Winters Here

December 23, 2007

Well, winter has officially started here in Central Illinois. The wind chill is currently at zero and a few inches of snow on the ground. None-the-less, practice must continue. There has a been a welcomed coaching change on the girls track team, and I am really looking forward to working with the new staff coming in. Last season was a bit of a down year for the EP girls track team, with only 12 girls competing by the end of the spring. But things are on the up and up, with a lot of young talent in our freshman class.

My position will remain the same as it was last year, coaching boys and girls distance events. The one tough thing about coaching both in track is that we do not have any of the same meets, so I am always being torn between the two. Fortunately, the distance kids are fairly responsible (the girls obviously more so) and self sufficient, so I do not have to worry to much about things when I am not able to be with one team or the other.

Although official practice does not begin until Jan 14, I have been really suprised at the turnout of kids for winter training. Unfortunately due to ridiculous IHSA rules, I am not allowed to run practices or even write workouts for that matter! How do people think they are going to learn how to run??? What do I know though, leave it up to the higher ups who have never ran before, and probably never left the state before, to make up such ridiculous rules. Anyhow, despite my best efforts with the AD, the kids are out there are getting themselves ready for the track season. I have really been hammering how important it is to think long term, and now they are starting to get that you cannot perform to your best off 2 months of training. It is nice to finally see them buy into the off season workouts, and now that they have seen that they are capable of way more than they ever thought, most are hooked!

We will be doing the grind of winter training for the next two months, and then we are going to compete in a few indoor meets to get out of the boredom. Hopefully I should have 4-5 qualifiers for the state indoor meet, which is one of our smaller goals for the season.

I just got from New Jersey to see esteemed podiatrist Dr. John Connors who performed a noninvase foot procedure using some high tech ultrasound machine. I didnt mind the pounding throb of the machine so much as the 8 numbing shots that came out of an 18 inch needle that the doc poked from top to bottom of my foot. I actually turned green before I turned white and passed out this time! The foot is still a bit bruised from the shots, but I dont have any pain in the toe area, so hopefully I will be back jogging once again around the New Year. Knock on wood there will be no more long layoffs.

Thats about it on this end. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

tim