Medomak Valley 9/12/09 - 9/18/09

My guys impress me every time. The rate at which some of them are improving is amazing. Coming off of the Belfast race, the guys had a lot of confidence. I knew, that based on their training, they could be doing better but they just needed to be shown that. Belfast helped a lot. After Belfast I talked with a few of them about pack running in XC. They nodded and said "OK" and did some drills requiring them to try to stay together. I wasn't really sure if they were going to do it in a race or not. This Friday I got to see if they would.

Training:
Saturday September 12 - Medium-hard pace 7 mile. Watched the three way college meet at Colby with Bates and UMF. Got to see Nicole run great and saw some dudes from Colby who were at the XC camp this summer. Very fun to watch.

Sunday September 13 - Long run 10 miles. Mom biked with me and gave me water!

Monday September 14 - Track work. 9x400 at 1:09 or faster (finished with a 1:01!)

Tuesday September 15 - Ran our XC course and then a 3 mile loop immediately after.

Wednesday September 16 - Warm up and then track work. 4x1mile at 5:26 or faster.

Thursday September 17 - Easy day with team. Basketball.

Friday September 18 - Race at Medomak Valley. 16:24 for 5k.

Medomak Valley - Medomak Valley offered me a similar chance at a good time much like Belfast did last week. Many of the guys had goal times in mind and most importantly they had the confidence that they could do better. I knew that they could do really well based on their training in practice. I was still unsure even at the race if the guys could learn to run together and push each other.

Looking back at my race I think that I went out a little too fast based on how I was feeling that day. My first mile didn't leave me with the same strength that I had at Belfast and my time ended up being a little slower.

The outcome for my team mates was quite different. Eben came in and ran to a strong finish with a 1 second PR (17:41 To his 17:42) over last week at Belfast. What happened a little later is what was really amazing though. The guys 4-7 ran in a pack. Spencer Gray lead Logan Merrithew, Jason Grotton, and Aaron Bengtson to 3 PR's and one season best (# 2 all time). Gray came in at 20:34 (20:50 previous), Merrithew followed with a 20:44 (20:37 PR), Grotton (below) cranked in for a 20:45 (21:40 previous!), and Aaron rounded out our top seven with a 20:49 (21:11 previous). Other guys with improvements were Tom Ferguson with a 22:01 (22:41 previous), Mike Raffia with a 22:17 (22:53 previous), Jason Goggin running a 25:04 (25:32 previous), and Addison Cox with a new 27:39 (28:27 previous).

There was an award ceremony at the end which I had no idea about. I thought it was just a regular meet. Ryan gave me two awkward hugs at the end of the race which was.... nice. One during the awards and one just after he finished. It was almost as awkward as that time when I didn't dress up as Paula Abdul and pretend to be drunk... Then we discovered that we had been beaten by Belfast by 4 points! 71 to 67! So close! If the guys can learn to push each other like they did at Medomak yesterday then we are going to be very competitive in KVAC B races. I know that mostly everyone was happy with their race and that they look forward to the meets to come.

Good luck to everyone in their season so far and keep up the good pace!
Next Week: @ Lincoln Academy vs. Camden, Medomak, Rockland and Winslow. Should be a good race! Lets do it guys.