that this newfound freedom from school may slightly distract me from my blogging somewhat, as I have previously been using my blog as an excuse to put off homework. (i.e. my roommate: Alexa are you working on your research paper? Me: Well I’m about to...I have to finish my blog first. Jim Clark needs it by 5.)
Anyway...this if my first official May Term Track blog. Ladies and gentleman, we are about to enter the exciting times of Pineapple Bacon, Bouncy Ball Hoot, Cinquo de Mayo Party, Sammy’s magic tricks, sand volleyball, absolutely no soccer, water geyser dances (wait, scratch that one...) pop bottle rockets, and maybe a little bit of training at the track (if we have time).
This is always an interesting time to spend with the team; it’s very laid back. Basically, we practice from 3:30-6ish everyday, and the rest of the time is spent trying to find things to do without injuring ourselves. A lot of people take classes, but for the rest of us who have chosen to go the term sans homework, this can be a great time not only to bond with the team doing random activities, but just relax a little and refocus. Let me tell you, the track load seems a whole lot lighter without having to worry about homework.
I just realized I talk a lot about homework in my blog. I’m really sorry about that.
Anyway, after the stress of finals, I’m hoping this break from school (for me at least) will help me refocus on what I’m really here to do: train hard and run fast. It’s going to be a lot of hard workouts and 3+1s (whew, those drain you, eh Sammy?) over the next few weeks to be sure, but hopefully we can find the motivation to get through. Nationals will be here before we know it, an especially sad and scary thought for the seniors, I’m sure. I hope we can just enjoy this time together, make the most of it, and I am excited to detail all our random adventures for you over the next few weeks!
Well, I’m off to get my laundry and begin reorganizing/unpacking my mass of belongings piled on the floor of my new room. Hopefully I will find my way out.
Cheerio.
P.S. I have to give a shout out this week to Mr. Ethan Blagg for writing a wonderful blog for me last week. He is certainly a very funny and talented individual....which I must actually say with sincerity, since he is not here at school anymore to bribe me with old fashioned glazed Tim Horton’s Timbits.
April 26, 2010
Dear Blog Readers (aka my family and Stalker Steve),
Due to my absence from the meet this weekend and the fact that I have my final essay in American Literature due tomorrow (which I haven’t started yet), I have decided to treat you, in true Michael Beight fashion, to a special guest blogger who will be writing for me this week.
No, Ethan Blagg is not on the women’s track team, but as I’m just coming off the high of writing a feminist paper on dissolving hierarchal binaries, I think it’s fair to give him the chance (as long as the men’s side has no qualms about allowing women guest bloggers, of course).
If you recognize Ethan’s name, it’s because I have often written some nice things about him in my blog this semester. And here, at the final week of school, I make my confession: I was bought with old fashioned glazed Tim Horton’s donuts and the occasional key lime cheesecake.
Anyway, I think Ethan might touch on our fair trade agreement later on, but for now, without further ado, here is Mr. Blagg’s blog for you to enjoy.
-- Alexa
Welcome to a special 2010 Collector’s Edition of the Cedarville University women’s track blog. My name is Ethan Blagg and I will be your guest writer.
Before I start, let me say that my authoring skills and vocabulary may not be quite as advanced as Alexa Winik’s. She is an English major, and everything that you read here will have been proof-read by the time it reaches you. She is a very talented individual; she is a good, nay, great runner, highly skilled creative writer, dynamic personality, and famous.
It’s too bad that all has to go to waste because I’m not sure how much the job market is looking for Canadians. OK, I’m sorry for the daft Canada joke. Oh well, my backspace key isn’t working so I can’t take it back.
On to the subject that I am supposed to be talking about...the women’s track team. If you are a regular reader of this blog, as Stephen Port and I are, then you will know that only those runners who are competing at the NCCAA national meet or the NAIA national meet are still practicing.
Unfortunately, I am among those who ended their season at conference, so we will ignore me and talk about those who ran this weekend at the RedHawk Invitational at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Since I obviously did not go to the meet (I just realized why Alexa is letting me write the blog - she was taking the week off from running as well. Duh, I thought I was special for a minute there), I will have to rely upon the results I found on the web and received via SMS.
The first thing that jumped off the page was the 1,500 meter run. Carolyn Case ran a season best to qualify for NAIA’s with an "A" mark, and Neola Putnam (#1 on Michael Beight’s list of coolest named teammates) made the "B" mark with her best time of the season. In the 100 meter hurdles Michelle Mead ran a 0.21 second season best, and did very well in the 400 meter hurdles as well.
Before I continue, let me share a couple random thoughts:
(A) I love the metric system. When referring to a far away object, I like to calculate the distance in meters. This often results in odd looks from friends, but I feel cool.
(B) Running a couple tenths faster is a big deal to sprinters, or so I gather. I am a mid-distance runner, so I get excited when I cut a second, but sprinters rejoice in small things. Speaking of sprinters, this season I attempted to become friends with more sprinters than I did last year. I have to say, it ended up well.
In my freshman year (last year), I was privileged to become the inaugural "Honorary Thrower" (funny...cuz I’m...skinny) seeing as I hung out with them all the time. This year Mark Farris was inducted. All that to say: it is pretty cool to be able to get to know such a broad spectrum of people all on the same team.
I have to say, I’m pretty excited for Johanna Ensslen because she has had a couple good weeks lately. Due to injury, she was not able to run at all last year, and has just been getting back into healthy form this year.
A lot of runners were on the injured list throughout the year, one of them being myself. I would go on and say how frustrating it is (because it is), but I won’t because complaining does you no good. At the beginning of the cross country season in the fall, I decided to thank the Lord for everything that happened during the season, good or bad.
It is hard at times to keep a good attitude, but I think that you can learn quite a little bit from injuries - patience, how to keep a smile, and that trainers are cool people. I learned that when I came to my first anatomy lab of the year, and there, assembled together were five or six athletic training freshmen. We acquiesced to be friends, and later emerged from lab as well-wishers. Ah the bliss.
Well, uh, this is getting to be really long, so here is my concluding paragraph.
This week we had our end of the year track banquet wherein the whole team gets together for a casual gala of food, and an "awards ceremony" to follow. It has been a fun year for those of us who are done. Although there is disappointment for some, there is just as much elatedness for others who have done very well.
I’ll be going home at the end of this week, but I ardently wish good luck to everyone who is sticking around. May term is far and away the greatest month of the year. I saw a commercial for the show "River Monsters" this week. We discovered it during May term last year, and almost unanimously decided it was the most neato show ever. Watch it. That’s not a suggestion, it’s an order.
Lastly, I would like to use these next few words to thank Alexa for my proverbial rise to fame this year through the mechanism of her mentioning my name in the blog. I definitely did NOT bribe her with Tim Horton’s donuts all year long. Because of her kindness, our friendship has morphed from its former business emphasized form in to real rapport and solidarity.
I’m gonna go listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers and read Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Peace,
Ethan Blagg
April 19, 2010
If there’s one thing I learned from this weekend, it’s that long spandex is a track runner’s best friend.
I know, I know.....that is a VERY controversial statement to open any blog with. I hope I haven’t ruffled too many feathers.
It’s just, when you’re outside for 6 hours in sub-40 degree weather with rain that doesn’t look like rain but looks like a snow/sleet/hail combination and you can see your breath when you breathe and you have to run a 100 meter dash.....long spandex can save your life. And your hamstrings.
So this is my shout out to whoever created spandex.
Anyway, I should probably get off my soap box and get around to talking about the weekend before I further digress to give an impassioned account on the other amazing creation that is Ibuprofen.
Sadly, this blog is the last one to recount the exciting adventures of the track team as a whole as this was our last weekend competing together. From now on we will be split up and only a handful of us are continuing on to first NCCAA’s and then NAIA’s at the end of May.
If you’ve been reading the track blogs, I hope you realize that this has been an exciting season, even though it’s a little shorter than last year. This weekend solidified a lot of what we all have been working for, not so much because of the results posted, but because of the great teamwork that arises from a final "official entire team" meet.
We arrived into Walsh University on Friday afternoon with a new PR - three hours before any other team (slight exaggeration). Much to our dismay, it began to rain not long after. However, we attempted to cheer ourselves up with our bus driver’s ample DVD collection and stayed on the bus to watch Toy Story.
Before you judge our jejune taste in movies, I must add here that Toy Story is not my favorite movie. In fact when my dad took me to see it when I was a kid, we left the theatre because I was so terrified of the scary "spider-baby toy"...if you have seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about.
Conference this year was a meet marked by adversity. While that is a redundant statement for any track meet, AMC’s this year especially reminded me once again that every meet has its own unique set of challenges.
Though Coach Bo ensures we are more than prepared for cold and rain and snow, it’s still a brutal feeling to get on the line and know you’re going to have to take off your three layers of warm sweaters and run full sprint into a bitter wind. In fact, I couldn’t help but think how I should’ve written a paragraph in last week’s blog about track and the inevitably bad weather. Although this week’s cold front I’m going to have to attribute to Coach Scott forgetting to apply his "antifreeze deodorant."
But everyone showed up to compete and compete well, despite the less than ideal conditions. One of the most exciting events to watch was Amanda Tingley’s amazing 5K race walk, where she blew the competition away on her first collegiate race walk ever.
Tara Leaman continued her string of school records with a first place finish in the hammer. Katie Lanphier also won her event with a strong finish in the 400 meter hurdles while Johanna Ennslen achieved a PR in the 200. These are just a few examples of the exciting results.
And while it’s sad that we shall soon be sundered as a team, going our separate ways for the summer, the bonding experience of freezing together outside in long spandex while trying to, as Coach Neil would say, "leave it all on the track" should keep us all looking forward to next year.
April 12, 2010
[Here is a pre-script.....I’m sorry this blog is so long and more philosophical than usual.....I’m procrastinating and trying to avoid a huge literary analysis paper by writing this.....read at your own risk. Also, Ethan Blagg, who is probably the kindest, most encouraging, single blue-eyed boy I know told me that I should write on here that "track bloggers are the best bloggers," even though I am losing in the polls.....So there ya go, Ethan.]
This past weekend, I, along with B-Tress, the Hoff, Slayer and Wong #1 took a nice little jaunt down the road to Knoxville, Tennessee where we had the chance to compete at the Sea Ray Relays.
This was an exciting meet to say the least - for instance, I just about fell out of my chair when I realized I was sitting two seats away from Veronica Campbell-Brown in the marshaling tent. [As a side note, I can now officially tell people in fifty years, when I begin reliving track glory days through exaggerated stories, that I ran the 400 with Veronica Campbell-Brown.....ok maybe not running with but we were at least in the same race....]
Apart from my embarrassing awe in the face of such greatness, this meet also inspired amongst our small group a kind of revelatory moment. As we watched the 5,000 meters, (waiting for Lydia to finish her 3457485 mile cool down with Erin Nehus), Justin, Brandon and I had a very profound thought as we recounted the difficulties they had faced in their hurdle races:
Track is a stupid sport.
I think only track athletes understand what I’m talking about when I say this. Apart from the emotion, the time invested, the passion, the love, the reaching of potential etc. etc., an objective look at the sport I dedicate so much of my time to reveals the true insanity of it all. I mean, just think if track was an illness you went to the doctor for....
Patient: Hi doctor, I’ve been extremely sore and fatigued lately, with frequent nausea and migraines.
Doctor: OK, when do you experience said symptoms?
Patient: Well, it usually happens like this. First, I take off running as fast as I possibly can.
Doctor: Are you trying to run to somewhere?
Patient: Nope. I’m just running in circles. I always end up in the exact same spot as where I left.
Doctor: OK.....And how does it feel when you run?
Patient: Well, the first part feels great, but the last 100 meters or so I feel like I can’t move. My vision blurs, my hearing goes in and out, and I occasionally have random flashbacks from my childhood.
Doctor: Hm, sounds like classic oxygen deprivation to me. Your body thinks you are slowly dying.
Patient: That sounds....about right. Anyway, when I finally end up back to the place I started, that’s when I feel sore and fatigued and nauseous and all migrainey. What should I do?
Doctor: Well, I think the answer’s fairly straightforward - stop running in circles. It’s stupid.
I know that’s a bit of a silly illustration, but again, think objectively for a moment. To the outside world, this is exactly their reaction to track, to question what would possess anyone to put their bodies through that kind of strain, just for the sake of pushing themselves to the next level. And for what? Shaving off tenths, hundredths, of a second?
Track is a stupid sport.
This is my seventh year of running competitive track, and since then, after all the hard workouts and training, meets in the winter, spring and summer, I have shaved only about 1.5 seconds off my fastest 200-meter time. 1.5 seconds means a lot in the world of sprinting, but it still looks ridiculous when I print the number on the page like that.
1.5 seconds.
That’s it! In Brandon’s words, "We spend more and more time practicing just to cut off less and less time." And that’s essentially, in a completely objective nutshell, the paradox of track. A never-ending race against your best and the milliseconds of the clock. And it’s sad to say, but that clock always wins, even when you run a faster time; I mean, I’ve never seen the clock get sick after a 400 meters.
Oh, track, track track...such a stupid sport.
And yet we love it. We have to love it.
This is the part that only true athletes will ever understand, why you keep coming back to this love-hate relationship, the part that accepts the insanity of your daily grind just to experience the few euphoric moments of achieving a personal best. How do you explain it to the "outside world," the people who have never experienced this feeling? How do you explain why we keep coming back for more, even when we sometimes feel like we’ve hit our limit?
It’s what makes those long-distance runners (whose love for mileage my sprinting brain will never understand) get up at 6 a.m. to run 10 miles. It’s what makes the sprinters pull it together for that 4 x 400 at the end of five-event day. It’s what makes the hurdlers run those 300 repeats with hurdles, and the jumpers willing to show up to practice with taped, aching shins every single day. It’s what makes Coach O passionate enough to remember splits, mileage, and stats from athletes who ran a decade ago, or Coach Bo crazy enough to want to actually run workouts with us.
To the outside, track is known by its Veronica Campbell-Browns, the glorious heroes who make it look easy, even though they themselves have sweated the same tears as the rest of us. To the outside who don’t even try to understand, track will always just be a sport where there are no baskets, goals scored, or exciting tackles (except maybe after a record-breaking relay run); it’ll always just be people pushing themselves to be the best they can possibly be, to run the fastest, jump the highest, throw the farthest.....
And this simple reason is what, as Brandon, Justin, and I decided, fuels our love and, what some people might go as far as to say, "passion".
It’s not for anything glorious; whoever said track was a glory sport obviously never found themselves staring down a toilet after running the 400. It’s just for that addicting desire to be the best you can possibly be.
To the non-track world, it sounds painfully simple, maybe a little narcissistic. Sounds lame. Sounds like track is stupid.
And objectively, I guess I will admit that it is.
But non-objectively, it can be pretty awesome.
Just watch a 400 meter season opener with Veronica Campbell, Deedee Trotter, Mary Wineburg, merely a few feet away from you, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
April 5, 2010
So for the first time this semester, I am not sitting down to write this blog at my cluttered dorm room desk or my favorite corner library spot or on my boyfriend’s couch. Instead, I am back home in Canada, writing from my kitchen table, about to enjoy my last few free hours of Easter Break before heading back to the US of A.
This weekend, before I headed back to my home country of bagged milk and superior Corn Pops, I spent the first part of my weekend with the track team at the Oliver Nikoloff Invitational meet at University of Cincinnati. I’m sorry to report that I am lacking in exciting news and inside jokes to recount from the weekend, since I was only able to stay at the track for my race so I could catch a ride home.
However, I will say that this meet was kind of a big deal. Being a Division I meet, there was a host of great competitors all across the board. Daunting seed times and marks abounded.
I admit I was slightly intimidated at first to look at the heat sheets to discover that Mary Wineburg, an Olympic gold medalist, was running in my heat of the 400 meters. However, our team took the challenge in stride, seeing it as an opportunity to be pushed to the next level by some amazing competitors.
Tara Leaman had an outstanding meet, for instance, placing eighth overall in the hammer. She also broke the school record and made an NAIA auto mark. Courtnie Merritt, in only her second appearance since returning from injury, also placed fourth overall with a jump of 1.58 meters.
And here, to any dear reader who actually takes time to read what I write, I must apologize because I am going to have to cut this blog short this week. If you’ve been reading regularly, you know that usually I tend to ramble on for at least a novel or two, but I am slightly distracted today.
My mom is baking some delicious-smelling cookies in the kitchen, my dog is barking bloody murder at my next-door neighbor, and I am about to take my nine-year-old sister out to watch How to Train My Dragon in 3D. I promise to update more next week but as of now, I am going to head off to enjoy some last moments with the famjam.
March 29, 2010
Last Thursday, I had a bit of a meltdown.
It was around 11:45 p.m. when I walked out of my room to do some laundry. As I stepped out my door, three-loads of laundry in tow, my foot suddenly submerged itself in a slushy pile of snow and my face cringed with an attack of icy pellets flying through the cold wind.
If you heard any strange wailing noises of grief around this time last week, it was probably the Canadian girl with the laundry basket outside of Printy.
You see, our first home meet was only a day away at that point, and the thought of running in such conditions made me think of one thing and one thing only: Georgia. Beautiful, warm, sunny, windless Georgia with its peach trees and sweet tea. Where we were running just days before.
Yet, Cedarville never fails to amaze me with its unpredictable weather, and Saturday met us with cool temperatures and a little wind, but a clear and sunny sky nonetheless.
As the day went on, it actually got warm enough to run without Under Armour beneath my singlet. I think that may just be a first for my Cedarville home meet experiences. And I think we even all got a little tanned. Especially Father (Brandon), whose truly marvelous facial tan I noticed at the track meeting this afternoon.
For being a home meet with not exactly ideal conditions (compared to the sunny warmth of Georgia), everyone stepped it up and competed well. Carolyn Cann and I were discussing on Saturday how it is sometimes hard to get yourself pumped up for home meets. When you’re running on the same track you run on seemingly every day of your life, meets feel a little like practice, despite the hundreds of new faces you find yourself competing against.
Coach Scott says you can’t create that pumped up feeling; it just has to happen and come from within you. This is definitely true, but I may have found a new remedy. That’s why sometimes, at home meets, you may occasionally need to bribe certain people, usually sprinters, with a chocolate bar in order to ruffle their competitive feathers.
However, this practice feel did not prevent our team from succeeding. There were many PR’s set at this meet, Jessica Smith in the 800 for instance, and many people trying new events, like Gracie Santos in the pole vault and Michelle Mead in the 400 hurdles.
Lydia Wong also made an NAIA auto mark in the 800 meters while Tara achieved a provisional mark in her throwing event as well. It was also exciting to see Kelsey Watkins and Courtnie Merritt back and competing again after tough surgeries earlier this year.
And how could I forget Ethan Blagg, with his very distinguished cheekbones and noble brow, for running for the first time after being injured. Because of his newly shaved head, favorite running shorts, and indomitable will, he definitely ran an 800 meters in a decent time - one of the hardest races on the track. His prowess never fails to amaze, even when jumping into a moving car with an ice cream cone in hand (he would also like me to mention that he is still single, so there is still a chance ladies).
Saturday was a long day, but it was a solid day of competition for the team. Next week we head to Cincinnati!
Oh and I do have a shout-out this week.....it goes to my dear diehard college basketball fan mother, who I love, and who is presently overwhelmed with the wonderfulness that is March Madness. (Did anyone watch the MSU game last night? If you did, you will know what I am talking about.) I miss you and eating green and white popcorn balls and jello and cheering on State. Go Spartans!
March 22, 2010
So this morning I woke up and realized I had a really crazy dream. In my dream, the entire track team was riding on a bus, so packed full that people ended up sleeping on the floor like we were in a homeless shelter. Then, suddenly the bus ride stopped around 6 a.m. and we wandered out into the night air to a McDonald’s where I ate a sausage McGriddle and drank some watered-down coffee.
After getting back on the bus, we somehow ended up at a park where there was a colossal stone randomly rising out of a parking lot where the bus sat. We all decided, "Hey, let’s climb the mountain!" So we did and made it to the top where Lukas found a Canadian nickel.
However, the wind was so cold we decided to climb down when suddenly, I slipped and fell down the mountain! "Oh no! Poor Seabiscuit!" Sammy said. Though my friends thought I died, luckily I lived to tell the tale with merely scrapes on my elbows.
Somehow, after the mountain, we were transported to a beautiful track where we began warming up. Suddenly out of nowhere, my entire family showed up in the bleachers to watch me! My dream then switched and I saw the entire CU track team eating Chick-Fil-A in the building where CNN news is broadcast. But, this lasted only momentarily, because then we were back at the track.
The last thing I remember is Tara, Rachel, Carolyn, and Chelsea (who were standing on a steeplechase barrier) cheering wildly as I sprinted around the last curve of the 4 x 400.
OK, so ironic twist of the day.....this wasn’t a dream. It all actually happened. While all these vignettes seem dream-like in their blur of activity and randomness, they really did happen and comprised one of the most memorable weekends of track I think I’ve had on the team thus far.
(Before I go further, let me as a side note quickly say that I have some grand tidings:
I finally returned from a track meet with somewhat of a tan. Albeit, it’s not quite as colorful as Mad Monkey Starr’s shoulders, but I was still excited nonetheless.)
Anyway, this weekend truly was a blur; I think I might still be recovering from my laughing attack with Carolyn from Saturday night dinner. But it was also a blast and I won’t even attempt to recount here all the crazy fun times and inside jokes we have walked away with. But, we did thoroughly enjoy ourselves in the sun and 75 degree weather of Atlanta, competing at probably one of the most beautiful universities I’ve ever run at.
Our whole team traveled so far and accomplished so much in such a small period of time that it’s hard to capture it today as I sit down to write. In fact, if I close my eyes, I can still feel the churning wheels of our bus rattling down the interstate and hear the conniving voices of Carolyn and Evan as they plot to push the pole vault poles on the floor to the front of the bus. Or, for that matter, Ethan Blagg’s melodious voice serenading the entire van with a moving, original song to lull us to sleep (he’s just so creative like that).
Overall, despite being cramped on a bus for eight hours and sleeping on the floor of a seminary, our team performed very well. Our women’s team captured the overall title with a number of strong showings.
Some of the highlights included the women’s 4 x 800, with the Wong sisters + Carolyn Case dominating the field; Tara Leaman winning two out of three of her throwing events; and the 4 x 400 relay finishing it off with an exciting race to third place. It was also fun to cheer on people trying out events for the first time ever or at least in a long time - like Chelsea Gruet in the 400 meter hurdles and Meghan and Tabby in the steeplechase. Carolyn Cann also had her first race back after red-shirting the indoor season because of injury.
The guys side was not without its highlights as well, as our much loved 4x400 team won their event while making an NAIA Provisional B mark. There was also Justin Hoffman as well, running a crazy-fast time in the 400 meter hurdles and my fellow blogger rival Mikey Beight who took the men’s 400 in a great time of 49.08 seconds.
I really would love to go into all the minutiae of the hysterical details of our trip; there were a lot of crazy times to be sure. But having missed two days of classes, I have a lot of homework to catch up on so I must go for now. If you really are desperate for more details, just talk to Stalker Steve. He knows all. And don’t worry if you can’t find him.....I’m sure he’ll find you.
Next week is our first outdoor home meet, so if you are a Cedarville student reading this, come out and cheer us on! We'll definitely appreciate it.....especially if it ends up snowing.
Peace and love, all.
March 15, 2010
Today marks an epic moment within the blogging sphere of Cedarville track. Ladies and gentleman, I am pleased to announce the commencement of the outdoor track season.
And along with that announcement comes our fervent prayers that the skies will hold back any impending Ohio late-March snow squalls.
Thankfully, there is some hope that our first meet will be a semi-warm introduction to the outdoor season. On Wednesday, the whole team leaves for Atlanta, Georgia where we will be competing at Emory University. Typically, on the continuum, one would associate Georgia more with rays of sun and general warmth. But I don’t want to get my hopes up. I said the same thing about Tennessee and then it snowed.
Anyway, the whole team has been back at it training hard over the past week, working out the kinks often accumulated over spring break. It was the first time we’ve been out on the track since November.....and with two-foot snow drifts still sitting on the track, it was initially a very slushy experience.
On Monday’s workout Coach also kindly informed us that this was going to be a week of pain. More specifically, he said we were going to run until Mark threw up. Carolyn quietly corrected him to say, "More like till Alexa throws up," but I don’t think Coach heard.
It’s OK. That would have made for a really short workout and I’m 99% sure Coach was being facetious anyway.
Unfortunately, my shins were acting up this week, so I mostly cross-trained indoors, despite the nice weather that unexpectedly arrived midweek. But, I did hear several horror stories from teammates about murderous 300 repeats. And something about 12 3+ones through a snowball chucking gauntlet.....albeit, that doesn’t sound as tiresome as doing a whole workout by yourself with a certain track Starr who will go unnamed.
I digress. Let me be succinct. It was a hard week of training, but we’re all excited for this upcoming trip down south to the land of Stone Mountain, Olympic monuments, and sweet tea. Last year, Emory was my favorite trip, and although I am not looking forward to the everlasting bus ride, I am excited for the many memories that are sure to come.
Until next week! Peace out.
Oh, and I have a shout out this week, to some extremely hard working young ladies, my girls Kelsey and Carolyn for coming back to us and running after dealing with difficult injuries this year. It’s so great to have you two back. The "sprinters/jumpers" have missed you.
March 8, 2010
[WARNING TO THE READER.....it’s been a great weekend.....this is a very long blog.]
I’m just going to come out and say it. Track is a strange sport.
I’m not merely talking about the obvious absurdity of finding triumph and defeat at the mercy of a rubber oval or sand pit. Beyond this, there is a definite peculiarity in returning to reality after being caught up in the fervor of intense track and field competition. It’s hard to describe, to be honest. But it’s a quiet feeling.
It’s the feeling when after pouring all of yourself into merely a race or two, you return to your dorm room by yourself. You do your laundry, put your clothes away, clean out your bag, hang up your spikes, and suddenly everything is really quiet. It’s not a bad feeling. It’s just, well...kind of strange. Maybe a little lonely.
I suppose this is true for all sports played at an elite level, this anti-climactic lull. But, having played numerous sports, I can attest that the individual nature of track merits this strange feeling more than anything else I’ve ever done.
So, reader, you now have a glimpse into my present state of mind. I’m in a bit of a track lull....right now, it’s quiet in my dorm room but my mind is still busy processing all that our team accomplished this weekend.
And what a weekend it was.
For those of you who have been following CUTF this year, you know that this weekend was the NAIA National Indoor Championships in Johnson City, Tennessee. Basically, it’s the biggest meet of the indoor season with usually the highest level of competition.
This was my third Nationals trip with the team, and while it was a smaller group this year, we were definitely not lacking in excitement and laughter.
Our trip began on Tuesday morning when we departed for the warm, sunny, south of Tennessee.
Hold on. Scratch that.....we departed for the cold, cloudy, snow-flakey south of Tennessee. (Just as a side note, my plans for any attempt at a tan failed miserably and would’ve probably been more successful in Ohio).
Tuesday night, we ate at a very interesting restaurant with an interesting name and $1 burritos. Chelsea, Mark, Justin, and I mostly enjoyed hearing Coach Scott’s endless stories of his life, from chocolate bar pranks to the time he jumped over the 10 foot rail of the DEX stadium to rescue a collapsed athlete.
The next morning we embarked on a caving expedition. I did not know this, but apparently Tennessee is actually the leading state for its numerous caverns. I learned this from our cave guide, a friendly older man with white hair who we decided must have gone to Cave School. He also told us there was a giant bat somewhere in the cave, but we didn’t see it (I was very ok with that).
Beight, who wishes he went to Cave School, told me that bats are considered the most callipygian kind of bird...but I don’t think he knows what that means...and that bats are not birds.
Anyway....after fighting off Balrogs and bats and surviving the treacherous test-cross, we finished our caving expedition to head to another adventure: warmup at the track.
Believe me, trying to do stride outs on a six lane track is not just an adventure, but a matter of life and death. Fortunately, we survived this as well and thus were able to make it to the opening ceremonies held at Milligan College. This was the first time all the athletes and coaches got to meet for a special night to honor our NAIA Champions of Character (Brandon and Tara for us) and hear some sound advice from an American Olympic Coach. We also got to cheer for Coach Bo, who won the NAIA award for AMC Women’s Coach of the Year!
Thursday was when the real competition began. We enjoyed cheering on the girls in the DMR relay and our boys in the 4 x 400. Brandon, Beight, Sammy, and Mark ran their little hearts out to demolish the school record by several seconds. Their hand offs were so smooth and they ended up finishing higher than they were entered, and, I might add, beat Taylor.
When Friday came, I was a ball of nerves, because it was finally my turn to run. Most of us had prelims that day, except for Josh Wiseman who walked his way to a solid second-place finish in the race walk.
The super intense day came on Saturday when four of us had back to back finals. I didn’t get to enjoy the excitement of cheering in the stands, as I was warming up for my 400. But, as soon as I stepped onto the track, I could hear the voices of my teammates supporting me. The cheering was intense for some. Carolyn Case, apparently, was so excited that she cried as Lydia rocked the mile, becoming Cedarville’s fifth indoor national champion!
There were many successes all the way around, several PR’s, and even a few school records. But, what I felt more than anything on this trip was the closeness and camaraderie of our team. We all do different events, some of us are closer to each other than others, but at the end of the day, we all know that we have a solid support system of people who’ve got your back.
Whether it’s wishing you luck before your race, high-fiving you after your race, asking how your feeling, singing with you on the bus rides, or laughing so hysterically until you can’t drink any more sweet tea, you always feel like you have people to fall back on, people who will pick you up if you’re having a bad day, bad race, whatever.
Oh there are just too many good times to discuss in this blog today, (but I wish I could) from daily CSI marathons to crying over ice baths to Winter Olympics on Sammy’s iTouch to rapping outside to "sporcling" (a word game I won’t tell you about because of its addictive nature). I could probably write a whole blog on just our intense Balderdash competitions, where we learned people in Montana must tattoo their names on fur-coated animals they wish to keep and that AOFB does not stand for American Organization of Furry Beavers.
And as I sit here in my quiet dorm room, this is what I am left with.
I had a great weekend for my competition. I accomplished my goals, set a school record, made a PR.....but looking back, besides my races, what I remember are the random moments, the laughter, and just the fun of spending time with some great people. We may not all be best of friends outside of track, but we all understand each other because of track, and that makes trips like this so worth it for reasons besides just the great competition.
March 1, 2010
OK, I can’t resist. I have to ask. Who watched The Hockey Game yesterday? (Yes, I think it deserves to be capitalized).
And that’s really all I have to say in this blog.
It would probably be overkill to mention that Canada won The Game yesterday. Or to make a comment about hockey being our sport or how Sidney Crosby is our new national hero. Or to mention that we won the most gold medals.
Like I said, it would be overkill, so I really have nothing else to say. Except that this is a track blog so I should probably come down from this Olympic fervor (don’t worry, closing ceremonies were last night) to write something relevant.
I don’t have a lot of news to report; we didn’t have a meet this past weekend and most of the team has gone home for Spring Break. However, there are a handful of us lucky individuals who get to skip out on the Florida beaches to stay on campus as we wait to leave for nationals. And it’ll be worth it.
NAIA Nationals is always one of the most exciting meets and we all feel very blessed to have this opportunity to go and compete to the best of our abilities. Plus, it should be warmer in Tennessee, right? Hopefully warmer than snow-covered Ohio.
There’s about twenty of us heading to Nats on Tuesday morning. We had a few hard practices last week to break down some of those lovely lactic acid thresholds but this week will all be about preparing for the weekend. We want to be rested, recovered, but more importantly, mentally fresh for the heightened competition we will face.
Next week, I will be updating you on the results. Please pray first for safe travels down south and secondly, that we would compete well and with the right mind set, giving all the glory to God. Alright, well it’s nationals or bust.....go big or go home everyone!
I’m out. Peace and love.
Feb. 22, 2010
Ever experienced that thing they call "runner’s high?"
If not, you should try it some time.
I’m not much of a science person, so I don’t know exactly how it all works.....Basically, it’s that feeling where after depriving yourself of adequate oxygen levels and fermenting your muscles with lactic acid, your body expresses its thanks with a burst of endorphins and serotonin.
You feel as if you could run another 400 meters if Coach asked you.....or (if you’re me) write that perfect literary analysis paper.....or maybe conquer the world - at least a small country (maybe like Canada?).....It’s a paradoxical sensation that creates such a love/hate relationship with training.
It hurts like crazy, but it gives you such an amazing high when you’re done, it’s totally worth it. In the words of a teammate who shall go unnamed, if all teenagers could run track, high schools would not have any problems with marijuana.
Where am I going with this you are probably wondering?
Well, some days are better than others for experiencing this high. Sometimes, admittedly, I don’t feel it at all for whatever reason. Well, Saturday was one of those days where I did experience the full force of what I will call the "track high". There was just a common excitement and general exuberance among all of us competing, whether we were running, throwing, or jumping.
In case you didn’t know, last weekend was our NCCAA Indoor Championship meet, hosted right here in Cedarville. It’s one of the biggest meets of the indoor season with over 14 Christian schools from across the country coming to compete on our home turf.
Admittedly, I was a little more jacked to run this weekend. And I think everybody else was too, to be honest. For a lot of team members, this meet was the final one of the indoor season and/or a last chance to hit a mark for NAIA’s. Not to mention there was a little steeper of a field for competition.
The thing about championship meets is that suddenly you realize how much of a team sport track can be. For instance, what I love about NCCAA’s are the numerous relays. Every team has their own rivalries, fighting it out against each other, and it always makes for exciting finishes, especially the last event, the 4 x 400.
Teams actually line the track, literally a foot away from the runners, to cheer on their school. Having run in the 4 x 4 this weekend, I’ll say it definitely makes you run faster to have teammates (like Tara Leaman) that excited to cheer for you.
Again, this weekend was one of PR’s. Sarah Hannay made a 6 foot PR in the shot, which, fyi, is a pretty big deal. Hannah Lamos and Meghan Terrell also ran PR’s, I believe, and both had excellent, hard-fought races in the 3,000 (I still don’t know how the long distance runners do it).
Rachel Meister also had a personal best jump in the Triple Jump, despite being sick the week leading up to NCCAA’s. Other notables were of course, Lydia Wong, who also overcame illness to win the mile and 800, which is a really difficult double. Even our 4 x 4, where I ran with Lydia, Katie, and Johanna, had a season-best time.
I’d also be amiss if I did not mention Ethan Blagg’s stellar performance in the 800 meters after coming back from injury. It must be his ridiculously proportioned cheekbones that make him so formidably fast.
But after it was all said and done on Saturday, I think we were all a bit on a track high. Whether it was the relief of being finished with our races or simply that last burst of energy before fatigue settled into our taxed bodies, we managed to clear the track and cleanup within 30 minutes. We had fun waiting for dinner to arrive at the track, attempting a massive group picture on the pole vault mats and watching Mikey and Sammy blowing up balloons the size of.....small whales?
Anyway, it was just nice to take that moment in after the meet, revel a little on that track high of having a successful day. I know that not everybody’s day was "successful"; not everyone got PR’s. Not everyone did exactly what they wanted. But regardless, having simply worked hard that whole day, cheering on teammates and just taking part in a championship meet, you can’t help but feel that familiar sensation of the "track high".
With NCCAA’s, the bulk of our indoor season is finished. All we have left is NAIA indoor nationals, which are held in Johnson City, Tennessee next week. A smaller group of us who have qualified will be heading down over Spring Break to compete.
And at the request of the Franz, I have one random Canadian fact for the day (which has nothing to do with losing a certain hockey game last night).....We do not have $1 or $2 bills; we have Loonies and Toonies.....Yes, there is a picture of a Loon on the Loonie.....The Toonie though has a polar bear on it. Though I have never seen a wild polar bear in real life. And I have been told our money looks like monopoly money because it is so colorful.....personal preference I guess.
OK, well I am looking forward to updating on NAIA Nationals next week! That’s all for now.
Feb. 15, 2010
So, my dear reader, in case you didn’t realize, the Winter Olympics opened Friday night in my home country. I watched the opening ceremonies with a group of my friends, who all made fun of me as I sat in front of the TV, excitedly telling them random facts about Canada.
Maybe they were just laughing at my beautiful red Olympic gloves I was wearing inside. One girl told me they looked like potholders. Oh well, I think they are awesome.
This has nothing to do with track, but it gave me an idea for an interesting way to open up this week’s entry. I thought I’d give my American teammates/readers a few random facts about Canada (not because I think you are ignorant.....just because it’s fun).
So.....Canada has a Prime Minister, not a President. His name is Stephen Harper. And no, he is not the Queen’s son. He is elected.
Canada has provinces and territories, not states. One province is named Saskatchewan. We also have a territory called Nunavut with its capital being Iqaluit. I think those are pretty cool names.
Tim Horton’s is basically like a Canadian cult. It is almost a daily staple in terms of coffee. I’d say there’s almost one Tim Horton’s every square mile. And the drive-thru’s are always full in the mornings with huge lines of people getting their "double-doubles" (coffee with two milks and two sugars).
OK, that’s all I have time for today, but maybe I will be throwing some more random Canadian facts at you as the season goes on.
As for the meet this past weekend at Indiana Wesleyan, I’d say it was a day of PR’s (personal records). Carolyn Case, Michelle Mead, Katie Lanphier, Rachel Meister and several others all achieved personal bests.
Other highlights included Lydia Wong not only winning the 800, but setting a field house record as well. Tara Leaman also achieved a provisional NAIA mark in her throwing event, which was super exciting!
The meet was a long day for us, but it was a low key meet. Many people were still trying to hit marks for NCCAA’s, which are coming up this weekend. Though it was a smaller meet, it was still very competitive, evidenced in Sammy Starr’s excellent run to seize the coveted 200 meter record.
Overall, this meet was a good stepping stone to finishing off the indoor season well (which I can’t believe is almost over!). One thing I learned from this meet was that even when it’s hard to stay motivated and "up" for every meet, each one is still so important.
Sometimes at this point in the season it’s easy to fall into a sort of lull and lose that competitive edge - call it mental burnout, maybe. However, every meet is important, even if, like me, you don’t run your best times.
Track is a sport of continual forward motion. Even if your times are taking steps backward and you feel like things aren’t going your way, you are still moving forward in your training simply by stepping on that track and running your hardest. Sorry if that sounds a little convoluted, but I’m kind of on a tight schedule to write this today.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that every meet, whether you meet your goals or not, whether you are feeling "up" or "down", is vital to your journey in reaching your potential as an athlete.
This weekend is NCAA’s, our Christian Nationals meet held here at the Doden Field House.....so come join the mayhem of thousands of people crammed inside the indoor track and cheer us on!
Feb. 8, 2010
So with all this snow lambasting southwestern Ohio today and the winter Olympics right around the corner I’ve been doing some serious thinking about my future and track. After much deliberation I’ve come to the conclusion that if my ambitions for an illustrious Olympic track career fall flat, I will instead become an Olympic bobsledder.
Apparently sprinters are in high demand for bobsledding teams (according to Ethan Blagg, anyway, who is probably one of the smartest of the young men on the track team). Maybe the 4 x 4 guys team will make a team too, and we will all meet up at the Olympics one day.
Anyway, these were the musings of my semi-awake brain early Saturday morning as we began our adventure to Findlay for the Division II Challenge. Normally a trip to Findlay wouldn’t be an adventure - just a two-hour jaunt past the cornfields onto an endless stretch of highway.
However, Saturday morning met us with six inches of snow and icy roads that threatened to cancel our trip. With the snow still blowing and ice forming on the inside of the bus windows, we still decided to traverse the frigid conditions in the beloved Cedarville little bus. Thankfully, we were in the safe hands of Coach Bo at the wheel. The trip took a while to say the least.....to put it in perspective it took us about 45 minutes to get to Springfield.
But we did all arrive in one piece and the busy day began.
For me, the highlight of the day was watching the guys 4 x 4 relay. I know they were really pumped up for the race and anxious to crush Cedarville’s 11-year old school record. With a gutsy come-from-behind effort they managed to do just that, get the record and make a provisional mark for NAIA's. My dad, who also came to watch, attributed their success to their polished handoffs. But, I know it was really their 4 x glasses.
The girl’s side saw many great successes, too. Though I wasn’t there to cheer them on, the DMR (distance medley relay) team made an automatic qualifying time for NAIA's - even with three freshmen on the team (Way to go Abby, Katie, Neola, and Carolyn!). Lydia Wong also ran a tough mile on Saturday to win the competition against a strong field of Division II athletes.
Even though we had several great results this weekend, I think what we will all remember was just the craziness of going to a track meet in the middle of a blizzard. Especially Leyna, our wonderful trainer, who had to spend the night sleeping in the training room after the Friday bus got back at 3:30 a.m.
With schedules that went from timed to rolling, roads that were slick enough to derail 22 cars on the highway, and athletes like Neola Putnam who spent close to 12 hours on a bus between the two days, it was certainly a memorable weekend.
So hopefully the snow will hold off enough for us to make it safe and sound to Indiana Wesleyan for this Saturday’s meet. Until then, I will be enjoying this snowy day of cancelled classes, chilling out and thinking about my future bobsledding career (I will be looking for sponsors).....and probably eventually heading over to the track for practice.....if I’m not snowed in
Shoutout for this week goes to my Grandpa in Windsor, Ontario.....everyone on the bus says thank you for all the caramels! Luv you!
Feb. 1, 2010
Just a heads up, this blog will not be highlighting any exciting or amazing accomplishments of the track team this weekend. In fact, I have nothing good to say concerning our competition. Nobody won. Nobody got PRs. Nobody qualified for NAIA’s. Everyone was terrible.
Just kidding.....
Don’t worry, we just didn’t have a meet this weekend, so nobody even competed. However, that does not mean I have run dry of wonderful and exciting and enlightening things to say (at least not this week anyway).
Because we had this weekend off, we were able to get in a solid week of hard training. I know the sprinters can attest to this, as we are still recovering from enjoying more time with our dear friends, Three Plus One and Polish 200 (aka, pretty hard workouts for you non-trackies reading this).
We also didn’t let this weekend off go to waste. Instead, almost everyone on the team was involved in helping host the second meet of the Richey High School Tune-Up at the Doden Field House. These meets serve as fund-raisers for the team and all of us have to help out, whether it’s chasing down miscreants with Christmas tree spikes or holding back throngs of distracted athletes trying to cross the track in the middle of a 4 x 200.
These glorious jobs of spike checking and gate keeping are usually what I end up being assigned to. However, this weekend I tried something a little bit different and, instead, helped out at shot put.
The interesting thing about track & field are the track and the field aspects of it. Because there are is such a wide range of events with specific training requirements and techniques, it’s almost like there are different little worlds within one sport.
That’s not to say you can’t feel team unity or connected with people from other events. It just means that you sometimes have to work a little harder to understand what your other teammates do.
For instance, on the track team, I spend my time in the sprinting world. I compete in the sprints, I train for sprints, and I workout, for the most part, with sprinters. I don’t practice with the throwers, and while I have watched and cheered for my throwing teammates, I am not very familiar with the ins and outs of shot put or weight throw or javelin.
This is why I so appreciated working with the shot put this weekend. It’s one thing to cheer for your teammates at a meet, not really understanding what was going on, and another to actually get involved with a solid shot put competition.
I was assigned to weighing in the shot puts (and also Marc and Jordan’s keys, wallets, and cell phones), but also got to help Rachel and Neil with the measuring. It was fun to ask Neil and Sarah Hannay (two of the best in our amazing league of throwers) questions about the shot put - like what measurements constitute a good throw for a high schooler or how hard is it to not foul or fall over.
Neil and Sarah were really in their element taking charge of the event and organizing it and it was just really fun to watch them do that. It really helped me achieve a new-found appreciation of shot put.
I think a lot of us on the team have similar feelings when helping out with these meets in events we don’t compete in. Even those who repeatedly get stuck on gate keeping duty can learn to respect the hard work of the excellent officials who run our meets. I really do think this makes us closer as a team and overall, more well-rounded as athletes.
So that was our weekend, not exciting competition wise, but rewarding all the same with getting our second fund raiser under our belts. We are now heading into a second week of intense training to prepare us for Saturday’s meet at the Findlay Division II Challenge.
This week’s shout-outs go to Sammy "Twinkle Twinkle Little" Starr for his amazing wildberry/peach smoothie-making abilities....and the other boys on the team who, like Sammy, are not ashamed to cry during A Walk to Remember.
Jan. 25, 2010
Sometimes in the midst of hardcore training and grueling competition, I forget one thing about track and field. You’d think after almost seven years of my life spent running competitively, I wouldn’t forget this thing.....but I admit that I do. I think it’s because track, perhaps even more so than other sport, is a repetitive, almost year-long, repetitive, daily, grueling, repetitive, discipline.
In other words, it can be tedious. It’s not that track is a static sport where nothing changes or there is no excitement: you may switch up an event at a meet, you may run a personal record, run at a higher level of competition, alter a workout, etc. Yet, when it comes to do it, the true nature of competitive track is found in the hard fought sweat of the daily grind.
This is why I sometimes forget - in the midst of the daily routine of warm-ups and speed workouts and special endurance workouts and ice baths - that track and field can actually be fun.
Now, before you judge me for being cheesy or cliché when I say that a sport is fun, know that I’m not trying to glorify something that isn’t true. I don’t want to lionize track as the "funnest" thing you can ever do with yourself on a daily basis. I’m not saying it’s a walk in the park, or that I wake up every morning anxious for the "fun" of practice. It’s hard work; hard work is, well, hard.
This is why it is so refreshing for me when I am reminded that there is fun to be had even in such a grueling sport. By nature, I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself for any meet, which sometimes can take the fun out of it. This year I’ve made it one of my goals to try and "lighten up" and enjoy the chance to run and spend time with my awesome teammates.
I guess this is on my mind today because I really enjoyed spending time with the team this weekend. It was our first away meet in Marietta, Ohio. It wasn’t a huge meet or overnight trip, but I still had a lot of fun, even in my running events.
Relays are great for this. Our 4 x 4 had an exciting finish, again with Joy (Santos) battling down the homestretch all the way to the line. Cheering for her while all of us were near collapse, is always a "fun", bonding experience for the team.
Other highlights included watching Chelsea Gruet, back with us after a severe back injury, to win the 55 meter hurdles (we’re so glad you’re back Chels!) and Tara Leaman winning the weight throw. Other strong performances from Katie Lanphier, with a dramatic finish in the 400, and Neola Putnam and Abby Wong in the 800 had us all cheering as well.
But behind the scenes of the races themselves, there was still fun to be had. Whether it was chilling to music before the event, taking dumb pictures of each other doing homework, pulling orange peels out of my hair on the bus, curling up with fuzzy blankets, talking with Carolyn about Ethan’s "proportional face," or eating more pieces of pizza than some of the boys after the meet was over, I really did enjoy myself despite any daunting tasks of the day (like running an indoor open 400 for the first time).
Oh, and how can I forget the fun of watching ten guys huddled around a computer screen (after the bus’s TVs failed) anxiously, perhaps even tearfully, awaiting the climax of August Rush.
I hope we will all continue to find the fun times in the midst of the tough times through this season, as this is the first of many more away meets to come.
Next week we have off, but will be hosting the Richey High School Invitational meet as a fund raiser for the team.
OK, that’s it for today.....thanks for reading!
P.S. My shout out for today is for Marla Rice! If you’re reading this Mar.....we ran the 4 x 4 with your lucky baton and I missed you!
Jan. 18, 2010
For lack of a better analogy, first track meets of the season are a bit like pulling off a band-aid. You know it’s going to hurt for a few seconds, but eventually, when it comes down to it, you just have to "suck it up", "dig deep", "bite the bullet" - to name a few of my favorite overused track clichés - and tear the thing off.
The initiation into track season is a similar affair. You know you’re going to have to exert yourself mentally and physically, in some ways, more than you have yet in all your training. But, when it comes down to it, you just have to get out there and do it - run, throw, jump, whatever.
OK, so it’s a bit of a lame analogy, but I am slightly pressed for time in writing this today.
Band-aids and clichés aside, our first track meet of the season has already come and gone. While many of us were edgy with nerves, uncertain of how we would fare, I felt that it was overall a positive experience for most people.
For anyone reading this who is not a "trackie" (as we are sometimes called), I’ll say up front that first meets are not usually when we perform our best times or push ourselves to the max. While we are coached to do our best at every meet, our "best" may look different depending on where we are at in the season. Because our season is so long, we have to pace ourselves, so to speak, in order to peak at the right time (meaning we perform at our highest possible measure at the most important meets, aka Nationals).
So this first meet was, for a lot of us, a way to shake the nerves out, get perspective on the season, and most importantly, discover where we are at. The beauty, and (in my opinion) sometimes bane, of track and field is that you can know exactly where you are at and where you need to go.
Unlike other sports where progress is harder to chart, track makes it very simple. For better or worse, you know precisely where you are simply by looking at the black numbers printed out and pasted on the results wall. You can’t make excuses. You can’t glorify your performance to be something greater than it was. Your times or measurements are concrete. It’s spelled out for you in simple black and white on computer screens or loose papers taped to the wall.
For me, this was the most nerve-wracking part of this first meet, finding out where I really was in my events after training since September. Now, with the first meet under our belts, most of us (depending on what events we competed in) have a specific idea of where we are at, how far we need to go to reach our goals, and can start thinking more about what we need to do to get there.
However, although I am downplaying first meet performances by putting it in this perspective, let me tell you that there were definitely some first-rate results from both the men’s and ladies’ sides.
The Wong sisters won both their races, Lydia in the 800 meters and Rachel in the 600 meters. The 4 x 400 relay team with Lydia, Joy Santos, Katie Lanphier, and myself also managed to pull off a win, with Joy fighting it out all the way to the line with the Wright State team. Freshman Neola Putnam also ran a solid mile in 5:25.46 to win her event. The women, as a team, placed 2nd overall.
For me, despite the nerves coming from the uncertainty of this first meet, I found the whole evening at the track to be a little more laid back and actually, dare I say it, a lot of fun. There is always a great camaraderie as we compete together, especially at home meets.
Despite the individual nature of track, it really does feel like a team sport at Cedarville. Whether it’s high-fiving people as you warm up or cheering until your voice is hoarse or helping a tired team mate take their spikes off after a tough race, you never feel like you’re there just for yourself. This first meet really reminded me of this, which is sometimes easily forgotten in the months of pre-meet training.
Alright, I think I’ve said enough for today. I have to save a little for the next 16 weeks of the season, I suppose. But before I do, I have just two quick shoutouts/postscripts/whatever you want to call them.....
Congrats freshmen on bravely getting through your first university-level meet! It’s official.....you’re in.
And (since this is my blog, I think I can say this) thanks mom and dad for crossing international borders to come cheer on the team last Friday! I love you both so much.
That’s it for now. Next meet, Jan. 23 in Marietta.
Jan. 11, 2010
January 15 - the date has been looming on the horizon of our minds for awhile now. I remember Coach Bolender giving us all a speech at the start of Fall training, warning us of the fast approaching nature of this day.
It’s a day that begins stepping out of bed feeling the prickling heat of anticipation breathing on our necks. A day of mental preparation and suppressed excitement, combined with those oh, so familiar waves of nervousness undulating on our insides.
A day where the laces of our spikes are tied with a special purpose and the newness of our uniforms is still something to revel in. Legs will be taped, bodies will be sweating, hamstrings will be stretched, and ibuprofen will be close at hand. And thus, at 4:00 p.m. this Friday, January 15, the 2010 indoor track season for the Yellow Jackets will be officially underway.
OK, yes, I’m being slightly dramatic here with this description, but I guess that’s the fun part about writing a sports blog. I’m free to overstate simply to give you (whoever you might be reading this) a small glimpse - with as much excitement as possible - into the world of Cedarville track and field.
To get acquainted real fast...my name is Alexa and I’m a sophomore English major. I’ve been running track (sprints) since ninth grade and this is my second year on the Lady Jacket team. I’m also Canadian (people seem to find that interesting). And no, sorry, I will not be ending any sentences in this blog with "eh," in case you were wondering.
Back to the point, our track and field indoor season begins this Friday at 4 p.m. in the Doden Field House. While this meet isn’t the biggest one we will attend, nor the most crucial in terms of qualifying, every meet in track and field is paramount in some way. For this meet, the significance lies in the anticipation of finding out exactly where we are at (in terms of our times/distances/heights etc.) and providing focus for the start of a season that does not end, for some, until almost June.
As you can imagine, there’s definitely a vast range of emotions. There’s excitement and anxiety to get these meets started after practicing and practicing and practicing for months. But, there’s also a bit of nervousness too, coming off a four-week break where we were reliant on individual training with, oftentimes, limited facilities. As Coach warned us, it’s easy to feel like this first meet has come too quickly.
But I know we’re ready to get started. According to Coach Bolender, we’ve had one of the best Fall training seasons he’s seen in a long time. We have been working hard for several months, including time trials before break; I know we can take heart in this. Also, the cross country women are now integrated into the track team after closing out their successful season and, despite a few nagging injuries, are ready to go as well.
What I have loved so far about training this year are the hard working spirits of the freshmen joining the team. On the girls side anyway, it seems there are more freshmen than returning athletes. I don’t have a count right now, but our freshmen seem to outnumber the juniors and seniors on our team. But, although our team is young, everyone has been working so hard and pushing me to work harder as well. This is why I am "realistically optimistic" about the upcoming season. I see the talent and work ethic at practice every day and the potential I see is promising.
However, track is unpredictable and carving your way through a successful season means dodging a host of possibilities for injury, burn-out, or illness (hence, the "realistic" part). Lord-willing, the hard working ethic of a team this deep - with its spirited up and coming athletes coupled with resilient returning athletes - will lead us to a successful start this Friday.
Alexa Winik is a sophomore English major from Windsor, Ontario. She was a five-time NCCAA champion sprinter as a freshman, was the NCCAA Indoor Outstanding Performer of the Meet, won three AMC events, and set four school records.
