KVAC Championships 10/12/09 - 10/18/09

Wow its cold. I guess I don't mind too much because that's a sure sign that the post season is underway. There's nothing like running in one of the most important races of the season when you know you have to push hard and win and the air is cold! KVAC's marks the first of (hopefully) three important meets the team will push for victory in! We gave it our all Saturday but now KVAC's has gone by so its time to look ahead to qualifying for States at the Regional meet.

Training:
Monday October 12- Long run in the cold! Stacked wood for strength workout :)

Tuesday October 13- Mid distance run then track work.
Wednesday October 14- Tempo 3 mile then 3 x 1200m + 3 x 200m

Thursday October 15- Warm up then easy 3 miles

Friday October 16- Rest day before meet. Frisbee.

Saturday October 17- KVAC's at UMA! Ummmm 17:10.8 :(
Sunday October 18- Rest Day. Walk in Vaughn Woods in Hollowell with Nicole :) (near Hall-dale HS)

KVAC's - It was a fairly cold and randomly windy day on Saturday. There were times when the wind was blowing like crazy and times when it was completely still. I made sure my guys did plenty of warm up before the race. We definitely didn't want stiff muscles for the race. After the Girls ran (great job Abby Mace!) we were ready to go. The start was massive like it always is at KVAC's, it seemed like you were looking so far when you looked up and down the line. The start was SO FAST. I ran out pretty hard to make it up there in the pack. The crazy thing was it didn't slow down after the first 200 to 300m... It seemed to get faster! I will spare the guys by not writing all their times. Jason Grotton, Jarrod Lenfest, and Eben Hodgkins ran pretty well. Their times were 20:39, 19:47, and 17:56 respectively. Not a great day for the team as a whole or individuals really. We had a team goal for 4th place (and 3rd place if we had a really good day). We got 8th but the difference from us and 4th was only 16 points. We will do it at Regionals though!

Next Week @ Belfast for the Eastern Regional Championships! Team goal - Qualify for states

Mt. Blue 10/04/09 - 10/11/09

The post season is almost here! You know what that means... Mt. Blue relays! OMG techno party! But really I am pumped for the championship races too. The guys trained right through this week not worrying too much about how they were going to feel on Friday. Coach and I definitely want us ready for KVACs, Regionals and States. (If I get some photos of the mt. Blue relays I will put them up)


Sunday October 4 - long run. went down to twin brook with Ryan to run the course a few times. Saw Lauren Fecteau and Jonathan Clement.


Monday October 5 - Track Work. 5 x 1000m with warm up and cool down runs.


Tuesday October 6 - Hard 3 mile run @ 2 minutes slower than 5k time. 6x200 on the track.

Wednesday October 7 - Rest Day. Math Meet at Cony....

Thursday October 8 - 3 miles easy


Friday October 9 - Mt. Blue relays! ran the course 3 times! (warmup and 2x racing!)

Saturday October 10 - Watched Nicole's race at St. Joes and ran about 5 ish miles while there!

Sunday October 11 - Rest day. Went down to Farmington to visit Nic. Watched Hannibal it was great. More gore than silence of the lambs but not as good.

Mt. Blue Relays - Mt. Blue Relays rocks! It is the perfect way to bring the regular season into the post season. I don't like having to run really competitive 5k's all the way until the championship races. The Mt. Blue relays is such a fun way to keep people relaxed before KVAC's. My team mates and I didn't have very clear goals coming into the race and I didn't know quite how the course was going to compare to last year. I wanted to try for 10:40. I thought it was very feasible because I ran a 11:11 last year. Either it just wasn't a good day for me or the course condition slowed me more than I thought it would because I ran 20 seconds slower than I had hoped. 11:00... At least its better than last year! I know Eben narrowly missed his goal too with a 12:03. He really wanted to get under 12:00.

Our team goal was a little more important: Beat our last year's team time. We did just that! We ran 1:06:10 last year.... This year we ran 1:03:34! I am hoping this means that we are on pace to do better in the championship meets.


The techno music during the race and in the awards area at the end was great. I saw the mosh pit by the speakers at the end but I unfortunately didn't get to be a part of it. I was, however, in the big dance group inside after dinner. That was awesome! No one could move though. We were all packed pretty tight. Fun meet! OH AND WAY TO GO MT. ARARAT CUP STACKER!

Up Next week. KVAC Championships at UMA. Good luck everyone!

Erskine Academy 9/27/09 - 10/03/09

I am so late with this blog! I apologize for my extreme lateness. I forgot to do it the weekend after the race and by the time I remembered I just decided I would save it for this weekend. The week of our home meet went very well. We measured our course several times (and I obsessed over every little detail of the course). By this point the guys were so much stronger. Their hard work and Minzy's training was ready to show. It was our home meet week and we were ready to run some good times.

Training:
Sunday September 27 - Easy mid distance run in the rain and the dark!

Monday September 28 - Track work. 4 x 1200 on the track with good warm up run and cool down run.

Tuesday September 29 - More track work. 4 x 1 mile.

Wednesday September 30 - Course preparation. Ran the course twice and marked it up. Strength workout.

Thursday October 1 - Easy day with team. Warm up + capture the flag.

Friday October 2 - HOME MEET! Ended up being an awesome race for everyone and wasn't as cold as I had thought.

Saturday October 3 - Easy mid distance.

Home Meet - First off I have to say that we had the best food at our home meet that anyone has ever had at any race anywhere. There was healthy food for people who actually eat that stuff and tons of desserts for normal people.
Our meet ended up growing a little bit from its original size. There were only supposed to be three teams there: Skowhegan, Gardiner and Erskine. MCI and Messalonskee ended up showing up though which was cool. It was definitely better having a 5 team meet than only a 3 team meet. The start felt like a legit start with enough people on the line. Mr Stout, our athletic director, yelled "go" and we were off (below).

I wanted to set a pretty good time on our home course. Its flat for the first and last mile so I told myself I was going to try to push the hills during mile 2 hard. I went out in the first mile, with one small hill, in 5:05. I ran through the second mile which had two very respectable hills (one is like 1/4 mile long) in 10:26 and closed on the flat again to finish in 16:18. I am pretty happy with that time, it was a little more than 40 seconds off last years time there and it was close to my PR. Then Eben came in with a PR and then...... EVERYONE ELSE ON MY TEAM PR'ed..... whoa!

I learned after the race that Jarrod Lenfest (our 3rd) had an incredible race and in doing so pulled all the guys behind him. I have to give credit to him because I know Spencer was pacing off him and everyone else was pacing off Spencer. If he hadn't run so well all those guys wouldn't have run as well. Eben hit 17:31 (17:41 previous), Jarrod ran 18:53 (first time under 19:00!!!) (19:06 previous), Spencer cruised to a 19:48 for his first XC sub 20:00 (20:34 previous) and he dragged in Aaron Bengtson in 20:08 (20:49 previous), Jason Grotton in 20:21 (20:45 previous) and Logan Merrithew also at 20:21 (20:44 previous). From there the guys continued to smash times. Anthony Arbour ran 21:13 (22:22 previous) in only his second HS XC race ever and Tom Ferguson (21:53 previous) also PR'ed with the same time of 21:13 just behind Anthony. Kevin Graham opened up his first race of the season with a 23:00 , Ryan Wood came in with a 23:33 (23:56 previous), Addison Cox broke 24 with his 23:50 (24:35 previous) and Jason Goggin came SO CLOSE to getting 24 with his 24:03 (24:36 previous).

Everyone improved consistently and the meet was so fun!

Next week @ Mt. Blue vs. a ton of teams. Good luck everyone! (yes I know it already happened)