Sunday, March 28, 2010

Things Are Heating UP!












As spring begins to heat things up, so does the EPCHS track squad. Last weekend we competed at the Galesburg Invite with a few Raiders winning medals and several others running big pr's. I was really encouraged by the way we ran given the workload we had the week prior. Monday was our third week of hills and sprints, Tuesday 1ks/300s, and Thursday 3 miles tempo followed by 200s. And although we are still missing some of our top athletes to little injuries and suspensions, the group that raced Saturday brought it.

So here are my shout outs for the week

1. Kevin Eades ran a big pr and qualified for the state indoor meet by .29 seconds running 9:51.71, good for a 3rd place finish

2. Cody Margetis continues to shine running 54.7 for a 2 second pb, capturing 6th place

3. Jacob VanGunten raced through sore shins to run 5:11 for a 4 second pr

4. Heather Jones won her first race as a high schooler, winning her heat of the 800 in a pb of 2:44

5. Ashley Schmitt raced a tough mile to finish 5th in another pb of 5:40

6. Emma Preston ran the easiest looking 5:11 in the mile Ive ever seen, crushing the school record by 13 seconds and placing her 3rd in the state! Watch out folks, this girl is going to be a serious stud!

Kevin competed yesterday at our unofficial "State" Indoor Meet, missing a medal by .02 and finishing in dissappointing 9th place, but running a pr of 9:49 along the way (dissappointing by his standards). I am not a big fan of these indoor meets, but we need to learn how to race with a group vs 1 or 2 other guys. Kevin put himself in contention for 3rd which was our goal, but he just looked a little flat the last 1k. Im not sure if it had to do with another hard week of practice, the surging he did every lap or being out in 4:46, but I thought he did a great job and it was a great experience for him to build off of as we prepare for that state outdoor meet. Unfortunately Emma Preston strained her plantar en route to her school record so we decided to sit the weekend out and make sure this thing is gone before we head into the outdoor season.

School is out for spring break next week so we are going to take full advantage of the 70 degree forcast ; ) We head to the Moline Invite this Saturday for our first outdoor meet and then its pretty much racing 3 times a week. I wish everybody a Happy Easter and I will post again in a few weeks, hopefully with a whole book of shout outs! Go Raiders!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Fighting the Injury Bug

As you have probably discerned from the title, we have been riding that fine edge of pain and injury. Unfortunately injury won out in most our cases. It is so difficult to keep a group of teenage kids healthy while trying to train them right on the icy roads of the midwest. But every year when the snow melts and we can get on the track and use the ice tub, it seems those winter-long injuries just seem to mysteriously dissappear. Such was the case for roughly half the team.

I seem to really stress over these injuries, not only becuase I want a team at full strength, but also because I feel responsible for the welfare of every kid I train. Lack of health care, poor shoes, unwillingness to ice and take anti inflamatories also doesnt help my cause. But Thursday was a real breakthrough day for the Raiders. Cassie Lohmeiers it band and achilles hasnt hurt for a week. Autumn Andrews foot (peroneus), which has been hurting since winter 2009, is responding well to orthotics and my special new wrap job. Jacob VanGunten finally got rid of his underarmor shoes : ( and two days later didnt feel a bit of pain in his shin for the first time in 8 weeks. Alec Gonzalez ran his first workout after trying to manage a achilles problem the last 8 weeks. Emma Prestons plantar has quit hurting after staining it at the indoor meet a few weeks ago (a special tape job as well : ) Those have been the big ones, but it just seemed everybody on the team, with the exception of Kevin Eades, has had to miss some time for one reason of another.

We will be racing the second, and last, indoor meet of the season this weekend. And being that I dont have any pics or much to report on I am going to share with everyone our workout log for the last 2 weeks. We are starting to transition from tempos and fartleks into race specific track work with hills and sprint drills in there as well. In hindsight, I should have done this a long time ago, but here it is:

Mon March 1 8x hills, 6x200
Tues Mar 2 5x1200 tempo intervals
Wed Mar 3 30 easy, 6x150, weight circuit
Thur Mar 4 4 mile tempo
Fri Mar 5 30 easy, 4x150, plyos
Sat Mar 6 60-80 min finishing last 30 min at "marathon" pace
Sun Mar 7 off or 30 easy
Mon Mar 8 8xhills, 6x200
Tues Mar 9 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800, 400 tempo
Wed Mar 10 30 easy, 6x150, weight circuit
Thur Mar 11 4xmile tempo (Eades totally killed this one 5:30, 5:35, 5:18, 5:10!)
Fri Mar 12 30 easy, plyos
Sat Mar 13 60-75 easy
Sun Mar 14 off or 30

This week:

Mon Mar 15 8xhills, 10x100 sprint drills
Tues Mar 16 4x1000 (at 2 mile pace)
Wed Mar 17 30 easy, weights and plyos
Thur Mar 18 fartlek (6x2 min steady with 3 min float inbetween) or 4x800 tempo 6x200 (Im not quite sure yet)
Fri Mar 19 25 easy, 6x100 strides
Sat Mar 20 Race Day!

So there you have it folks, there is the secret workout schedule of the EP Raiders! It may look like a lot to some (and may look like a joke to others) but everything we do is very controlled. Tuesday will be the first day that I get in their faces a little bit. I will post results and pics from the meet this weekend. I also have a big bit of personal news for everyone, but I am going to wait another week to make the announcement. Safe and happy running and GO RAIDERS!

Monday, March 1, 2010

First Race of the Season

The Raider Track Team raced our first indoor meet of the year and things went really well for those who trained all winter.
I wasnt expecting to much as we have not done anything but tempo runs, tempo intervals, long runs and strides over the last 3 months. They did not have a 3200 at this meet so most everybody got thrown into the 1600.

In the fresh-soph, conference xc champ Jacob VanGunten once again suprised everybody by running 5:15 for his first mile ever! I as hoping to see him run around 5:25 but he got in with a good group of runners and just competed. What was really funny was him coming to me and saying in his quiet bashful way "ummmk Coach, how do you run a mile?"! I said, just like you did xc, pin you ears back and run like heck! Freshman Austin McGraugh just started back with us after wrestling all winter and was still nursing a sore shin which has a stress fracture last fall. In typical Austin fashion, he went hard to the lead and did all the work for everybody for the first half of the race. Needless to say he paid the price. Whats a coach to do with an attitude like that? ; )

In the girls mile Ashley Schmitt and Emma Preston both race state indoor qualifying times of 5:43 and 5:26 respectively. That was a personal best by 2 seconds for Ashley which tells me she is going to make some huge jumps this track season. Preston, who is a sophmore, did not do track last spring so this is the first track race for her in almost 2 years. Despite that she was out with 2 state medalists from last year in 72 seconds...ouch! We had to back off as she was not quit prepared for that pace, but she rebounded nicely and had a blazing last 200 to finish second and almost catch the leader. Needless to say, she has a lot of talent.

Kevin Eades was set up for a perfect early season mile, following a state champ from last years 800 and a runner up from the 1600 last season. He settled into third and just hung on for the ride. After going throught the 800 in a fairly pedestrian pace of 2:20 the race started to heat up. With a lap to go Dunlap star John Crain made a hard move and Kevin tried his best to jump on it. He hung onto 2nd till the last 5 meters when he was nipped at the finish for a third place finish and a 1o second pr of 4:38! That puts him just a second off state qualifying but our focus wil be the two mile which we will try at our next meet in a few weeks.

Others that ran well were Cody Margetis (2:15), Evan Jenkins (2:25) and Hannah Sheppard (70). We have one more week of tempo and base work before we move into our 2 mile race pace workouts along with hills. I have been really pleased with the way we have responded to the weights and plyos that I have added this year. Hopefully that will make the difference when it counts. A few more weeks of long runs, one more indoor meet and we will be getting ready for state indoors and the outdoor season. Weather is supposed to finally warm up into the 40s so hopefully we can finally get some work done! Thanks for reading and I will keep everyone posted as the season progresses. Go Raiders