| A nice finish for the end of our
busiest time of the season. A few on varsity didn't quite
have their best day, but it is fun to be off a little and
still beat 16 other teams! Just a few too many meets in
the last couple of weeks. It is more of a difficult time
getting ready mentally for so much competition as opposed
to having difficulty physically. Comparing to the same
course a year ago, Bryan Kegley cut 50 seconds, Nick
Snitker cut 49 (on an off day even!) and Drew Addington
cut 36. Zach Zimmermann and Ryan Ahlers continue to race
consistently well in their first year of varsity running
(Zach's first year in CC). Dan Gapp ran well after not
finishing Tuesday but Erik Griep was somewhat farther
back than he is used to. Erik has been a bit
inconsistent, but will certainly be there for the big
ones (like last Saturday!). It is nice to mix up the
places as we've done, it helps to improve the team with
some good competition. We'll have a week without racing
to get ready for the meet in St. Michael-Albertville. The
JV ended the day of racing with one of the best team
efforts I have ever seen. An impressive display of pacing
as our lead group was in approximately 45th place at 3/4
of a mile. They continued to pick runners off and finish
in 2nd place as a team, our best finish ever here for JV!
Nick Puchalski lead the team for the first time, running
an impressive 18:44. Just behind was Adam Wilke in 18:45.
Adam moved from 85th place a year ago as he cut 1:54!
Also cutting a lot of time from a year ago was Noel
Weispfenning, as he cut 1 minute and 21 places while Eric
Glasson cut 22 seconds. Our JV and varsity times are
getting closer which will mean competition for the
varsity spots and improvement all around. Nick and Adam
on JV ran a few seconds faster than Nick on varsity.
While always a big race, the varsity race grew by 16
runners while the JV grew by 37. Some perfect weather led
to some great times. Possibly the course is a little
short considering twice up the big hill, but many
personal bests set anyway. Looking forward to what I
assume will be a flat and fast course at St. Michael next
Thursday. The location is different from where we've been
in the past. On varsity, it should be an interesting race
against Benilde as they beat us 158-183 today while the
JV hopes to continue it's string of the impressive racing
they had this week. |