December 5, 2018
Hello all! What a weekend! This past weekend we traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania once again, because we achieved our long time goal of going to the NCAA Division II Cross Country Nationals for third time in our school history. (I was mistaken in the last blog in saying it was only once in 2012. We in fact went in 2012 and then the next year in 2013).
Two weeks ago we all found out that we were going to nationals. We gathered together in our locker room to await the big news, because we got fifth place at the regional meet. Due to other results in the other regional meets it helped push us for an at-large bid for the national meet. When we received the news it was very, very exciting. We finally achieved a goal or should I say we made a dream come true after years of hard work and dedication. It was quite literally one of the best days of our lives for some of us.
Fast forward to the next weekend and our boys are headed off to Pennsylvania to run at the national meet. The team that was running along with the guys who were alternates left on Thursday to go and check out the course, get in the hotel, and rest up to run hard on that Saturday. The rest of us on the team got up early 5:45 in the morning on Saturday to go support our boys. Our teammates on the women’s team even came to support us! We all got to the meet and by the time the race was about to start the team had done their warm ups. They were ready to run the race hard and leave it all out there!
This meet was going to be tough one. Mainly because the weather was not favorable to us. It had rained a ton and the course was as muddy as it could be. It was not a typical national meet, but everyone was dealing with it. The course was tough, but our guys were tougher. When the gun went off the guys ran like it was any other race. Yeah there were nerves and yeah these guys knew what it meant to be there, but they were mentally tough in accepting that they belonged there. Their approach was no different because on this team we preach consistency in training and that even goes for racing.
During the entire race our guys showed heart and grit. Some of them raced the same, some ran better than their races all year, and some did not have the race they wanted but they were happy to be in the race. (I unfortunately cannot give the inside details like I have normally I had the awesome privilege of taking pictures and I was running around the course to take photos instead). They kept pushing and running hard. As always they were out there putting their noses to the grindstone leaving everything on the course. Our boys finished 24th out of 34 teams at the national meet! Our finishers and scorers for the team were: Ethan Sullivan (96th), Alec Weinhold (106th), Avery Traffie (159th), Caleb Pendleton (176th), Andrew Sholl (184th), Trenton Classen (192nd), Ethan Gatchell (220th).
Of course we always know and reflect on how this all started. The Lord gave us this awesome ability to run and to run well. We had our prayer circle and praise the Lord we were able to use that platform at The. National. Level. What an amazing opportunity! In the words of Coach Orchard "Everyone contributes to this team." Everyone on this team pulled their load all year to help each other get to nationals and to help achieve our goals. In saying that we support each other, we could not have done a lot of this without the support of all our coaches, parents, athletic training department, and other staff that have helped us all year! Special thanks to Coach Paul Orchard, Coach Jeff Bolender, Dr. Alan Geist, Kurt Beachy, and Wes Stephens! Thank you all for supporting us and believing in us this year!
This is my last blog of the year. Thank you for reading and once again All For The Glory of God.
Alex Weber
November 21, 2018
Hello All!
I come back with some exciting news! WE MADE IT TO NATIONALS!!! Three years ago we all had this dream of making it to the NCAA Division II Cross Country National Meet for the third time in our school’s history and as of November 19, 2018 we got the confirmation that we made it. IT was surreal and some of us could not believe it at first while others were already hit with the reality that it had happened. Monday was a good day and this past weekend was even better. We have more work to do on December 1st in Pittsburgh, PA.
Going into the meet I noticed our attitudes were literally no different from the rest of the year. We had been talking about this Regional meet for weeks! It was engrained in our minds that we were training for that weekend, that day, that meet, and that moment. When it was time to race they guys were zoned in like every other race - it was no different, the approach was no different, and the goals were no different. It was race day, it was time to go hard, and it was time to give everything they had. They did that! At the end of the race no one had anything left and this team gave everything they had. It was a combination of the huge base developed from all of the summer miles, the hard tempos in the heat, all the talks of what it would take to make that moment count. All of it had been thrown down on the course for six hard miles.
The seven guys that ran for us this weekend were Ethan Sullivan (23rd), Trent Classen (28th), Caleb Pendleton (36th), Andrew Sholl (47th), Alec Weinhold (50th), Ethan Gatchell (64th), and Russell Schultz (134th). They ran hard and they ran well! It was a good team effort last weekend. Everybody ran to their potential despite the snowy, cold conditions. It was true cross country weather with an even better course to go with the snow. This course had rolling hills which really suits our team very well. This race is more about strength and this team is very strength-based, so it was almost perfect for the guys to run in. All in all everything was set up the way it was supposed to be. Praise the Lord for another goal achieved. We have one more race, more work to do, and one more chance to bring God glory through our awesome and borrowed gift.
Thank you all for the support!
Alex Weber
November 14, 2018
Hello all! Guess what week it is! IT. IS. MEET. WEEK! My favorite week of any part of the year. This week especially since it is our week to go to the NCAA Midwest Regional meet at Hillsdale College in Michigan. We are set to leave this Friday for Hillsdale to go check out the course, get a run in, and then rest up at the hotel to get ready to set ourselves up for a trip to nationals. In this case, if we do go to nationals, it would be the second time in our school’s history for a cross country team to make it to the NCAA Division II National meet! The last time this was accomplished was in 2012 and that was also the same year Cedarville joined the NCAA. This would be a huge feat for us and something that we have talked about for three years is - going to nationals! This year is the year that we can do this!
All year for those who have followed I have mentioned our goals for nationals just a few times because I wanted to keep our readers engaged with us in the present meets coming up that week of or in the week of training. I wanted all of our readers to get every step of the way up to this point now so I could really share with you all the importance of who we are as a team, how hard we train, and what it is like to be a runner as part of the Cedarville men’s cross country team. In those times I wanted you guys to get how much we believed in ourselves so you yourselves could see how ready we are for a huge meet like nationals. We have now arrived to that point of the year where it is ever so close and we are 100% ready to perform.
One of our team members, Andrew Sholl, recently said this to the team and I think it really summarizes the tone of our training and drive up to this point, "This is what we’ve all been waiting for. All those terribly hot and humid runs lead up to this week. We’ve put in all that we can and now we just have to execute. There’s not a single reason why we can’t beat Walsh and Malone at Hillsdale on Saturday. There will be no excuses this week, and no excuses after the race. I’m excited to see how we’ve developed as a team this season, but I am so ready to perform way better than we have all season. We have the potential to put ourselves somewhere we haven’t been before, and to walk away from regionals knowing we’ve given 100% of all we have to this team and this season. I’m so excited to see the drive on this team."
This is it! We have a great opportunity. We have the potential. We have the opportunity. Now all we have to do is believe in ourselves, believe in each other, trust our training, and put our heads to the grindstone even harder then we have before!
This week training-wise has been keeping up the intensity and maintaining the miles. We have been doing this for a month or more now. We have seen the improvements physically. We are confident that we are ready. This week we’ve done 400 repeats and tempo workouts on the course. We believe in longer tempos throughout the season is a major key to improving our strength for the 8K and 10K races for the long cross country season. The 400 repeats are made for us to run at an interval or race pace to simulate a race-like effect / perceived effort. All of this specifically to get our bodies tuned up and remind the legs to stay fast.
All of this to say the Lord has been more then good to us this year. He has granted us success this season and we praise Him. We’ve seen this and we give Him all the glory. We have seen His hand in our success and only because of Him are we successful. With that in our minds and in our hearts we are ready to go praise Him and glorify Him whether we go to nationals or not.
I hope to come back in another week to tell you about Nationals. Thanks for reading to this point in the season. Thank you for the support and all the prayers. Please keep up the support and the prayers!
All for the Glory of God!
Alex Weber
November 6, 2018
Hello all! It has certainly been a while since I have last caught you all up. In short, let me tell you what we did this past weekend. We went to our conference meet on Saturday in Canton, Ohio hosted by Walsh University! This was a good time for us going in. We have had lots of confidence with all the training we have had and all the great races we have been able to compete in. Praise the Lord we had another decent weekend but we came up short of our goal to win G-MAC by a margin of 10 points.
As I had mentioned before in many other blogs, this is a very driven team. We have collectively come together to say "WE CAN" this year. In many ways we have done many great things together this year, but this time we came up short with a third place finish behind conference rivals Malone and Walsh. In saying that though, we were beat giving our all in the pile of mud that we had to run in. The conditions of this course were wet and muddy to the point it was up to our ankles. This race was a tough one, but we left it all out there!
As I mentioned before we placed third by a very small margin. The men who were our top scorers for this meet were Trent Classen (3rd – 26:48), Ethan Sullivan (4th – 26:48), Alec Weinhold (12th – 27:13), Caleb Pendleton (17th – 27:23), Russell Schultz (22nd – 27:37), Andrew Sholl (25th – 27:44), and Ethan Gatchell (26th – 27:45). The rest of us put in a hard fought battle and did all we could to push each other to get those spots that we needed in the meet. In our goal we did not get the results we wanted, but praise the Lord we were successful in sharing his name through giving him glory in prayer.
At the end of our race, as always, we came together to pray. I will tell you now this was a very incredible sight to see. I would guess almost all of the runners that day came within our prayer circle to give glory to the Lord. I have never seen anything like it. It was God working his hand bringing people together after a hard fought, muddy five mile race. As we try to worship the Lord with our running we also faithfully seek to bring people together in hopes that God will bring more to Himself within this sport.
Coming up next is Regionals! We have our 10 guys who are going to the Regional set up. This week and next week we’re all going to help each other tune up the Regional team for the big day. When meet day comes, we’re going in hopes of advancing to Nationals!
Until next time!
Alex Weber
October 23, 2018
HELLO LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
I am back with some exciting news about your men’s cross country team! This past weekend we traveled to Slippery Rock University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the Pre-National meet. We took 16 guys to compete at this meet and we performed to our abilities plus some more! Out of 29 teams we placed 4th! Two of our guys - Ethan Sullivan and Trent Classen - were in the Top 20, our 3-5 on the team Caleb Pendleton, Alec Weinhold, and Andrew Sholl were in the top 50, and our 6-7 on the team Russell Schultz and Avery Traffie placed 66th and 89th out of 301 runners. It was certainly a successful weekend in the Steeler city.
Our objective this weekend was once again to see where we were in our fitness and as a team see how we would place amongst the best in the nation. We had no idea what to expect and if you have followed us since the All-Ohio Championship meet in Akron a couple weeks ago you’ll know this was a very similar situation. We went to see how we would be against Ohio’s best and came back feeling very confident.
This past weekend we came back feeling very confident, but this time we feel confident knowing we beat some of best NCAA Division II cross country teams not just in our region, but in other regions as well. In our region we beat nationally-ranked and conference rivals Walsh (15) and Malone (21), to beat these two teams has been a goal for us the last three years. Then we beat another region's #1 team (I believe it was the Atlantic region) Edinboro. We went, we ran, and we did well. This gave us a huge confidence booster going into training for the next couple weeks, because at the end of the two weeks is the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) Championship. Cedarville had a long history of owning the title of G-MAC XC champs for a number of years until we lost it to Malone and Walsh the next couple years. Now this year we’re ready to take it back and win. After that, we have our sights on making it out of the regional meet and into the national meet for the second time in our school’s history since 2012.
This has been a huge goal for us this year. We believe in ourselves. We know we’re going to achieve what is possible. We’re going to give it our all and push ourselves to the limit in order to make it happen. It has been a blessing to have a successful season and Lord willing we continue to do so.
If you want to follow us for live updates you can follow our Twitter: @cedarvillexc and Instagram: cedarvilletfxc
That’s all for this week! I’m looking forward to sharing more with you all about G-MAC!
All for the Glory of God!
Alex Weber
October 18, 2018
Hello all! This week’s blog will be a little short, but I still have some good insights for all of you from the meet this past weekend!
Also, this was my second race of the year so I will be able to tell you a little more about the action within the race. First off we traveled up the road so to speak to Wilmington College. Home of the Quakers!
This week was an optional race and some of our team rested for Pre-Nationals this week. I will get into more detail about that pretty soon. We took the rest of team that decided to go and the moment we get onto the bus you could already tell it was going to be a good day. The guys per the norm were ready to roll and get in the mix with everyone today.
This was my first time experiencing this meet so I had no idea what was coming up. What I had heard from others it was going to be a great course, with great competition, and great weather. All three things were true thankfully and during our warm-up the course was very well maintained, because this course actually went through their campus for the first two miles. After the first two miles of this course we looped back into the woods of their course from mile three to five5. It was tough because it went from flat campus grass to hilly, root-infested trails and then into rolling hills. This was a course that kept people honest in a balance of quick smooth to hilly and rough. All in all the quality of this race was great for the team, because we had a good number of our guys run some very solid times in comparison to the All-Ohio meet or our home Friendship Invitational. A couple of our runners, Andrew Testas and David Gibbs, had times that were around 15 seconds slower then and then another one of our runners, Abram Enns, ran close to two minutes faster. So we saw a very large range of time that day! Overall a pretty solid day for some guys and some others not so good. This is not uncommon in our sport and that is part of why we keep running - to continually improve so we see more good days on race day.
Here are everyone’s places and times:
Russell Schultz / 26:15 (37)
Matthew McCormick-Nerlinger / 26:25 (46)
Myself / 26:35 (55)
Jacob Logan / 26:38 (59)
Andrew Testas / 27:03 (81)
Caleb Miller / 27:11 (93)
Joshua Miller / 27:13 (95)
Micah Mckanna / 27:50 (140)
David Gibbs / 27:54 (147)
Abram Enns / 28:17 (168)
Ryan Vojtisek / 28:29 (179)
Isaac Wheeler / 28:43 (194)
Joel Gatchell / 29:33 (234)
Alan Meyer / 30:26 (274)
Each and every time we step up to the line we learn a little more about ourselves, we learn something new, or are reminded of something. That’s the nature of racing in this sport - we come across good and bad days. What is ultimately different with this team and what I just said is that every time
we toe that line we know that us racing is another way to worship the Lord. It is another way for us to give all glory to Him. That is our mission and while we’re on that mission we train ourselves physically and mentally to go out racing as hard as we can wherever we may go, but we also train ourselves to push forward the gospel and the name of Jesus at every place we go also.
In saying that our next opportunity to go race and spread the good word is at Pre-National in Pittsburgh, PA! We’ve been tuning up pretty well and we are ready to get our noses to the grind stone with the other big boys! It’s another good opportunity for us to see how our training has been affecting us! I’ll be sure to let ya’ll know how it goes!
That is all for this week! I’m looking forward to sharing more with you about next weekend!
All For the Glory of God!
Alex Weber
October 4, 2018
HELLO ALL!
Boy do I have some news for ya’ll about this past weekend! If you cannot tell, I am very excited about the performance of this team. Last week we went out to Akron, Ohio to run at the All-Ohio Championships. Going into this meet we were looking to just have a good showing of our fitness and it turned out we come back with a great showing along with some multiple accomplishments.
As I mentioned in the last blog these guys were mentally sharp and ready to roll for this weekend. The training has been constant intensity and consistent mileage just to get our bodies ready for the bigger key part of the season which is coming very soon. The weekend’s race was almost like that next big step for us to show we’re in prime fitness and only getting stronger from this point on.
We left for Akron around 8:10 a.m. to get a good breakfast in us before the three-hour trip. The women’s championship race was at 2:00 p.m. followed by the men’s at 2:45 p.m. so we always try and get there a solid four hours early so the guys can relax a bit; get spikes ready, numbers pinned, and race ready! We eventually arrived after making a quick stop to use the bathroom and shake the legs out a bit. It was already a perfect race day because the weather was good and the course was even better. A runners dream race day is cool weather and flat or rolling course that provides some fast times. That is exactly what we had that day.
After walking the course it’s about time for the championship race to start and I already could tell these guys were "on another level". I wish I could put into words the stuff I see with these guys when they get focused for a race. It’s honestly one of the coolest things watching a group of committed runners rally together to put forth all their effort for a five mile race. You can see the heart behind the focus.
That’s what I see every time these guys get to race and these guys had an even more intense focus for this race from the end of the warm-up to the point they toed that line amongst the other teams. When they toed that line and got done with their strides we did our traditional pre-race prayer and I will say it was a powerful prayer. Everyone in the group huddled together and Ethan Sullivan took the lead to say "All for the Glory of God" on three. 1… 2… 3…we all shout with pride "ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD" and boom everyone knows these guys are about to go all out for this race and that they did!
From start to finish these guys put their noses to the grind stone, getting into the mix of the competition and rolling with the big dogs. Our top two guys Ethan Sullivan and Trent Classen are our two low sticks in the race every time. Our number three guy Alec Weinhold along with our number four, five, six and seven guys Andrew Sholl, Colin Cramer, Ethan Gatchell and Avery Traffie were all running well in a group until about mid-race when they split up. Alec was on his own, Sholl, Colin and Gatchell were rolling together and Avery was running with our eighth man Ford McElroy. Our nine man Matthew Nerlinger was in the back. These guys were pushing hard all the way through. Our team is very strength-based so we made up a lot of ground in the second half of the race which is typically our running style. So when the last mile of the race came our guys started making moves to pass and the last 400 meters were wild.
Ethan Sullivan came in 5th with a time of 24:24, Trent Classen came in 7th with a time of 24:32, Alec Weinhold came in 27th with a time of 25:03, Andrew Sholl came in 38th with a time of 25:17, Colin Cramer came in 69th in a time of 25:38, Ethan Gatchell came in 69th with a time of 25:45, Avery Traffie came in 94
th with a time of 26:06, Ford McElroy came in 117
th with a time of 26:27, and Matthew Nerlinger came in 246th with a time of 29:24. The general consensus among these guys is that it was a good day, but they still want to improve. Along with that, I think all of these guys had life time personal records! Which goes to show how much hungrier and how much better these guys can be! This weekend was just the tip of the iceberg.
While this was the championship race we were able to see more of our guys in the open race have a real good day also! I was actually part of the open race so I will not be able to give too much detail as to how the race went for everyone unfortunately. But, I can tell you that the results were in fact just as exciting. Luke Bredeson came in 4th with a time of 26:59, Russell Shultz came in 8th with a time of 26:06, Jacob Logan came in 20th with a time 26:39, Kevin Gideon came in 24th with a time of 26:43, Andrew Testas came in 29th with a time of 26:47, Josh Miller can 33rd with a tome of 26:53, Caleb Miller came in 34th with a time of 26:56, Micah McKanna came in 45th with a time of 27:19, David Gibbs came in 67th with a time of 27:39, Ryan Vojtisek came in 97th with a time of 28:18, and Joel Gatchell came in 123rd with a time of 29:12. Again the general consensus from these guys was that they had a real good day and they are looking forward to some more good races during the rest of the season.
Before I end this blog I just would like to let the readers know that because of this God-given ability we are able to do these things. In saying that I would like to tell of some of the feats we were able to accomplish this weekend. First off, our number one runner Ethan Sullivan was able to break the Great Midwest Athletic Conference 8,000 meter record with his time of 24:24 and he is now the Cedarville cross country record holder in the 8,000 meters also. Second, the team also set a record for the fastest team time total in school history of 24:58, third we have never had more than two people under the 25-minute barrier, and fourth, this is the first time in three years we accomplished our goal of getting seven men under the 26-minute barrier. All in all it was a very good weekend and these guys are ready to keep getting better. The season is not over yet and they have a lot more work to do!
That is all for this week! I’m looking forward to sharing more with you about next weekend!
All For the Glory of God!
Alex Weber
September 26, 2018
Hello all!
Guess what week it is! IT’S MEET WEEK. That’s right your men’s cross country team is going to the All-Ohio Championship meet in Akron, Ohio this weekend! We’re all ready to roll. This has been a week of consistent intense workouts with consistent mileage as well. Quite literally we’re maintaining our mileage and getting into the latter part of our season. All-Ohio is a big meet and this is also a meet where we get to really see how we are performing once again. Our last meet at the Friendship Invitational was a good showing of our strength and training. This is another big chance for us to show what we’re made of to other teams and at the same time prove to ourselves we’re getting into the right shape leading up to the post-season where we jump to the distance of 10K.
A lot of time and preparation has been put into this season as I have mentioned before. Lots of time, sweat, tears, and on occasion blood has been put into all the workouts and long runs over the course of the year. The men having been preparing in a multitude of ways. Mainly what these guys have been doing are strength training, rolling, stretching, and consistent workout or miles. Most of what we do behind the scenes sometimes is the biggest help. For instance, we have this thing where we do “core o’ clock” as a way to get motivated to core exercises, we take 15 minutes sometimes just to roll our legs out, and sometimes just go to the trainers to use compression boots to push out lactic from our legs after a hard workout day. This in combination with good, consistent mileage and workouts are going to be the key to success for us this weekend at All-Ohio. We’re going in with this mind set that we want to run well which is obvious, but we want to run well so we can prepare to run better at bigger, more important meets like the G-MAC meet, Regional meet, and National meet. This is now part of that season that we have been looking forward to and it is now that part of the season where I get the most excited! Mid-season I think is the perfect time to really see where we are at physically as a team and right now we are looking very strong.
As I said these guys are ready to go. Their workouts have been good. The mileage has been consistent. Their mind set is in the right place. With everything in position there is no reason we cannot perform well to our abilities. Coach Orchard even said at one point that now is the time to take advantage of it because we are now looking to become the next team in our school’s history to go to the NCAA Division II National Meet.
As the season goes on I will keep giving you all updates on how the team is going and I will also start putting in comments from people on the team to give you all some more inside perspective on the team.
That is all for this week! I will give you another update after this weekend’s race in Akron!
Alex Weber
September 17, 2018
Hello all!
It is yours truly with you once again with some exciting news to share with you about this weekend’s meet. The Friendship Invitational, as I had said in our last blog, is one of the biggest events we have this season during the regular season and as expected it was. With an estimated 3,800 plus people showing up to this weekend’s meet we were certainly packed. This crowd was a combination of college and high school teams. We were packed full this weekend which was good because we like lots of competition. As we like to say "we run well with competition" - we did indeed do that. This was our only home meet this year which in our case is very strange because every year we usually have at least two or three. So in knowing that this was our only home meet of the year we
really wanted to make this first meet and our first 8K race of the year really count. There was a target on our backs already since we were hosting this meet on our home course, but then we got this sense of pride in our chest when the day came. We knew what we had to do and with that in mind we were able to come home with the win. Praise the Lord!
We always have a team meeting before our home meets to kind of set the tone for the day mentally and spiritually. When I sat down in the lounge where we met, there was something a little different about this year’s meet and this year’s team specifically. You always look at a team and think, "That team has some good chemistry." But you never really would think to yourself, "That team right there is more than a team…that’s a band of brothers." When you have a team like that knowing we’re running together for the Glory of God as brothers in Christ that’s a force you can’t stop. We took that onto the course this weekend. Along with all this were the thoughts of all the training we had done, all the sweat we had put into this, and all the hours of running on the back roads or treadmills floating in the back of our heads thinking about how we want to execute the perfect race plan or adapt to the chaos of what a big race like this brings. You could see it in all their eyes that when they toed that line it was all or nothing from that point on. These guys were ready to throw down!
It was a good day for a good throw down, too! The day was a little hotter than normal and with a few thousand people that atmosphere was crazy. In these moments it all gets zoned out, you go on your warm up, do your stretches, and toe the line. When the gun went off you could see nothing but yellow in the front - I mean it was really cool! Right off the bat we had our two top guys Ethan Sullivan and Trent Classen in the mix. There was a pretty big gap from the beginning but we made it up. By the time we got three miles I could see our 3-6 started making some moves into positions that would put us higher in the scoreboard. Our guys Andrew Sholl, Colin Cramer, and Caleb Pendleton stepped up in the last mile to get the extra spots we needed to secure the victory. Our seventh man freshman Matt Nerlinger was in the back for a bit, but in the stretch he managed to get a few more spots. The rest of our guys kept fighting real hard whether it was a good day or bad day these guys will always leave it all out there.
Just some fun things to know about our team. This week our senior Ethan Sullivan got AOTW (Athlete of the Week) and a fresh new PR (personal record). Our freshman Colin Cramer and junior Andrew Sholl were both our Oats Awards winners for this week! Coach Orchard literally will toss oats at us and then hand us a bag of oats with the date of the race on it. It’s a cool tradition. Now to just to give you all some stats: We had two of our guys in the Top 5 - Ethan Sullivan third and Trent Classen fifth. We had a 58-second gap between each runner which in this case on a day like Saturday was very good, our average team time was 26:14 which overall is also good, and we won with a point margin of 14 points in front of Morehead State. Our scorers were Ethan Sullivan (25:40), Trent Classen (25:59), Andrew Sholl (26:20), Colin Cramer (26:31), Caleb Pendleton (26:38), Alec Weinhold (26:49), and Matt Nerlinger (27:14). A lot of big successes and a lot of little ones.
Every day we are trying to get better and attain the goals of five guys under the 26 minute barriers, winning the G-MAC title, and going to nationals. Ultimately our goal in each of those scenarios is to honor, praise, and glorify the Lord through these borrowed gifts of running. It is an honor and blessing to be able to tell you all these things! I hope now at some point you can witness all of it! Keep following us on the Blog, Instagram, and Twitter! You guys rock!
Hope you enjoyed this blog! Until next week!
Alex Weber
September 12, 2018
Hello all!
It’s that time of week again…MEET WEEK! I am pumped for this week because it is our home invitational! The Friendship Invite is one of the biggest meets of the year for us and we have a sense of pride to really show our abilities on our home course. There’s nothing like running on a home course knowing that all the work put in leading to that moment is going to be showcased in front of thousands of people and loyal fans alike on home turf. It really brings to life the level of commitment put into this sport for one day at a home meet. There’s no other feeling like it! In saying that, please come out and support the men’s and women’s cross country teams this weekend! The men’s 8,000 meter run is at 9:30 a.m. and the women’s 5,000 meter run is at 10:15 a.m.
This week has been full on preparation mode for the guys. It’s been a lot of high intensity mile repeats, tempo runs, and lifting. All for the sake to run fast this weekend. You might think that it’s crazy to run as much as we do and do all this other preparation for one meet. I will give you that there in some sense is a little bit of craziness when it comes to the mileage, preparation, and commitment all just to run 5 to 6 miles really fast, but that’s what it takes. There’s even more reason to put in this level of preparation because of this meet. As I mentioned earlier there is a sense of pride on running on our home course which is even more cause for us to keep moving forward with running 80 miles a week with 2 or 3 speed workouts every week. Along with all of this our goals are to win conference, run well at regional, and make our second appearance at nationals as a team. This weekend is our first 8K and this is also the first step into seeing how we fair up against other teams against the 8K distance. That is why we do what we do and why we’re even more excited to run this weekend! We’re defending our home turf and we’re going to stick our noses down into the competition!
In saying all this we’re excited, but we also getting mentally ready because this is one of our biggest meets this year. Every single one of the guys I’ve seen running this week look sharp, smooth, and ready to roll. You can just see it when a runner races if there mentally in it…when they are it can be a dangerous thing because that person is ready to commit fully no matter who is around him or her. Imagine seeing 30 guys look like that and that’s our team. Yesterday in there workout I had the privilege of seeing them coming down the home stretch. They looked like a moving brick wall! The strength this team has is a force to be reckoned with. So don’t cut yourself short come out and watch this team run strong for the Lord! Well that’s all I have for today. Hope you enjoyed the blog!
See you guys next week!
Alex Weber
September 6, 2018
Hello all! This past weekend was the season opener for the men’s cross country team! We traveled to Northern Kentucky University to compete against some top Division I and Division II schools! We arrived at the race about two hours prior to starting time. It was perfect racing weather for the guys. It was cool and there was no wind. These guys were in for a good day and they certainly had one at that.
Most of the guys spent those couple hours stretching, warming up, spiking up, and getting bib numbers ready before it was time to toe the line. As I was watching these guys I saw a lot of them talking to others to keep the nerves down and others were silently going through their mental check lists or even their race strategies just to be one-hundred percent ready before they went. It was honestly an amazing sight to see how these guys prepared.
After all that time to prepare we finally get to race! The men did their routine prayer before the race and their "All for the Glory of God" shout! These guys looked more focused then I have ever seen them! This was the team that was ready to lay everything on the line. The gun went off and all you could see was blurs of jersey colors flashing by, but you knew where the Yellow Jackets were. Right from the gun these guys got into the mix, not afraid to challenge for the front. It was hard to gauge what the first or even second mile was because there were no timers on the course so everything was based on feeling which is a little tougher, but in this case today was a day to see where our guys were at. Along with that, this course was very challenging for everyone. The top 10 to 15 guys who all had personal records in the 5,000 meter of fifteen minutes or faster - and no one broke fifteen minutes.
As I mentioned earlier, this race was meant to see where these guys were fitness-wise. It was a tough course with some tough competition. Coach Orchard likes to put us up against the best so we can get a good look as to where we are and how the team looks to him. The team did very well overall with a solid fifth-place finish. The Top 7 scorers for us were Ethan Sullivan (7th), Trent Classen (13th), Alec Weinhold (29th), Isaac Erlandson (45th), Caleb Pendleton (50th), Colin Cramer (52nd) , and Ethan Gatchel (65th).
The rest of the team fought hard and ran harder! For some of our guys it was their first race back after months of not running, others it was their first race of the season ever collegiately, and some guys were feeling the effects of continuous high mileage. In short it was a good day and bad day for some of our guys, but they always come back. The beautiful thing about our team is that we are very resilient after a tough day of racing.
So until next time I hope you enjoyed this blog!
See you guys next week!
Alex Weber
August 28, 2018
Hello my name is Alex Weber and I am this year’s Cedarville University men’s cross country blogger! I am looking forward to keeping you all updated on this season and giving you all the best inside look of what this team is about along with what accomplishments we achieve together in the name of Jesus and in the spirit of good, hard competition on the cross country courses that we compete at this year!
Let me introduce you to myself a little more! I am a part of the men’s cross country team and track & field team at Cedarville University. I am a junior Biblical Studies major and I am pursuing a master’s degree in Divinity along with my undergraduate! Running is a big part of my life and is much more than a sport to me - it is a lifestyle. Along with running I have many other hobbies such as rock climbing, hiking, canoeing, camping, reading, coffee drinking, and talking to people. I come from the great Hoosier state - Indiana and a town called Vincennes (Fun Fact - We were the first town in Indiana established and we also established the first school in Indiana). Some other things you should know about me: I love pop culture, learning or talking about theology, talking about running statistics both American and International, my favorite races in track are the 1500 and 3K, I like puns, and Jesus Christ is my dude.
Let me explain also my goal of this blog for you the readers. My goal is to show you the best details I can about our team and our races. What that means is statistics. I will give you the best coverage of the races as I can, because I want all of you to see how great this team is and follow all the hard work that has been put in, our goals, and what we truly stand for when we toe the line. Along with this I want to make it fun and enjoyable for whoever reads these blog entries so they can share and again stay up to date with what is going on in the Cedarville Men’s Cross Country team’s racing experiences!
I’m very honored and excited to be doing this! I hope you all enjoy this as much as I do! Here’s to the rest of an upcoming and great season!
All for the Glory of God!
Alex Weber
Alex Weber is a junior at Cedarville University. He is in his third year with the Yellow Jackets and is majoring in Biblical studies.
