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