First off I hope everybody had a safe and happy holiday. I am not sure if I am totally ready for another winter to be honest. I had a warm welcome this morning as the snow fell for the first time in Central IL. Driving out to do a few chores, I ended up sideways in a ditch at 50 mps between a phone pole, a big osage-orange tree and a 50 foot ditch! Not to worry, I only ended up with a few scratches and $60 later I was back on the road. What I love even more than the snow is trying to coach 15 high school kids in it with no places to run. Oh well, that is life.
A few of the boys and 7 of the girls ran in a 2 mile race Friday morning cleaning up nicely. Only 1 kid did not bring home any hardware. We have already begun unofficial practice as of last week. We have a team full of talent on the girls side and now that IL has gone to a 3 class system, the boys have a legitimate shot at qualifying in the 4x800. I am really looking forward to pushing them all hard over the next 3 months without any races to get in the way.
I am not sure if I posted this last time, but I will be having foot surgery on December 19th. The Dr found that a cyst developed where the prior surgerys existed. Lucky me. That is the reason I have had this grinding pain in my toe for so long. Cross your fingers that this will be the last of it. I am not sure on the recovery time, but I am guessing 6-8 weeks. Just in time for Spring!
Drive safe out there and I will keep you all posted. Thanks again for reading and remember, GO RAIDERS!
tb
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Sectionals and Beyond!
The season has finally come to a close. Last Saturday we competed in the State qualifying sectional meet. The top 5 teams and top individuals advance. Being that we had 7 of the top 10 teams in the state in our sectional, I didnt have any delusions of moving on. I did believe that we were capable of being top 10, which would have been a wonderful cap on a good fall. I also believed that freshman star Kevin Eades would bounce back from an illness and was capable of qualifying as an individual.
To save the drama, I will tell you that he did just that! He ran a personal best of 15:42 and finished 14th overall and 5th individual! Being that there were only 5 or 6 freshman total to qualify for the state meet, I thought that was pretty incredible. He ran a perfect race, going through the mile in 35th and moving up slowly over the next mile and a half. Then he pulled out that big finish to catch 7 people over the last 600 meters. And that finish qualified him as the first freshman in EP history to qualify for the state meet as an individual!
In the end we finished a respectable 11th place, putting us (in my opinion) in the top 25 statewise. Junior Hugh Gill and Alec Gonzales both ran gutsy races and ended up with personal bests of 16:11 16:35. David Blackford also competed well to drop his pb to 17:01. I think we could have ran a little better from that point on, but cannot say that I was disappointed with anybody. It is very difficult to race twice a week for 8 weeks in a row, especially when you are young and not well trained. What I was most excited about is that the team all stayed around the next week to train and be with Kevin and are all excited to getting to training this winter and next summer so that we are all at the big dance next year. (talks cheap, so we will see ; ) We have also decided to rent a van and I am going to take a group up to the Footlocker Regional in Wisconsin Thanksgiving weekend.
Kevin went on to finish 104th this weekend, runing 16:30. A dissappointing finish, but not an idicator of how well he ran all season and how well he composed himself as a 15 year old freshman. Mark my words, he will be one of the best in the state next year. He text me later on after the race appologizing for letting me down and my reply was "I hope your joking. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Your will to train and live the lifestyle will pay off. Do not underestimate what you have accomplished this season. There are few freshman that have done what you have. It has been a pleasure to coach you and we will get you to the top of the podium, probably sooner than I think. Now try to enjoy a few days off. "
On a personal note, I got results back from an mri last week with good news and bad. I have a cyst that has developed which is probably what is causing all the pain in my toe. That can be fixed with a simple injection (if im lucky), and if not, can be removed. Bad news is that the other sesmoid bone is also fractured and half of it is neucrotic (dead). Hopefully that will not need to be extracted, but I will find out more this week when I go see the doc. It is unbelievable that it has taken so long to figure out why I have been having so much foot pain over the last 6 years. Hopefully this will be the end of it, but I will definately keep you all posted.
Thanks for reading and Go Raiders!
tb
To save the drama, I will tell you that he did just that! He ran a personal best of 15:42 and finished 14th overall and 5th individual! Being that there were only 5 or 6 freshman total to qualify for the state meet, I thought that was pretty incredible. He ran a perfect race, going through the mile in 35th and moving up slowly over the next mile and a half. Then he pulled out that big finish to catch 7 people over the last 600 meters. And that finish qualified him as the first freshman in EP history to qualify for the state meet as an individual!
In the end we finished a respectable 11th place, putting us (in my opinion) in the top 25 statewise. Junior Hugh Gill and Alec Gonzales both ran gutsy races and ended up with personal bests of 16:11 16:35. David Blackford also competed well to drop his pb to 17:01. I think we could have ran a little better from that point on, but cannot say that I was disappointed with anybody. It is very difficult to race twice a week for 8 weeks in a row, especially when you are young and not well trained. What I was most excited about is that the team all stayed around the next week to train and be with Kevin and are all excited to getting to training this winter and next summer so that we are all at the big dance next year. (talks cheap, so we will see ; ) We have also decided to rent a van and I am going to take a group up to the Footlocker Regional in Wisconsin Thanksgiving weekend.
Kevin went on to finish 104th this weekend, runing 16:30. A dissappointing finish, but not an idicator of how well he ran all season and how well he composed himself as a 15 year old freshman. Mark my words, he will be one of the best in the state next year. He text me later on after the race appologizing for letting me down and my reply was "I hope your joking. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Your will to train and live the lifestyle will pay off. Do not underestimate what you have accomplished this season. There are few freshman that have done what you have. It has been a pleasure to coach you and we will get you to the top of the podium, probably sooner than I think. Now try to enjoy a few days off. "
On a personal note, I got results back from an mri last week with good news and bad. I have a cyst that has developed which is probably what is causing all the pain in my toe. That can be fixed with a simple injection (if im lucky), and if not, can be removed. Bad news is that the other sesmoid bone is also fractured and half of it is neucrotic (dead). Hopefully that will not need to be extracted, but I will find out more this week when I go see the doc. It is unbelievable that it has taken so long to figure out why I have been having so much foot pain over the last 6 years. Hopefully this will be the end of it, but I will definately keep you all posted.
Thanks for reading and Go Raiders!
tb
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
