Monday, March 3, 2008

A Great Start







March 3, 2008






We finally had our first indoor race of the 2008 season, and I couldnt have been any happier. It has been a long while since the Raiders have raced (ecspecially in high school time), so I was very curious to see how the training over the last 4 month would affect us. I am usually pretty spot on to what I think an athlete is capable of, but I always error on the side of cation when trying to determine an early race pace. Being that we have not been on the track for a very long time, I wanted everyone to be out relatively comfortable and try to even split the first and second halves of the race. Although I am not a big fan of getting done with a race and having a lot of energy, I always feel it is better to start the first race of the season saying "I could have ran a lot faster". The annoying thing for me was that I had a previously planned trip to Florida, so I had to miss the race, and what is really disturbing is that a big part of me wanted to bail on a free trip to the Florida Keys to stay at home and watch a high school indoor meet! I think I may actually seek help concerning this.






Anyhow, the kids ran out of their minds. Senior Shane Leiby placed second with a 10 second pr of 4:32 (and he negative split the second half). His twin brother, who has not worked out for he last 6 weeks because of a knee problem ran 4 seconds off a pr with a 4:51. Senior Brock Kingsland missed his goal of breaking 5 minutes for the first time by two seconds, running 5:02 and freshman Alex Cortez ran a pr of 5:01 (in my opinoin one of the real highlights of the meet). Also pr'ing were freshman Cody Margetis and David Haldeman (who just started running with us a week prior) with times of 5:34.






On, the girls side, star Emily Gustafson ran a disappointing 5:31, and despite stopping a lap early, Ashley Schmitt broke the 6 minute barrier for the first time at 5:47. Freshman Brittany Grant broke the 3 minute mark for her first half mile ever running 2:55 as welll. Not to bad for a freshman who has been on the treadmill everyday since December and has never ran a track race further than 200 meters!






All in all, I would say it was a successful start to the season, and very encouraging for whats to come outdoors. We will be racing our last indoor meet of the season in two weeks at the University of Illinois, and hopefully we will have a couple of state indoor meet qualifiers. Until then it is back to the grind for 6 more weeks, which will put us at the beginning of the outdoor season.






Best to all