Cedarville University Yellow Jackets

November 13, 2012

The cross country season is officially over for the women’s cross country team. We had two races this past weekend. Friday we had an open race for the girls outside of the top seven, and then Saturday we followed that with the NCCAA Championship race for the top seven.

Friday’s race was so much fun to watch! Our girls did a great job with a large group of them having season bests. Krista Johnson finished up her college career with an amazing race. She took a minute off of her best time and smashed the 20 minute mark by 25 seconds! It was incredibly exciting to cheer on our teammates and to watch them run hard and get good time.

Both Friday and Saturday we had beautiful mild weather to race in. We didn’t have any hurricane winds or freezing rain to break up the excitement of our last races. The NCCAA race was the largest that it has ever been. There were 35 women’s teams running, and 50 schools being represented, so it was a good race to end our season on. Before our race, Coach Bolender always gives us some last minute advice. As we got to the start of this race, he told us, like he normally does, to run a controlled first mile, but then he added that we should race like crazy the last two miles and have fun competing.

It might seem like racing and having fun cannot go together because racing is typically associated with lots of pain. This race, though, I really did enjoy competing. The whole time I was running, I was so excited to be racing for Cedarville University and with my teammates in my last cross country race. Of course, racing is hard and most of the time it doesn’t feel very good, but I was so thankful to be able to run for my team. I loved being able to see my teammates all around me and know that we worked hard all year together, and that we were all racing as hard as we could.

We placed sixth as a team, and Alex came in 8th place to get an All-American spot. After the race, Cedarville always hosts an awards banquet for all the teams. While some of the teams take the banquet as an opportunity to dress in goofy outfits, the Cedarville women’s team uses the banquet as a chance to get to wear dresses instead of our normal running clothes!

At the banquet the scholar-athletes from each team are recognized. These athletes have to be in their junior or senior year and have a GPA of over 3.4. As all of the Cedarville women scholar- athletes were being called, it was incredible to hear how many scholar-athletes we had! Being on a sports team (and for most of the girls competing all school year with outdoor and indoor track) takes up most of the free time in the week. The number of scholar-athletes we have is evidence of the dedication to academics that we have on the team. I hope that is a tradition that continues on our team.

With the season done for the year, it is always fun to look back at all of the good memories and races that we had over the last few months. The hard thing about running is that even when you put in months of hard work, the results are not always evident. This year was rough for many of the girls on our team as we struggled through sickness and injury, but we still ran well and gave our best races each time. While we always want to run fast, part of being on a team, especially cross country is about making relationships with your teammates. As we trained and competed together and worked our hardest to become better runners, we also gained friendships.

Even though this season may not have ended up quite as we would have liked, I think that it has been my favorite season yet. All of the girls (and the guys) on the team have made this season memorable. I have loved all of the hard workouts, team dinners, Bible studies, and hours of talking that goes on during our runs. It is hard to see this season end, but the good thing is that we still have the whole track season to run and race together!

I hope that by reading this you were able to get a small picture of the hard work that we have put into this season, and also the fun times that we have been able to have together. Thank you so much for reading the blog this year, for coming to watch us run, for cheering for us during our races, and for praying for us throughout the season!


November 6, 2012

This past weekend flew by for the women’s cross country team! We left last Thursday for Kenosha, Wisconsin to race in our first-ever NCAA DII Regional Championship. This trip was a little bit different than our last trip to Kenosha, mainly because we were traveling with the guys’ team. This meant that in addition to having less space on the bus, we started off the trip by watching the first 1.5 movies from the Lord of the Rings trilogy! It was a good start to the trip (and also a good end as we watched the last part of the trilogy on the return trip) and we continued the fun with rounds of “never have I ever” in the back of the bus!

We spent Friday morning running the course and making sure that we were familiar with the extra thousand meters that was added to make it a 6k. As we ran along the course in preparation of our race the next day, we talked about our racing strategies - especially about which side of the tree and subsequent hill we would run on! The left side has a more gradual hill, but is more distance to the next turn, but the right side has a considerably steeper grade. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the usual female pastimes: talking, shopping, and for the slightly boring group of us - studying. Friday night was our “senior night,” a time when the seniors on the team share their wisdom and advice to the underclassmen. After a devotional from Coach Bolender, it was our turn to share. As we went around the room talking about our four years of running with the team, I was amazed by how close we all have become, and how much we have all grown up. Four years ago we were a group of scared freshmen who didn’t know anything about being on Cedarville’s team or anything about each other. Now, we are leaving a group of slightly less scared seniors who don’t want to move away from the wonderful friendships that we have here on the team.

Saturday morning came very quickly. As we got our breakfast, packed up our rooms, and headed out to the bus the nervousness started to hit. We got to the course early so that the guys, who were racing first, would have plenty of time to warm up. This left us girls plenty of time to think about our race!

As we started our own warm up, the men’s race began and we got the chance to see Matt Brooker win the entire race and our men’s team become the first Cedarville team to qualify for an NCAA DII National Championship! After watching the guys race, we were excited to get our chance.

By the starting line was a countdown clock for the women’s race, and we anxiously watched as our own race time approached. Once we were actually on the line waiting for the gun to go off, the nerves disappeared. As the gun went off we all started up the hill (on the right side of the tree) and the competition began. We had some really solid races this weekend. Meghan Terrell had a fantastic race getting a PR in the 5k as she ran her way to a great 6k finish. Alex also had a good race, finishing 28th to just miss the top 25. Overall, we ran hard, but didn’t break into the top five team places. We were content with our effort, but disappointed that we didn’t have the perfect end to a good season.

As we made our way back home, we had time to finish the LOTR trilogy and enjoy the company of our teammates on the last trip of the season, and the last cross country trip for the seniors. It was a bittersweet feeling as we pulled back into Cedarville’s campus. It has been a good season and a good four years here, but I’m not sure if I’m ready for it all to be over yet! The good news is that we have one more race this weekend.

This weekend we host our last meet of the season, the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) Championship. It will be another good meet with some good competition from all around the United States. It will also be another chance to run and compete with my teammates!

Thank you to all of you who have supported our team this season. It has been great to see all of the families and friends who have come to the meets to cheer us on. We appreciate your cheers and your prayers! Thank you!


October 30, 2012

This week went by quickly! We had a busy weekend, and only have a few more days of classes before we head back to the beautiful Wisconsin course to run our first 6K of the season, and our first-ever NCAA II Regional race.

Our weekend was busy with the annual cross country Halloween party. We had a great time dressing up in our costumes, dancing (who knew cross country runners could pretend to be so coordinated!), and ending the night listening to Greg tell us scary stories.

This season has been full of amazing team memories. We have had so many chances to become closer friends, and I love it! I am so thankful that I will have a chance to look back on this season and have many good memories of all the time I could spend with my teammates.

With the end of the weekend and the start of the new week came the start of the winter weather. As the east coast is being pummeled with rain and wind, Cedarville is getting its small share of stormy weather as well. Monday afternoon as we ran on the course, we were pushed around by gusts of wind. We tried to be strategic and plan where our hard miles would be so that we could have the wind at our back. It was a hard workout for pacing, but we have had tons of practice all season as Coach Bolender has emphasized the importance of knowing our pace and effort.

Since we had a recovery run on our own today, I woke up this morning to get my run done early. I looked out the window to see what the weather was like, and was surprised to see snow on the ground! The peacefulness (except when the wind was driving frozen rain into my face!) of the morning was wonderful and just what I needed to go along with the Christmas music that I was listening to! Needless to say, the weather is getting colder here at Cedarville, and the winter jackets and boots are quickly appearing from the closets. As we all get ready to brave the cold weather that is coming to Cedarville, we are also looking forward to the rest of the week away from Ohio.

The highlight of this week is still coming up. On Thursday we leave for Kenosha, Wisconsin where we will once again run on the Wisconsin Parkside course. This time, though, we will be running a 6K instead of a 5K. We will also be running with the chance to get one of the Top 5 spots in the region to make it to the NCAA DII National race.

We will all have to run a perfect race to have a shot at going, but as coach says, we can only control how we run on a given day, not how everyone else runs. We are preparing ourselves physically by cutting down on our workouts and making sure that we sleep enough and get the right nutrition. It takes a lot of determination to make yourself keep running hard in a race when you are really tired, but the close friendships that we have among all of our team will help us to rely on each other to run as hard as we can, and will help us find some extra motivation while we are racing this weekend.

As we travel and race this weekend, we have a great chance to show people the love of Christ through our words, actions, and attitude towards running, our teammates, and even our competitors. As we run our race, we have a chance to use the talents that God has given us while doing something that we love. It will be an exciting race, and a good chance to show how much work we have put into the season. Pray for us as we compete, and if you can find the time, come watch us run!


October 23, 2012

It’s nearly the end of October, and at Cedarville that means Fall Break has come and gone. This past week was a welcome break from classes, but definitely not a break from studying! Our incredibly smart team (really, we have the highest GPA of any of the sports here at CU) does not take a break lightly! Of course, that doesn’t mean that we still didn’t find some time to enjoy some team events as well.

Thursday we had another guys/girls team dinner and hangout together. Tabby and I decided that we are going to be pros at making food for parties by the time the cross season ends! With a bunch of the guys pitching in to help chop up vegetables and make hamburgers, the meal was ready in no time and we all had a great time cooking. After a great dinner, we had a pumpkin carving competition! Since we all get very competitive in our races, we, of course, became competitive in our carving as well. Some masterpieces began to emerge as the groups began to plan and carve their pumpkins until someone (a male, no doubt) decided to fill the pumpkins with hay and light them on fire so that we could see them better! The idea definitely worked, and we had some crazy looking pumpkins! To make the night even better, we ended with story telling around the campfire. It was great to see everyone’s personalities come out in the way that they shared their adventures.

With a full night of relaxation and fun already over, Fall Break was turning out to be a great stress reliever, and we still had another full day left! Friday evening the girls got together again for a team dinner, but this time we followed it with our team Bible study. Jen (a wonderful alumni) led us in our Bible study and prayer for each other. I know I’ve said it a lot, but I LOVE the way that this team encourages each other in every aspect of life. Whenever I have a stress in my life, I can always count on my teammates to pray for me on the spot, and to continue praying for me after that!

Fall Break wasn’t just about hanging out with the team; we also had to prepare for our race on Saturday. We hosted our first G-MAC championship race at our beautiful course. On race day morning, though, the weather wasn’t looking so beautiful when I got up to get ready. The sky was overcast and rain was drizzling down while I found my uniform and checked for my spikes. By the time I was ready to walk over to the course, though, the rain had stopped and the sun was just starting to shine through the clouds. When race time came around the sun was shining and you couldn’t even tell that it had rained.

The conference race was interesting because this is its inaugural year. Because of this, we have a very small conference. Our team made up half of the race! Needless to say, we did very well. We won the meet with a perfect score, and we took every spot in the top 10. We also had 12 of the top 15 spots overall. So basically, our team single handedly made up the entire All-Conference First Team! It was a fun race, but it was also difficult to maintain our competitive feel when our competitors were mostly our own teammates running around us.

Our next race, though, should definitely be different! We are looking forward to going back to Kenosha, Wisconsin for our regional race on Saturday, Nov. 3. Our workouts and focus have been preparing us to this point, and it will be exciting to see how we do as a team. As we reach this point in our season, the hard work that we put in throughout the summer and during the early season is really showing.

Thank you to all of the parents and other spectators who came to our race on Saturday. It was good to be able to see all the families, and we could definitely hear (and use) the cheering!


October 16, 2012

To start off the blog for this week, I need to thank Jasmin and Tabitha for filling in for me last week. It’s great to have good teammates who can write an awesome blog for me when I’m not here!

This week we have been gearing up for our first ever G-MAC Championship meet. We are hosting the meet on our home course, and it’s going to be great! We have a pretty small conference this year, but it is still an important meet for us. Whoever wins our conference meet will move on to the regional meet which is back in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We all loved that course when we ran on it last week because of the rolling hills, fall leaves, and beautiful trails and we definitely want a chance to go back and run on it again!

As we prepare for our conference meet, coach has us getting in some good last workouts before we start our post season. Thursday morning we had a hard workout running repeat 400’s on the track. It was an incredibly cold morning, with the frost still on the ground and the stars shining bright when we got up. We are starting to have to wear more and more layers when we get up in the morning to run! This week we also started doing mile repeats. We’ve been working our way up with the distance of our longer interval workouts, and we finally made it to miles! I wasn’t able to be here when we did the workout, but from what I hear, everyone did a really good job of staying tough and getting the times that they were supposed to. I was again reminded of how great my teammates are when, on Saturday, a group of them ran their long run on our cross country course so that they could encourage me while I ran the mile repeat workout that I had missed.

Another exciting occurrence this week is fall break! Although college is all about classes, getting a break from school work is a great way to catch up on sleep and homework. It also means a chance to get together with the team and have team dinners! We are already planning some of the fun activities that we will be having over our break.

As the semester crosses the half way point, and we finish up our midterms, it is fun to think back on all the great memories and tough races that we have already had as a team. It is amazing that just a few months ago we had never met the freshmen on our team. Now, I can’t imagine the team without them!

We are definitely winding down the season, and the races become more significant the closer we get to the end. That is good reason to come out and support the team! We really would love to have anyone come watch the race on Saturday. When we are running, we need all the encouragement we can get, even if we don’t hear you yelling half the time! We race at 10:30 a.m. and if you trust the weather forecast it is supposed to be a beautiful, clear day - perfect for racing.


October 9, 2012

Flashback!

This week, I, Jasmin Banachowski, will be bringing you part one of the blog this week! We had a solid performance at the Wisconson-Parkside Invitational this past Saturday. But these things don’t just happen on accident. As coach Bo would say, “The difference between good and great is attention to detail.”

So in part one of this week’s blog, I will be bringing you:

The Top 7 Ways to Prepare for an Away Meet.

(**NOTE: if you are wondering the significance of “Top 7,” it’s because 7 runners run in a varsity cross country race. If anyone besides runners reads this. )

1.  Don’t stress over spilled milk - since a few girls on our team have class until 5:30 p.m., our bus would be leaving Cedarville University at promptly 5:45 p.m.. This would mean we would arrive around 11:00'ish, slightly after actually, with an hour cushion for the time zone switch and one five-minute potty break. However, our team, who is typically very prompt when it comes to time, forgot to eat dinner, bring their homework, bring their running shoes… you name it, we forgot it. Alex began the race, fleeing to Chuck’s for a quick to-go box. Off to a slower start, “Beets” DeHart followed, figuring she had some time to roll out her hammies in the training room since the bus wasn’t rolling out of CU. As they were tightly coming down the homestretch to the bus, Rachel “Bootleg” McKinley shot up realizing her philosophy was out of brain, and in the dorm. She sprinted to her room, mind you, barefoot with a possible stress fracture, to realize her roomie had locked her out. Sprinting back and grabbing her key, we asked her to walk safely this time. As a five-year old would, she frustratingly walked the walk of shame. The bus let out a sigh of empathy for her. But this sigh was shortly gone. Miss Bootleg is a sneaky one. She walked until she was “out of sight” (she didn’t quite wait long enough) and took off sprinting to her room again. It was pretty hilarious. On top of that, we got down the road about a half hour to pull over on the side of the road for another 20 because something was wrong with the bus. I honestly never found out what it was. All that said: we didn’t leave until around 6:10 p.m. and had a bus glitch, putting us in WI about 45 minutes later than hoped and to bed a bit later. If you know anything about distance runners, they prefer to be in bed by 9:30, 10 at the latest, and this was not gonna happen tonight. But sometimes, life happens, and we have to take an obstacle, make it a laugh, and sing the words of our good friend Jesse McCartney: Don’t stress, don’t stress, don’t stress!

2.  Have some GIRL TALK! - you know, when girls sit for hours talking about everything and anything and its “the best talk ever?” extremely important for race preparation. And we didn’t just talk about boys thank you.

3.  Play MASH - you know, that game you played in middle school that told you if you would marry the person of your dreams, and if you would live in a mansion, apartment, shack, or house? On our seven-hour bus ride to Cheese Land, aka, Wisconsin, we spent two of those hours finding out our futures. Of all the girls on the team, Kathryn “Kitty Kat” Sill has the best future awaiting her; she will be living in Cedarville in a shack as a teacher with no children, married to the man of her dreams, whose name is confidential. But Kat’s pretty excited about it… I’m sure if you asked her who her who the future man is, she’d be overjoyed to tell you.

4. Take your mind off things a bit. Get up at dawn and crank out some homework! - What? Got up around 7:30 a.m. to get a nice yummy breakfast before our run, to see 10 girls typing away at some homework on their laptops. Yes, I am proud to be on the sports team with the highest GPA, (3.75 woot woot!) but 7:45 a.m.? I felt guilty and quickly ran upstairs to get my books.

5. Run on the cross country course from heaven! - why do you never see distance runners on a treadmill? That’s because there is nothing better than a long run, admiring the beauty of the outdoors. And was this course a sight for sore eyes! The starting line was nearly a football field in length, with huge, deep-fall-covered trees lining the straight away. After about 400 meters of flat was 800 meters of hill, and then the rest of the course was a four-foot wide trail in the woods. It was beautiful! You wanna get us excited to run, you took us to the perfect course! We were also pretty excited that our whole second mile was a downhill, so we wouldn’t just be enjoying the beauty, we’d be flyin’ through it. We were pumped to race this course!

6. Go on a SHOPPING SPREE!!! - After lunch, I was handed the team credit card to spend on a runners dream food...FRUIT. Wanna see a bus full of 20 girls get excited? Run to the local market, buy every variation of apple, including red divine, jazz, golden delicious and honeycrisp, and say “FREE APPLES!” you will see those skinny girls come runnin’.

7. Do a Ministry! - If you’re gonna prepare for a good trip, there better be some Jesus in it! We spent Friday night at Shepherd’s College/Ministry, which is a place where people who are mentally handicapped can live and also get a degree in Horticulture or Culinary Arts. This is an awesome ministry. This place is 100% committed to basing everything they do on the gospel, and it was super evident. And did they bless us! We got to help them set up and host a Special Olympics awards ceremony. Our favorite part was talking to the residents and college students. We had never met such kind people. I literally stood in one spot for a good half hour, and was constantly greeted with handshakes, hugs, and friendly greetings from people I had never met before. It was a beautiful picture of the body of Christ, interacting with no social barriers, no judgments, presuppositions… it caused a lot of reflection in all of us as to how we treat and interact with the people around us.

Distance runners have some serious endurance, but by the time tip number 7 came around, we were pooped. It was approaching 9:00 p.m. when we arrived back at our hotel. And we were crawlin’ up the stairs to our beds. We had a big day tomorrow, and were ready to hit the hay!

Now Tabitha DeHart, one of the infamous sophomores, will take over (I have my eye upon this blog and hope I shall be filtering our team life through my computer keys sometime in the future)

Yes, well we all got to bed. And then we were up around seven, breakfasted, and were off into the chilly air (and then overly hot bus) to our meet. We raced at 10:00 a.m.; but before that, the girls had to solve the conundrum of how many and which articles of warmth to wear for the race.

At the booming of the cannon (a unique way to start a race -- we’re used to smaller firearms), we set off, some in arm sleeves, a few in tights, some in gloves, and some in nothing (well, aside from the sleeveless singlet and shorts). After 400 meters of a wide, open field flanked by trees, the course rose up to a long, multi-bumped hill. The first mile was 60% uphill, so Coach told us to run mile one conservatively, then start racing miles 2 and 3 (this is what he tells us to do every race). We all did great with that. :) A lot of us also did well in running in clumps, which helps us push even when we don’t want to and then push teammates when they are feeling weaker; it’s also a mental-strengthener. :) The second mile was 60% downhill, and the girls REALLY flew down the hard-packed dirt trails; Jasmin’s group ran their second mile a minute faster than their first; Abby pulled me along at an alarming rate - she was awesome at pushing that second mile. The last mile was about equal parts hill and downhill, ending on a downhill which spit us out into the field for the final finish-line-push.

Overall, our girls ran really well. My heart wells up with glad pride for them. :) I wish I could speak of each girl, but instead, will point out some stand outs: Neola Putnam who ran a mind-boggling 18:40 to place second for us, Carolyn Case who ran much better than she was expecting after dealing with some sickness and fatigue lately (and placed third), and Melanoma Redfield. I am really proud of her PR. :) Also one of our freshmen Kristen Laaman, who competed in her first race coming off of a knee injury, and not only broke 20 minutes, but had a great mental race (I judge the goodness of a race by both components). Megan also ran great after taking off the last couple races, AND HER IRON (or perhaps more accurately, ferratin?) IS AT 50! A lot of other girls had PR’s (including me) or at least season PR’s (personal records).

Anyway, we were a rejoicin’ team, made even prouder by our boys who ran at 11 a.m., WHO WON THEIR MEET! They were led by Matt Brooker, who placed first, and got some pretty loud cheering (especially from the two Tabithas), as did all the other boys.

Also, I should mention one of the best parts of the meet (not really, but it made me happy) were the rows of clean, colorful! porta potties - “the cleanest porta potties around,” as we were told - blue, red, turquoise! And positioned well (close to the starting line) for that last-
minute-before-the-race sprint.

Well, time to leave the meet - afterhand (I’d like to use this word even though I don’t think it exists) we showered, and mounted the bus, weary. We stopped at the “Mars Cheese Castle” on the way back to buy some snacks - delish cheese and other yums - to hold us over until our sumptuous lunch at the Outback Steakhouse. Needless to say, our Coach takes good care of us - whether it’s hotel accommodations, plenty of food and some very nice restaurant meals as well, or a bus with a bathroom (without a light).

Another highlight of the way back to Cedarville was a time of sharing we had on the bus. Coach had asked each of us to bring a verse or inspirational quote to share with the people at Shepherd’s Ministries, but since we never had an opportunity to do so, we shared our verses
with each other, along with any reflections we had on our time at Shepherd’s. It was really cool. It was encouraging to hear God’s faithfulness and goodness proclaimed again and again through the lips of each of the girls, and to get a window into each heart and what God’s been doing in their lives.

Well, as the car talk brothers would say “thanks for wasting a perfectly good hour listening to us.” Yes, this has been RATHER long but such happens when we are talking about a three day trip. And here I’d like to thank the parents, particularly, who read this blog, for your prayers - there are probably multiple people supporting any one girl through her race, and we know God works through prayers. Of course, we realize that how we perform is not the most important thing, so thank you all for the many ways you pray for us, and please continue to lift up our several injured girls (Hannah, Lauren, and the recovering ones/ones struggling with different health issues: Megan, Grace, Tabby, and Carolyn (and not-far-removed-from-injury Kristin).


October 2, 2012

This past weekend, the cross country team had another chance to race, and it was not just any race. We hosted the All-Ohio cross country race at our home course, and welcomed nearly 1,500 runners to our home course on Saturday. With about 50 of the teams in Ohio attending, the race was very competitive. The day before the race, the course was busy with all of the people working to get it into perfect shape for the hundreds of runners preparing to trample the grass the next day. The coaches and staff were busy painting logos, repainting the lead lines on the grass, and hanging signs to make the course ready for the swarms of people set to arrive.

Race day dawned beautiful. The weather was warmer than it had been earlier in the week, with the temperature reaching mid 70’s by the time our race came around at 2:00 p.m. Because this was a big race, we had to split the team into two groups. The first group made up of the Top 7 ran in the scored championship race while the other group ran in the open race. While it feels strange not running with all of my teammates, I also love cheering on all the girls and getting the chance to watch them race.

The first group of girls including Alexandra, Neola, Tabitha, Grace, Rachel, myself, and Carolyn were excited to get the racing day started with our race at 2:00 p.m. Coach had again prepped us to run a conservative first mile and then to start getting competitive and racing the second two miles. The start of this race was much bigger than the other races that we had been in so far. We were in the 27th starting block out of nearly 50 boxes. This meant that we were near the middle of the pack. As soon as the gun went off, the whole field of girls took off down the first straightaway. The feeling that comes with running with hundreds of other people is incredible. Being surrounded by the sounds of pounding feet and girls encouraging their teammates while fighting to keep my spot in the pack always fills me with enough adrenaline to get through the first 800 meters without realizing that I am even running yet! I always love watching all of the team colors clash and then slowly incorporate until everyone is mixed into a giant pack of runners. This week we did not race quite as strong as we did two weeks ago, but we still had a good showing coming in fourth for the NCAA II/NAIA teams.

In the open race, our girls ran very well. Our cross country athlete of the week (picked by the captains) Ali Logan had an exceptional race breaking 20 minutes for the first time. We had several girls PR in their races, which is a great accomplishment after two hard weeks of workouts. In both races our girls ran incredibly hard. Rachel McKinley literally ran until she dropped. She was 400 meters from finishing the race when she passed out right in front of Coach Bo. He quickly picked her up and was able to run her over to get help from the trainers so that she was able to recover quickly. The determination in cross country runners can be seen in athletes like Rachel, and also from Tabby Moore. She ran her first race of the season after being injured for most of the summer. She ran an amazing race moving up the entire time.

Some people may wonder why we run so hard that we get sick at the end of a race, or why we will still want to run after being injured. This is part of the dedication that running cross country takes. When we are out running on the cross country courses, we are not thinking about stopping or what hurts, instead we are thinking of our team and how hard we have all worked together. Running can be incredibly painful, but it can also be exhilarating. Running a hard race and knowing that you have given everything that you can is a wonderfully satisfying feeling.

If you have never gotten a chance to experience the feeling of finishing a good race, then you should try it. Sign up for a 5K and run a race for yourself! Or, if you don’t want to, then you can always come watch us run and experience it vicariously! We have another race this weekend in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It will be our first time this season traveling overnight for a meet, and I’m sure that my next blog will be full of stories from our trip!


September 24, 2012

Fall is here! The cool weather arrived at Cedarville just in time for the official start to the fall season. The nights are getting chilly and we actually have to wear more than just a tank top and shorts for morning practice! The weather has been perfect for cross country racing, and the good news is that we have a race this weekend!

Since we didn’t race this past weekend, coach had us do some hard workouts instead. We ran 1000 meter repeats on Tuesday morning, a “steady state” run on Thursday, and a “negative split” run on Saturday! All of our running paces for our workouts are based off of how fast we have raced. For example, the steady state run is supposed to be at a level difficult enough that we are working hard, but is not supposed to move us into the anaerobic level of respiration, which would cause our muscle function to decrease.

So, we run our steady state runs one minute per mile over our 5k mile pace. For a negative split run, we start off running 1:30 over our 5k mile pace and then take off 15 seconds every two miles till we go the distance that we need. Both of these workouts are designed to help us get used to pushing our bodies just a little bit further while maintaining a good control of the pace.

Besides the wonderful temperatures this week, Saturday also marked one of the first truly windy days of the season. Cedarville is notorious for the windy gusts that can literally blow you off course! Saturday we were supposed to run our negative split run sometime throughout the day. Being a procrastinating type, I pushed back my run until after doing homework and working on all of the other things on my to-do list. By the time I was running it was nearly 5:00 p.m. in the evening, and the wind was definitely picking up. Instead of being a good pacing workout, my run turned into a crazy attempt at pacing! I would run as hard as I could go into the wind and be too slow, and then I would turn around and feel like I was jogging and end up going way too fast!

The start to this new week of training and classes started off wonderfully. We had a beautiful day to run an aerobic run on some of the “hilly’ roads around Cedarville. Because Cedarville is basically built on cornfields, hills are clearly lacking. To make up for that, we purposefully find the roads with the most hills and run them whenever we have a chance. For today’s run we had perfect weather with a shining sun and a clear sky, and a great run full of entertaining conversations. Coach Bo and his wife who is also our assistant coach, Coach Sharie, were both at practice today, so a few of us girls got to run our whole nine miles with them. Having coaches who are able and willing to run with us is one of the greatest parts of Cedarville’s team. Seeing all of Coach’s instructions about running and training lived out in his and Coach Sharie’s own lives is a testimony to his coaching style as well as to his dedication to the sport he coaches.

I am finding out more each day that I really look forward to practice each day and I miss the days that I can’t make it. I am not just looking forward to running hard and getting faster, but I enjoy seeing each of the girls and laughing so hard that I can’t finish my hurdle mobility drills! I always wonder how we must look to the other sports. As they are scrimmaging and doing conditioning drills, we are running, (we do lift and do drills as well, but the majority of our training is running, obviously) talking, and laughing about whatever crazy things have happened in each of our lives. Maybe it’s just because my senior year is going by much faster than I thought it would, but I am realizing each day that I am never going to be able to experience a team like this ever again. I can’t wait to have another chance to race this weekend with my wonderful team!

Speaking of races, you should come watch our race this weekend! We are hosting the All-Ohio meet again this year, and it is going to be a great race. Nearly all of the universities and colleges from all over Ohio come to this race. This is definitely a race you don’t want to miss. We’ll have girls racing at 2:00 and 3:30 on Saturday. Come if you can, and pray for all the teams traveling and competing whether you can come or not!


September 17, 2012

Thank you so much to all of the parents, alumni, and fans who came to watch us this past weekend! The weather was beautiful, the cheering was loud, and the race was amazing! If you didn’t make it to the race I’ll fill you in on what happened. First, though, I have to tell you about our pre-race preparations.

Friday night we had a women’s and men’s team dinner at Scott’s house to relax and enjoy a great meal together before we had to race the next day. Jasmin, Tabby, Scott, and I loved shopping for all of the food and filling an entire cart! Cooking dinner and eating together was the perfect way to relax from our pre-race nerves. If you want to see pictures, you can look at (and like) the Cedarville Men’s Cross Country Team on Facebook. Jimmy has done a fantastic job being the team photographer. I don’t think that we have had this many pictures taken in my three previous years of running combined!

Saturday morning we made our way over to the cross country course. As we waited for the men’s race to start, we exchanged Secret Sister gifts. Having Secret Sisters is a tradition on the women’s team. We pick names out of a hat and then pray and encourage the teammate that we picked. On race day we typically give our Secret Sisters a card with an encouraging note or Bible verse. It is a good way to encourage our teammates, and it is also fun trying to figure out who is giving you notes!

We started our warm up right as the guys started their race so that we could run around the course and watch their race. It was the most inspiring warm up I have ever been on! All of the guys did a fantastic job racing and easily won the meet. It was awesome to see the depth of their team. Our training for the past month that we’ve been at school has physically prepared us to race well, and watching the guys dominate in their race mentally prepared us to race hard.

After watching the guys run, it was our turn to race. As we lined up at the start, each of the girls was expecting a good race, and that’s exactly what we had. Our amazing freshman Alexandra blew past all of the competition to come in first and also get a huge PR! Neola, Rachel, Tabitha, and Grace each had fantastic pacing to finish in our top five with myself and Ali rounding out the top seven. Throughout the race, our practice on the course and coach’s attention to pacing was evident as we were all able to start off with a solid first mile and then pass people from there. You may have noticed some of the usual names missing from our top seven. We have had quite a few injuries and sicknesses so far this year, and we had a group of girls who sat out the race in order to take time to recover from sickness and injuries. Even without all of our runners, though, we still were strong enough to win the race!

The rest of the day was filled with helping out with the high school and middle school races that followed our race. We were all kept busy selling concessions and t-shirts and directing the runners after their races. After a long, but awesome day, we were all worn out and ready for naps and studying!

The race was a reflection of the hard work that we have put in this year, but also of God’s grace in allowing us to run. We are blessed to be on this team, and to have the ability to praise God through our running!

Thank you again to those of you who pray for us and support us by coming to the meets. It is awesome to see all of you!


September 10, 2012

The women’s team didn’t have a race this week, but that didn’t stop us from going to one! Friday afternoon we piled into our cars and drove to Cincinnati to watch the men’s team race. We left as soon as we could after classes, but we didn’t plan time to get stuck in traffic. We made it to the park where the guys were racing barely a minute before they shot the gun and the race started. The men’s team did a great job, winning the whole meet! It was awesome to see how strong a team they are, and it will be super exciting to watch them race in their next meets. Watching them race was definitely worth the time spent driving!

Because we didn’t have a race this weekend, we had a little bit extra free time to enjoy, and what could be better than having extra time to spend with the team! One of the advantages of being a senior at Cedarville is that you can live off campus. With most of our senior girls and a bunch of the senior guys having houses and apartments around town, we have plenty of opportunities to have team events away from campus. Saturday night we had a fantastic men’s and women’s team bonfire at Scott’s (a captain on the men’s team) huge house where we had a chance to chill with the team and enjoy a beautiful evening.

Monday night’s are team dinner nights for the women’s team at my apartment. Tabby and I both live off campus this year, and one of the things that we have been missing is spending time with the team during meals at Chuck’s. Tabby and I love planning and cooking meals, so having team dinners seemed like a perfect way to make home cooked meals for the rest of the team while we also get to enjoy team meals. Every time I get the chance to enjoy a team event, or even go to practice, I am reminded of how blessed I am to be a part of such a wonderful team.

This week we have been working hard to get ready for our race this weekend. Tuesday we had a great workout of 1000 meter repeats on our course. The workout was important not only because of the physical benefits that it will have, but also because of the mental toughness that we gained. Staying mentally strong and positive throughout a race is one of the most crucial parts of racing, and when we are doing hard workouts on our cross country course we get a chance to practice that in a simulated race setting.

This Saturday we will have our first race on our home course. As we run our workouts on our course, almost every time that we have been out running the maintenance crew has been working on it. Because of all of the hard work that goes into it, we have one of the best grass courses I have ever run on. The back stretch of our course has been leveled out over the summer, so the footing is much better and the drainage has been improved so it’s not muddy after it rains. Because we run our workouts on the course, we have also become really familiar with the different parts of the course that we really need to focus on during a race. Being familiar with the course definitely gives us a home team advantage, and it will be exciting to see how we can all compete on a familiar course!

As we get closer to the race and the excitement and nerves start to rise, please pray that we will be able to compete in a way that honors God. If you have the time (it’ll be less than half an hour!) come out to Cedarville on Saturday to watch us race and cheer us on!

As always, thanks for reading, and I hope we see you this weekend at the race!


September 3, 2012

Saturday was this season’s first race of the year! We had a good showing at the Dayton Flyer meet, coming in first for the DII, DIII, and NAIA division. As we got on the bus to head out to Dayton, we looked over maps of the course, took naps, and tried to calm the pre-race nerves. The course itself isn’t too bad. It is actually really flat, with a random “hill” in the middle of it that you have to run up twice. The worst part of the course is having to run by the water park that is right beside it! With the course being flat, the difficulty of this race came from the weather. This meet has been very hot for the last few years, and this year was no exception.

As the time approached for us to race, the temperatures and the humidity started rising. Before the start of the race, Coach Bolender gave us a talk to get us motivated to run slow! He was concerned that we would get too excited and go out too fast for our first mile, and in the heat that could definitely ruin our race. He had us all choose a goal time for our first mile that was well below what we would normally run. We all followed his plan and hit our mile times right on. From there, Coach told us to run our own races and to try to pick up the pace. Our girls ran well despite the heat and humidity, and although Rachel and Tabitha both had to be doused in water and covered with ice bags at the end of the race they recovered well and no one had to go the hospital or get an IV! (Jasmin was taken to the hospital last year with heat stroke, but she finished strong this year!)

Overall, the team did a great job of running together in packs of teammates and passing people as the race moved past the first mile. Our freshmen had some great races this weekend with Alex Archambault leading our team to win the DII section of the meet in her first collegiate race! The other girls in our top seven included seniors Neola Putnam, Carolyn Case, and Meghan Terrell, sophomores Rachel McKinley and Tabitha DeHart, and freshman Ali Logan. Although this meet was tough because of the weather, we were able to pull together when we needed to and come home with a win!

This week marked not only our first race, but also our first morning practice. Thursday morning found us outside warming up in the early hours of the morning so that we could be ready to start our workout at 6:40. As we each warmed up on the gravel paths and sidewalks of Cedarville, we got to enjoy one of the perks of the early morning: a beautiful sunrise. As the sun came up, we started our workout on the track. You may be wondering what exactly we were doing practicing so early in the morning, which is the same question many of us were asking ourselves while we were warming up! A lot of the girls on our team cannot make it to practice very often because of classes, labs, and internships. Coach is great at making us a tight team, and one of the ways to do that is to have all of us at practice. A morning practice allows us to all practice at the same time, and also brings us closer as a team as we get to know everyone’s morning personalities!

This blog would not be complete without including some of the Labor Day traditions of Cedarville. Because Cedarville dubs itself the “Birthplace of Labor Day,” Labor Day is a very big deal in this little town. Monday morning a group of us girls got together to run a LSD (Long Slow Distance) run with Coach Sharie. After running 12 miles in the sprinkling rain, we ended up at the Fire Hall to pay with our soggy dollar bills, stand in line with our soaking wet clothes and hair, and enjoy a wonderful pancake breakfast! The fun that we have as a team practicing together and then hanging out in our free time makes this team great! The day ended with fireworks in the park and all the girls getting to bed early so that we could be ready to wake up before the sun and run another morning practice.

Thanks so much for reading about our week, and thank you to any of you who were able to come to our meet last Saturday. It is always wonderful to see the alumni, family, and friends who come out to watch the team and cheer us on! If you have some free time on Friday, go watch the Yellow Jacket men’s team run at 5:00 p.m. in Cincinnati!


August 27, 2012

The 2012 cross country season has finally arrived! Hello to all of our families, alumni, friends, and others who are reading this blog! Thank you so much for taking the time to check out our cross country blog. Your support and prayers are what helps us to succeed as a team. My name is Abby Wong, and I will be blogging for the team this season. I’m a senior biology major, and one of the co-captains of the cross country team along with Meghan, Carolyn, and Jasmin. I’m super excited to show you a little bit of what it’s like to be on our team!

To start, I have to introduce the team. Our returning seniors are Meghan Terrell, Carolyn Case, Hannah (almost Mrs. Brooker!) Lamos, Krista Johnson, Neola Putnam, Tabby Moore, and I. It is amazing to think that we have run together for three seasons, and that we are going into our final season of cross country.

We also have an amazing returning junior class including Jasmin Banachowski, Grace Campbell, Elisa Cherry, Gina Mattes, and Joanna Wheatley. The sophomore class, who are still responding to being called freshmen, includes Melanie Redfield, Louise Van Matre, Tabitha DeHart, Lauren Callahan, and newcomer to the cross team - Rachel McKinley. The new freshmen to the team are a wonderful bunch of girls from all around the country (you can check out our bios on our web page for more info). We have Margo Watson, Ali Logan, Kathryn Sill, Alex Archambault, and Kristen Laaman.

For all of us, the season started about two weeks after track ended, because that’s when we had to start running and training again. After running all of our hot summer miles without the company of our teammates, we were incredibly excited to be united again for camp week. The start of camp week was busy with helping each other unpack our cars, catching up on summer stories (and hearing about Meghan’s engagement story!), and meeting the new freshmen. Being away from the team for the whole summer really brings into focus how close the cross country team is. The hard workouts, Bible studies, and long runs with nothing to do but talk and run have brought us all together in a way that is hard to imagine unless you see it first hand.

Of course, we didn’t just hang out during camp week; we also had some running to do! Coach Bolender had some good workouts planned for us in the nearby parks, and the trails really kept us cool in the great Ohio weather. We all worked hard and had a good first hard workout with 400’s on the track. The extra energy that comes from running with teammates was obvious as the workout was challenging but much more enjoyable than running solo!

Unlike some of the other teams who have to practice multiple times a day, runners (or at least the women’s team) typically lift and run only once a day. With all of our extra free time, Coach Bo had planned lots of fun bonding activities throughout the week. One of the most memorable events was spending an afternoon canoeing. The day was made even more exciting with an impromptu game of “Queen of the Mountain” on a muddy bank, which resulted in everyone falling, slipping, or being pushed into the water and being covered with mud! The finale of the afternoon was an awesome rope swing. Almost everyone took a turn swinging into the water, and we found out that Coach Bo has a pretty good Tarzan scream!

One of my favorite parts of being on the team is the way in which we use our running to draw closer to God. While running the other day, we had an impromptu prayer time, taking turns praying for different people while we ran. Sitting in chapel with the team each day, and praying with Coach before the start of practice serves as a continual reminder that we are running as a way to honor God both in our training and competition as well as in our attitudes towards our teammates and competitors.

Thanks again for following our team’s blog! I hope to be able to fill the blog with stories of our successes, and the way that God is using us and our running to honor Him! When you think of it, pray for us to be a light for Him, and if you’re in the area, come support our team in our first race of the season (and also our first race as a NCAA DII school!) on Saturday in Dayton!


Abby Wong is a Dean's Honor List student as a senior majoring in biology from Dillsburg, Pa.