Hello again everybody. Sorry it took me a few days to get this out there, but Ive been busy moving and doing the Easter thing.

Last week was the beginning of the outdoor season at the Moline Invite and the kids did not dissappoint. We were short quite a few, but those that ran performed great. Although she was sick, Emily Gustafson (seen in photos) ran a season pr of 5:22 in the mile and a great lead-off leg of the 3rd place 4x800. She is finally starting to see the benefits of consistent longer runs over the last year. I am hoping to see her down under 5:10 by the end of the season. Cassie Lohmeier ran a 2:30 anchor leg of the 4x800 for her first race of the season. She is coming off an IT band injurt all winter, but is still capable of placing in the State Finals and helping our 4x800 team win a title. She also won a close 3200 Tuesday at our conference triangular meet. Suprise sophmore Rachel Innes also ran a great leg on the 4x800 (2:35) then coming back and placing second in her first outdoor 800 ever. She also ran a top conference time of 57 for her first 3oo hurdle race. More importantly, she stayed vertical for the whole race! Ashley Schmitt opened with a 2:40 leg of the relay and ran a pb in the mile of 5:50. And finally, Autumn Andrews opened her outdoor season with a 228 and 62 after a winter layoff with an ongoing foot problem.

The boys also ran great last week. Junior star Hugh Gill started his season off with a win in the 3200, running a big pb of 10:18. State qualifying is 9:49, which is what we are working towards. Keving Eades, state xc qualifier, got his first races of the year in after an injury as welll. He won his heat of the 3200 and the 1600. Freshman Cody Lacross ran a pr in the mile of 5:41 and ran 12:00 for his first 3200 ever. What is great about Cody is that he is the only kid out of 13 that voluntarily runs the 2 mile for me every meet!

That is all I really have to report on the track side of things. I am still at my 30 min a day and the foot pain is still lingering. Deep throbbing and aching would be another way to put it, but I am trying to be positive. Im headed back to see the Doc in a few weeks, but am assuming that I will get the old standard "Its gonna take a while to heal up". Im really looking forward fort the warm up this week so I can get back on the bike and start burning all my anxious energy.

We will be racing 3 times this week and twice next so I hope to have plenty of good news to report. Go Raiders!

tb

Indoor State Meet

The Lady Raider track team came one step closer to becoming a threat for a relay title Friday night at the Illinois State Indoor Championships. Coming in as the 4th seed in the 4x800, we ended finishing 12th against a very strong field. Senior stud Emily Gustafson gave a great lead off leg handing off in 3rd place. Rookie sophmore Rachel Innes ran a superb leg, holding 4th position and running a PB of 2:36. In her first track season Junior Marley Brimberry, filling in for an injured Autumn Andrews, was a little unnerved by the energy of the crowd and the stiff competition. The hard working sophmore Ashley Schmitt got the baton quit a bit out of the competition but still ran a PR leg of 2:43 to put us in 12th.

Emily Gustafson, seeded second, came back to finish 4th in the mile. After waiting around for a 3 hour delay, Emily got out great. Three laps into the race she got a little bump and didn't respond when the pace picked up. From there she fell back to 8th and trailed the leaders by 30 meters. But with 100 meters to go she found a gear shes never had before. With a freshman-like crazy big finish she battled back to fourth place, just missing third. Afterward she could read my body language and said "I cant believe how much I had left!" and I wont repeat my reply. Needless to say the consistent winter training is paying off and she needs to start learning how to race with all the new tools she has developed. She did run another school record of 5:22 and got a great feel for what it is like to race at the next level.

I am still putting away with my running. Just 15-20 minutes a day as the achey pain in my left big toe is giving me problems. My podiatrist, Dr. Grady, says it is still going to take some time to clear it all up as it was so full of scar tissue for so long.

We are headed west to the Moline Invite next Saturday for our first outdoor meet of the season. I am really looking forward to seeing how junior Hugh Gill and some of the others will run after a consistent stretch of winter training. Coming off a winter of IT band tendonitis, junior star Cassie Lohmeier will also make her 2009 track debut in the 3200. Freshman ace Autumn Andrews will also be back running after missing the state indoor meet with tendonitis in her foot.

Hopefully next time I write we will have banked a wholebunch of prs and my foot will be feeling a little better! Go Raiders

tb

Hello all. Just writing to give everbody an update on my foot and the indoor season. I started my 10 minute a day routine last week with much anticipation. Although my toe still aches pretty much all the time, the Dr. thought it was time to start using the thing. I never thought that a 10 minute run on a track at 9 minute pace with toe pain could be so enjoyable! The last few days of running has made me realize how much running helps me stay sane. I have never considered myself a "runnaholic" or really a true athlete for that matter. In fact, for years running always ranked about number 10 on my list of things I want to do when I wake up every morning. But not until the last 6 months did it ever hit me how much stability and direction running gives me. Anyhow, long story short, I am really glad to be back to doing something productive.

On the coaching side of things, we had our second indoor meet of the season last Friday. Despite a lot of colds and nagging injuries there were a lot of improvements on the week before. The girls ran a state indoor qualifying time on the way to winning the 4x800. Senior stand out Emily Gustafson then ran the third best time in the state to win the 800. She also showed up to school a few days later and was inducted into the National Honor Roll Society. Sophmore Cody Margetis ran a 10 second pb to anchor our 4x800 of 2:15 to finish 2nd place. He then came back to take his first win ever in his heat of the mile, running a pb of 5:15! David Blackford ran a huge pb on his leg of the relay, running 2:07 then came back in the open 800 to finish a tough second place. There were a lot honorable mentions, as the kids all ran their butts off. We have such a young talented crew that are just starting to figure out how much fun track can be when you are trained and confident. We had this weekend off and ran a tough workout yesterday (5x1000) and have the next two weekeds off before we run the state indoor meet.

Thats all I have for now. I will try to get some more pictures up next week. I really would like to get some video out for you all so you can get an idea of how much work we have to do in our running drill that we started 3 weeks ago. Its amazing how hard it is to teach and learn how to run properly/efficiently. I am hoping to save that video and do another at the end of the season and show them how bad they looked at the beginning of the season! Take care and Go Raiders

tb

The Season Has Begun!

Well, after a long cold winter the season is finally here. We opened up at the Grey Ghost Invite last Friday with a great start. I didnt expect much being that we have only been doing tempo runs and fartleks on the road, but there were a lot of suprises. Freshman Rachel Innes won her flight of the 800 in 2:43. What was even more impressive is that she has never ran track! She could be some real help in getting our 4x800 to the state meet.

Senior David Blackford opened up with his first indoor meet ever with a 2:09, good enough for second place. What is really exciting about David is that he has had a stress fracture every track season that I have had him.

Junior Hugh Gill opened up with a 4:49 mile, which was about 13 seconds off where I thought he should be, but still not a bad opener. We just need to work on his racing tactics, plus I think I may have worked him a little too hard last week. No worries though, we are getting ready for the state meet in 3 months. Last but not least, Emily Gustafson opened up with a 5:28 mile, breaking the school record by 3 seconds along the way. Like Hugh Gill, it was a good start, but quite a bit slower that we were hoping for. But being that they decided at the last minute to combine the two heats and throw 42 girls out onto an indoor track for a mile and we didnt even get a chance to do a stride, I will take it.

I just got back from seeing the very, very, very awesome Dr. John Grady in Chicago and the foot is doing pretty well. I have been given the clearance to start running in two weeks time---just in time for spring!!! I should have gotten a picture of me squirming while he hammered my toe with some sort of midieval torture device that is supposed to break up scar tissue. Thank God I am tough as nails. A normal human being would have cracked from the intense pain, but I just smiled and asked for more. (anybody that knows me knows how low my pain threshold is ; )

Thanks for reading and GO RAIDERS!

tb

Back on My Feet!

Well folks, I am now almost 6 weeks post foot op. and everything seems to be going as planned. I visited Dr. Grady in Chicago last week and he said everything is going according to plan. I did not realize, until I saw him then, just how bad off my foot really was. There was a cyst in the bone, a trapped nerve locked up in scar tissue, scar tissue inside the joint and a half my remaining sesmoid bone was dead. Lucky me, no wonder I would get pain all over my body just trying to do an easy 5 mile run. I would post a picture of my freaky foot, but I dont want to make anybody sick! So long story short, I will be back on the stationary bike in two weeks.

The kids are running pretty good at the moment. I have incorporated a whole new running drill/hurdle drill session into our program and everybody seems to really be responding to it good. Most importantly, it shuts them up and makes them focus when we are in the gym. I have also revamped the core routine and made it twice as dynamic and difficult. Im not sure why I have been babying them for so long. But being that we dont really get the intensity and duration of training out of our running that I would like, due to the weather and running on the roads, I feel like this is a great time to hit the gym harder and get us prepared for the outdoor season. We have a meet coming up on Feb 20 so I will get some pictures up from that. I am going to try to set up my video camera in the gym tomorrow and get some footage of the kids doing these drills so 1. you can see what we are up to and 2. they can look back in 3 months time and see how far they have progressed.

Well, thats all I got for you for now. Happy training and GO RAIDERS!!!

tb

Still Kicking!

Well folks, I am coming out of my drug induced coma and am finally able to give everyone an update on the surgery. I had my foot cut on Friday morning in Chicago by Dr. John Grady, whom I cannot praise enough. I was so lucky to find a podiatrist in the midwest that was dedicated to his craft and willing to give every patient such personal attention. It also helps that his son, Martin, is an all state runner here in Illinois.

Dr. Grady found the source of my toe pain that has plagued me the last 3 years. From what I understand (I was a little out of it when talking to him after the surgery) he removed a cyst that had developed in the toe joint as well as a star shaped piece of calcified scar tissue that was floating around in the joint causing havoc on my cartilage. Fortunately there was no damage to the cartilage nor was there any damage to the surrounding tissue. So knock on wood, I may actually walk without pain someday! Actually, Dr. Grady is pretty confident that I will be back on my feet and pain free relatively quickly. The recovery process is fairly causious: two weeks with my foot propped up 50 min of every hour, two weeks of 40 min every hour, and two weeks of 30 min every hour. Hopefully I will be walking pain free in no time, which I havent been able to do since outdoor nationals 2002! That probably sounds like a bunch of jibberish, but the pain pill I just took is starting to take effect.

It is hard to put a timeline on the running prospects, and to be honest, I have trained myself not to when it comes to to my running career. But I will say that this is the most hope I have had in a very long time. So cross your fingers for me.

There is not a lot to report from the high school front. By IHSA rules I am not allowed to meet with the kids until after Christmas break. They have been keeping me posted on their running though, and it sounds like all are trudging through this horrid weather weve had the last 2 weeks. I am really pleased that I have a group of kids who are hooked and actually keep me posted on their progress. That is the attitude it takes to be successful.

I wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday and thanks to everyone for all their supportive cards, calls and emails. Go Raiders!

tb

Time to Move!

I really love being home in the Midwest, but this weather is going to break me before the winter even starts! Boy did I took the warmth of the south for granted. Oh well, at least I have good company to keep me busy until things warm up here. Actually, I will be bored off my butt till the middle of January, as my Jan 19th surgery is quickly approaching. Let me say that I am really not looking forward to this one. At least we have found the problem and are taking care of it once and for all. Time off from running has never been a problem for me, as I find plenty to do to keep me busy. The hardest part of post surgery is asking people for help. And if you are a self sufficient person like myself, it is very difficult to rely on others for anything. But, like I said, hopefully this will all be over before winter ends and I will be back on my feet getting ready to race again.

There is not a lot to report from the coaching side of things. I sat down last week and racked my brain trying to come up with a good plan for the winter. I have a lot of talent on my hands and I do not want to goof it up. I actually buckled down and read Jack Daniels' and Joe Vigils' books, and after reading what seemed like chinese 4 times over, I have concluded that I am not changing things a bit. It was funny to read about all the things that I have instinctivly done for so long and understanding exactly what it does on a biological level. So hopefully we all stay healthy and motivated this winter because EP should be bringing home a lot of hardware this track season.

Thats all from this end. I will write again after the sugury and let everyone know how it went. Thanks again for reading. Go Raiders!

tb