Cedarville University Yellow Jackets

November 29, 2017

This is the last blog for the season!!!! All good things come to end and this is no different.

This last week of running has been a lot of fun. This is the time where we look back on what went well and what needs to change. In high school, I went to a running camp called Foss. My cabin coach was Brian Gagnon, he ran 1:45 for the 800 in college (That is fast). He always told us that you have 30 minutes after a race to be happy or sad. He said during that 30 minutes he would decide what went well and what went wrong. He would fix what went wrong and keep doing what worked well. After that 30 minutes, he would move on. It was onto the next race. No wallowing on the race or getting stuck on the high of a good race.

I think the same principle applies to a whole season. I choose a time and sit down and reflect on what went well and what didn’t. Then I decide what needs to change and what should stay the same, make a plan of action, then get to work.

The 2017 XC season was great. I can honestly say that. Like any season, it had its ups and downs. But, I really did enjoy running with my teammates, learning alongside them, becoming better followers of Christ and better runners.

This last week the only person still training was Dan because he was getting ready for nationals. It was a lot of fun to help Dan with his workouts this week. It was a little sad as well because this was his senior XC season. So, it would be his last XC race of his career. Dan was very excited and felt good going into the race. Nationals was on a Saturday in Evansville, Indiana - only about five hours away from Cedarville. Dan and Coach O left on Thursday afternoon so they could get to their hotel and be at the course bright and early on Friday. On top of leaving two days before the race Coach O made sure he got a sweet rental car for them. They had a 2017 Nissan Maxima, I know it doesn’t sound that nice but it was. It was shiny and looked sleek. The interior was all leather and they had a big LCD display up front. Direct quote from Coach O, "When you travel with an Orchard, you travel in style." That is the perks of going to nationals - you get treated well.

On the other side, eight of us runners, led by our captain Ethan Sullivan, did NOT have a nice rental car or two nights in a hotel. So, we piled into our quality Cedarville van at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday to get to Evansville by the 9:30 a.m. start time for Dan’s race. We had some time to spare on our drive so we treated ourselves to a nice breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

It was a decent day for running. It wasn’t too cold - around 60 degrees. The wind calmed down as well. Angel Mounds is a great spectator course as you can see the runners 12-14 times over the course of the 10K race. As the gun went off and the runners started I held up my 4-5x’s life size cutout of Dan’s head with a fake mustache attached to it.

The race was not Dan’s best, he didn’t have a great day. But, Dan still put it out there and gave it his all and we as a team were proud of him. The race to me was a lot more about us celebrating Dan’s season and enjoying the amazing talent that Dan has been given. Although it would have been nice if Dan could have performed better, running doesn’t always work like that. Congratulations to Dan on a great season, breaking 25 minutes in the 8K and qualifying for XC nationals!

As I wrap up the blog I hope you noticed a theme through this blog and through all the blogs I have written about what happens when things don’t go your way. That is something that I wanted to communicate through the blog this year. Because whether it is at your job, in a race, or in life in general, things will not always go your way. Things will get hard, obstacles will arise. A strong runner is someone who can take obstacles well and move past them. In Mark 4:17 Jesus says, "And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away." Jesus is talking about the seeds sown on rocky ground. Although they may endure for a little while, when things get tough they will wither. So, where are your roots? Are your roots shallow and weak? Or are they deep in the word of God? Do you water them regularly? That is my challenge and something I need to remind myself.

I don’t just want to focus on the negative because I don’t want to make it seem like it was just a bunch of obstacles this season. There were a lot of good times had this season. I could write a whole blog about all the stupid shenanigans that happen in just a day of practice. We had a lot of people improve and have great seasons. Alex Shrock is someone who stands out, he put in the mileage and worked hard all year and it showed. Freshman Caleb Pendleton ran great, breaking 16 minutes in the 5K and 27 minutes in the 8K in his first college season. There are lots more but you get my point, the year had its fair share of positive moments.

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing the blog this year. Even if you, the audience may have not gotten a ton out of it this year, I definitely learned a lot. To look back on the week and write down a page or two about what happened is a good reminder of things I learned and helps make them permanent in my mind.

As for the XC team we will go back to training both physically and mentally. Indoor track & field is right around the corner and we are excited to keep training and keep jumping over obstacles as they come at us.

Thank you again for reading and for your support.

REMEMBER IT’S ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD


November 14, 2017

(Editor's Note: Alex Weber is filling in this week for Kevin Gideon)

Hey ya’ll! It’s your guy Alex Weber taking over the blog this week as guest blogger! This is my first time doing this so hopefully I’m doing it justice! This past week a small squad of us went down to Jackson, Mississippi for the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) Cross Country Championships.

We all loaded the van around 7:30 a.m. at Callan to get ready for our very long trip down to Jackson. Our trip was going to take a whopping 12 hours, but thankfully most of us were either sleeping or preoccupied. About five hours into the trip we make our first stop at the G-MAC conference cross country course right outside of Nashville, Tennessee to get our first run in. This is personally one of my favorite things about long trips in this sport, we get to stop and get a quick run in. The best part about these runs are we get to explore some new areas and you know we did! As we were about to go run, one of the seniors Zac Bowen, told us about this horse track that he and some others had found on the other side of the course last time we were there for the G-MAC meet. Fortunately we found that place, because on the way up the hill toward the track we came up to the very top and the sight of the trees on top of the rolling hill was honestly breath taking. To see the colors of red, gold yellow, orange, and purple all across the rolling hills almost made you wonder if God took a paint brush and painted every single tree on that hill Himself.
 

After we took a moment to take it all in we got down there to the track and there are these horse barriers all around, so we all took a charge and just ran over them as if we were the horses, but in reality we were just horsing around. Please forgive the pun, anyways as were about to head out one of our guys, Andrew Testas, saw this bell out on the perimeter of the field and ran over there to ring it. It was kind of short lived because the bell did not ring as loud or as long, but none the less it was one more memory on the trip.

We get back on the road headed into Nashville for lunch, we stop at this place called Martin’s BBQ and I will say that had to be some of the best BBQ I’ve ever had. We ate there and then headed on to Nashville to check out the sights of what I believe was downtown Nashville. Most of the places were bars with live music going on, but it was very lively and very entertaining. We walked around and checked out the area for a couple more hours and got back on the road again to head to the hotel.

That night we got to the hotel and we typically gather in one room to play games like cards or Xbox. You know it gets pretty hype in there! We were playing all the EDM and playing Call of Duty, all-for-one and one-for-all style. This is what we do most of the time the night before race day before we go to bed. It was a good time and the next morning a couple of our guys - Luke Bredeson and Andrew Sholl had the open race in the morning. Those dudes were ready! Luke had a PR of 16 seconds and Sholl capped off his season with a hard race where he was "grinding" through the whole thing. One more thing to add to this already memorable trip.

The following night we had the NCCAA banquet and this typically means we get really good food, we dress up, and have an evening of awards and speakers. This year was a little more special with our seniors Zac Bowen and Alex Shrock as this was their last year of cross country, their last race, their last banquet, and last time to really get out there in a meet and grind it out. It was truly an honor to run with them this weekend.

At the end of the meet we always have a circle of prayer and this last prayer we had was special because it was just us guys and we just stood there in awe of God thanking and praising him for the year, the season, the achievements, the hard things we went through, the good things we went through, and our senior leaders. We just thanked God for all that and gave him the praise and speaking of our senior leaders - good job men! Thank you for the leadership and standard you have set for the rest of us to live up to!

Well, that’s it for this week folks! I had fun being the guest blogger this week and I hope you enjoy!


November 9, 2017

(Editor's Note: Ryan Vojtisek is filling in again this week for Kevin Gideon)

Last Thursday, two days before the regional meet, I jogged slowly around Cedarville’s cross country course. With the big race nearing, Cedarville had long begun its preparation, but during these next two days, our staff made the major modifications that readied the grounds for the race. The trainers had their tent set up to care for the athletes that came early to try the course under their own feet. Unknown figures set up ropes, and the tractors made final cuts to lower the grass. Most runners were taking easy days to allow their bodies to relax before Saturday. As I passed over white, freshly painted lines on the course, I watched our team run by, laughing in a large pack and couldn’t help but think of the grandiose opportunity they got tomorrow. In many senses, championship racing brings up a clean slate. So long as you put in the work throughout the season, anything could happen on that day despite any prior races, results or rankings. Ryan Orchard and I did a tempo run that day, and I could not help but feel as if I was somehow preparing for this very race one year from now. No matter how far away it is, a runner never stops thinking about the championship races.

Nationals wasn’t everything we hoped for when we began this season, but it was everything we had not been able to do any day altogether before this season. I strongly believe that every runner that ran on Saturday had phenomenal performances. We got ourselves into the race from the get-go, putting ourselves in a position to succeed. Such a tactic usually only allows room for two results: a finish unlike any other that year or completely tanking, so running with the mind set of winning takes guts. One only must look at the results to realize the great success that the Cedarville runners had. Because I have been there, I understand the bittersweet feeling that brings, to put yourself in a spot to achieve your goals and to put everything you can into a race and come up short of where you wished to land. It is, though, a sweet feeling when you can look back onto a course and know with confidence that you put every ounce of yourself out on that course. Some saw the fruits of that in times, some positions, some will not see the fruits of that for seasons to come.

Now, we all embark on slightly different courses. Some will move on to National Christian College Athletic Association’s (NCCAA) national meet. Others will take a break before bringing themselves right back into training for track. Others will begin that track work immediately. Others have exhausted their eligibility and will hang their collegiate racing shoes this season. All will, though, soon begin a new season, with a new set of goals, a faster time to achieve and a new group of runners to beat. And that is the beauty of running, like life - it is full of fresh starts.

One of us gets a new fresh start on Saturday, November 25th. Daniel Michalski has advanced as an individual to NCAA Division II Nationals. Now he embarks on a fresh start unlike any he has experienced before; this will be his first trip to cross country nationals. We are blessed to have him on this team (on and off the course, for many reasons beyond his incomprehensible athletic ability) and honored to have him as a teammate and look forward to surrounding him with support and encouragement as he finishes this season with one last fresh start.

It rained most of the day last Thursday and all morning Friday. Friday evening the rain ceased, and the clouds kept the water sucked into their bellies all the way until Sunday. On Sunday, they unleashed all they held in a torrential downpour. I ran in the Cedarville Gorge alongside the river. I stopped at an overlook and watched the water overflow from the path it usually treads, carving new tributaries. Later in that run, I watched two young does leap across the path in front of me, their big, white, bushy tails dancing behind them. I meandered about the woods, finding new paths to run, searching for new dirt to where I can carry my feet.


October 31, 2017

Welcome back to the blog!

I hope you enjoyed Ryan’s blog last week, I think it spoke very well to that fact that things don’t always go your way in running. That is life and sometimes you just have to dust yourself off and get back up. As my wonderful mother would say, "Life's rough and then you die."

Anyways, this was an off week from racing for the team. So, that means it was the last week of real solid training before regionals. Monday started off with an easy recovery run because we were coming off a Saturday race. Tuesday was a short but fast workout, two by mile then two by 1K. This was our first cold and rainy workout, so that added a nice mental challenge to the workout. Wednesday was an modified tempo as we call it, basically a slower tempo. The workout was three by two mile, this was a fun workout because at this point in the season we are in great shape so modified tempo pace felt pretty easy. Thursday was an easy recovery day. Friday was another workout this time on the track. The workout was two sets of 800, 400, 800 with equal rest and two sets of three by 200 with 30 seconds rest. This was a fun workout, I love getting on the track and going a little faster.

I did my long run on Sunday at our cross country course and got excited because lots of NCAA flags and banners have already been put up at the course for the regional meet coming up soon. As a team we are excited to put it out there and take advantage of having the meet right in our backyard. We have done a lot of work leading up to this point in the season. Practice has been officially going on for 10 weeks and for 12 weeks before then we were at home running mileage all summer. That is a lot of workouts, calories, shoes, time and energy put into one thing. All that time spent running all comes down to hopefully the second biggest race of the year.

I encourage you if you are around the Cedarville area, or even within a couple hours drive, get yourself to the regional meet. Not only would we as a team appreciate your support, but, I promise you it will be an exciting race. Our student fan section will be there, "The Swarm," leading the way for all the fans.

Thanks for reading the blog again, I hope it was somewhat interesting and inspired you to come and watch the regional meet.

REMEMBER IT’S ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD


October 24, 2017

(Editor's Note: Ryan Vojtisek is filling in again this week for Kevin Gideon)

Another early morning bus ride. We piled onto the coach bus ready for one of the biggest meets of the year - the conference meet. The Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) formed six years ago shortly after Cedarville moved from NAIA to NCAA Division II. This year, it grew by nearly twice its size and plans to expand at least one more team next year. The Jackets own all five of the G-MAC Championship titles and we hit the road that morning anticipating claiming a sixth.

I was able to run the course the day before the race. As I ran along on my own, I couldn’t help but imagine the thoughts and emotions of those who were preparing for their race. I imagined them visualizing the race as they jog the course that afternoon. I imagined them picturing themselves chasing down opponents, devouring hills, passing rivals and achieving times they were far incapable of dropping. That’s what you do before a race; you let your mind run free and your confidence swells in result. Anticipation builds through the whole body. The tiredness from the bus shakes out of your legs and they fly along faster and faster as those images of victory flash through your mind. After their run, I imagine them settling in to stretch, do strides and partake in any necessary pre-race rituals they were partial to. In that time another rush of emotions might reside in the runners. I imagine the nervousness, the uneasy anxiousness that bubbles into your belly as the realization sets in that tomorrow is the last chance for many. They might think about the goals they set months or even years ago. I can only begin to imagine the emotions that flooded their minds, hearts and bodies.

We went back to the hotel and dressed ourselves - the men in suits and ties, the women in dresses. The conference puts together a phenomenal banquet each year giving us a chance to settle in, eat and fellowship with the teams of the G-MAC. They bring forth a speaker to antagonize the already rushing emotions. I, personally, look forward to this event all year. This year we were even more spoiled than usual with Paul Chilemo (Olympic silver medalist and World bronze medalist in the 5K)! The message that stuck out to me the most was his encouragement to never take our gift and our opportunities for granted.

In sum, the race day was filled with a lot of disappointment. Overall, we got third in the conference, falling to Walsh and Malone. We had some great things happen. It was beautiful (maybe especially wonderful from my injured perspective) to see Zac Bowen and Alec Weinhold racing well again after struggling with injury much of the season. Daniel Michalski won and was crowned the G-MAC champion. Kevin Gideon and Ethan Sullivan pulled together quick races as well. In these things, we celebrate with and for our brothers, support them and are proud to see their labors come to fruition. There were other subtle victories within the day which I cannot mention because I do not have the chance to speak with all 31 other runners. We tip our hats to the winning and runner-up team who bested us with fantastic performances.

I think that we can take a lot of valuable lessons from that day. I think many of us tasted one of the many facets of what running as a sport truly is. It isn’t all about times, positions or winning. Fast times and victories are the goals and those always rest on the forefront of our minds. If we ever quit thinking about winning, we couldn’t do what we do. Running is more real than that, though. There is a more brutal reality to running. Sometimes running is training for months for one race and failing despite doing every possible thing you could. Sometimes running is working for years to rid of never-ending injuries to watch another season pass by without competition. Sometimes running is learning that everything you had wasn’t enough or even that what you brought wasn’t everything you had. Sometimes you put together a talented team that works hard and can steal a team’s title and end their five-year winning streak. This is the very nature of our sport. There is no chance, only reality. It is said that you can make a lucky shot or throw up a miracle Hail-Mary pass, but there is no luck in running. This race, we faced that with difficulty. There is no sweet to the bitter of this race.
 

I sit on the bus as the team laughs and jokes while others sing along to High School Musical. It’s important to remember that cross country, for us, is always more than just the sport. These memories are ones we will never forget. These are friends that will carry us through our whole lives. I realize this is the most generic way that I could end this blog, but I went into this week’s blog trying to write in the most authentic way possible, the way it really happened. To deliver the ups and the downs, the good and the bad and right now, I am sitting in remembrance of everything this team means to me.

The season is not yet over, and the most important race is yet to come. I can confidently speak for the team and say that we will prepare these next two weeks and do everything in our power to run the best last race of the season we can. So, through the positive and the negative, we run on together.


October 17, 2017

Welcome back to the blog, glad you could join us again!

This was a great week for the team. For a lot of the guys on the team, me included, it was a "rest" week which means a week off racing. But, for some of the guys they went to Wilmington College to run an 8K on Friday.

Monday started off with a modified (slower) tempo workout. We did two by 5K on the last 5K of the 10K course. This season we have done a lot more tempo workouts, I have told you about a lot of them. Tuesday was a recovery day. Wednesday was an exciting day because it was our first workout on the track! Last time when we tried to get on the track there was a JV soccer game. For the track workout we really notched up the speed. We did three sets of 800 meters (two minute rest), 400 meters (one minute rest), 200 meters (45 seconds rest), 200 meters. Then four minutes rest in between sets. This was a fun workout, a lot of people broke out their spikes or flats to get some extra speed. The rest of the week was easy runs with a short 20 minute tempo on Friday, for those who didn’t run at Wilmington.

Wilmington is a fun meet to run; it is a different course compared to a lot of the other courses we run on. The course starts out with a couple laps around a baseball field and a little orchard. Next you cross a road and go right up the middle of their campus, dead serious like by all their dorms and science buildings, it’s funny. You come back down towards the baseball fields and cross a little creek and head into the woods. This is where it gets fun, there are lots of roots, little hills and little creek beds through the woods section. Once you get out of the woods you go around a couple fields and down a hill to the finish. Our course is very open just around fields, that is how the Lewis course was as well. So, it is a nice change of pace to run through the campus and woods and add that campus tour/trail element to the XC race.

 The

course didn’t run quite as fast as it did last year, it was a little muddier this year. I am not going to point out all the performances because there is already an article about the meet you can read. But I do want to point out Luke’s and Austin’s race. Luke Bredeson ran a great race, he got out hard and kept pushing. He was looking very cool in the pink goodr^TM sunglasses he was repping. Luke finished 24th and dipped under 27 minutes for the first time. Austin

Anderson had a monstrous kick at the finish. Austin was also sporting his sweet black and gold goodr^TM sunglasses. Austin was coming down the finish and there was another runner coming up hot on his heels. Austin heard him coming and took off and didn’t give this guy a chance. It was a great finish.

One last highlight from this week was one of our redshirt "Seniors" Alan Meyer (who knows what grade he is really in) ran the Columbus Half Marathon in 1:22:56! Way to go Alan. He is taking the cross season off but is still training and wanted to get a race in so he did a half marathon, I would have chosen a 5K but I digress. Great job Alan - can’t wait for you to be racing with us again come outdoor!

This upcoming week is G-MAC Championships. It is going to be a fun weekend heading down to Nashville to have a really hard and competitive race. Keep us in your prayers for safe travels this weekend.

That’s all I got for ya today folks. Keep up the good work in whatever you are doing…

AND REMEMBER IT'S ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD!


October 11, 2017

I want to begin by thanking you all for taking the time (presumably) each week to read our blog! We hope to be keeping you up to date with the team and to be informative about the culture and happenings of the Cedarville Men’s Cross Country team. I, Ryan Vojtisek, will be subbing in again for Kevin Gideon. As he said last week, we would love to answer any questions or delve into some dialogue about some topics you as an audience are interested in. To keep them streamlined into one area, I’m going to ask that you send them to Kev and we will collaborate on the questions or topics. His email is: kevinvgideon@cedarville.edu
 

The big highlight this past week would be the Lewis Conference Cross-Over meet. This is a highly anticipated meet each year for several reasons. The meet is in the Chicago area so it provides us an opportunity to travel as a team for an overnight trip. This creates a lot of excitement and anticipation. There is something that is stirred into the air when we get to travel distances for races, that alone adds meaning and purpose to the race in some strange, anticipatory way. The course is a relatively fast course so it usually provides a good opportunity for some fast times and receiving a fast time is a great affirmation of the hard work one has been pursuing. Most importantly, it lines us up against some fast competition, potentially the fastest competition we will see again until Regionals. A fast field (field describing the collective body of runners) naturally pushes runners along regardless of where one finds his or her self within the field.

This meet brought some exciting results and some painful ones as well. Largely, I would consider this a week of learning for the team. I do not want to undermine the work the guys put into this meet, nor the lessons we will take from it, but I believe that to generalize for the team (which is somewhat my job), the race did not meet the high expectations we set for ourselves.

The field proved to be slower than anticipated due to circumstances out of anybody’s control, such as gusting winds and wet ground. For some, their plans didn’t fall into action. A tangible example of that would be how quickly the course bottlenecked. With a large crowd and a quick bottleneck, this will often force some of the faster runners farther back in the group; consequently, making them play catch-up the remainder of the race, a difficult task to execute. As one of the runners stated, "Sometimes you just have bad days".

We did have many positives from the race. Dan ran a great race with a personal record, his first sub-25 minute run (24:58) and a Top Five finish. Zac Bowen showed he is quickly recovering from injury and finished 4th on the team, getting closer to where he ought to be. Alex Weber, a sophomore, stepped it up a bit to finish 3rd on the team. These are some small examples of great individual victories.

On the other side of things, many of the guys took a great lesson from the race. One fellow said, "Overall, this was a great learning experience." The gentleman I quoted two paragraphs earlier finished his statement with some wise words, "I understand bad days will happen. I’m not going to let it get to me. I know what I have to be prepared for and this won’t get in the way of that."

Moving forward, we have our shoulders down and our death gritted. Counting down the days, 11 from today (Tuesday the 10th), until the conference meet, we prepare for the races that count - it’s championship season.

REMEMBER IT’S ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

October 4, 2017

Welcome back to the Blog!

Happy to have you back here for another look in the lives of the Cedarville MXC runners. It was an exciting week because of the All-Ohio Championships last Friday!

All-Ohio is our first real big race of the season. All-Ohio is a meet that is exactly like it sounds - brings all the teams D1, D2, D3, even NAIA from Ohio all together to compete head to head. It is a fast race and we are proud to be able to host the meet. This is the first time during the season we get to compete against a lot of the teams we will need to beat at conference and regionals. So, naturally having a big race on your mind gets you excited for the week.

Monday started off with a classic Coach O workout, 6 by 1000 meters on the course. This is a great way for us to get the feel for our course. Normally teams would have to do 1000’s on a loop or on the track. We are lucky enough to get to go through our 8K course 1000 meters at a time. So, we start at the starting line just like we will at All-Ohio and then go through the course and stop to take our rest at the 1K markers. This is huge for mental visualization. Not often do you get to do a workout and go through the course you are going to race on.

Tuesday was a light tempo run, coach told us to pick up 3-4 miles in the middle of our distance run to tempo pace. We did this run the day after the workout so that we could have two full days of recovery before All-Ohio on Friday.

Finally it was time for All-Ohio. It makes for an interesting day because the race is on a Friday and most of us had class all morning. So, your body has to change gears and get into race mode. Teams kept pouring in on their buses, filling up the camp area. All-Ohio is also a special meet because, unlike me, most of the guys on the team are from Ohio. So, they have raced a lot of these guys in high school and know them. This makes it a little reunion in a sense for some people getting to see old teammates or competitors. Even though I am from New York, I still get to see an old teammate who now runs for Denison.

The race as a whole was a step forward for us as a team. We got our Top Five average under 26 minutes which was a big improvement from Friendship. The problem is that we still have some ground to make up on Malone and Walsh, they beat us in the overall. It is always tough when you have to split the team up between a championship race and an open race. Ethan Gatchell ran 26:13 from the open race and would have been our fourth runner in the championship race. This is a good problem to have, the open race always drives people to run fast to get into that championship race at the next meet. Obviously we want to do better, we have to do better, but, this was a step in the right direction.

This week we are going to start thinking about speed believe it or not the season is coming to a close - only about three weeks until conference and five weeks until regionals. So, it is time to start changing gears. This whole first part of the season we have put a huge emphasis on mileage and tempo efforts. We have not done any fast speed workouts yet. Doing all that mileage and tempo workouts will give us a great base to add lots of speed over the next couple weeks.

Romans 15:18, "For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience - by word and deed,"

Romans 15:18 is a verse that has been floating around in my head today. This is Paul talking about how he doesn’t want to talk about anything but what Christ has accomplished! This is what we as a team are striving to do on and off the race course. God gave us the legs and we want to use them to carry the Gospel to those who need it. It can be easy to boast about things we have done. Or to talk about our problems or hardships. When in reality we need to be talking about Christ and what He is doing, whether it's through us or through someone else. We as a team want to challenge ourselves to complain less and boast about Christ more. And I would challenge you to do the same, complain less boast about Christ more.

It gets me really excited about running, the season and Jesus sitting here typing away at this blog. I do enjoy doing writing the blog, it lets me reflect on the week and evaluate different things that happened. This blog has also made me "slow down" during the week and notice more good/funny things to put in the blog (slow down as in perceptually not running-wise of course). I hope you have enjoyed this entry in the blog and will come back again next week!

P.S.
I saw some of the other bloggers from the other sports teams and they had audience questions in their blog that they answered. Sooooo…. If you have any questions hit me up, I would love to answer them next week or have Ryan answer them.

Email - kevinvgideon@cedarville.edu

REMEMBER IT’S ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD


September 26, 2017

(Editor's Note: Ryan Vojtisek is filling in again this week for Kevin Gideon)

The fundamental purpose of our blog is to inform those from outside the team of the happenings inside the team. The most important aspect of this team is not what happens on the course or even what happens in the classroom, it is what happens in our hearts, Bible studies and pursuits toward knowing God the best we can. This week, to me, seemed like a great one for the team from this respect. God showed up big time at Bible study and was moving in a lot of our hearts. The focus for this week was opening up our hands and hearts in order to surrender what lies within them to the Lord. It has been an incredible week, surrounding one another with encouragement and joy to open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit’s transformative grace. These are the experiences we truly work for, these are the memories we will cherish, these are the pursuits that will last through eternity.

As for running, we had a gracious week off of racing. Some weeks when we get this gift, we use it to grind down and get an extra workout and some high mileage in. This past week, though, we used the time to stretch our rest a bit further. Still, we got in two workouts which are not to be undermined. Tuesday we had a tempo-paced workout: three mile repeats and 3 x 1K repeats. This was a lighter, more endurance/aerobic based workout. The following days the temperature continued to increase and Thursday the rubber met the road (or the course, if you must). The boys did the same workout in distance, but increased the times ever so slightly and decreased the rest greatly, making some dip down into their anaerobic state and sharpen those legs up a bit on the K’s, with the heat index, it was a tough go.

Now we are in the week of preparation for All-Ohio. This is an enormous race with great competition. There’s two races: a varsity team race and an open race. The competition is heating up and the guys are ready for some quicker times and some placement in the region.

Outside of that, classes are in full swing; for many this was the first week of exams. The battle between sleep, school work and workouts is being waged and we are all buckling down in order to be prepared for the race that looms ahead of us. For now, Friday will be the only thing on our minds! All-Ohio, here we come.


September 19, 2017

Welcome back to the blog! Glad to have you here!

I want to start this blog by inviting you to go follow our social media pages. We are on Instagram @cu_cc, Twitter @cedarvillexc and Facebook. These are another good way to keep up with the team and see what is going on. (Twitter is our most active page)

The week of the Friendship Invitational is a busy week for coach. There is a lot of preparation and time that goes into holding a huge meet like Friendship. I want to extend thanks from the team to Coach Bo and Coach O for all the work they have put into making this meet happen. It is a great opportunity for us to show other teams what Cedarville is and what we are about. It’s because of Coach Bo and Coach O and their hard work that so many teams come to the meet.

This week of practice was tough, it is that time of the year again where a lot of people are getting sick. A runny nose and cough has been running through the team faster than we could run it down. Despite the adversity, we made it through the workouts and all the miles.

Saturday morning came and it was another early morning, I was up at 6:30 a.m. making my breakfast of oatmeal and a banana. The race started at 9:30 a.m., it was important to make sure we all got our food in early enough so it had time to digest. At 7:30 a.m. we all met in the Upper SSC to have a team meeting. A majority of the meeting was spent giving advice to the freshmen about how to run their first 8K and how we act as a team at a meet. This week we got a new blue Cedarville XC shirt and our fancy new Yellow Jackets. Get it, we literally got jackets that are yellow. So, not only are we the Yellow Jackets, as in the insect/mascot, we also have Yellow Jackets as a team! So, for the meet we all dressed like a team and wore the new blue shirt and our yellow jackets. There is something about a team that matches, I love it. When you roll up to a meet and see a team all matching you know they have their stuff together. It looks good, and you know what they say. Look good, feel good, run good.

The race as a whole for the team went well. Like I said earlier a lot of guys had colds or were coming back from a cold this week. So, a lot of people didn’t run as fast as they wanted to. But, our Top 7 average was 26:25 and we won the meet. I know we can do a lot better as a team. As this was our first 8K it showed a lot of potential. I think we will have a lot of guys drop times as we look forward to the All-Ohio in two weeks.

Remember it’s all for the Glory of God.


September 12, 2017

As a guest, I will occasionally be lightening Kevin’s load by writing some of the blogs. My name is Ryan Vojtisek and I am a sophomore high school English education major - no that does not promise perfect grammar and flawless composition within the blog.

 

This season has given me a unique perspective into the team. After two official seasons, cross country and indoor track, of deeply and passionately investing myself into the team my freshman year, injury plagued me deeming me unable to run for months on end. Without any summer training and an excessively slow recovering process to the tendonitis in my patellar and quad tendon, I will be redshirting this season. This allows me to watch my teammates grow and develop, athletically and otherwise, from a marginalized perspective.
 
This past week brought some great successes. Coming off an exciting season opener for many of the runners, the teams’ ambitious was given new fuel and the fire was blazing even higher than before. The week of training brought some all-time weekly mileage highs from Kevin, Sholl and Caleb. We had 2 x 2.25 mile steady states on Tuesday that looked strong and smooth for almost everyone. Then finishing the week with some moderate runs and rest days in preparation of Friday’s meet.
 
Friday brought a lot of excitement. The atmosphere was leisurely and anticipatory. The Ekiden Team Challenge is a new and unique race - a 2 x 5K relay. The guys were paired up and talking trash all week! For some, it was an opportunity to get a steady workout in under some quick competition and for others it was an opportunity to get a race in, put another time on the board or “ease” back into racing from injury. Beyond that, it allowed Cedarville staff to coordinate a meet on the brand-spanking-new 10K course and ready ourselves for the regional meet which Cedarville has the privilege to host this year.  
 
The team is confident and ready to begin the true racing season. It is time to start setting aside the rust-busters and start racing the real races - the 8K’s. This upcoming week the team will be in preparation for our first 8K, the Annual Friendship Invitational at Cedarville. The freshmen get to experience the thrill and joys of running a race on the legendary and renowned Elvin R. King Cross Country Course (in an official meet, that is). For the rest of the guys, they will soon find themselves back home. The field is competitive and we are ready for it; with the dust shaken off, the legs reinitiated and the hearts eager, we are prepared to welcome back our fearless leader to racing - Daniel Michalski.


September 5, 2017

Welcome Back!
 
As you may know, we had our first race this past week! So, this blog is all about race week and getting ready for a meet.
 
This week was our first full week of classes and things are starting to get busy. On top of practice every day, homework is being added. On top of homework, meetings and Bible studies are being added. So, this week the whole team had to relearn time management and discipline.
 
The week started with another tempo workout. We did 3 by 3,000 meters at tempo pace. All across the board the workout went a lot better than it did last week. Tuesday was an easy run. On Wednesday we did 400’s. We did the 400’s on the home stretch of our XC course in blocks of 4, we did 3 blocks of 4. The 400’s were a little faster than any workout we have done yet. The goal was to get used to race pace so that the race on Saturday wasn’t as much of a shock to the system.
 
One thing I have really been enjoying after workouts is the team’s new Normatec boots. If you don’t know what Normatec boots are just look them up because my explanation will make them sound like a medieval torture device. But, they are like snow pants you put on and they are attached to a little pump that blows air into them. They are like a blood pressure cuff for your whole leg, they just squeeze your legs super, super tight. The point of the squeezing is to remove bad blood and lactic acid from the muscle and get fresh blood to the muscle. They are cool and definitely help with recovery as my legs feel really good after using them. It is equipment and tools like the Normatec boots we are always looking for to help gain any edge we can.
 
Thursday and Friday were both easy recovery days getting ready for the race. The goal of this first race is to get a hard 100% effort in and see where we are at. It isn’t something we as a team are putting a bunch of pressure on. So, we still had a hard week of training going into the race and most of the team is still at high mileage.
 
Saturday my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. We had an hour drive down to Voice of America Park down near Cincinnati. First of all, what a name for a park, Voice of America. I don’t know what it is but the name just breathes confidence to me. Voice of America. I liked it and it got me pumped to run. The course was very flat and all grass except for two little gravel path crossings. It was also very well marked with big signs for each mile.
 
It wasn’t the biggest race, there were only seven teams. It was a competitive race though. University of Dayton always has a lot of fast guys who take the race out at a good pace. As a team we did fantastic. There were a lot of solid performances. I won’t go into too much detail about all the team results; I am sure there is a little article on the website you can go look at. But, I do want to point out a couple performances. First would be Caleb Pendleton, a freshman who played soccer and ran track in high school, very little XC experience. Caleb was third on the team and he ran a huge PR of 15:59! Another big performance for us was one of our transfers Andrew Testas. Testas was second for us in 15:43! It was really great to have the freshmen running in their first collegiate race and seeing what our transfers were made of. It was a great rust buster, the goal was just to get out and race. We have not started our hard training yet, this is just the starting point for the whole season. Our team is very deep, we had a lot of guys right around 16 minutes. It will be very exciting to watch the progression of the whole team over the next couple races and the season.
 
Up next for the CU Men’s XC is our 5K relay challenge this Friday. This will be our first home meet so if you are around come out and cheer us on.
 
Remember it’s ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD!


August 29, 2017

Welcome to the 2017 Cedarville Men’s Cross Country Weekly Blog!!!
 
The goal of this blog is to give a little insight into what happens on the men's cross country team and hopefully entertain you.
 
My name is Kevin Gideon, I am a sophomore exercise science major. I am from Ballston Spa, New York. Tyler Greenwood did a great job doing the blog last year and we tried to get him to keep going and come on full time and just blog for us. Unfortunately, he didn’t go for that one as he was offered some other job, something about pay, I don't know. So, long story short, you are stuck with me, a sophomore who doesn’t know how to write all that well. But, like I said earlier the goal of this blog is to let you get a front row to seat to all the amazing action that happens on our team. Also, over the course of the season I also want to try and show to you and explain why we runners do what we do. Most people just don’t get us. Hopefully I can shed some light on that this season.
 
This first blog will cover the first two weeks on campus. The first week we were here as a team is camp week. It is hands down the best, most tiring week of my life. The goal of camp week this year was to get to know the new guys on the team and RUN MILES.
 
Speaking of the new guys let me point them out to you! I will spare a ton of detail because you can find all that on our roster. In total, the team is 32 guys!!! That is a lot of guys! We got four new freshmen - Justin Webster, Jacob Logan, Caleb Pendleton, and Micah McKanna. Also joining us are transfers Trent Classen and Andrew Testas. We are really excited for the new guys this year, we like all of them, so far.
 
Like I already said the goal of camp week is to get to know the new guys and RUN MILES! Camp week is a great week for mileage because it is the last week before we start doing workouts. And a lot of the guys on the team have to train alone all summer, so for many it is the first week they get to run with other people. This season we wanted to step things up a little so, we started doing morning runs. Every day of camp week we got up to run at 6 a.m. The morning runs were intense, the only thing that got me through them was my new favorite product RunGum, a caffeinated gum made by a former pro runner. Let me tell you that stuff works great! Pop a piece and you're off. After a nap and a game of basketball or volleyball, we would go out for a second run around 3 or 4 p.m.
 
My highlight of camp week was the cornhole, or Bag-O, tournament we had at Austin Anderson’s house. The Anderson’s were nice enough to open their home to us and cook plenty of burgers for us. After we all got stuffed, we split into pairs and started the cornhole tournament. It was very serious! My partner was Luke Bredeson; we did pretty good. By pretty good, I mean we lost our first game to Isaac and Jimmy. There was a lot of yelling and throwing of the bean bags…not at the board but at each other. At the end of it all, Ethan Gatchell and Zac Bowen took home the win!!! Everyone else were good losers and shook hands and were happy for them.
 
Camp week was brought to a sudden stop when Cedarville’s population quadrupled as all the new freshmen arrived on campus. Camp week is really an important week for the team. Being here early allows us to get to know each other and really sets the tone for the whole year. Our goals are the same as most years: win G-MAC and go to Nationals. These goals will not happen if our team has an attitude of complacency. Starting every day off at 6 a.m. really got that message across.
 
Our second week on campus started with an amazing workout! Just kidding. 3 by 3000 meters. It was a doozy. The purpose of this workout was to find our tempo pace and settle into it for a long time. It is important to get tempo pace workouts in at the beginning of the season. Workouts like these lay a good foundation of aerobic fitness to build on later in the season. We finished the week with another tempo pace workout, 9 by 1000 meters. Both of these workouts were done on our wonderful XC course right across the street.
 
Lots of work is being done on the course because we are hosting the NCAA DII Midwest Regional meet here this year. If you don’t know what that is, it's a BIG DEAL! Not only is this just a big meet, it is also the national qualifier meet. This works out well for us as a team because it gives us a huge home field advantage. We get to work out on the course every day and know it well. So, if you are around on November 4th definitely come out to watch that race - it will be a big one!
 
It has been a great two weeks. It was a reunion and a launch pad for a new season and school year. The new guys were meeting us and finding their spot. Whereas us returners were ecstatic to see long-lost friends from the year before. The team as a whole is very excited for the season. We would ask for prayer for the team as a whole that we would be pursuing Christ together better each day.
 
Remember it’s all for the Glory of God!


Kevin Gideon is a sophomore from Burnt Hills, N.Y. He is in his second year with the Yellow Jackets and is majoring in exercise science.