Bickel Running Blog

RunSignUp for Timing Services

2011-11-15T11:52:00.001-08:00

We have had some great adoption of RunSignUp from timing service partners. We provide a unique Timing Service Program that gives both timing services and race directors access to the race information. This means no more emailing of race participants, but access to the latest by-the-minute information.

Here are some of our partners who take advantage of this program today:

Road Runners Club of America - http://www.rrca.org/services/online-services/create-event-profile/
RunningintheUSA.com - http://runningintheusa.com/Race/OnlineRegAbout.aspx
HiTek Racing - http://www.hitekracing.com/feature.htm
Lee Timing - http://www.leetiming.com/index.html
TNT Event Management - http://tnteventmanagement.com
Pro Race Group - http://www.proracegroup.com
Michigan Running Foundation - http://www.runningfoundation.com
Run Snoqualmie - http://www.runsnoqualmie.com

We will continue to build out the capabilities to make life easier for timing services. Look for some nice additions from us this winter that will integrate some of the most popular timing service software into RunSignUp. If you have suggestions for us, please let us know!

MXC Weekly Update - Nov. 7, 2011

2011-11-07T21:11:00.001-08:00

This Past Week

South Jersey Group 3 Championships - We started this season thinking there was only a slim chance of us being able to make it to States. To do so, we would need to finish in the top 5 teams in South Jersey in Group 3. We had lost 4 of our top 5 from the previous year, including the best runner to ever wear an MXC uniform. However, this group of young men made a decision to work - and work hard. They ran all summer long when the days are hot and the miles are boring. They stepped up to a new level of mileage - 9 miles per day - that would give them the strength to be able to compete at this level. They really came together over the past two weeks. Hammering out some of the most epic workouts our program has seen, including the rain-sleet-hail-snow 5 X Paul Drive the week before the race.

The culmination was STATES! Yes, we are moving on thanks to this dedication and some really remarkable performances.

Jack Inglis continued to show his leadership - running in the top 15 the whole way. He earned a great PR, and importantly helped Horten the whole way. We had a plan that the two of them should run together. Even though Kevin Horten was nursing a sore IT Band injury, having Jack set the pace gave him the marker he needed to keep going. He knew if the team was to have any chance, he had to hang on for dear life. He ignored those demons that come during the race to just let go. He shattered his PR and ran sub-17 minutes for the first time in his life. No way he does that alone. Jack really showed the importance of running as a team and stepping up.

Joe Inglis provided the biggest breakthrough of any runner. He broke his PR by 35 seconds and just missed sub-17 by 2 seconds... This was a big league performance. He warms up with a very loose, talkative attitude, but once in the race he runs with a quiet determination. He picked up places the whole way - focusing on the stripes of his older brother and Horten ahead of him.

Luke Howard had one of those races where you learn to be tough. Every runner has races where they are not at their best and the legs just don't feel right in the race. Many runners will pack it in and accept that it is not their day. Howard was a true warrior. Gritting out every single place to make sure his team had a chance to advance.

Reed Kramer had a horrible workout last Saturday. It was the beginning of an illness and fever that bothered him much of the week. No one was sure what to expect. As he has proven all year, he is one tough runner. After the race he said all he was thinking about was picking up places for the team. The result was a big PR and his first sub-18 minute race.

Mitch Cain and Evan Nece also ran great races. As our 6th and 7th men, they both ran faster than 10 of the teams 5th men - pushing competitive teams back in the point totals. Cain also set a PR by over 20 seconds. Both Cain and Nece have had a remarkable senior year - really making significant progress from previous years and showing their determination to make an impact on this team in their final year.

I want to make special note of Jack Spirgel. He got sick during the middle of the season. Unfortunately we can only run 7 guys in races, but in our view we have a Varsity 8 this year. He has been a part of every workout - putting as much or more effort in each day as any of the other 8 guys. He has been there at every race, cheering on, but ready to step up if someone goes down. He has been a true leader by example and really the type of role model this team is all about.

Also, special thanks to the guys who came up to cheer on the team (as well as a special surprise, the fastest runner in MXC history, Anthony Horten, was there with some inspiration). It was a fun day. Hanging the Sock Monkey mascot in the tree, running around the course cheering the guys on, and learning the ropes so that they are ready to step up as they prepare to take the place of departing Seniors.

Our average team time dropped from the South Jersey Open to to this race by over 30 seconds. While we had an "off day" at that race, that level of improvement is quite a testament to the hard work the team has put in.

This Coming Week

State Championships - Saturday Nov. 12 10:50 AM Race Time - Holmdel Park

We head to the home of Cross Country, Holmdel Park, to take part in the State Championships this weekend. This is a great final race for our Seniors. A beautiful course. The best runners in the state. A fun day to let it rip one more time this season and see what we have. Can't wait!

Also, remember the team Banquet on Tuesday, November 15 at 6PM in the high school. Go to the website for more information!

And the Turkey Trot is fast approaching! This is our major fundraiser each year. We need everyone's help - we will talk more about this at the banquet.

And finally, we would like to invite all runners to schedule time with us to debrief on the season and talk about your upcoming plans. Eagles, Cote and Bickel will be in Eagles room after school this week and next week. Please stop by, as we want to make sure we get to spend time with each runner on an individual basis.

MXC Weekly Update - Oct. 31

2011-10-31T11:17:00.001-07:00

MXC Banquet - Nov. 15

Our season ending banquet is Tuesday, November 15 at 6PM. Everyone has to signup for the dinner. Download the form here - http://www.moorestownxc.org/2011/MXCBanquetForm2011.pdf

Turkey Trot!

The Moorestown Turkey Trot has become a true annual community event for our town. Last year about 800 people came out on Thanksgiving morning to run and have fun and see old friends.

Joyce Nece is again leading the charge as our race director. As usual, we need lots of help from other parents to coordinate food and drinks, register people that morning, act as course monitors, etc. If you can help, please let us know.

Also, we are looking for someone to learn the "system' this year to take over as Race Director next year since Evan will be graduating. Please let me know if you are interested in helping out.

More info at http://www.moorestownxc.org/mdrc/TurkeyTrot.html.

This Past (2) Week(s)

Yes, I missed a week. Lots has happened over the past couple of weeks. We'll review in chronological order. Also, remember to go to www.moorestownxc.org and lick on the Pictures links on the right hand side. Steve Kramer has shot hundreds of great pics. Hopefully we have at least one of each of the guys on the team. He captures the spirit of this sport so well. (Thank you Steve!)

South Jersey Frosh/Soph Meet - This meet was held down at the GCC course where we had been for the South Jersey Shootout. We were happy that almost the entire team was able to improve from their races in September - testament to some hard work. Significant improvements were made by Munilla, Coneby, Ing, Handlan, LaLumia, Bauscher, Malta and Gross. On a hilly course, we had PR's by Gross, Malta, Nick Poaletti, LaLumia and Coneby.

Divisionals - This was a tough meet, and it had nothing to do with the fact we lost. I expressed my disappointment with the team the next day as we seemed to have strayed from our Guiding Principles (http://www.moorestownxc.org/2010/Principles.html) - Work, Learn, Fun, Team. The good news is that we actually returned very quickly to our foundation after this race and learned a lot from the experience. The past week and a half has been fantastic in terms of team support, and level of effort. The Top 8 has done some awesome workouts and run much better in packs as a team. And as the next paragraph will show, the Frosh/Soph guys really responded with blow-out performances.

Burlington County Frosh/Soph Championships - Best meet of the year. Truly amazing performances from everyone. We had 16 PR's out of 21 5K runners - Caffrey, Barsoum, Ems, Coneby, Ing, Sam Spirgel, Voyack, Testa, Handlan, LaLumia, Pollock, Dugan, Nick Poaletti, Malta, Gross and LaGatta. That is just what we try to do as a team - work hard all season, then taper a bit and put everything together for the final races. Malta, Dugan, Pollock, Sam Spirgel, Munilla and Ing all had improvements of almost a minute. Caffrey provided the highlight with a Varsity qualifying time of under 19:00. It was also cool to see some guys really emerge who put themselves in reach of a Varsity award next year if they put in some good work - Barsoum, Munilla, Coneby, Ing, and Sam Spirgel are near or under 20 minutes. This provides the foundation for us up top in the future.

Spirit Week - We had some great participantion by the MXC team in Spirit Week. Joe Inglis brought down the house in a dominating unicycle performace. Kramer was a close second in ping pong. And we held most of the positions for Ultimate Frisbie. Devin Connelly's Soph's beat Mike Connelly's Seniors - some serious bragging rights in that house...

Saturday Rain-Sleet-Hail-Snow Workout - This was probably the most epic, memorable workout we can recall in 7 years of coaching. The 5 X Paul Drive hill provides over 1,000 meters of uphill to provide a challenge. Add to that the goal of dropping time on each interval. Add to that the total mileage from this workout is 10 miles. But the kicker was the weather. Freezing temperatures. Heavy clothes from all the rain. And the harshness of everything Mother Nature could throw at us culminated in a true Cross Country experience. This team is ready for Sectionals and a hoped-for-trip to States!

This Coming Week -

Sectionals - Saturday, November 5. http://www.njsiaa.org/tournaments/2011/11b&gCC.pdf. We are the last race of the meet at 12:55 at Delsea. We want everyone who can to take the bus down and cheer on the team. Only the top 5 teams will qualify for States the following week - and we are right on the bubble. Check with other team members later this week for bus time.

MXC Weekly Update Oct. 16

2011-10-16T09:40:00.001-07:00

This Past Week

The Cote Mile - Our Batch Meet season is over, but we had a special event on Tuesday as Coach Cote ran his first mile time trial with a goal of breaking 5:00. He was set up well. A season of running 9 miles per day most days with the high guys. A set of pacers with Inglis, Horten, Howard and others. And a raucous crowd to cheer him on. The first 400 was a bit fast as they came thru in 72. The 800 was right on pace at 2:30, but that meant he was slowing down. Inglis hopped in and picked up the pace, but as Cote rounded the curve coming into the start of his final lap he looked ready to give up the dream. That is when the crowd really went wild, and you could see he was just not going to let the team down. A blazing last lap brought him home in 4:59.75. A proud moment and a great team effort...

Burlington County Open - It was a beautiful cross country day. Windy with massive storms mixed with sunshine and rainbows. As the JV warmed up in the back woods we had to jump a pretty big puddle of water on the back trail. By the time they raced, the puddle had grown and they were splashing thru it. When the Varsity raced a half hour later, Howard hit the deepest spot and was submerged to his chest. After the race, we went back and took a closer look. The swollen river from the rain and high tide had covered the course and about 50 feet of trail was covered. Truly a great cross country day!

The highlight of the meet was our tremendous 3rd place finish! We had been expecting to finish 5th, but ended up beating Shawnee by 2 points and Northern Burlington by 3 (109-111-112). It is an important reminder of how every place counts. Horten ran his best race of the year, narrowly beating Inglis for the first time. Both placed in front of any Northern Burlington runner - reversing the results from our batch meet with them. Howard recovered from his swim and ran a very tough race. Joe Inglis continues his emergence as our strong #4 runner. Kramer stepped up as our #5 man this week - running the best race of his life. If any of these guys had run just a few seconds slower we would have been 5th - the strength of the pack...

We have a tough choice for our 7th slot as we head to the Liberty Division Championships this week. Spirgel ran the Varsity race in 18:58 and Cain ran the JV race in 18:58. We will be holding a mile time trial on Monday to decide who will be the 7th man on Thursday.

Times were not great, but we did have 4 PR's - Bauscher, LaLumia, Malta and Maier. Nicely done on a tough course.

This is always a bittersweet race. For many seniors it is their last race as part of the Moorestown Cross Country team. So many thoughts come to mind. Mike Connelly's many hard summer miles and tremendous improvement this year and his leadership skills on the Ultimate Frisbie fields. Jay Jenei's hurdles and that great flash in the first half mile of the race on Friday. Basle Lavery's quiet determination and consistency. Vincent Lee's radical improvement. Dan Poaletti discovering his ability to run and becoming a great asset to the team even though he was only with us for 2 years. Dan Sheehan and his big heart - a sometimes rough exterior, but he has been a core component of this team for 4 years and he loves this sport and team. Kevin Zhang as a quiet, hard worker. Of course many of these guys will continue to train with us thru the end of the season and come out for Spring track. We thank all of them for their contributions to the team. And they can always count themselves as part of MXC!

This Coming Week -

This is the end of the season for our Juniors and Seniors. Freshmen and Sophomores have two races left - this Monday is the SJ Frosh-Soph Meet, and next Tuesday is the Burlington County Frosh-Soph meet at RV. That meet is a great opportunity for PR's and coming home with some medals. So all Frosh-Soph will continue to train. Juniors and Seniors can continue to come out and train with the team - however this is the serious part of the season, and we want everyone to have focus on training hard.

Monday - South Jersey Frosh-Soph Meet. This will be an opportunity for our freshman and sophomores to see how much they have improved since the SJ Shootout. Bus leaves at 2:15.

Thursday - Liberty Division Championships. After splitting our head-head competitions with Northern Burlington this year, we are looking forward to a very tough meet. Starts at 3:45 at New Egypt. We will be the third race.

MXC Weekly Update - Oct. 12

2011-10-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

This Past Week

Northern Burlington Batch Meet - It was a strange day in many ways. Let's get the bad news out of the way. Our 2+ year batch meet winning streak was ended by a very good Northern Burlington squad. Also, Kevin Horten was DQ'd for an elbow at the finish. There are photos that show he was provoked, but we need to be smarter. And finally, after the loss we were acted less as than true sportsmen. This was due to the sting of the loss and the feeling of unfairness due to the DQ. But we are better than that.

Now for all the positives. Our top 4 ran like true warriors. Inglis and Horten really battled right thru the finish line, and Howard and Joe Inglis showed true determination in their races. I think it is possible for us to come back at the Divisional race being a bit more rested and a bit more ready, with a whole top 7 effort we can make a come back and win the Championship race. Let's get focused on that goal.

The other good news is that a LOT of guys were able to run PR's. Some of them were huge! Orzechowicz dropped 1:17 and is short of a Varsity letter by only 1 second at 19:01. 6 guys dropped by over a minute: Charlie Spirgel by 1:40, Nick Poaletti by 1:28, Kohart by 1:12, Reubel by 1:03, Macaluso by 1:03 and Handlon by 1:01. Other big drops were Barsoum by 47 seconds, Wu by 40, Coneby by 37, Ing by 37, and Dugan by 35.

It was also great to see some of the injured runners have solid races - Sheehan (earning a Varsity Letter by running 19:00), Siegel and Testa. Also having solid comeback races were Malta and Maier!

One of our Guiding Principles is LEARN. This was a great day for learning. A number of guys learned how to break thru in a race to earn PR's and learned about the satisfaction of working hard and seeing great improvements. Some guys learned how to compete without striking back. Hopefully we learned being a good sportsperson is holding your head high and congratulating your competitor when they beat you. And that we will come back and face them on another day, having learned from our mistakes and being just a bit more determined to run as a team to win.

South Jersey Open - It was a hot Sunday, and very tough conditions for the PR's we usually see at this meet.

The freshmen all ran great - improving drastically from the 2 mile times they had at the start of the season time trial and the Cherokee Challenge. We hope it gives them a glimpse of what they can do as they continue to work over the next 4 years.

Cain led the JV crew and is putting himself in a position to compete for a Top 7 spot at the end of the season. He is on a real roll, dropping his time on a consistent basis by over a minute since the SJ Shootout. Lavery had another strong race as well - showing a remarkable consistency of running 4 of his last 5 races within a 12 second range. Ems also keeps improving week-to-week and set a PR. Coneby also had a PR, dropping over a minute and a half since he ran his first 5K earlier this season. Devin Connelly showed some of the grit he had last year and ran his best race of the year. Novak and LaLumia also had solid PR's. Special shout-out to Moorer (26 seconds) and Charlie Spirgel (39 seconds) for their tough PR's. It looked like both of them were running with renewed vigor - a combination of better conditioning and great attitude during the race.

The Varsity ran a bit flat overall. Perhaps it is the tired legs, the heat, the loss on Tuesday or running on a Sunday. The team average time was only 6 seconds faster than Holmdel the previous week when it is typically 20-30 seconds faster. The bright spots were Inglis again running tough up top and a PR performance by Evan Nece. Hopefully we will get everyone in sync by the Divisional Meet next Thursday and have the type of team race we should be able to have.

This Coming Week -

Burlington County Open - Mill Creek. This is our last race as a whole team together. It is also the last race for Juniors and Seniors who are not part of the Top 7. It is bittersweet to see the season and for the seniors, their MXC careers, coming to a close. A number of them will run spring Track, but this is a great race to come out and cheer them on! The JV race will be at 3:45, Varsity at 4:15 and Girls at 4:45.

MXC Weekly Update - Oct. 2, 2011

2011-10-02T09:01:00.001-07:00

This Past Week

BCIT Westhampton Batch Meet - We matched up very well against BCSL Division rivals Rancocas Valley this week. Inglis showed what a tough #1 runner he is, refusing to "let some (blank) RV runner beat me." The strength of our pack was backing him up, even with a couple of our usual top 7 having off days. We ended up beating RV handily.

There were a number of stand-out performances. Up top Joe Inglis was our third man and Jack Spirgel was our 4th man. Lavery and Kramer combined to lock down our top 7 - pushing the RV 4 and 5 runners back in the scoring.

Poaletti had another PR (3rd in a row). Barsoum ran his first complete 5K and re-affirmed his talent and promise as our best frosh runner with a nice 20:12 debut. Ing and Micro-Spirgel also had big PR's showing this freshman class may grow into some good runners if they keep working.

Shore Coaches - It was a beautiful XC day - cool with the leaves just on the cusp of turning color and a threat of showers. The course was a bit muddy and slippery and guys came back from their races with muddy shoes and uniforms in need of a wash...

Our Freshmen started the day out on this historic course and ran very well. Barsoum continues to lead the pack, but the improvement of Ing and Barsoum in particular has been impressive. This class is putting in the work. If they keep their miles up the next couple of years I think the future of our program is strong!

The real highlight of the day was the Varsity team. To be honest, our expectations for this year were not as high as previous years given the senior class that graduated last year. We entered the season not expecting to make States. But yesterday proved this is a quality team, with some real character. Inglis went out aggressively, but was not feeling his best. He gutted out to continue to run as our #1 man. Then came, quickly, Horten, Howard and Joe Inglis. Only a 25 second gap between the 4 of them - really a great effort. Nece had a great come-back race after Tuesday and was our 5th man.

I would have to single our Joe Inglis for a truly break-out race. He started pushing the pace after the 1,000 meter mark and really led himself and Howard to great performances. Joe set a PR on the toughest course in New Jersey - breaking 18 minutes for the first time.

Our average team time of 17:53 ranked us far better against other South Jersey teams than we had imagined at the beginning of the season. Ahead of us were Haddonfield, Lenape, Shawnee, Ocean City and Haddon Twp. But we were better than Northern Burlington, Cherry Hill East and West, Washington Twp., Lacey, Toms River North, Seneca and Delsea. You can do your own over-analysis by looking at the results here - http://nj.milesplit.com/meets/100994. The cool thing is that we can still improve quite a bit...

Our JV team finished off the day with solid races across the board. Cain was the hero of the race for us, with a near career PR, and the 6th best time on the team and brining home a nice medal. Some very nice PR's by Hillman, Schlesinger, Gross and Kohart. Gross in particular has made huge strides from last year.

This is also the time of year that we start to think a bit about who might be able to step up to the Top 7 next year. Caffrey and Klawunn made some strong statements yesterday. If they make the commitment to work next summer, along with the other returning runners, it could be a very interesting year...

This Coming Week -

Tuesday - Batch meet at Northern Burlington. This is our biggest race of the year from a dual meet perspective. Northern Burlington has been a tough competitor and if they had run their freshmen in the Varsity race, our results are pretty close from this past Saturday. We will need to run as a pack and be tough to keep our 2 year unbeaten streak going...

Sunday - (Yes, Sunday!) - South Jersey Open - Delsea. This is the fastest course we will run on this season and is a great opportunity for some PR's. We will cut back this week for the Low and Mid groups, although the Varsity will continue to train thru this meet to focus on Sectionals and States. Racing begins at noon.

Special Note - See the article on Jack Inglis in the Moorestown Patch. Some well-deserved recognition to our hard working senior Captain. http://moorestown.patch.com/articles/senior-profile-cross-country-runner-jack-inglis

MXC Weekly Update - Sept. 26

2011-09-27T07:21:00.001-07:00

This Past Week

Home Batch Meet - We had a very successful home meet again this year. We shifted the course, to very positive results. We won all of the match-ups:

MXC 21, Holy Cross 40

MXC 18, Maple Shade 43

MXC 22, Bordentown 39

MXC 15, Palmyra 50

On a traditionally slow course (probably about the same as GCC, but a bit faster than Holmdel), we had a number of PR's: Lavery, Connelly, Martainou, Poaletti (49 seconds!), Novak (55 seconds!), Lee, Kahn (over 2 minutes!!), LaLumia, Schlesinger, Reubel, Kohart, Dugan and Maier. And we had a number of guys that were close. We are clearly benefitting from the miles and they will pay dividens over the next few weekends.

Special kudos to Connelly. Broke 19 minutes for the first time, earning a Varsity letter. Your consistent, hard work is really a great example for the whole team.

Up top, we were really impressed with Inglis being so tough the last mile and putting away the race, as well as Horten being willing to take a chance and take the lead after the mile point. Howard showed some resilience to come back in the last mile and Spirgel seems to be rounding into racing shape.

The finish of the day was between Reubel and Kohart. Freight trains hurtling toward the line, although I am still not sure who won...

Final shout-out to Kramer, who withstood the rath of all the coaches yelling at him because they were so frustrated with the official. Kramer had unknowingly volunteered to help mark team places - thanks!

Friday Workout - The JV had a track workout on Friday to start to build a bit of speed as they come toward the end of their season the next few weeks. We did 800's and 400's on the track, working on feeling comfortable at a faster pace.

Saturday Workout - The Varsity headed to Holmdel to get ready for this weekend's Shore Coaches meet. They did 4 X 1 mile at threshold pace for the first 3 and then worked hard on the last mile.

This Coming Week -

Tuesday - Batch meet at BCIT Westhamton. Remember you can get directions to all race locations on our website at http://www.moorestownxc.org/Racing/Directions.html. Starts at 3:45.

Psych Party Special Collection - Luke Howard will bring a box to every psych party that people can donate non-perishable food items into, and he will take care of the rest, delivering the food to the SJFB center, in Pennsauken.

Saturday - Shore Coaches Championship at Holmdel. Meet Information is at http://nj.milesplit.com/meets/95925. Frosh Boys run at 1:10, Varsity is in the B school size Race - at 2:15, and the JV will run the B race as well at 4:35PM. Expect a late return home!

Thought for the day:

"It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit." - George Sheehan

MXC 2011 Weekly Update - Sept. 20

2011-09-20T07:22:00.001-07:00

Special Thanks to the Kramers and Poaletti's for forwarding pictures! They are linked from www.moorestownxc.org. You can also see the latest results spreadsheet with VDOT's and PR's there as well.

This Past Week

New Egypt Dual Meet - The team followed the plan. The guys were grouped based upon VDOTs from Saturday's race, gave them approximate pacing, and urged initial restraint due to the warm, muggy weather. Regardless, most guys were still out comfortably and looking good. Horten and Inglis worked together and ran with Andrew Stewart and Kevin Wright from Cinnaminson, quickly separating from the rest of the field. We had a whole pack next -- the potential strength of the team -- led by Howard, Little Inglis, Spirgel, and Nece. Mitch Cain, Connelly, Lavery were clinging on. They came out of the woods the final time looking steady and strong. The rest of the team -- in spite of encouragement to run together, got pretty strung out. Guys were working hard but not tightly packed. Still, effort was there and the results, again by appearance only, looked good.

Some guys jumped up the ladder compared to their Cherokee Challenge times. Evan pushed out a strong final 300 on the track to come in 4th on the team behind Inglis, Horten and Howard, beating Joe by 4 seconds. Reed Kramer, who didn't race on Saturday, bounced back from his illness to clearly inject himself into the varsity conversation with a 7th place finish, 30 seconds behind Spirgel but right ahead of Lavery. And Greg Rothman looks to be gaining back more of his form, finishing as the #1 JVer (and 12th overall, up from 16th best time at CC). Of course, there was a lot more shuffling as the rest of the field came through, but kudos should also go to Connor Ems and Nick Novak, who passed lots of guys who beat them on Saturday.

South Jersey Shootout -

Frosh Races: Welcome to the true world of XC for the young ones - hills! Barsoum learned from last week's quick start and ran much more conservatively, leading the frosh in 15:03 and medaling in 22nd place. He now has to figure out the smart start and the strong 2nd half push to the top. Mike Macaluso, Mike Ing, Sam Bauscher, and Sam Spirgel followed, not really packed up but not too far apart either. Macaluso led most of the way before feeling the full impact of the hills. The others, again out a little more conservatively, looked solid. Graham and Maier ran much of the way together before Ryan separated to outdistance Nolan, who again displayed a good final surge.

JV: We have a BIG team. And, for the most part, they ran with great effort, raced with each other - lots of black and gold packs out there - and found good results. Lavery led the squad, running a consistent and solid race, passing guys throughout to finish in 7th. Right on his heals were Sheehan (who was as high as fourth early on, probably getting out too fast in 5:30) and a solid pack of Cain, Caffrey, Rothman, and Martinou. Klawunn and Orzechowicz ran with them for much of the race, too. Caffrey and Martinou posted some big life PRs.

Other noteworthy performances:

· Dan Poaletti running a strong race, picking up runners the whole time, to PR in 20:16.

· Vincent Lee quantifies his improvement, knocking 33 seconds off his life PR

· Greg Munilla starting very slowly, but picking up steam the entire race and looking as fresh as anyone crossing the line.

· Stephen Burke showing off the speed on the final stretch, finishing in 22:02, a PR by 17 seconds.

· Andrew Moorer running 45 seconds faster yesterday on 5k of GCC's hills than he did on 4700m of flat New Egypt course. A little experience goes a long way.

· Jon Pollock finished a 5k without his knee killing him!

· David LaGatta led another pack to some strong finishes as well. He, Dugan, Reubel (who will love the 800 after this XC season!), Kohart, and Gross all ran the entire race together. Great push to the finish line, too. Big PRs for LaGatta and Gross. Gross knocked almost two minutes off!

5,6,7 Race: Joe Inglis ran a fist-pump worthy race - looking cool, calm, and collected as he cruised to a big PR (18:07 from last year's 18:40) and a 9th place finish. Jack Spirgel ran well, too, although he let Joe go early and never was able to make up the difference. He finished in a respectable 18:17. Reed Kramer proved he belonged in the Top 7, running a smart and consistent race to finish in 18:43. All three ran strong tactical races - no one got caught up in the fast start, all ran with strength through the hills, and finished well. Great building block for the rest of the year.

3,4 Race: As often happens, after watching the 5,6,7 guys run well, the 3,4 guys rose to the raised expectations. Luke Howard ran a wonderful race, starting comfortably (he was in the 30s at the 800) but slowly and strongly moving up the fast field the entire race. He closed to 14th with a powerful kick, finishing in 17:45, nearly 45s faster than last year's PR and 1:30 faster than last year's time at the Shoot-out. Who says summer mileage doesn't pay off? Evan ran with Luke until the hills, where he slowly let him go. To his credit, he rallied over the last mile and closed confidently with a strong kick, picking four or five runners in the final 400. His 18:16 is a life PR (imagine that) and, more importantly, a strong step forward. He faced down a crisis on those hills and came out strong. Bodes well for the future!

1,2 Race: Jack Inglis was on his way to a big break out race - rising up as high as #9 (he was 25th at the 800) and running with confident comfort - until he ran out of gas after the hills. He dropped a couple of places but rallied to hold onto 14th by the finish. Right behind him? Kevin Horten, who looked great, again out conservatively and picking up guys the entire time. A 17:17 is a big step up from him and his 16th place finish definitely earns the stud label.

Overall, a good day. Lots of kids took steps forward. Many had their first XC experience on the hills of GCC, gaining some valuable experience. And the entire Top 7 had positive races to build on as we go forward. What to complain about? Well, Ringo talked way too long at the awards ceremony. But it was Ok because not only did we get two kids on the podium, but the GIRLS TEAM WON! Denning got to give a speech. I wanted to cry....

This Coming Week -

Tuesday - Our HOME Batch Meet! Come out and cheer the team on. Starts at 3:45.

Saturday - No meet. We may take the Varsity level guys to Holmdel - details at practice.

MXC Weekly Update Sept. 13

2011-09-14T06:32:00.001-07:00

This Past Week

Overall, we are happy with the day. Given where we are, the guys ran great races. Lots of conservative starts and strong finishes. Lots of guys coming off the course talking about all the runners they picked up over the second mile and feeling like they had more to give. Given our training and lack of emphasis on speed, I thought that was promising.

Noteworthy performances:

1. The Inglis Brothers: Joe got out strong, ran steady through the middle mile, and continued to pick up runners right to the end. He kept Kevin in sight and cut 30 seconds off his 2 mile time trial time. Jack followed suit in the senior race, running like a #1. Out strong (but not foolishly). He was 25 at the 800, held steady through the mile, and picked up 10 guys over he last half of the race. Look collected and strong throughout.

2. The Solid Seniors: Evan Nece, Jack Spirgel, Mitch Cain, Mike Connelly: While Lavery and Sheehan were a little off, the rest of the crew ran good races. Following instructions, they were out slow -- maybe a little too slow -- but picked up steam throughout the race and finished strong, picking off lots of runners as they went. Times are good, but the promise is better. Looking forward to bigger things as they continue to get stronger and push harder.

3. The Bounce Backs -- Greg Rothman, Spiro Martinou: Although he said he is feeling much better, I am still impressed with Rothman's performance given the roller coaster health ride he has been on over the last two seasons. And Spiro, while not improving on his time trial time, still looks infinitely better now that he is healthy again. Evan Nece could get an honorable mention, here, too.

4. The Flashes: As in, flashing some potential. Corey K (12:07), Mike O (12:16), Devin C (12:37), Connor Ems (12:43), and even Hillman (12:53) ran aggressively and well, all finishing much improved over their time trial times and pushing themselves up the depth chart. They now sit right outside the top 12 and one only wonders how good they could be if they got serious about summer mileage. Carrigan could also fall into this category. He was a little slower, but still chopped 1:26 off his time trial time to finish in a respectable 12:58.

5. Frosh Figuring it Out: In their second races, several of the young guys really stepped up time wise from their track time trial. Micro Spirgel (-2:02 to 13:18), Macaluso (-2:55 to 13:26), Ing (-1:49 to 13:46), and Graham (-2:00 to 14:49) all ran markedly better the second time around. Their leader, Barsoum, roared off the start line a little too quickly, seemed to struggle soon after, before crossing the line first for our frosh squad in 13:02, about 30 seconds slower than the track time.

6. Rounding into Shape: Like some of the frosh, many of our older guys are in much better shape now than they were when practice started in August. Carrigan (-1:26), Voyack (-1:20), Handlan (-1:05), Burke (-1:06), Burns (-1:45), Coneby (-1:19), LaGatta (-1:41), Malta (-5:03!!), and Charlie S (-1:12) all dropped over a minute. Overall, 30 runners improved on their time -- to be expected, but good none the less.

7. Vincent Lee: Special shout out to Vincent, who I've been impressed with. A senior who has come in running more than ever continues to make strides. He hoped to break 14 minutes (topping last year's CC time of 14:33). After racing down the back stretch chasing two guys, he crossed in 13:14! A just reward for a guy who is doing all he can to max out his potential. The moments I live for!

This Coming Week -

Tuesday - Batch Meet at New Egypt

Saturday - South Jersey Shootout.

MXC Weekly Update Sept. 3

2011-09-03T08:37:00.001-07:00

Special - MXC Apparel

Mrs. Testa has again organized a special ordering of MXC apparel. This is separate from the Uniform program, and offers everyone a chance to get some cool MXC logo gear. You can print off this webpage - http://www.moorestownxc.org/2011/XCApparel2011.jpg. Either bring it to a coach or drop it off at the Moorestown Running Company. All orders are due this Tuesday, Sept. 6.

This Past Week

Trail Work - Thanks to everyone who came out and helped spread the chips before the big storm! They mostly stayed in place. Later in the season we will do a refresh from the piles we left remaining. It was a quick 2 hours, gave us a break from running for a day and we even got donuts!

Workouts - We focused again on accumulating miles this week. We are really impressed with a lot of guys. The high mileage group looks very strong. We got a bit of speedwork and cross training in on Thursday with Frisbee. On Saturday the high mileage guys did a 4.2 mile tempo workout designed to build strength as well as learn how to run in packs. The rest of the team did 1000 meter Thresholds.

We were very happy with how well the top guys were able to run in packs and focus on negative splits. Inglis looked very strong, and Horten was able to hang with him for splits of 9:00, 8:55 and 8:35 - perfect way to run. Nece also looked great and the concept of running in packs proved very useful to Howard, who was able to gut it out and run right with him. Lavery led the third pack with Joe Inglis and Connolly hanging tough. This whole group, including Sheehan, really shows the great work they did this summer. We can't talk about PR's and most improved until late in the season, but it has to be noted just how much Connolly has improved - his consistent long miles this summer are paying off. It was a shame Spirgel and Kramer could not have been there.

The Threshold group also looked really good. Caffrey and Martainou were simply cruising at the top of the group and should be considered potential contenders for the Varsity 7. It was great to see Klawunn, Ems and Devin Connolly also having good, solid workouts. Newcomers Novak and Voyack also both looked like they have some interesting potential. The best thing was seeing good, consistent effort from everyone.

You can read about the type of workouts we do at http://www.moorestownxc.org/Training/TrainingPhilosophy.html. Again, we are focusing on building the basic cardio system this year. You can read more about that here - http://www.moorestownxc.org/Training/RunningPhysiology.html.

Logging Miles - We have a Uniform Program, where runners can earn uniforms, shirts and even sweats. To earn a uniform (that you keep for the 4 years you run), runners must complete 100 miles. T-Shirts are awarded at 250 miles, 500 miles, 1,000 miles and every 1,000 miles after. That is based on total cumulative miles during a runner's career on the team. We also award full sweats with embroidered name for runners who run over 500 miles from June 1 thru the Turkey Trot. We are using a new log program this year - you must signup to be part of the MXC Club and then you will get weekly assignments as well as be able to log your miles. We are using this effective for all miles after June 1. You do not need to transfer Voomaxer miles - we will keep track of those. Go to
https://www.runclubsignup.com/Club/NJ/Moorestown/MoorestownBoysCrossCountry and
join the club and start logging miles.

This Coming Week -

We meet on Monday at 8AM, and then the rest of the week we shift to the afternoon at 3PM.

Cherokee Challenge - Saturday is our first meet. You can learn more about it at http://www.ccctf.com/ch_chal_main.html. It is a great meet where there is a different 2 mile race for each class - Frosh, Soph, Jr and Sr. We strongly encourage parents and family to come out and cheer for their favorite runners! It is a blast, and even if your son says he doesn't want you - tell him Bickel said you were allowed to come ;-)

Thanks,

Eagles, Cote & Bickel

MXC Weekly Update - Aug. 26

2011-08-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

Special News:

Saturday, August 27 - Trail Work. Yes, we are still planning on doing work Saturday starting at 8AM. If the rain is too bad, we may call it quits early and we may decide not to put down all the mulch - but there is still plenty of cleanup work we need to do. We will need lots of wheelbarrows, pitchforks, rakes, shovels as well as shears for trimming brush. We also need parents to come and help with this as well. We will be doing this starting at 8AM instead of the normal run.

Sunday, August 28 - Clementon Park 5K and Splash World Classic! - This race has been postponed until Sept. 18. We have a real race the day before, so we will not be doing this as a team activity.

This Past Week

We had a good first week of practice. Most of the guys showed up - with daily totals of over 50 each day. Some guys are missing, much to our chagrin. I only hope you have been running.

Time Trial - We held a time trial on Tuesday to get a sense of where the fitness level is for everyone. The results confirmed we are not as strong up top as we were last year. On the other hand, we had a lot of good, solid performances for the early season. This is a team that can certainly develop into a solid contender and hold our dual meet winning streak going as well as win the Liberty Division. Also note that time trial results are up on the website - www.moorestownxc.org.

Miles - We are taking a new approach with this year's team. It goes back to the basics of needing to run to be a good runner. We're taking a page from my college Coach's playbook. His basic XC philosophy was that the races were long enough that the key was aerobic capacity - how much oxygen could be delivered by the heart and lungs to the muscles. The best way to expand this system is to run for long, slow distances. It also has the benefit of minimizing injuries as opposed to running fast. As the season kicks in we will have a number of races that we will learn to run fast and be tough. But we need the aerobic systems to be able to sustain us for the full 5K.

We have broken the team into three general groups - Low, Mid and High mileage. They have a goal for running 5, 7 and 9 miles each day Monday-Saturday. We have a good pack of around 10 guys in the high group and they all look solid. The Mid's are a bit larger group and also look solid, although some that did nto get full mileage in this summer are feeling tired. The Low's are still a mix. Some will be moving up to the mid's over the next couple of weeks. Some are still working on the 3 mile level, but will see steady improvement and get up to 5 in the next couple of weeks.

This Coming Week -

We will continue the pre-season training schedule, meeting each morning at 8AM. We will likely have a workout or two that involves some hills at threshold pace.

If we are not able to complete trail work tomorrow, we will have another work day next Saturday.

Thanks,

Eagles, Cote & Bickel

MXC 2011 Weekly Update - Trail Work & Race This Weekend!

2011-08-24T12:03:00.001-07:00

This is a special reminder email about this weekend's activities!

Saturday, August 27 - Trail Work. This year we will be putting down new wood chips on the trail in the middle school woods. We will need lots of wheelbarrows, pitchforks, rakes and shovels. We also need parents to come and help with this as well. We will be doing this starting at 8AM instead of the normal run.

Sunday, August 28 - Clementon Park 5K and Splash World Classic! - We want everyone to sign up for this race. It includes free entry to the water park after the race. We also get fundraising help form this event, as $10 donation is made to the team for each runner that signs up from our team! It would be great to have 50+ guys show up with family and friends and raise a bunch of money to pay for our uniform program and trail maintenance!

Also note that time trial results are up on the website - www.moorestownxc.org.

RunSignUp goes Mobile!

2011-07-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

RunSignUp has gone mobile! With 9% of visitors to our website coming from mobile devices (and growing!), we wanted to optimize their experience by making our site as simple to use as possible.

The new interface works on Android, iPhone and iPad devices, and the reviews have been great!

The RunSignUp mobile interface is designed to be simple and straightforward, with larger fonts and bigger, easily press-able buttons, to make race registration a breeze!

And best of all, race directors do not need to do anything! Your race registration is automatically optimized for each runner coming to your race webpage. Simply post your race at www.RunSignUp.com.

MXC Weekly Update- Spring Track Edition - Time Trials

2011-03-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Spring Track! We have about 30 guys out for the Distance team and 60+ overall including the sprints, jumps and weights. This is the largest distance crew we have had out for Track, which is a good sign! The only downside is that track does not have the same opportunity for everyone to run in every meet like Cross Country does, but there should be plenty of chances for everyone to run some races.

We had our annual season opening 2 Mile Time Trial (actually semi-annual counting XC). We had 27 guys run it - another record. Overall we were very pleased with the results. The guys that had been running all winter showed it. Some of the guys doing winter sports also showed a great start - the Inglis brothers, Howard, Caffrey, Orzechowicz pop to mind.

Of course it would not be a time trial without someone losing it - and Kramer came thru for us on his final lap taking a moment to fertilize some grass...

You can see the times on the www.moorestownxc.org website along with the new VDOT. These VDOT's will rise rapidly by early April when racing starts in earnest. There is also a link to the Spring Schedule.

This coming week, we will get easy miles in on Monday and Tuesday. Then a good interval workout on the track on Wednesday and then some Threshold on Saturday.

As a PS, congrats to the guys who ran the Indoor Sectionals. In the 3200, Shipley ran a nice PR (indoor and outdoor) in 11:06. Rothman also PR'd BIG with a 11:54. Samocki and Sieggreen ran good 1600's for having no speedwork. Kevin Horten and Munilla did a bit of a spped workout running the 800. Munilla especially had a nice kick at the end.

Bickel Running Review of 2010

2010-12-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

To follow up on last year's promise, here is my yearly review of the running part of my life. I’ll cover Coaching, the new Trail Project, the Moorestown Running Company, RunSignUp and my personal running. You can read about the business side of my life here.

Coaching
While I really like everything I get to do, this has to be my favorite. During Spring Track Sam Weintraub had an unfortunate "football" injury that caused him to have a tough season. It was a shame since he had a great base and would have qualified for States. Fortunately he has gone on to run at University of Rhode Island and make the Varsity squad this year. Tyler Ems had a nice spring season and decided to run at Loyola. It makes me very happy when guys graduate and continue running at the collegiate level. Of course the highlight of Spring Track had to be the emergence of Anthony Horten as the most talented runner we have had the pleasure to coach. He figured out what it takes to be good during this season and dropped from 4:40 to 4:24 in the 1600.
Of course Cross Country – MXC – is the best season. We had 73 guys on the team this year. The great thing about XC is that everyone can do it and focus on improving. We were very lucky to have an amazing group of Captains - Dylan Monaghan, Anthony Horten, Brett Samocki, Forrest Klawunn and Paul Rothenberger. In addition, we had the best Freshman class of all time show up - a great group of guys who will make sure the program carries on even though we graduate 5 of our top 7 runners. We extended our dual meet win streak to 30 winds over the past two years, won the Liberty Division and finished 5th in States Group 3 (second largest schools). Again the highlight was the continuing progression of Horten. He won the South Jersey Open and Burlington County Open and finished 5th at States. My biggest fear all year was not to screw him up, and for the most part we achieved that. I can't wait to see him in the Spring and at college as he continues to improve.

One of the best things we have done as a team is to put on the yearly Moorestown Turkey Trot. It has turned into a real tradition in town – a way for people to connect on Thanksgiving morning, many collegians come back to reconnect with their high school friends. We had over 800 registrants this year who all went home happy and ready to eat turkey…

It is cool to see MXC alumni running in college – Healey and Weintraub at Rhode Island, Ems at Loyola, Ringwood at Hopkins, Matteson at TCNJ.

Trail Project
We have completed our second trail in town! In addition to the MXC course at the high school, we now have a 2.5 mile trail around the perimeter of the Swede Run Open Space land on Westfield Road. You can read more about this effort and our long term goal of creating a network of trails for walking, running and biking throughout Moorestown athttp://www.moorestownxc.org/Trails/.

Moorestown Running Company
Two years ago I put together a longer blog just on the store. We continue on the same path - focused on the running community in Moorestown and the surrounding area. One of the highlights is the growth of the Moorestown Distance Running Project – which has dozens of runners now and winning and competing in many team competitions. Of course the real core of the store are the great people working there – Joe Halin, Ralph Harris, Ed Scioli, Maureen Shockley and our latest addition, Colleen Hughes Tindal (former MXC runner). The good news is that we have finally made a profit. Although it will take us another 10-15 years to recoup my original investment, it is a great step forward and makes us a real, ongoing business.

RunSignUp.com
You can read more about this one in my business blog. From a running community perspective, we are working with great running organizations like the Road Runners Club of America, Weight Watchers, www.RunningintheUSA.com, and a number of timing services and race directors across the country (as far away as Alaska and as close as Moorestown). Everyone that uses it seems to love it and find it much easier to use than anything else out there. It is also cool to have grown a team that will make sure we keep moving forward fast. I'm also very happy that Jack Wickens introduced me to the USATF program where businesses can help people training for the Olympics, as this is how Jordan Desilets and I met. 2011 is really a year focused on partnerships and growing and building out a bunch of cool technology for this community. It will be fun.

Personal Running
What started out as a promising year, ended in injury and frustration. I ran a "controlled" 19:00 at the Haddonfield Adrenaline 5K and then a quality 31:06 at the Scott Coffee Moorestown Rotary 8K on a hot and humid day. My goal was the USATF National Cross Country Championship in December. They have age group team competitions and we have a number of 50-60 year old guys who are pretty good in the Moorestown Distance Running Project. Unfortunately in the beginning of August I had a mis-step on a sore plantar (arch in the foot) that has put me out of commission until just last week. I start a long recovery now - doing 2 miles every other day for a week or two and then a slow increase. In addition to not being able to pull the old man's XC team together, the real frustration was not being able to run with the MXC team during this past fall season. Hopefully I will be back to running again fully by Spring Track in March. And maybe another shot at an old man XC team race...

MXCSummer Update - 8/1/2010

2010-08-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Three weeks until official first practice - Monday, August 23!

The summer has flown by. It looks like a fair number of our top runners have been getting in a good summer of training. Horten, Samocki, Monaghan, and Inglis are all regulars at the benches this summer. Sheehan was having a great summer but has an injury - we'll see how that progresses... Klawunn has been pretty steady except for Lacrosse. Nece ran his whole time in Japan and is logging about 40 per week on his own - nice job! Rothenberger says he is running more than last summer and should come into the season ready. Also good reports from Lentz and Lavery. Hope the rest of the returnees are getting miles in ...

Our Freshman class looks very strong this year. Horten, Inglis, Munilla, and Wright have been regulars with occasional appearances from Rothman, Spirgel, Kramer and Caffrey. Thanks to the Klawunns for hosting the newcomers party a couple of weeks ago!

If your name is not listed above, drop me a line and let me know how your training is going. Or better yet, come run at 8AM at the benches!

A number of guys are heading up to the Running Works Camp Aug. 16-21. It is not too late to register - http://www.runningworks.com/camps.html. For those of you going, make sure you do not over-do it up there!

We will be cranking it up pretty quickly this year in terms of mileage, so make sure you use the next three weeks to get ready. We'll do a regular distance run on Monday the 23rd and then do the two mile time trial on the track on Tuesday to get a feel for where everyone is on their training.

Also, make sure your paperwork is in. Here is the link for the paperwork, including physicals - http://www.mtps.com/800401015111530/lib/800401015111530/Sports%20Physical%20Info.pdf. As per high school guidelines, you can not practice with the team if your paperwork is not complete.

Also, there is mandatory concussion testing taking place on August 18 at the high school at 1PM. Room numbers will be announced later, and we will have to schedule a make-up for the guys at running camp.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the benches on Aug. 23!

MXC Update - 6/21/2010

2010-06-22T09:45:00.001-07:00

Welcome New Runners!
We currently have 66 guys signed up for Cross Country this year. That includes 43 returning runners, 4 new Seniors, 3 new Juniors, 5 new Sophomores, and 11 new Freshmen. I have put a link to the roster and contact information on the website. Please let me know of any corrections needed or if you would like your name removed.

Remember, it is not too late to sign up. So bring get your friends to come out. Nearly everyone can run, and achieve the success of getting PR's. The beautiful thing about running - everyone gets to play!

Stay tuned for information on a get-together for new runners in a few weeks.

MXC Summer Captains Practices
We have started Captains Practices every weekday morning at 8AM at the benches between the Middle School and High School. We've only gotten about 15 out the first two days - so pass the word.

Summer is the time to really make your season. While you may not like getting out of bed that early, it is a good feeling of accomplishment. And it is definitely the way to avoid injury during the season.

As a reminder, here are the miles we are looking for per day. This should all be slow and easy to build a base during the summer.
Championship Squad (typically about the top 12 runners):
June - 7 miles, 6 days per week.
July - 8 miles, 6 days per week.
August-November - 9 miles, 6 days per week, plus 3 miles on Sunday.
If you are doing more, just make sure you are coordinating with Eagles and Bickel.

Varsity Qualifiers (aiming for sub-19, which earns a Varsity Letter):
June - 5 miles, 5 days per week.
July - 6 miles, 5 days per week.
August-November - 7 miles, 6 days per week.

New and non-Varsity Runners:
June - 3 miles, 5 days per week.
July - 4 miles, 5 days per week.
August - November - 5-6 miles per day, 6 days per week.

If you are not home to participate in Captains Practices, then take advantage of the fact that you can run almost anywhere!

New Version of RunSignUp in Test Mode

2010-05-04T08:55:00.001-07:00

There is an exciting new release of www.RunSignUp.com coming next week! We would like to invite all of our race directors to be a part of our testing process. All you need to do is go to http://test.RunSignUp.com. You should be able to login with your usual username and password (there is a convenient button if you forgot your password that will set up a new one for you). We have your registered users for your race as of a few days ago. The best thing to do is go in and try to add some of the new features, like store items or a donation or a coupon code and see how your race page looks. Go ahead and add runners to your event. The credit card processing is NOT hooked up – so there will be no charges if you test that out. And we will not be saving any of this data or any of the changes you make to your test race. Let us know any feedback or suggestions. Thanks! Here is a look at the major new features:

Easy Family Sign Up. Allows a person to sign up multiple people at the same time, making things faster, easier and less expensive.
Custom Questions. You can now ask runners for additional information – such as if they want to be on your newsletter mailing list, or how much they have been training, or what they like most about your event, or how many years they have run your event, or even what team or relay they are a part of (we will have a better solution for that in the next release in June).
Donations. You can now accept simple donations. You can set up predetermined levels, and people can donate anonymously. This can also be a separate widget that you put on your website all year round to accept donations to your charitable organization.
Store. This gives you the ability to easily sell additional items, such as Pasta dinner tickets, or perhaps race logo clothing. Again, this can be a separate widget that you could have on your website all year long. There is also the ability to have a cut-off date for ordering. This is convenient for doing pre-order only items.
Store Order Management. Manage your orders with adding shipping information, archiving orders, and doing partial refunds.
Coupons. Set up any number of coupons. For example, you could have an “Elite” coupon to take 100% off the cost of a race. You could have a “USATF Member” coupon to take $2 off of a race. Use any combination of $ and %, as well as set what type of registrations can use it (first time only, once per family, etc.)
Participants Widget. Use this to show who has signed up for your race. Since you can upload paper entries for free, you can show all runners who are registered for your race.
Custom Email templates. We now allow race directors to customize the emails that are sent to race participants.
Easier to use Race Director page. We have gone to a full menu system on the races page that will allow you direct access to more functions. This makes it simpler for you to use and allows us to keep bringing you great new features.

Unless we find bugs that delay us, we plan on releasing the new system on Monday, May 10. Please take some time and let us know what you think! Thank you!

Looking for a Developer and Runner

2010-04-25T10:44:00.001-07:00

We have started the search for another developer and runner at www.RunSignUp.com. We are doing things in PHP and MySQL and Linux. Looking for someone who likes to learn (we have some plans for iPhone and Android as well as more Facebook and Twitter work) and has interest in building Internet start-ups. Also someone who runs and would understand the running community that we serve. Location is not important, as we work from our homes. Part-time is OK as well. If you know someone, send them my way...

Moorestown Distance Weekly Update

2010-04-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

Volunteers Needed for Saturday's Moorestown Invitational!
It looks like we are understaffed with volunteers - so it would be great if anyone on this email list would be willing to head over to the track for an hour or two on Saturday! Joyce Nece (jhnece@comcast.net) is heading up the concession stand this year and she needs all the help she can get! Thanks!

This Past Week

Last Saturday we had the first official meet, the Hall of Fame Relays. Unlike past years of torrential rain or bone chilling cold and wind, it was a hot and sunny day. So sunny one of our runners actually has sun poisoning this week and can not run! Remember to put on sun screen and bring a t-shirt and cap and stay out of the sun. In addition to the skin issues, the sun can suck the energy right out of you and affect your performance!

Our 4X1600 team started off the meet with a romp - winning by over 40 seconds. We led most of the race and the guys turned in good, even splits. This team has a shot at getting the school record in May when they are in better shape, and have some stiff competition.

The DMR's both had some nice performances. Shipley ran a 3:40 1200, indicating he is more than ready to go sub-5 in the 1600. Inglis anchored with a sub-5, which was a PR for him. Szumski led off the other DMR team and ran 5 seconds faster than last year in a 3:44. Sheehan was close to a PR at 5:11. A good sign that a sub-5 is in his future as well.

The freshmen had a nice performance, finishing 3rd in their heat of the 4X800. Lamina led the way with a 2:22.

Yesterday was our first really hard practice of the year. Now that it is April, we are going to build on our base from the winter and March and start learning how to run faster and pushing thru some pain. The top guys did 6X800 at 2:30 and under. Very nice.

This Coming Week

The Moorestown Invitational is this weekend. We will have 3 runners in the 5K, 3 in the 1500, a DMR and a 4X800. Eagles will be reviewing those entries at practice tomorrow.

Next week we start our dual meet season competing against Willingboro on Tuesday after school on our own track. Invite your friends to come out, and parents are definitely welcome!

Next Saturday we will mostly be off. There is an opportunity for a couple of steeplechasers, but the bulk of the team will be practicing.

I also wanted to take a moment to say how pleased I am with the training levels that everyone is at. We have ratcheted up our mileage, with a big group doing 8 miles nearly every day. This will pay some big dividends as we get to May, and of course for those who are training for XC next fall or going to college and plan to run. Keep up the great work - it is that steady commitment that makes great distance runners and teams.

Your faithful scribe is taking off and will be missing for the next two and a half weeks due to vacation (St. Louis, Graceland!, Nashville on a road trip!), then a couple of business trips. I will be keeping up with things and feel free to email with questions.

Thanks,
Eagles & Bickel

MXC Track Weekly Update

2010-03-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

This Past Week

We are getting into a rhythm. The miles are starting to build and we are starting to get in shape. The purpose of March is really to build a base for our target races in May. Hence, we are training thru our scrimmages and meets and making sure we get miles in every day.

In spit of Senior Trip and training thru our scrimmages, we had a great day at Cinnaminson on Wednesday. There were two PR's - Shipley and Lamina. As mentioned previously, Shipley is really putting in some good work and seeing some marked improvements. Lamina is a freshman, first time runner and it is fun to watch him explore how good he can get. It will be interesting to see if he can earn a Varsity letter with a sub-5 performance once he gets in shape.

Up top, Horten got some speed work in, with a nice 2:06 800. Out in 60.5, it was his fastest 400 of the season and he held on pretty well. Weintraub ran a steady 71-72-72-68 for a 4:43 leading from start to finish int he 1600. Samocki showed a lot of toughness and buried the guy from who finished 2nd in the Divisional XC meet.

Today we headed out for a great hill threshold on Paul Drive. This is a great volume and strength day. The top guys ran 10 miles, with 4X 1000+ meters. Even the Freshmen got 7+ miles in.

This Coming Week

Just to make clear, our goal is to run fast at the end of the season. That means Sectionals for the top guys and the Haddonfield Distance meet for others. Both are toward the end of May.

We are doing things a bit different this year and introducing speed work earlier in the season. The idea is to get used to running that fast, but not do it in such a way that it is too hard and allows us to still get miles in a build strength. So if the weather cooperates, we will target a light strides at sub-mile pace at the end of easy miles on Monday and some 400's at mile pace on Wednesday.

Saturday, May 3 is the Hall of Fame Relays at Maple Shade. Please let us know if you will be away. We are expecting everyone to be there and participate. Weintraub, Horten, Samocki and Ems will be doing the 4 X 1600 relay. The freshmen will be doing a 4 X 800 relay and most others will be in Distance Medley Relays.

Also, remember that we still need volunteers for the Moorestown Invitational on Saturday, April 10. Please let me know if you can help by emailing me at bob@runningco.com.

Joe Newton, Terrence Mahon

2010-03-23T06:25:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I spent the morning at another fantastic Running Works Day of Distance Coaching at Villanova. This year they had a great 1-2 punch - Joe Newton and Terrence Mahon.

Joe Newton is the legendary coach of York High School. His teams have won 26 State titles in the 50+ years he has been coaching. He has a book that served as a foundation of our program we have built at Moorestown High School, and a great high school XC movie that follows his team thru the course of a season - The Long Green Line.

At 81, he is an energetic, motivating and entertaining speaker - he had the audience of 150 coaches laughing half of the time and thinking the other half. Here are some of the notes I took on his primary messages:

At the beginning of the season, he asks his team three essential questions:

Can I trust you?
Are you committed to excellence?
Do you care about me? Because I care about you. I love you all.

He also related a funny story of a speech he heard by W Clement Stone and his 4 lessons:

Do it - now.
I dare you to be great.
Tell yourself you feel healthy, happy, terrific. Every day.
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe - is possible.

Other pearls of wisdom:

Don't be afraid to work hard.
Discipline yourself during the hard times.
Aristotle said: Life is only meaningful if you are striving for a goal.

While these are all things we know, it was great to be reminded of them in Joe's inspirational style. Afterward I went up to him and shook his hand and offered my heartfelt congratulations and thanks.

After Joe, we got to hear Terrence Mahon talk. He is the coach of the Mammoth Lakes Track Club, the elite training group that includes Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi, Jen Rhines, Deena Kastor, Amy Hastings and others. He ran at Villanova and learned at the foot of Joe Vigil. He ran 28:31 and 2:13 himself before focusing on coaching.

Terrence is a very precise, focused coach. He gave a great talk that focused on technical aspects as well as the idea of adapting your coaching style to each runner to match their personality and motivations.

The foundation of his program is understanding and maximizing all 7 energy systems:

ATP-CP. This is 0-6 seconds in length. Most distance runners ignore this in training, but Terrence has his runners do 2-3 sets of 3X30 meter sprints on Mondays. This helps develop this system, and improves running style and efficiency.
Alactate. This is from 15-40 seconds in length. He maintains that many races are determined in the last lap, and having this system is key. He does 4-6 X 150 meter sprints w 4-6 minutes rest every two weeks.
Anaerobic Overload. This system is used between 40-90 seconds before it is depleted. He does 6-8 X 300 meters at 800 meter pace with a 3 minute rest between each.
vVO2 is your maximum oxygen consumption level and lasts between 90-180 seconds. He does 3-5 X 800 m w a 1-1.5X rest.
Anaerobic Threshold is 2-20 minutes. He does 5-8 X 1000 with a 400 jog between.
Aerobic Endurance is 20-90 minutes. This is a normal long run.
Aerobic Regeneration is 20 - 180 minutes as an energy system. This is a slow recovery run. For his athletes this is typically the easy run of the daily double or the warm-up and cool down of harder workouts.

The last three make up the bulk of the miles and effort, with 7%, 50% and 34% respectively.

One of the interesting points he made was that recovery is really the key to training. He talked about how his runners sleep 8-11 hours per night and they all take naps during the day of 30-120 minutes. He also told us that Ryan Hall, who can run sub 4:50 for 26 miles does his regeneration runs at 8 minute pace. So SLOW DOWN on your long runs and recovery runs.

In addition to suggesting that we SLOW DOWN, he also told us that we should SPEED UP. He suggested that doing fast work helps improve efficiency and should be done at the beginning of a season - not saved for the end of the season.

He also gave us a sample workout program for a decent high school runner who is doing 60 miles per week. He broke the season into 2 weeks - the first week kind of being the first half of the season and the second week being the second half when you were trying to sharpen.
Week One:
Mon: 30-40 min run, 3 X (3X30m hill sprints)
Tue: 4-6 X 1K @ Threshold w 60 sec rest
Wed: 30-40 min regeneration run
Thu: 30-40 min run, 4-6 X 150 sprints
Fri: Tempo 30-40 min
Sat: 30-40 min regeneration run
Sun: 60-90 min long run

Week Two:
Mon: 30-40 min run, 2 X (3X40m flat sprints)
Tues: 2 miles @ AnT, 3-4 X 800 @ Vo2
Wed: 45-60 min regeneration run
Thurs: 30 min endurance run, 6-8 X 250-300 m w 3 min rest
Fri: AeT Tempo 2-3 X 15 minute tempo w/2-3 min rest or a 30-40 min uphill run
Sat: 30-40 min regeneration run
Sun: 60-90 long run (include 8-10 X 1 min hard)

He suggested to use Jack Daniels charts if you did not use heart rate monitors for pacing.

In summary, it was a great way to spend a morning learning from some of the best in the business... Thanks very much to Marcus O'Sullivan, Steve Shaklee and Cricket Batz for putting this on every year. Already looking forward to next year!

Moorestown School Budget

2010-03-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

School Budget
I want to take a brief diversion from my normal running updates to encourage people to vote on the School Budget on April 20, and to pass along some information as well as give you some of my personal thoughts.

Readers Digest Version
To give a quick review of what is being voted on, the School Board has proposed a budget of $61.3M as compared with last year's $61.6M budget. The tax increase to fund this budget is 1.9%, or an average of $124 per household.

There is a reduction of 43 positions as well as 10 coaching positions in the middle school and 8 coaches in the high school, including elimination of the Winter Track and Bowling teams. This results in a reduction of over $1.3M in expenses.

Unfortunately in spite of the reductions, there are three primary factors that are causing the request for a tax increase:

State aid is falling by about $800K due to reductions in the state budget.
Benefits are increasing by about $1.1M due to contractual obligations covering health and pension benefits.
The tax rate-ables have decreased for Moorestown as a result of the re-valuation - in essence homeowners got a net tax decrease while the township and school district got lower tax revenue.

If you want some more information, I would recommend reading this powerpoint presentation, reading the proposed budget, or taking a look at some of the other links.

Voting
Last year the budget was rejected by a vote of 1,208 to 1,050. With over 4,200 students in the district, it is surprising how few parents vote. I think part of this is that people find it difficult to remember. So here is a link to the polling places as well as a link for an Absentee Ballot (this is what I do because of last minute out-of-town business trips).

Personal Perspective
This may be a little out of place, but let me give you my thoughts on this subject from several perspectives.

First, as a homeowner, one of the most valuable assets that I have is my home value. Some day I will sell my house and I hope that I can make money on it. Much of that home value is tied up in the perception and reality of the quality of the school district. It attracts new people to come and buy homes in Moorestown. Having repeated budget defeats gives the district a bad perception and does affect quality in some manner. I understand that the reverse logic can apply with tax rates being too high. But from my perspective, the $124 extra tax I pay will be more than offset by the increase in my home value over time. In some ways, it is like justifying a home remodeling project that preserves and increases the value of my home.

Second, there is much frustration over employee compensation and benefits within the school district. Passing or rejecting this budget has zero impact on that. That contract is done every three years between the board and the unions and employees. The contract is coming up this year. The way to influence that is to correspond with the board and teachers as part of that process. If you feel passionate about that, then make your voice heard on that subject - not by abstaining from the voting process or using it as the logic for voting no.

Third, as a person who has had the benefit of a good education I want to make sure that is available for future generations. And my definition of education is beyond the formal subjects taught in the classroom and include athletics and the arts. I trace much of my personal success and happiness to the lessons I learned running cross country and track and being part of those teams and having the mentorship of coaches. Hard work, setting goals, having fun, being part of a team. It is the reason I volunteer with the distance runners in the high school - to pass along the benefits that I received.

I know that if this budget gets rejected, the cuts will come from extracurricular activities around athletics and arts. And that is the primary reason why I will be voting for the budget.

Moorestown Trails Project in Newspaper

2010-02-10T11:45:00.001-08:00

There is a nice article in the Moorestown Sun about the Trails Project.

We are targeting to build the 2.5 mile trail around the Swede Run Open Space on Westfield Road this coming summer. Of course we need lots of volunteers to help build it, as well as money and supply donation. See more information on how you can help here.

"I HATE Active"

2010-02-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

A friend sent this email to me today...

"I just registered for the Spring Lake 5 and they use Active. You've GOT to get them onto www.RunSignUp.com. I fat-fingered my email address during registration and just wanted to go back and update it before I made payment. It took 20 minutes to figure out how, after clearing the shopping cart, restarting several times, etc. I HATE Active. They are really good at offering me crap I don't want, but the are horrible at the basics. Anything I can do help knock them out, please let me know."

The thing I love about RunSignUp is that it is focused on providing a solution to a very specific need in a simple and more cost effective manner with better technology. Nice to see there is a need out there...

RunSignUp - New Features

2010-02-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

New Features

Free - Volunteer SignUp - We have added an event type of "Volunteer". This gives you an easy way to have volunteers signup to help in your event. Since races do not charge volunteers, neither does RunSignUp. This is a free service. You can even use this if you do not do online race registration with us.

Free - Off-Line Registrations - You can now enter or upload people who do not register online - of course free of charge. This means you can keep all of your registrations in a single system. Simply go to your race list, click on your race and then select "Reports". Click on an event and at the bottom of the page, select "Import Additional Participants". You can enter runners or volunteers in a form or you can import a CSV file.

Partner Program - This is a major new system that allows timing and race management services with more than 10 races per year to manage a number of races and race directors easily. It also provides simple widget technology to provide all the features a website needs for online race registration management.

How to Improve Online Race Registration

One of the best ways to improve race registration is to make it easy for runners to register. RunSignUp offers our widget technology that makes it simple for any website to host online registration. This means runners can sign up for a race on the race website, on the timing service website, on the race sponsors websites as well as on RunSignUp.com.

All you need to do is find a spot on a webpage and add the "Embed" script on that page. Take a look at Runningco.com or RunningInTheUSA.com website for examples of a running store website and a race listing service that offer race signup right on their own website.

Bickel Running Review of 2009

2009-12-24T07:29:00.000-08:00

For the past 16 years I’ve been doing a personal Holiday Greeting that is kind of a quick year in review. Last year I did a “State of the Store” year end review. This year I figured I would create a Bickel Running Year in Review – kind of summing up the various running related things I have been up to. I intend to do a business one as well on my business blog. I’ll cover Coaching, the new Trail Project, the Moorestown Running Company, RunSignUp and my personal running. You can read about the business side of my life here.

Coaching
Helping Lorenzo Eagles, Ethan Betten, Jim Brudnicki and Troy Pappas coach the distance runners in Cross Country and Track at Moorestown High School continues to be the most fun thing I do. 2009 was another great year. Track saw some great accomplishments by our runners. In particular, Ryan Wolff made it to States in the 1600. The only downside of Track season was Dave Ringwood getting injured with an ITB injury and had to miss his last season.
Of course Cross Country – MXC – is my favorite season. We had over 60 guys on the team this year. The great thing about XC is that everyone can do it and focus on improving. In many ways, this was one of our best teams. It just seemed that more guys pushed themselves harder and improved this season. We had great senior captains this year – Sam Weintraub, Joel Robinson, Brandon Greenwood and Tyler Ems. Weintraub, Greenwood and junior Anthony Horten traded the #1 spot. Sophomore Jack Inglis and Junior Paul Rothenberger showed tremendous progress and were in our top 5 consistently and will be key leaders on next year’s team. We went undefeated in dual meets, won the Liberty Division and finished 6th in the State Meet for Group 3 Schools. And we had a lot of fun! I can’t wait until next year!

One of the best things we have done as a team is to put on the yearly Moorestown Turkey Trot. It has turned into a real tradition in town – a way for people to connect on Thanksgiving morning, many collegians come back to reconnect with their high school friends, and a cool way to get a turkey finger puppet! It was a bit wet this year, but all 822 registrants went home happy and ready to eat turkey…

It is cool to see so many MXC alumni running in college – Holaday at Amherst, Healey at Rhode Island, Ringwood at Hopkins, Friedman at ‘Bama, Matteson at TCNJ.

Trail Project
Over the past several years the MXC team built our own cross country course (at no cost to taxpayers or to the school district) around the high school. As a follow-on to that activity a group of people got together to spread this idea throughout the town. We now have formal approval from the Township to build a 2.5 mile trail around the perimeter of the Swede Run Open Space land on Westfield Road. You can read more about this effort and our long term goal of creating a network of trails for walking, running and biking throughout Moorestown at http://www.moorestownxc.org/Trails/. We are actively fundraising. For more information, and to donate either go to the webpage, or send me an email at bob.bickel@comcast.net. The plan is to build the trail this summer – and we will be needing lots of help from the community to spread the woodchips.

Moorestown Running Company
Last year I put together a longer blog just on the store - http://runbic.blogspot.com/2008/12/moorestown-running-company-state-of.html. We continue on the same path we laid down last year. One of the highlights is the growth of the Moorestown Distance Running Project – which has dozens of runners now and winning and competing in many team competitions. Of course the real core of the store are the great people working there – Joe Halin, Ralph Harris, Ed Scioli and our new addition this year, Maureen Shockley. In spite of the bad economy this year, our customers continue to run and buy new shoes from us! Our business in the store is up 8% from last year. And we have expanded into some other areas to improve our service to the running community – Team Uniform Sales as well as Coaching Services. The net results is that we have finally broken even (although we did not pay down any of our debt yet). This is important because it is a sign that we are a viable business and will continue to be a part of the community for the long term!

RunSignUp.com
This past year I finally scratched that itch to create a web service for online race registration. Active.com is the big guerilla in this market and I had used them both as a race director and runner and was just frustrated by the old technology, how hard it was to use and the expense. In the summer, Stephen Sigwart came on board to do the development. We got our first version out in time for the fall races and have had over a dozen use it so far and it looks really solid. In November, Marlise and a friend and Carolyn Schustrich made a trip to Florida to attend the Road Race Management Conference to get feedback from race directors. With the interested we have gotten, I made a decision to really invest in it and go forward. So Stephen, who graduated a semester early from TCNJ at the top of his Comp Sci class, is joining full time on January 4. In addition, my old running buddy from college, George Buckheit, is helping to reach out to race directors, managers and timing services. We have a lot of exciting projects planned to make things even easier and better for race directors and runners. The top of our list is a Partner Program to help timing services and race management firms better serve their races – getting more runners and making life easier and simpler for everyone. After that we will be coming up with some neat Facebook innovations and connections.

Personal Running
It has been a good year – no major injuries! I’ve gotten in over 1,300 miles. I ran a 18:52 5K (6:03 per mile pace) at the Haddonfield Adrenaline Run and a 31:28 (6:19 pace) for the Scott Coffee Moorestown Rotary 8K, which are the two races I kind of try hard in. I still have the nagging threat of my calf popping, so have to keep a lid on how hard I go… The other highlight of the year was the South Jersey Old Man Team Championship. My Bucknell friend Kevin Doyle challenged his Medford crew of old men against our MDRP crew. You can see our illustrious Championship Trophy in the store – we were victorious thanks to aggressive recruiting on our side! This coming year I am hoping to run a bit faster at my two races – we’ll see if I am able to up my training a bit and cut down my eating and drinking!

Once A Runner

2009-09-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

I finally read Once A Runner after so many people said I had to read it, that I did. It was originally written in 1978 – when I was once a runner…

Wow! From a personal perspective, it seemed like it was about me. So many of the descriptions – from hard workouts to pre-race jitters to the camaraderie of a team and even to the college girlfriend – were what I lived. The total, unexplainable commitment to training and running fast is finally explained.

From a coaching perspective, I hope many of the guys on our team read it. It is useful to give a sense of the type of focus required to become a good runner. Even though it is fiction, it gives a glimpse into the life of a high level collegiate runner for those thinking about continuing their running career beyond high school. Even for the less ambitious runners, it gives some insight that will prove valuable in lowering your PR.

I am not sure of what I will do with this rekindling of memories. I am pretty sure my calves will not let me be “twice a runner” as John Denning or Bob Schwelm are doing now. But it kind of makes me want to give it a try and maybe shoot to run the Scott Coffee Moorestown Rotary 8K fast in June…

Running Shoes for Charity!

2009-08-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

We just created a website that will sell running shoes online and benefit Back on My Feet.

We got involved with Back on My Feet thru the efforts of Ed Scioli. He ran the crazy 20 in 24 relay last year. This year we had two teams from the Moorestown Distance Running Project run the relay and raise nearly $10,000! While at the relay Ed started talking about how else we could help out.

BackonMyFeetShoes.com is the result of that brainstorm. You can buy your shoes online and 20% of your order will be donated to Back on My Feet. It is a great way to help your running and help those less fortunate get back on their feet by running!

So go get that new pair of Brooks Adrenaline, Saucony Triumph, Asics Kayano or any of the other dozens of great shoes we have available.

Coach is in Hall of Fame

2009-08-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

Coach is one of the 2009 inductees into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

As I have written before, outside of my family, no one has been a more meaningful influence on my life. And that goes for countless other Bucknell runners who came thru his program.

I only wish I could feel the grip of his handshake again...

RunSignUp First Race a Success!

2009-08-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

Here is what the first race director had to say about using RunSignUp:

"Without RunSignUp.com I’m not sure our 5k would have ever gotten off the ground. As a first-time race coordinator, marketing our event, as well as providing a platform for registration and payment, was a top concern. Before enrolling with RunSignUp.com I had less than five registrants over a one month period; in the days immediately following my registration with RaceSignUp.com, I had over a dozen registrants through the site. This was a testament, for me, that the platform worked. I am 100% confident that because of RunSignUp.com, we were able to double our total number of anticipated registrants for our race. By providing a platform to register and pay before race day, we were able to secure much needed cashflow for the event and accurately estimate the number of registrants. From a time management perspective, after using RunSignUp.com I did not have to deal with paper registrations, manual checks and visits to the bank. I was able to divert my time elsewhere. I give the highest recommendation of RunSignUp.com to all race coordinators; it’s a must have tool for your arsenal."

Thanks for the nice words! Online registration for running races should be easy for everyone. And that is what we are totally focused on.

RunSignUp.com - Up and Running!

2009-08-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

RunSignUp went live on Tuesday. We already have 8 races that have posted and allow runners to signup online.

I am partial, but we have created a far simpler way for race directors to make it easy for runners to signup online for their races.

We are still working on refining things and adding a bunch of cool features that will make life for runners and race directors even better. Stay tuned...

Running in College Program

2009-07-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

Bretton Bonnet, the coach at Paul VI, is coordinating a seminar for high school runners and their parents to talk about the transition to running in college. You can learn more about it on his blog - http://pvixc.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/introducing-the-race-to-college-speaker-series-brt-group-scholarship/.

This is a great idea. While the idea of getting a college scholarship for running is outside the reach of most high school runners, the opportunity to continue running in college is within reach of many. It makes me so happy when runners from Moorestown extend their running beyond high school. And many have been pretty successful as I wrote in the blog last fall - some even appearing in the NCAA's.

The picture above is the start of the Women's NCAA Div III race in 2008. Below is a picture of some of the Washington University in St. Louis fans at last year's NCAA meet. As you can see, college running can be a lot of fun!

RunSignup.com - Alpha Ready!

2009-07-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

We went live with the Alpha of RunSignup.com today.

Right now we are focusing on just the user registration side (although we have most of the race creation and editing done as well). We just want to make sure we get this part right and are able to focus on it. So far today we’ve had about 100 people test it out and things seem to be going well. We are processing credit cards and Paypal transacjavascript:void(0)tions and are giving users a very simple way to cancel the transaction and not register.

Our little effort to make life easier for race directors of running races and their participants is off the ground!

A New Venture

2009-07-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I am about to launch another new little venture. It combines my interests in running and technology.

The basic idea is a web service that makes it easy for races to allow users to signup online. We will go live with an Alpha version of the service in the next day or two (hopefully) for a local race that has agreed to test the service.

This is an old idea that I have been harboring for several years. I’ve used the big market leader, Active.com, as both a runner and as a race director for a number of years. However, they have become un-focused on the running marketplace. Their website is hard to use and certainly does not take advantage of Web 2.0 technology or approaches.

So our site will have focus on running races, it will be simple to use, and it will be much more cost effective than the alternatives in the marketplace. Hopefully people will like it and it will provide a valuable service to others. I’ll be blogging about this a lot over the next few months…

MHS Honors Banquet

2009-05-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

We just got back from the Moorestown High School Honors Banquet. It was cool seeing so many of Mollie's friends getting awards. I remember so many of them from grade school and to see them all grown up and doing so well is very exciting.

Another fun sight was seeing so many XC runners up there - Balch, Ben and Micah Friedman, Jospehson, Matteson, Ringwood, Shah, Thomas, Wilson and Wolff. I think it is safe to say Xc has the highest GPA of any team in the school...

Senior Farewell

2009-05-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

It is that time of year – graduation. We are saying goodbye to a group of guys who have run thousands of miles and had a tremendous impact on our distance program. The core group of high performers who came in their freshman year have made an impact from the beginning. It brings back a lot of good memories and a sense of amazement that they have grown so much and are now off to their next phase of life…

I wanted to write some of my memories up about them, as well as provide some context for the younger runners in the program. It shows that tremendous growth can happen with hard work and focus.

Chris Balch – Balch came out his Sophomore year from Cross Country. He was tall, and to be honest a bit awkward in his running style. His VDOT at the end of that first season was 48. He ran a 5:30 in track his sophomore year. Balch improved his Junior year, but his real breakthrough came his senior year. I asked him after his great race at Sectionals on Saturday what made the difference. He said that at the end of Junior year Track he made a decision to work harder and get very specific about his goals. Since Cross Country season began he has been doing about 50 miles per week, up from 30-35. This focus and increased mileage, along with the fact that he has simply grown into his body allowed him to get to a 60 VDOT in XC and 63 in Track – with PR’s of 4:44 and 10:21 (worth probably under 10:10 since it was so hot at Sectionals). I look forward to hear how he does at Syracuse and with his triathlons. My bet is a guy who has learned to focus and work hard will have great success.

Ben Friedman – Ben came to the program with more experience than most runners on the team. He made an immediate impact his freshman year (60 VDOT), making the Varsity XC team and running on the 2nd place State Group 3 and 10th place Meet of Champions Team of 2005. Over the course of his 4 years, he has set the standard for hard work. Day in and day out – year round – no one works harder. He has been a steady fixture as one of the leaders of the team over that period of time. He leaves with being in the Top 10 runners of all time (65 VDOT) on all of the major courses we run on in Cross Country. And it is likely his total mileage in high school will never be surpassed. As he heads off to Alabama, I am sure his work ethic and perseverance will bring him continued success.

Micah Friedman – Micah was one of those freshmen who came out for the team with a deep knowledge of the sport. Like his cousin Ben, he was a consistent hard worker. He progressed a great deal between his Freshman (50 VDOT) and Sophomore years, however he was always held back by injuries. His Junior year (60 VDOT) he emerged as one of the leaders on the team and ran for the Top 7 in a number of XC meets. He went out for football his senior year and really added a huge amount of muscle – especially compared to the skinny guy he was when he entered the program. He was able to finish off his high school career running the 800 meter in track and setting PR’s his Senior year. Micah is off to Maryland, and I hope he comes back for some runs with the team when he visits home.

Andy Josephson – Like Balch, Josephson came out his sophomore year as a long and lanky runner. He has been one of the most consistent runners coming to the bench in all seasons and all weather. If I would stop by for a run on a cold winter day, and there were only 5 guys there, I could be sure one of them was Josephson. He has had great improvements, coming from a 49 VDOT to a 59 VDOT by consistently running. As he heads off to Lehigh, it will be strange to not see him at the bench…

Alex Matteson – Matteson came in as a freshman on a mission, and he leaves the same way. He had excellent success early (56 VDOT) and was a part of the Varsity 7 by his Sophomore year. He has been a consistent part of our core ever sense and will be one of those pieces we will miss next year. Matteson has great spirit, and could always be counted on to make the long training runs interesting in some way. He was also the type of guy you wanted on your team when you went to war. Matteson achieved the goals he set his freshman year, and is off to TCNJ. I am hoping he has continued success and becomes a core part of that program and a great engineer.

Dave Ringwood – Ringwood was a gift from Bishop Eustace his sophomore year. He was immediately part of our Varsity 7 reaching a VDOT of 59 that first year – demonstrating the raw talent he had. As one of the Captains his Senior XC season, he was a true leader. The Freshmen gravitated to his sunny disposition – claiming they wanted to make a T-Shirt with the 9 moods of Ringwood – all smiling happily. He had a great XC season running the second fastest time of any Moorestown runner ever at Holmdel (16:47). He had a setback in indoor with a hamstring injury and unfortunately in his first meet of Spring track developed a tight ITB and did not run his final season. I am quite sure he will have an impact on the Hopkins XC and track teams – both thru his hard work and his great natural leadership abilities.

Nirav Shah – Nirav was another one of the tall lanky guys who came out that sophomore year – convinced by the core group that running around town really was fun. I think he has had that fun. He left for a stint on the crew team, but came back to track his senior year. He’s improved from that freshman 48 VDOT to a 55 this spring. The thing I will remember most about Nirav is the fact he would bring Business Week on the bus to read. I’m sure that will pay off in his years at Villanova!

Dave Wilson – Even though Wilson did not join until his Junior year, he will be remembered as one of the key contributors in this class. Not a natural talent with speed, he put in 50-60 miles per week on a nearly year round basis to build a ton of strength. This past XC season he also figured out how to push himself to new levels of performance because he was so determined to earn his way onto the Varsity 7. He did just that and was part of the team that finished 6th at States. I will miss hearing him and Eagles discuss politics on our runs, and am sure he will come back after time at Washington & Lee to keep Eagles on his toes…

Ryan Wolff – Wolff probably encapsulates what our team is about as well as anyone ever has. I remember first meeting him at a summer track meet when he was in middle school hoping to run a 3:00 800. Since then he has been dedicated to improving himself and his team. His steady diet of 50-60 mile weeks for years has brought him to the heights he has reached this spring. In every single match-up Ryan was able to come thru – from the epic battle he had with Eric Morris at Burlington Township to this past weekend when he qualified for States. More than his personal accomplishments, he has always been the ultimate team guy. I’m sure he will make great contributions to Quinnipiac.

Weekly Update May 21

2009-05-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

May 21
This Past (2) Week(s).

I was lazy this past weekend in doing the Weekly Update. I have an excellent excuse as I was witnessing my daughter's boat win Stotesbury - you can read more at my blog.

It has been a great rush toward the end of the season on the track with a ton of PR's, and a wacky finish to the regular season for the team.

We raced at home against Pemberton in our last dual meet of the year Tuesday the 12th. While there was not a lot of competition from the other team, we had some excellent performances, highlighted by the 1600. 4 guys ran together thru the finish, with Matteson setting the pace and taking the win in 4:46, followed closely by Szumski in a PR of 4:46, Balch and Weintraub at 4:47. Not far behind was Ems with a PR of 4:52. It was very cool to see the pack running we use in XC applied to the track. Friedman led the 2 mile with a nice 10:10. Horton hung on for 6 laps and finished with a great debut time of 10:17. Robinson and Samocki ran together for solid 10:36 and 10:37 times - also PR's.

The younger guys went down to the Cherokee Novice Meet and laid down some very good times. Evan Nece continues to improve and ran another 4:57 showing his growing strength and consistency. Bennett made the Varsity qualifying time with a 4:59.99. Inglis had a PR of 5:01, Sheehan and Fowler also had PR's at 5:14 and 5:27.

Last Saturday was the County Open. Friedman ran a solid 10:01 and placed. Weintraub looked good for 6 laps, but his breakfast caught up with him. He still had a PR of 10:14 on a humid day. In the 1600, Horton ran a 4:44 with Balch closing well in 4:46. They have both become very consistent runners this Spring. Micah Friedman was our sole 800 runners on this Prom-heavy weekend in 2:10.

This past Tuesday was my favorite track meet - the Haddonfield Distance Night. It was a beautiful night again this year under the lights at the cozy track and almost everyone made the most of it with PR's. The list of PR's is long. The two highlights were John Stalle running a 2:01 and Dave Wilson breaking thru with a 18 second season best of 4:59.90 to qualify for Varsity. Also running PR's for the season and in most cases their career: Weintraub 4:37, Ben Friedman 4:39, Matteson 4:41, Robinson 4:42, Balch 4:44, Szumski 4:45, Ems 4:51, Samocki 4:56, Bennett 4:59, Wilson 5:00, Josephson 5:03, Shehan 5:10, Thomas 5:12, Reutsch 5:18, Fowler 5:23, Regan 5:30 and Quien with a 21 second PR of 5:43! In the 800 Micah Friedman also had big PR with a 2:05 and Horton had a super debut of 2:07 (but said he was not anxious to do this race again and would stick to the 1600).

This Coming Week
Friday and Saturday is Sectionals down at Buena. Friday Wolff, Weintraub and Horton will run the 1600. The top 6 will go on to States, and it will take a truly excellent race to make it. Saturday Friedman, Matteson and Balch will run the 3200, while Stalle and Micah Friedman will run the 800. This is a great meet to go down and watch - some great athletes and performances. Group 2 will be there as well, so it is an opportunity to see the Haddonfield runners. Colin Baker has gone 4:20 several times this season and has his eyes in a school record of 4:14. Of course Group 3 has the great Brett Johnson, who has run 4:12 / 9:15 this year and is fun to watch. And you can not count out David Forward to perhaps give Johnson a run.

It is the end of the season for most of you. Here is the schedule coming up:
Now - Hand in uniforms to Eagles.

Now - June 5 - Relax. You should run twice per week, three miles. Take some down time, but keep your muscles in tone so you don't get injured when you ramp it back up by running a couple of times per week.

Tuesday June 2- MXC Sign-up. Meet in Eagles Room at School. Get the word out to everyone and new people! We will be handing out copies of the MXC 2009 Program Guide to everyone! This is new for this year!

June 6 - Scott Coffee Moorestown Rotary 8K. Everyone should plan on running this for fun. It is our kick-off for the XC season - great teams are made during the summer!

June 8 - Captains Practice starts for the 2009 Cross Country Season. Meet at the benches after school.

Coach Eagles & Bickel

Teamwork and Fulfillment

2009-05-17T05:23:00.001-07:00

It was a good day at the river yesterday - a very good day. The Moorestown Lightweight 8 won Stotesbury, the largest high school regatta in the world.

Crew is often used as the example of the ultimate team sport. Seeing Mollie these past three weeks as the team has come together and build a bond, a trust, and a common commitment has been truly inspiring.

John Lloyd and Rich Henderson put this crew together three weeks ago to try to get a team that would take a shot at placing well at Stotsebury. They only had three days of practice together before City's. Dustin Baxter's back was questionable after an incident in gym class. Their rhythm was off, but as they steamed toward the finish, edging out Lasalle and making time up on St. Augustine's and St. Joe's, you could see a deep passion in this crew. They were digging every stroke in support of each other. 3rd place at City's was an amazing showing and this team started to have a feeling that they could do some very good things.

After that race, Marlise and I were talking to the other parents. There was lots of praise flowing for our kids. The boys parents were telling us the boys thought Mollie was doing a great job. They cautiously approached the topic of Mollie providing motivation during the race, and we said "Yes, we know. When she drops the F-Bomb they gain two seats on that stroke." Turns out that this was the topic of conversation at every dinner table - quiet little Mollie who does not use language like that all of a sudden hitting them with it in the middle of a race was an inspirational weapon they would add to their bag of tricks.

The two weeks between City's and Stotesbury was a time to try to get in synch and find the 2.66 seconds that they had lost by to St. Joe's. The first week of practices were going well and the team was growing in confidence. However, as Dustin's back got better, Tyler Lukridge started having the same pain in his wrist that required surgery and held him out for an entire Sophomore season. But there was no way he was going to miss this and he decided to row thru it.

On Friday during the Head Race Trials, the team managed the second fastest time of the day - giving them a good lane for the Semi's on Saturday morning. Mollie had been worried about this first race. If they did well, she felt the team would really get together. If they did not place highly, she was concerned that Friday night's Prom might be more of a distraction. As the team came back to the tent after the race there was complete agreement "We're going to eat and then leave. We need to be ready for tomorrow!" You could see it in their eyes. They wanted this - badly.

Saturday morning's Semi matched them up against St. Augustine's, with St. Joe's in the other heat. It was looking like even with the other 200 schools there it was going to come down to the 4 boats from City's - St. Joes, St. Augustine, Moorestown and LaSalle. In this semi St. Augustine beat Moorestown by a boat length. Was this part of the plan? Did the prom perhaps take something out of them? As they pulled the boat out of the water and walked it up, this team looked a little too relaxed and calm. They had developed a style of remaining calm and saving their energy for just the right time. It seemed they felt they were right on plan.

The final came down to St. Joe's in Lane 3, St. Augustine in Lane 4 and Moorestown in Lane 2. Sitting down at the finishing stands we had recruited the Woodbridge, VA team to cheer for Moorestown. When the announcer said Moorestown was in the lead at the 400 meter mark (1500 meter race), there was a buzz in the crowd. St. Joe's has won this event 10 of the past 12 years and had not been beaten this year. Could the underdog really play in their league?

As they hit the island, you could see it was neck and neck between the two boats, with St. Joe's holding an ever so slight lead. The team had built up calmly, with increasing intensity over the past two weeks. Mollie had taken the Tie-dyed T-Shirt off from the morning race and for the first time in her career had the black uni on - same as the boys. She had developed a knack for timing their sprint and the team had developed a knack for knowing how to pull hard to the finish.

As the two boats passed the stands, the roar was deafening. Our Woodbridge friends led an awesome chant of Moores-Town, and many in the stands joined them. Both boats were clearly all-out. Each boy pulling with everything they had - making sure they helped their team get to the line first.

They crossed and no one in the crowd knew who had won. It took several minutes and then word leaked out fast. I first heard them call the order for the boats to pull up to the dock (3rd, 2nd and then 1st). They called Lanes 4, 3, 2. Lane 2 - Moorestown! Just then, John Lloyd got confirmation that the team had won.

In the days before photo-finishes, they would have called this one a tie. But there was indeed separation - and Moorestown had won by .04 seconds. About 10 centimeters in a 1500 meter race.

On this day, this group of lightweights had pulled together as a team to accomplish the unimaginable. Winning the Stotesbury. Jimmy Currell, Dustin Baxter, Nik Tranchik, Jason Farber, Tyler Lukridge, Max Tennenbaum, Scott Shelley, Rohil Shah and of course Mollie.

On our ride down to Maryland, Mollie said "This is the happiest day of my life." Nothing quite like working and winning with a team...

More Photos
Video of Finals

Wanted: Running Web Wizard

2009-05-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

We are looking for a new person at the store now that Marc Pelerin is leaving for California.

Moorestown Running Company is a specialty running store in Moorestown New Jersey.

We are seeking a motivated web designer and enthusiastic store associate.
You will work in our Moorestown store helping to build and design our website, doing customer marketing and helping runners and walkers select the proper equipment.

You will have the opportunity to serve the running community, work with passionate staff and an experienced technology consultant as you develop an expanding running specialty website and growing store. The applicant should have related experience in web design and development, working with tools like Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Illustrator. PHP and Javascript experience is a plus. A strong desire to learn and keep expanding your skills is required. In addition to web development, you must demonstrate a willingness to work with customers and learn about properly fitting customers with running shoes.

The qualified candidate has related education and experience dealing with online marketing and/or web design. Email your cover letter, application and examples of your web work to info@runningco.com.

Weekly Update May 10

2009-05-10T05:56:00.000-07:00

This Past Week.
There were two big stories this week – PR’s and Leadership. Let’s hit the PR’s first…

Wednesday was a dual meet against Rancocas Valley. With only a couple of weeks left in the season, we have started to taper and take advantage of all the hard work we did early in the season and harvest it with some fast times. And we did exactly that. PR’s by nearly everyone – Friedman, Wolff, Horton, Weintraub, Balch, Robinson, Miller, Nece, Ems, Samocki, Bennet, Lentz, Wilson, Thomas, Sheehan, Reutsch, Shah, Fowler, Regan and Spirgel. Special mention to Evan Nece who qualified for Varsity by going sub-5 with a 4:57 and a brilliant closing lap of 69 seconds. Several other guys are knocking on that door and will hopefully make it during the next two weeks…

The even bigger story was around Leadership. The distance squad is viewed as the elite of the track team, and quite frankly we did not perform to our potential the week before. Ryan Wolff and Ben Friedman set a course to correct that this past week to double in three meets – that means both a 1600 and a 3200 meter race and Willingboro on Monday, RV on Wednesday at the Divisional Meet on Saturday. One of these races is tough, two in a day is mentally and physically wearing. Try doing it three times in a week at a high level. And it was more than simply running the events – they wanted to show the type of effort necessary to earn the mantle of Leadership.

On Monday Wolff and Friedman finished 1-2 in the 1600 in a tight race with a very talented Willingboro runner. They came back in the rain less than an hour later to lead our team to a clean sweep in a fast time in the 3200. On Wednesday we faced our toughest opponent of the year, RV. The 1600 is an early event and it was important to get momentum on our side. Wolff and Friedman responded against tough competition with PR’s for a 1-2 that I consider a tie and showed the rest of the team what working together is all about. On Saturday they again set out to score big points in the BCSL Championship. This is a race that we won 2 years ago, and had last won over 20 years earlier – so not an easy meet for us. Wolff had an outstanding race in the 1600 closing hard with yet another PR and locking in 8 points with a second place against Bowden of NB. It was not a great race for Friedman, perhaps tired from his heavy mileage and hard races earlier in the week. We gave them the chance to bow out for the 3200 on this hot day (85 degrees), but they both wanted to come back and score points for the team. They both were true to their word, with Friedman getting a hard fought 5th and Wolff a 6th.

Their leadership was echoed by two emerging leaders on the team – Weintraub and Horton. Weintraub ran 3200 meters for the first, second and third time in his career this week – placing in all 3 races. Saturday’s race was certainly the highlight as he held his steady pace and confident stride to pick up a much needed 2nd place (again to Bowden). Horton’s first year running is also proving to be amazingly productive. On Wednesday he closed hard and got that important third place that set the tone for the team the rest of the day – points matter. Little wins here and there produce big wins for the team. Saturday’s race at the BCSL Championship highlighted his potential as he finished 4th in a PR of 4:39.96.

These great efforts helped produce a team win and Moorestown was crowned BCSL Divisional Meet Champions. Other highlights – Corey Pizzichello won the Triple, 2nd in the long, 4th in the 400 and anchored the 4th place 4X400. Connor Tuck won his third consecutive Javelin Championship at this meet. Danny MacBride picked up a 3rd and 5th in the 100 and 200. TJ Hagan and Nick Dee went 1-2 in the Pole Vault.

It was an impressive week for the distance squad. Eagles and I are feeling very, very proud of this squad.

The Coming Week
Tuesday we will split the team. Half will be at home at the Pemberton Meet and the Freshmen and Novice will travel to Cherokee High School to compete in a big open meet there. Both meets should offer a good opportunity to try to achieve some more PR’s. The bus will leave after school. The 1600 at Cherokee is fairly early, however the bus back will be late – maybe 9PM. So you may want your parents to come pick you up.

Thursday the Weight crew and Jumpers will go to Willingboro to finish out the rain-soaked meet from last week. If we win that one, we have a decent shot at the BCSL Regular Season Championship – something Moorestown has not done in about 30 years.

Saturday will be the County Championship at Maple Shade. We are limited to 3 runners in each event. We will announce the lineups later in the week.

LIBERTY DIVISION Meet Results
1. Moorestown 104, 2. Rancocas Valley 94, 3. Burlington Township 86, 4. Northern Burlington 79, 5. Willingboro 78, 6. Pemberton 54.
100-METER DASH: 1. Jashuan Spady (Pemberton) 11.26, 2. Daquan Brown (Willingboro) 11.42, 3. Daniel MacBride (Moorestown) 11.57, 4. Sean Harper (Rancocas Valley) 11.65, 5. Vincent Pini (Burlington Township) 11.67, 6. Robert Cooper (Burlington Township) 11.78.
200-METER DASH: 1. Jashuan Spady (Pemberton) 22.80, 2. Daquan Brown (Willingboro) 23.20, 3. Kendall White (Rancocas Valley) 23.76, 4. Sean Harper (Rancocas Valley) 23.76, 5. Daniel MacBride (Moorestown) 23.88, 6. Robert Cooper (Burlington Township) 23.89.
400-METER DASH: 1. Kendall White (Rancocas Valley) 49.59, 2. Vincent Pini (Burlington Township) 50.73, 3. Alrick Pryce (Burlington Township) 51.49, 4. Eric Tyler (Willingboro) 51.62, 5. Corey Pizzichello (Moorestown) 52.17, 6. David Slaton (Burlington Township) 52.26.
800-METER RUN: 1. Eriq Morris (Burlington Township) 2:01.14, 2. Ayre Williams (Rancocas Valley) 2:02.30, 3. Eric Tyler (Willingboro) 2:03.30, 4. Rushain Jones (Willingboro) 2:06.83, 5. Brandon Trojak (Rancocas Valley) 2:07.15, 6. Wilfredo Gonzalez (Rancocas Valley) 2:07.15.
1,600-METER RUN: 1. Michael Bowden (Northern Burlington) 4:32.26, 2. Ryan Wolf (Moorestown) 4:33.89, 3. Dylan Kurowsky (Northern Burlington) 4:34.22, 4. Anthony Horten (Moorestown) 4:39.96, 5. Joe Fessenden (Burlington Township) 4:43.89, 6. Joe Dyas (Rancocas Valley) 4:44.05.
3,200-METER RUN: 1. Michael Bowden (Northern Burlington) 10:04.69, 2. Samuel Weintraub (Moorestown) 10:25.59, 3. Andre Dupuis (Northern Burlington) 10:27.15, 4. Tim Reardon (Burlington Township) 10:27.15, 5. Ben Friedman (Moorestown) 10:28.80, 6. Ryan Wolf (Moorestown) 10:49.04.
110-METER HURDLES: 1. Seth Robinson (Rancocas Valley) 15.51, 2. Nelson Zhou (Burlington Township) 15.63, 3. Jalen Walker (Burlington Township) 16.01, 4. Thomas Cordon (Rancocas Valley) 16.29, 5. Rich Nwanko (Northern Burlington) 16.66, 6. Khalif Wilson (Pemberton) 16.99.
400-METER HURDLES: 1. Oshane Rennie (Rancocas Valley) 57.40, 2. Justin Maxey (Willingboro) 57.6, 3. Nelson Zhou (Burlington Township) 1:00.14, 4. Abdur Shabazz (Pemberton) 1:00.34, 5. Jerry Pham (Northern Burlington) 1:00.43, 6. Trey Smith (Rancocas Valley) 1:01.27.
1,600-METER RELAY: 1. Burlington Township (Alrick Pryce, Eriq Morris, Vincent Pini, David Slaton) 3:21.79, 2. Rancocas Valley 3:21.89, 3. Willingboro 3:23.09, 4. Moorestown 3:32.57, 5. Northern Burlington 3:41.94.
LONG JUMP: 1. Tyree Leonard (Pemberton) 20-9 1/4, 2. Corey Pizzichello (Moorestown) 20-8, 3. Chad Dill (Northern Burlington) 20-0 1/2, 4. James Kinloch (Rancocas Valley) 19-8 3/4, 5. Anthony Phelps (Moorestown) 19-2 1/2, 6. Dashawn Watson (Willingboro) 18-6.
TRIPLE JUMP: 1. Corey Pizzichello (Moorestown) 41-3, 2. James Kinloch (Rancocas Valley) 41-0, 3. Anthony Phelps (Moorestown) 40-8, 4. Dashawn Watson (Willingboro) 39-5 1/2, 5. Jerry Pham (Northern Burlington) 39-4 3/4, 6. Tyre Leonard (Pemberton) 39-4 1/2.
HIGH JUMP: 1. Tyree Leonard (Pemberton) 6-0, 2. Jalen Armstead (Pemberton) 6-0, 3. Rashaun Houston (Willingboro) 5-8, 4. Melvin Moore (Northern Burlington) 5-6, 5. (tie) Luis Garcia (Burlington Township), Greg Trahan (Burlington Township) 5-6.
POLE VAULT: 1. T.J. Hagan (Moorestown) 13-0, 2. Nicholas Dee (Moorestown) 11-0, 3. Ram Singh (Northern Burlington) 10-6, 4. (tie) Kendey McCort (Rancocas Valley), Jordan Andrade (Northern Burlington) 9-6, 6. Joseph Margiotti (Moorestown) 9-6.
SHOT PUT: 1. Renard Hussey (Willingboro) 49-9 1/2, 2. Jordan Hunter (Burlington Township) 47-10 1/2, 3. Nick Kapsimalis (Northern Burlington) 44-8, 4. Traven Mable (Willingboro) 44-7, 5. Robert Pletcher (Rancocas Valley) 43-0, 6. Corey Grant (Moorestown) 40-11.
DISCUS: 1. Jordan Hunter (Burlington Township) 144-3, 2. Renard Hussey (Willingboro) 137-9, 3. Chuck Norris (Northern Burlington) 134-6, 4. Joseph Diblasio (Moorestown) 127-11, 5. Frank Capra (Northern Burlington) 127-4, 6. Anthony Sullivan (Moorestown) 117-1.
JAVELIN: 1. Connor Tuck (Moorestown) 166-0, 2. Ryan Kaylor (Rancocas Valley) 153-9, 3. Anthony Sullivan (Moorestown) 144-3, 4. Nick Kapsimalis (Northern Burlington) 143-10, 5. John Rafferty (Northern Burlington) 139-5, 6. Ronald Dash (Willingboro) 136-1.

Weekly Update May 3

2009-05-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

May 3
This Past Week
On Wednesday we went up to Northern Burlington, where they have an exceptional distance runner in Michael Bowden. In a rare occurrence, the teams tied 70-70. Moorestown actually won the Sprints, Field and Throws, however we came up short in the distance events. Bowden won both the 1600 and 3200, and NB took 1-2 in the 800 and a third in the 3200 – outscoring our Distance Squad 19-8.

Moorestown did have some very good performances. Weintraub and Horton ran great races in the 1600 to take 2nd and 3rd to Bowden with PR’s of 4:43 and 4:44. Horton held off a fast closing RV runner to take that important 3rd place and secure a point (we obviously would have lost the meet without that effort). Stalle again had a PR in 2:08 for a 3rd place finish. Matteson finished up our scoring with a strong 2nd place finish in 10:16 in the 3200 making sure he held off a tough NB runner who wound up third.

The meet was also a great opportunity for a number of PR’s. Robinson, Szumski and Samocki all PR’d in under 5:00 earning Varsity letters. Also PR’ing in the 1600 were Bennett and McDonnell – two new runners who continue to keep improving every week and having great attitudes. It was also nice to see Sheehan, Thomas, Fowler and Regan also notching PR’s in the 1600. That is 11 PR’s in one race – NICE! Also earning a PR was Ems, who is rounding into shape with a 10:46 in the 3200.

On Thursday night Wolff and Friedman went down for the South Jersey Relays Open 3200. Wolff ran a PR 10:01 and Friedman ran a 10:08, both good solid times.

On Saturday we traveled down to Buena for the South Jersey Relays. The Freshmen led it off with a DMR 2nd place in spite of a limping Jenai. Lentz ran a very nice 3:49 lead off 1200 leg, Nece looked good in his 800. There was really no competition for Inglis on his final leg as he held the team’s second place thru the finish line. Spirgel ran two freshman races – a sprint and the anchor on the Sprint Medley Relay about 15 minutes later and continues to show determination and a nice stride.

Our JV A DMR of Wilson, Thomas, Bennett and Samocki also earned medals. The JV B DMR of Reutsch (best race of his season in the lead off 1200), Regan, Shah (PR in his 800) and Jospehson was not far behind. The Varsity DMR looked very good with a solid 3:30 split from Szumski, McDonnell in 57 in his first 400, M Friedman in a solid 2:14 800 and Robinson in a PR 4:50 1600 split.

Our 4 X 1600 relay ran a very solid 19:13. Horton, Balch and Weintraub all had 4:45 splits, which was a big PR for Blach. Unfortunately Matteson’s calf injury returned during his leg. We are hoping he recovers quickly to build on the fine finish he had against NB earlier in the week.

Stalle anchored the Sprint Medley Relay with a big drop in his PR to 2:04. With his rapid improvement, we can only wonder where he will wind up this season, or what he could have done if he had run with us for a couple of years… Sheehan finished the day off with a nice anchor in the JV Sprint Med, and it is good to see him settling in after a rough start with injuries.

The Week Ahead
By the time this gets sent, the Willingboro meet will be over. As I write this I am hoping for a solid performance where the Distance team again rises to the challenge and provides leadership for the whole Track Team.

Wednesday will be RV at home. This will be a chance for all of the runners to set another round of PR’s hopefully! The meet will start at 3:45 with the Long Jump and Triple Jump, then move onto the running events. RV is the leading team in our Division this year, and the Distance crew will have our hands full to score as many points as possible. With Danny MacBride in the sprints, Corey Pizzichello in the Jumps and our Pole Vaulters led by TJ Hagan, we have a shot if things go right.

Saturday will be the Divisional Meet. Only three runners in each event, but I would encourage everyone to show up for this meet. If we have a good day, we could surprise some people… We will name who will run which events on Thursday after the RV meet.

Marathons & Penn Relays

2009-04-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

This was a huge week for running. Two major events and a couple of personally major events.

The big news around town this past week was the success of all the local runners in the Boston Marathon pictured to the right. Moorestown Running Company's own Ralph Harris led the contingent with an awesome 2:59. His first Boston, his first sub-3, his first time in the medical tent where they had trouble finding his pulse, and his first time with blue lips!

The Penn Relays come to Philadelphia this time every year and, like Boston, reminds everyone what a great sport this is. Thursday is Distance Night - much lower key than the exciting Friday and Saturday races, but for real distance runners it is the ultimate. This year was made special by a number of things:

My roommate from college, Lee Edmonds, came down to see his son, Josh run in the 5,000 meter race. I had not seen Ed for several years - so it was worth it just for that. His son Josh runs exactly like him - the same shuffle, same out slow and finish tough. One of his other sons, Caleb, also joined him. There is definitely something about DNA. Josh ran a solid 14:33 - his goal is to his 14:12 this season to make Regionals. He should be able to since he was running on dead legs (a 10K the week before and hard workout on Monday).
Danielle Tauro, the multiple NJ State Meet Champion now running at Michigan pulled an impressive finishing kick out to win the 3,000 Meter race.
Jon Anderson, the former Cinnaminson runner now at West Point ran a fantastic race in the Championship 5,000 meter race. He sat comfortably in the top 7 until the packs started breaking up in the final few laps. It looked like a couple of runners had pulled away and he would fight for third or fourth. His last lap was one of the best I have seen - coming back on the leaders and barely edging them with total guts at the end. He ran a 13:58. There is a rumor going around he needs to run 13:50 to make an elite Army team that will allow him to race instead of going to Iraq. Talk about pressure...

And the week ended with my daughter Allison running her first marathon in Marseille, France. She just called and let me know about it. She felt great the first 13 miles running what she felt was slow (8:15 pace, 1:48 at the half). Then the marathon caught up to her in the second half of the race. She finished in a very nice time of 3:51, but she said she really felt like quitting a number of times. It was a cool and rainy and windy day, so the 1 kilometer back to the hotel was a tough one with her IT killing her, where she swore she would never do this again.

By the time she had taken a shower, she was thinking about her next one - after her Wash U running career is over... She wants to join a group like those pictured above and continue to have fun. And isn't that what running is all about...

MHS Weekly Update

2009-04-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

This Past Week
We finally got on the track in a real meet this past Tuesday at Burlington Township. Our strategy was to try to train through this meet and run it with somewhat tired legs. The idea is to learn to run fast when you are tired, and then when you feel fresher, you can still run to the same level of discomfort - but run faster!

Ryan Wolff was the star again in one of the best races I have seen at Moorestown. Wolff and Friedman took the pace the first 3 laps in the 1600, and then with 200 meters to go Eric Morris, the BT star 400 and 800 meter speedster, took the lead. Morris is much faster, but Wolff refused to give up. As they strained neck and neck down the final straighway I thought about the countless miles that Wolff has put in over the past four years - the many 60 mile weeks and long runs. I thought I could see Morris tying up just a bit, and Wolff continuing to press forward in strong, meaningful strides. I could not tell who had won when they crossed the finish line, but the officialss called it for Wolff. It was great to see the guys congratulate each other - both had set PR's, both had pushed each other to a new level. It was great!

There were a number of outstanding performances. PR's were set by Weintraub, Horten, Balch, Inglis, Nece, Samocki, Ems, Bennett, Josephson, Jenai, Sheehan, Shah, and Spiergal. Several in that list really impressed. Weintraub has rounded into Cross Country form and beyond now. He just looks very strong. Horten continues to impress with a natural stride and competitive fire. I was happy to see Jenai and Spiergal come back and volunteer to run the 800 after setting PR's in the 1600. They are both new to the Freshman crew we had last XC season, and plan to run this fall - so the Class fo 2012 just got deeper and better!

On Saturday we did our Poker Interval workout. The guys pick cards to see what length of interval they are going to run - everything form 200 to 1200 meters were in the deck. The idea of this workout is to be able to change pace and react in a race setting and the handle the unexpected. It was a great workout that finished with the 1200 - the toughest one to get thru. It was good to see Joel Robinson start to reemerge after his Hawaian vacation.

This Coming Week
We are at Northern Burlington on Wednesday this week for a dual meet. We will have an easier day on Tuesday, so faster times are expected.

On Thursday, Wolff and Friedman will head down to the South Jersey Open 3200. This has a qualifying time of 10:15 to enter, so it will be a very competitive field. The race goes off around 10PM and is always fun to watch under the lights.

One Saturday, we will have the South Jersey Relays at Buena in the afternoon. Freshman races are at 1PM and others will be from 2-6PM to allow students to take the SAT and still run. Bus and race assignments will be announced this week at practice.

The BCSL Championship is only two weeks away, Counties is 3 week away and Sectionals is 4 weeks away. The Pennsauken Freshman Meet and the Haddonfield Distance Night are just over 3 weeks away, and typically the highlight for our JV runners. So it is getting to be that time of the season to get really focused and figuring out how to get as many PR's as possible!

MHS Track Weekly Update

2009-04-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

This Past (2) Weeks
We held the Annual Moorestown Invitational in a Monsoon last Saturday. Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered and got soggy. As you know this is our only Spring Track fundraising event – and it was very successful with a record number of teams entered.

Wolff and Matteson had solid 5,000 meter runs with 16:43 and 16:47 respectively. Ben Friedman was sick that day but ran thru it in a tough 17:00, and was in bed a half hour later. Fortunately he is feeling better now… The 4 X 800 team was led again by Stalle with a solid 2:10. He runs like a freight train – with a huge engine. His ITB is feeling better now and we are trying to adjust his running schedule better to fit in with his competitive soccer schedule. He has the potential to run even faster by the end of the season and should be fun to watch.

Weintraub won the second heat of the 1500 with a 4:33 (translates to about a 4:52 1600) with a solid performance. Horten ran the same heat to a nice 4th place finish in 4:37 (a 4:56 1600 converted).

On Friday of this week we took the Novice and Freshman runners to the Bishop Eustace meet. It was a perfect day on a nice track and everyone responded with great performances. Leading the pack was Horten with a very quick 4:48 for second place in the Novice 1600. This gives him a VDOT rating of 62 – good enough to be in this past season’s Varsity 7 in XC. Very impressive. Also running a PR as a Novice was Fowler – putting up a 5:41 a couple of days after coming alive in a very grueling 12 X 400 workout on Wednesday.

The Freshmen continue to make giant strides. Nece and Inglis are still battling each other up top – they ran 5:01 and 5:02 respectively. This moves their VDOT’s up by 2 points from the cross country season – a great improvement considering it is still early in the season. The most pleasant surprise among the freshmen was Lentz. He has worked harder than any of the others over the winter and it has paid off. He ran a 5:04 – a real jump in performance level from XC. Sheehan is also starting to get healthy again and putting in some really strong workouts. His 5:35 will likely continue to improve. Quien also had a race that shows a lot of improvement since XC season with a 6:04.

This Coming Week
After an ill-fated attempt to begin the regular season at Willingboro, we hopefully will race on Tuesday against Burlington Township at their track. We invite all parents and guys who are not running this season to come out and watch. The meet starts at 4PM.

We are not entered in this weekend’s big track meet – the Penn Relays. However, it is something worth going to see. Distance Night is Thursday – always fun to sit by the water jump pit for the Steeplechase. Saturday is typically huge – with some of the Nation’s fastest runners competing in a stadium full of track nuts. Sit in the Jamaican Section to really learn how to cheer at a track meet!

MHS Track Weekly Update

2009-04-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

April 5, 2009
This Past Week

Welcome to Spring Track. The real season has begun as it usually does with the Hall of Fame Relays. Previous years have brought rain or cold, and this year brought the winds of up to 50 mph! Gusts blew Evan Nece into Lane 2, and nearly blew Anthony Horten off the track and onto the infield. Full meet results here. Our results are here.

It was a day of learning - how to get your cards, how to pass a baton, how to warm up for a race, and how long of a day these track meets can be. My estimates turned out to be way too conservative. I've written the actual start times down for next year!

If learning was the theme yesterday, then Ryan Wolff showed he was ready for graduation with honors. He ran a very smart third leg in a Moorestown best of the day 4:45. His opening lap of 67 let him catch the leaders of the race and then sat behind them to collect his reserves and save himself from the wind. His final strong, confident lap of 65 let him hand off to Ringwood dead even with Cherokee's Applegate. Ringwood showed his maturity by almost taking a step backwards to let Applegate take the wind. The Cherokee coach then instructed Applegate to slow the pace and force Ringwood to take the lead. By the 800 meter mark they were practically walking, but Ringwood did the right thing and just hung out behind him. I told Ringwood to go ahead and take the pace - it is the first meet of the season and I would rather see them get a decent run in. Applegate ended up drafting off of Ringwood and passed him in the final 100 meters.

We demonstrated a lot of depth, with 5 runners under 5:00 for the mile and over a dozen sub-2:30 800's. The DMR teams did nice jobs. Weintraub ran a solid 4:58 on his anchor leg to secure third place medals. Our JV B team was 3rd out of 10 teams, highlighted by a strong 2:16 (66-70) by Anthony Horten and a solid 3:40 by Chris Balch. The Freshman DMR squad got 5th place in the same race with Lentz, Jenai, Nece and Inglis all having a good learning experience. I am quite sure they will all run quite a bit faster by the end of the season.

Our Varsity 4 X 800 placed second to Northern Burlington in a very nice race for newcomers Jacob Miller and John Stalle. Both have been held back by injuries and really have not had a chance to put in a decent week of practice yet, but laid down impressive first time 800 times of 2:16 (63-73) and 2:12 (62-70). Hopefully they keep feeling good and make progress in their training and racing - they should be fun to watch.

Overall the distance squad earned 16 medals for four teams - 4 X 1600 Varsity, 4 X 800 Varsity, Distance Medley Varsity and Distance Medley JV. As Ringwood would say, "Nice."

Many of the runners had the experience yesterday of, as my Coach used to say, "A gorilla climbing on your back". Will McDonnell was a great example of this. He led off the JV 4X800 and took a commanding lead by the 500 meter point in the race, and looked just awesome. In the next 100 meters it was like watching an entirely different runner - one that in addition to his own weight was carrying a gorilla on his back. I applaud Will for having the courage to go out and test what he could actually do.

There are two things to learn from this. First, is to learn your pace over the next month as we increase our race-paced practices. Second, is to learn how to carry that gorilla calmly and confidently. That same gorilla was on Ryan Wolff's back as he came down the final straightway to hand off to Ringwood. He was fighting him off to make sure he put his teammate in as good of a position as possible. Something to keep in mind when you are in the final 200 meters of a race. And even if a championship is not on the line - it is your chance to move to your own personal next level.

This Coming Week

We will continue our Monday Long Run this week. We need to continue building our strength and foundation. I'm really happy with the increased mileage we are getting in.

Wednesday - Willingboro dual meet at their track. We will need all of the distance points we can get in this meet, as Willingboro has a very strong sprint and jump team. We will also be using this meet to determine who will run in the Moorestown Invitational (a Varsity only event). There are three spots in the 5K, 3 spots in the 1500 and 4 spots in the 4 X 800 meter relay. The meet starts at 3:45.

Saturday - Moorestown Invitational. While we only have 10 spots for runners, all runners are expected to come and volunteer that day to help out. We will have sign-ups for two shifts - either 8-10:30 or 10:30-closing.

MHS Track Weekly Update

2009-03-28T08:21:00.002-07:00

I am transferring my seasonal weekly updates to my running blog. These are notes I take on a weekly basis during Moorestown high school's XC and outdoor track seasons. Previous seasons are at www.moorestownxc.org.

This past week
This was my first week back with the team. We are trying to do several things this track season. The first is try to raise the expectations of mileage on a more consistent basis. The basic thought is that for most high school runners, they basically run out of air in a distance race and that is the key thing holding them back. So we think that distance at an easy pace is the key to developing the cardiovascular system. We've done some simple things like the minimum run is 5 miles for everyone unless you are injured. Also the typical day is now 7-8 miles for the guys who have been around for over a year. For track workouts and races we make sure we do 2-3 miles before the hard work and 2-3 miles after the hard work. So today for example, most of the guys got in 7-9 miles on a track workout day.

On Monday we did our long run. This is about 9-10 miles for the group that will be leading us next fall. 6-7 miles for newer guys. We are going to try to fit the long run in once per week since we can not count on everyone doing it on their own on Sundays.

On Wednesday we had a scrimmage against Cinnaminson. Most of the guys ran the 1600. It was the last race they get to choose, and there seemed to be avoidance of the 3200... Ringwood and Friedman ran a nice steady 4:44 at an even pace. Matteson, Weintraub and Wolff were all around 5:00. Many of the guys from XC have slipped back from their VDOT level of the fall by 2-5 points. This makes them about 10-30 seconds slower for the 3200. This is mostly due to a lack of mileage over the winter. We need to make sure we do not make that mistake again this summer leading into XC season.

We did a solid VO2Max workout on the track on Saturday. This is work done at the 3200 meter pace. Today we did 6 X 800 at their 3200 pace with a lap jog between. This might be a little early for this workout, but I think there was a need to get the guys in a controlled environment where they could rediscover their ability to work hard and run together. It should build some confidence as we move into the racing season next week.

This Coming Week

We begin our season this week at the Hall of Fame Relays at Maple Shade. We will be entering teams in the 4 X 800, the Distance Medley and the 4 X 1600. We will make the specific decisions about who runs in which race later in the week.

We will be doing a long run on Monday and probably a threshold workout on Wednesday with long 400 meter striders on Thursday to get a little feel for pace before the Saturday meet.

John McDonnell Notes from Running Works Clinic

2009-03-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Coach of the Arkansas XC and Track teams, talk at the Running Works Clinic at Villanova. I figured I would share the notes I took and he provided:

- Relaxation. This is a key success factor. Top runners all run relaxed. Starts with the face and head - loose lower jaw. No head bobbing. Relaxed wrists - floppy even. Short arm stroke. Minimize movement from the hips up.

- Communication. Never set goals too high. He is not a "reach for the stars" coach. Also, as a coach make a habit of telling the truth to runners.

- Discipline. Told the story of kicking a kid off the team one year because he was not willing to put in the same level of preparation and work as the rest of the team. This paid off later, both with his team as well as that person wrote him a letter 15 years later thanking him for that life lesson.

- Weight. I covered this in another post - but it is another critical success factor.

- Runners with no speed. He feels too many distance runners with no speed spend too much time worrying about it and working on improving their speed. He believes this is a waste. Focus on developing the strength and then run the race to optimize to that. Told a story about one of his runners taking the lead at the half way point in a race and just pounding the finishing kick out of his competitors. He trained for strength, which was his strength.

- Concentration is a critical success factor. "This is a major problem with distance runners, especially in the longer races. A runner must concentrate to stay on pace during a race. Many things go thru a runner's mind during a race. I encourage our runners to fix their eyes on the competition. This helps them to concentrate and be ready for any changes of pace."

Here is the training cycle for distance runners at Arkansas. These are levels that very few can attain - so scale to your own situation:
Post Track - Take 2-4 weeks "off". He recommends that runners actually run 3 miles every other day or so to make sure they do not lose the flexibility and tone of the muscles and tendons. He has seen many runners take 2-4 weeks completely off and come back to get injured.

Summer - 50 miles per week. No speed. Just base work. The rest of the year is about 75-85 miles per week.

XC Start - August - Do 6 weeks of building a base. Begin doubles at 3 miles in the morning, moving up to 5 miles after 3 weeks. First 3 weeks is all distance. After the first 3 weeks, they begin to do strides (6-8 X200 on grass after their afternoon run). At the end of 6 weeks they are doing 5 in the morning and 10 in the afternoon.

"Shoes can be a major cause of injury". They change shoes about every 5 weeks (400 miles).

XC - Getting Serious - Monday - 5-6 X Mile @4:40-4:45 on a hilly golf course.

Tuesday & Thursday - Weight session. After weight session, team does 8 miles at 5:20-5:30. Every other week they do oxygen debt running to simulate race conditions. First mile is 4:30, then drop so ff to 4:45-4:50 and then back to the 5:20 pace. This gets them used to going out quickly in races. "Nothing good happens in the back of the pack".

As they get closer to Conference, District, NCAA, they add 400 meter repeats on Wednesday afternoon. 12-16 X 400 on grass. Half are uphill at 68-70 and half are downhill at 62-64.

Sunday long run 14-18 at 6:15 pace.

Transition to Indoor Track. Makes sure they do not run too fast early in season. They do not do very much speed work. Work on Strength. "Strength is speed".

Likes downward ladders with increasing speed (start at 2000 meters and come down gradually to 200 meters)

Transition to Outdoor. For two weeks they just do easy mileage of 70-90 miles per week mostly on grass.
Next two weeks long intervals on grass. They go to the Texas Relays without any real track workouts!

After that they go to the track and the pace quickens much more than the Indoor sessions.

May and June - they cut miles and increase quality.

Example workouts for Elite (3:35) 1500 meter runner:
1. 1 X 800 @1:52 >5 min rest, 1 X 600 @ 1:24 >5 min rest, 1X500 @ 69 > 3 min rest, 1X400 @ 54.

2. 2 X 800 @ 1:52 >8 min rest, 1 X 400 @ 54

3. 600 @ 1:24, 800 @ 1:55, 600 @ 1:24, 400 @ 56 - all w 6 min rest.

4. 4 X 400 @55 >4 min rest, 4 X 200 @25 >2.5 min rest

5. 6 X 400 @ 55 >2.5 min rest

6. 8 X 400 @56.5 >3 min rest

7. 6 X 300 @38 >3.5 Min rest, 2 X 200 @24.5 2.5 Min rest

8. 8 X 200 @ 26-26.5 > 2 min rest, or @24.5 with 3 min rest.

9. 1 X 1000 @ 2:22 >1.5 Min rest, 1 X 500 @ 69

10. 12 X 150 @ 18 >2 min rest

11. 800 @ 1:50 ? 8 min rest, 400 @ 55 >4 min rest 300 @ 38

Scott Christensen Notes from RunningWorks Clinic

2009-03-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

This past Friday I attended the Running Works clinic put on at Villanova. The first speaker was Scott Christensen. He has been the coach at Stillwater High School in Minnesota for nearly 30 years. His teams and runners have won many state titles. He has taken a special interest in developing 1600 meter runners and focused his discussion on that. Over the past 12 years, 6 of the MN State 1600 meter Champions have hailed from Stillwater. He also teaches Physiology, which gives him an extra depth of understanding of our sport.

I will just run down a list of the interesting points I heard:

- He did a study of the past several Olympics and found the closing lap for the 800, 1500, 5K and 10K were all about 52 seconds. For his state, the average closing lap for the 1600 meter state championship is 58. So if you can not feel comfortable running that closing lap at that pace, after the previous laps, you will not have a shot at being a champion.

- He also brought up the point that most runners are competing at too short of a distance to be competitive. 52 second 400 meter runners should really be running something more than the 400 - especially given the above stats.

- He maps out a plan of continual improvement in times from December until June. In his example, it went from 4:27 in December to 4:06 in June. His point is that if you are not at that level of conditioning at any point, then you will not be able to get to the next level the following month and meet the eventual goal. The athlete needs to have complete commitment to such high goals.

- He uses Jack Daniels based training guidelines for Threshold and VO2Max calculations for his runners.

- In high school each day is important for training. The types of training are:

Long Run - Important
VO2Max Run - Critical
Tempo Run - Important
Interval & Repetition Run - Critical
Strength Run - Critical
Recovery Run - Critical
Ancillary Work - Important

- Running under 20 minutes is useless. This is the minimal time to release Endothelin - the hormone-based chemical that helps to enlarge the heart so it can pump more blood.

- It is important not to work an athlete too hard so that they can come back the next day and have another useful workout.

- Lactate levels return to normal after 12 minutes of recovery. They drop faster with an active recovery (meaning that a runner should jog between). Giving 3 minutes typically drop the lactate level low enough that it will help in achieving the 24 hour recovery goal so the runner can do a decent workout the following day.

- Some effect from a workout 24 hours afterward, but the full effect is 20 days after.

- Peaking translates into a 2-3 % improvement. He is into having a big taper - working hard every 3 days or so with very easy running between and no real hard speed. The idea is to build up strength, hormones and enzymes by cutting back on the work level of the body.

- Some of his cornerstone workouts:

4 * 1 mi @ VO2Max
6 * 800 @ VO2Max
8 * 60 sec runs on grass
8 * 400 with 3 min rest
8 * 500 with 3 min rest
8 * 400 w 45 second rest
15 * flying 30 meters with 3 min rest
4 * 400 with 13 min rest.

Weight - John McDonnell's Comments

2009-03-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Jack McDonnell, the former great coach of Arkansas (coached a record 42 NCAA Team Championships and 105 Individual NCAA Champions), gave a great talk today at the Running Works Clinic. I will write up a bunch of notes from the day, but he presented his thoughts on a very controversial subject - weight.

This is a controversial subject because no one wants to suggest that athletes should lose weight - especially with so many people struggling with eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. However, he stated that weight can be "one of the biggest factors in the success of a runner". He said he first noticed this when in Ireland where he grew up near a horse racing track and saw the difference Jockey wieghts made. He told a story of how a handicap race took a horse that was winning by at least 5 lengths to a second place horse simply by making him carry 5 pounds more (this for a horse that weighed 1,300 pounds!). He backed this up with examples and observations he has made watching his runners where a difference of 3-5 pounds was a major factor. Joe Falcone was a 4:03 miler at 120 pounds and a 3:53 miler at 115. Another runner was a sub-4 miler at 182-3 and a 4:10 miler at 186-8.

Of course I write this as I chew on an Oreo the night before the Haddonfield Adrenaline 5K that I intend to run tomorrow (I will the Oreos as an excuse when I run slowly).

This is a real complex issue. High School runners in particular are still growing and changing physically. They typically need to eat well to supply their bodies with the nutrients to keep them healthy and growing. On the other hand, many teenagers are simply eating a lot of empty calories. Many are overweight and still mal-nurished in terms of proper vitamins and minerals.

The science is pretty compelling. Jack Daniels and many others have documented the effects of the volume of oxygen consumed per kilogram as being the key to running performance. Doing the math, a loss of 3 pounds means an improvement of about 1 VDOT. This can be a 8-12 second difference for a high school 3200 meter runner.

I have observed a number of male and female runners who just naturally grew and gained weight as they went thru high school feel frustrated that there was something wrong with them as they either did not improve or perhaps moved backwards in terms of performance.

In my view, McDonnell did a good thing in talking about this sensitive topic. As he said at another point, telling the truth is a good way of remembering what positions you have established with your runners. Coaches, parents and friends need to find ways to helping those with eating disorders. They need to give runners the real logic and physics on why a 90 pound freshman adolescent girl becomes slower as she naturally develops into a normal 120 senior who can not run as fast. This is roughly a negative effect of -10 VDOT - about 2 minutes for an 11:00 2 mile. Rather than think there is something wrong with her, she deserves to know the truth.

Peter Snell Video

2009-03-02T19:29:00.000-08:00

Robert Hill just sent me a video of Peter Snell - http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/peter-snell---athlete-1964.

I had the pleasure of seeing Snell talk a few years ago at the Running Works Coaching Camp. After winning 3 Olympic Golds, he is now a PhD exercise physiologist at a university in Texas studying running and athletics. Here are my notes from his talk...

Peter Snell is the 1960 800 meter Olympic Champion and 1964 800 and 1500 meter Olympic Champion. This guy was amazing. Trained by Lydiard. He is now an Exercise Physiologist (PhD) at Univ of SW Texas in Dallas. Here is his personal progression:

Age Performance
17 2:04/4:40
18 1:59
19 1:52/4:10 – This is the year he started working with Lydiard
20 ?
21 1:47/4:01
22 ?
23 1:45/3:54

He says his key was he started running distance when he met Lydiard and built strength. Took years to develop fully.

His weekly training schedule before Tokyo in 1964:
M – 10 moderate
T – 15 easy
W – 12 hard – either fartlek or interval work
Th – 18 easy
F – 10 hard (or easy if race next day)
S – 15 moderate
Sun – 22. At the beginning of this training cycle – 6 months before Tokyo he started at 16-18 and 7 min per mile pace. Right before Tokyo he was running about 6 minute pace.

He said he was training really hard before Tokyo. He ran an 800 meter race and the objective was to go out easy in 56 and then see how much he had left. He told us he went out in 58 and then could only manage to come home in 2:02. He was widely regarded as not being ready for Tokyo. Yet he tapered a lot (he was not specific here), and was very fresh for Tokyo. Must have worked.

When he did his fast intervals he did them fast. He would run 55 seconds 400’s. Like 4-6 of them. He would sit and rest between them for maybe 5-10 minutes.

He put up some Seb Coe workouts (plenty of rest between intervals):
- 4X400 @800 meter pace
- 4X800 @ mile pace
- @400 pace – 350, 300, 250, 200

He also put up a chart that predicted 800 meter performance:

200M 800 Target
24 1:50-1:53
25 1:55-1:58
26 2:00 – 2:03
27 2:04 – 2:07
28 2:09 – 2:12

Another fascinating slide (I gave him my email – hopefully he will send me his slides) he put up was about Fast Twitch Muscle use in distance running. He maintains that long distance running actually develops not only slow twitch muscles, but also fast twitch muscles. He has conducted a bunch of tests on this. You can determine if a muscle is used by measuring glycogen depletion. The slow twitch muscles show lowering of glycogen at 15 minutes of running and deplete at say 60-120 minutes. The more interesting is that the fast twitch muscles show some glycogen use at 30 minutes, but show a fair amount at 60 minutes of running and get fully depleted at 120 minutes.

His point is that running very long actually improves a runners fast twitch muscles and speed. He maintains the reason for his killer kick (we saw videos and it was awesome) was just as much his long Sunday runs as it was his speed workouts.

He was also not high on a lot of speed work because of the danger of injury. He had charts that measured Ph in muscles and had a bunch of reasons why doing intervals could be bad. He really put focus on intervals as something that was really only needed in the final 6-8 weeks of training. He did favor some fartlek and moderate pace stuff throughout the year.

Race Marketing Services

2009-01-09T14:13:00.001-08:00

The South Jersey Running Companies - Haddonfield, Moorestown and Mullica Hill - are starting to offer a set of services for Race Directors this year. Last year we built up our free Races Webpage to list nearly 300 races in the South Jersey and Philadelphia area. We get thousands of hits every month on this webpage and have become "the" place for runners and triathletes to find a race.

This year we are kicking off a fuller set of services. You can see them on our new page for Race Directors. In short, they consist of:

Free Race Listing
Free Advertising Swap
Web Marketing - we create a webpage as well as do email and surveys and on-line registration for your race.
In-Store Registration - let's runners register for your race in our stores.
In-Store Packet Pickup - runners can pickup their packets before race day at one of our stores.
Complete Registration Service - we will manage all of the race registration and coordinate with your chosen race timer.

Since these are all new services (things we have some experience with, but the first time we are offering them on a wider basis), we still are looking for feedback and suggestions. So please feel free to contact us with suggestions or your unique needs.

Moorestown Running Company - State of the Union 2008

2008-12-31T08:49:00.000-08:00

A lot of people ask “How’s the store doing?” I figured the end of the year would be a good time to do a status on our little endeavor…

We opened in May of 2007. We started the store with 4 goals:
- Make walking & running more enjoyable and fun for all of our customers
- Support running in our surrounding communities
- Create a comfortable environment for our customers and employees
- Create a sustainable long term business in a small town setting

I viewed the store as a good way to fit in with my overall goal of trying to contribute to Moorestown thru what I know best – running. It fit well with my volunteer coaching for the high school cross country and track teams as well as our efforts to build trails at the high school and now around town.

The first three goals all kind of boil down to helping runners and the running community. I can report that this has gone very, very well. Let me share some examples:
- We get comments every day about how our fitting process and shoes have really helped make people feel better. Whether it is a woman with bunions trying on a pair of Nike Vomero’s or a high school runner who has ITB problems because they were in the wrong type of shoe or the store clerk who is on their feet all day and need the extra cushioning and fit of our shoes. It sounds corny, but we love it when people come back in and say how they are enjoying their new shoes – and we get a lot of those comments!

- We definitely are a place for runners to come in and “talk shop”. Whether they are looking for some training or injury advice, or to share some pictures from their latest race we just love to talk about running.

- We had an Army Reserve unit get outfitted for a big team race. They gave us a picture of the whole team looking sharp that is hanging on our wall.

- The Thursday Night run is a great time and way to get together with other runners.

- The Moorestown Distance Running Project – this is something Ed and some of the hard core runners in town put together. It is a great training group and they have had fantastic success – with the co-ed team getting 4th place in the Blue Division in the Chicago Marathon this year! This group sees the store as their “hang-out” place, and we think that is fantastic!

- We’ve helped to sponsor and man the top local races – the Scott Coffee Moorestown Rotary 8K, The Moorestown Turkey Trot, our new July 4th Moorestown Mile, and our annual New Year’s Day Fun Run.

- We get a lot of college runners coming back and meeting at the store. It is cool to see the runners grown up from when they were in high school. As the store gets older and our customers get older we are looking forward as being a way to help people stay in touch.

- Our website has become an important place for people to find out about races – getting literally thousands of hits per month by people taking advantage of the largest racing calendar in the area. Likewise, our high school cross country and track coverage is the best in the area – and we get large spikes of hits on our results summary and links pages.

- The team we have at the store – Joe, Ralph, Ed, Marc, Dave and myself really do see it as our home away from home. You will find all of us at various times just “hanging out” there even when not scheduled to work. Meeting up to go for a run together or with others in the community.

Quite simply, we are having fun, and it seems like those that come to the store have fun too. It might be my imagination, but it just seems like more people are running in town. There are lots of reasons for this, but we are glad to be a part of encouraging the trend of health and fun.

The final goal is to create an on-going business on Main Street. To be honest, this is a challenging endeavor. The trends of business away from Main Street toward the easy parking of strip shopping centers and the on-line ordering play against us. The additional challenge of the economy is also playing against us.

Fortunately, we have a couple of things going for us. First, we are more of a destination that does not really require lots of browsers like those shopping carts at the Mall or Airport. We also benefit from the fact that people really do need help in selecting proper running or walking shoes and that knowledge seems to be spreading. But our most powerful advantage is plain old word of mouth and loyal repeat customers.

I really feel we are all kind of in this together, so I figured I would share some of the numbers…

Since the store opened 18 months ago, people have bought 4,639 pairs of shoes from us. Wow! This represents about 2,400 customers. Some of those customers have just bought clothing or other items – so we get a lot of people who keep buying shoes from us. This demonstrates that we seem to offer a good enough service that keeps people coming back. And we get the comment every day from new customers that someone had recommended that they come in.

We also have a pretty good spread of customers. About 37% of our customers live in Moorestown – around 900. That is roughly 5-10% of Moorestown who have shopped at our store – which is great. We even have a town council person who shops in our store! We have customers from all of the surrounding towns like Mt. Laurel, Delran, Cinnaminson, Riverton, Cherry Hill, and even beyond out to Medford and up towards Northern Burlington. So the word of mouth has definitely spread.

This kind of repeat business and word of mouth was very obvious as we saw our business expand dramatically year over year in the summer and early fall. For example in both August and September, our sales were up over 50% from the previous year! That is very cool and gives us a good metric that we are heading in a positive direction.

However, the economy since October has really cut into that growth. In October we grew about 20% over the previous year, in November the growth was down to 5% and we are flat even with last December.

For the year we had revenue of about $440K, which is good for a Main Street business. However, we were not profitable and we were not able to pay off any of our loans at that level of business. The good news is that our investor (me) is really not expecting this to make money for me. The store is a work of passion and as I detailed above we seem to be hitting on all cylinders there. However I do want to get to at least break even this year so it does not require more cash from our savings.

With the economy signaling that customers will simply buy less this coming year, we need to figure out other sources of income to get to that breakeven level. We have several ideas. First is team sales. Ralph is heading this up and we have had some success so far with team sales at Moorestown, Cinnaminson, Seneca as well as an Army Reserve Unit. There is a lot of potential business out there – not just in Cross Country and Track, but beyond into other sports as well like Crew, Soccer, Field Hockey, etc. Since we represent all of the top brands like Under Armour, Nike, New Balance, Asics, Brooks, etc. we have very good capabilities of getting the right apparel for any team. And since we have the buying power of the three stores and a healthy team business in Haddonfield, we should be able to expand this channel of business by providing competitive pricing. Second, we are looking at rolling out new ways that we can help race directors with a variety of services. There are a lot of things we can do to help race directors that can also bring us additional revenue and make their races better. For a sneak peak, you can look at http://www.runningco.com/new08/races_RaceDirectors.php to see some of our ideas that we should be rolling out in January for the 2009 racing season. Finally, we will be doing some other experiments on the web to find new sources of income.

Joe, Ralph, Ed, Marc, Dave and I are very optimistic about the future of the store. We all love being a part of the running community and thank our literally thousands of customers for your continued support. We know we will be successful with the help of everyone! So keep spreading the good word and let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can serve you better…

Happy New Year!

Moorestown Turkey Trot

2008-12-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

The Moorestown Turkey Trot was a great success this year. We had about 150 people participate in the One Mile Fun Run/Walk. We had about 650 participate in the 5K. We raised nearly $7,000 to be used for the Moorestown Distance Running Club, which supports the high school cross country teams, the new middle school program and the building of the new Cross Country Trail we ran on. There are some pictures on the website, and hopefully some of the other photographers that were there will drop off a CD with their photos at the store so I can put them up as well.

We started this 5 years ago as a fund raiser and a low key event that would be a fun way to connect with others on Thanksgiving morning. It was designed to not be a competitive race since we do not do official timing. The event has grown quite a bit over the past several years – I thought we had kind of peaked last year with about 450 people, but it seems to keep growing, which is great.

We did a survey of people who attended this year and have gotten over 100 responses. You can see the results here.

At a high level, it looks like we are doing pretty well – with 65% being “Very Satisfied” and only 5% being “Neutral” of “Somewhat Dissatisfied”. Lots of nice comments like “Great Family event-something for everyone”, “The food was amazing and it is great to see the trot grow through the years”, “It is a nice small "home town" race”, etc.

I think most of the suggestions are related to the fact that we did not expect this much growth (we ran out of water, we did not have port-a-potties, etc.). We will fix those things next year. I thought it might be good to address some of the most common suggestions below:

Timing: We started with the premise that this is community event and a “Trot”, not something like an official USATF certified race – there are plenty of those. We wanted to keep the cost low, yet still be able to raise some money. Our assumption is that most people who really want to be timed run with a watch. To supplement this, we have the Stadium Scoreboard clock. We designed the race to finish so runners could see the scoreboard clock as they finished and people who are watching could see it. Finally, we have the low cost way of timing – we hand out place cards and have a simple timing device that prints off the place and time. We hang that on the wall of the concession stand afterwards to allow people to check their time.

All that said, we have several ways we will improve things next year. First, we will have more volunteers at the finish line, along with a real chute to make sure everyone gets a card. Second, we will scan the results and put them up on the website and post the originals on the window of the Moorestown Running Company. Third, we will update the brochure and website to be clearer that this is a Trot and to set expectations on timing better.

Crowds: Having 600+ runners on a cross country course is a LOT. I think we can handle this size crowd for a Trot, but growing too much more may force some changes. There are several things we plan to do this summer to help ease the several problem spots though. First, the start could be done so it has a longer straightaway for the crowd to thin out more. Second, we have plans to try to improve the spot around the corner of the tennis court and build that out a bit more, as well as put a little bridge over the stream to get behind the stadium. Third, we are looking at making a second trail in the woods after the mile and just before coming onto the grass behind the tennis courts. This would prevent people from running into each other there. If you are interested in helping, please let me know.

Logistics: Only two real complaints here. We needed more than 700 bottles of drinks (we thought we might have like 600 people rather than the 800 that showed). We also need to add some port-a-potties.

T-Shirt & Prizes: We want to continue to keep the cost low, so we are not going to give a T-Shirt, but will sell one next year with our famous little Turkey on it. As for prizes, it sounds like people have a preference for the finger puppets over the bracelets.

NCAA's

2008-11-23T16:39:00.000-08:00

We went to NCAA Division III Nationals to cheer on Allison, Wash U, and an MXC alumni Eric Holaday. Eric and Allison graduated from Moorestown in 2006. It is amazing that two Moorestown grads worked hard enough to earn the honor of racing at the NCAA's.

It was a fantastic meet. There were about 300 runners in both the Men's and Women's races. And a LOT of fans. We are talking college teammate rabid fans. Running around in 25 degree weather shirtless, some in diapers, most painted with school colors. Here are some of the Wash U faithful who drove 5 hours to cheer on their teammates!
There is a lot ot be said for Division III athletics. It might not get the TV time of a Penn State-Michigan State or Ohio State-Michigan football game, but I can tell you the runners had a great experience. And in spite of their SAT scores, these fans were just as stupid!

More pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdrc/sets/72157609834826565/.

Going to Hanover...

2008-11-19T13:06:00.000-08:00

Marlise and I are heading to Hanover to see the NCAA Division III Nationals. I am very, very excited! It looks like Allison, who was the alternate at Regionals last week, may run because Kelly has a bad back. Plus it will be great to cheer on the Washington University Bears! They are ranked 7th. I have to say it was cool to see Allison's name in the program guide.

We get a double treat since Eric Holaday
will be running for Amherst. He was their top runner at Regionals, and they are ranked 12th on the Men's side. It is great to see he was able to progress on after a frustrating high school career where he was limited by stress fractures. Eric ran 16:47 at Holmdel, but had much brighter potential, as he has proven in college!

Seniors

2008-11-14T11:04:00.001-08:00

In the fall of 2005 a new group of runners came out for Cross Country and has arguably been the most infuential class to date on the Moorestown Cross Country Program. Sunday (lightening is on their side of extending their high school XC careers!) is their last Cross Country race in high school.

I started looking back thru some photos earlier today and thought I would create a collage from 2005 and one from this year. It brought back a lot of really good memories.

Three of the Captains this year came from that class, Ben Friedman, Alex Matteson and Ryan Wolff. Dave Fauvell, Tim Simpson and Jon Plaut were a part of that initial class and are still running for the team. Micah Friedman stayed for three years and then went onto football this fall. But this core group was made up of guys who really liked running and guys who knew how to have fun. This led to growth of the team from their freshman year (36 runners to 67 this year).

Friedman, Matteson and Wolff took their training seriously and really helped to popularize year-round running. Friedman leaves with the most accumulated mile of any runner in recent Moorestown history - regularly logging 80+ miles per week (perhpas more impressively he has not missed a day of running in high school). Their dedication has been a great example for the rest of the team.

Fauvell, Simpson and Plaut have chosen not to take the year round path to training, but come out each year and are great parts of making the team who we are. Plaut is one of those guys who came out as a freshman unable to run a mile and has steadily progressed into a very good, solid runner. And they all provide plenty of entertainment to the whole crew.

These core guys were joined their sophomore year by Ringwood, Balch, Josephson, Shah, Ellison, and Mejia. Ringwood has had a stellar career and been a big part of the Varsity 7 since joining the team and became a Captain his Senior year. Balch, Josephson, and Mejia have become some of the very core guys on our team. Balch has improved greatly the past 3 years and made the Championship Squad this year. He and Fauvell also found a new passion with Triathlons where they can combine their running talents with biking and swimming. Josephson has grown tremendously. From early knee aches because of his growth to becoming a solid, steady, competitive Varsity level runner. Mejia is a free spirit who found a level of training and competitiveness that took him to being a real, competitive runner.

2007 brought on a couple of new runners from this class - Wilson, Dwosh and Briggs, while 2008 brought our Shelley, Sexton, Pica, and Thomas. Of course Wilson had enough time and spirit to really embrace the sport. He put in amazing work - 60 miles per week - and has made our Varsity 7. The other guys have come out more to enjoy the sport, and I am hopeful later in life when they go out for a run or pledge to lose a few pounds they will think of their teammates on the Moorestown Cross Country team and what great shape they got into that fall of 2008.

I have good memories of all of these guys. They've helped each other become better runners and have all really represented our 4 guiding principles - Work Hard, Learn, Be a Team, and Have Fun!

Tom Donnelly - Haverford

2008-11-14T10:08:00.000-08:00

Great article in the NY Times on Tom Donnelly, the long time XC coach at Haverford.

My favorite quote is "You can only justify the existence of a team at a college campus if being on the team benefits the athletes’ educational experience." I think this goes for high school as well. I know I learned more from XC than any course I took at college...

Sectionals

2008-11-08T18:04:00.000-08:00

Sectionals were held across the state today. There is a very good website that has all of the detailed results. We ran in the South Jersey Group 3 race, and there was some fantastic competition. I decided to take a look around the state. Obviously all courses and conditions are different, but I did a quick listing of all the "quality times" that cover about the top 25 teams (not including prep and private schools).

I may be biased, but it seems like the South has the most quality times with 12 teams. Central and North 1 had 5 each and North 2 had 4. Group 2 has 2 quality teams, Group 3 has 10 quality teams, and Group 4 has 13 quality teams moving on (although South Jersey seems to have 7 in that category).

It will be interesting to see if it was simply the flat Delsea course that accounted for the strong South Jersey performances when all these teams converge on Holmdel next week. Maybe it was the South Jersey Running Companies ;-)

South:
Group 2
Haddonfield - 16:31

Group 3
Ocean City – 16:42
Kingsway – 16:51
Shawnee – 16:56
Moorestown – 17:06
Highland – 17:07

Group 4
Toms River North – 16:43
Cherokee – 16:49
Washington Twp. – 16:54
CH East – 16:55
Southern – 16:57
Not qualifying – Mainland – 16:50, Lenape – 17:01

Central:
Group 3:
WWP North – 16:13
Holmdel – 17:11

Group 4:
WWP South – 16:45
Old Bridge – 17:00
Manalapan – 17:03

North 1:
Group 2:
Wallkill Valley – 17:17

Group 3:
Morris Hills – 16:31

Group 4:
Randolph – 16:47
Ridgewood – 16:51
Livingston – 17:11

North 2:
Group 3:
Mendham – 17:22
Millburn – 17:14

Group 4:
Ridge – 17:31
Bridgewater – 17:31

Pride

2008-11-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

I have never been more proud of our country.

MXC Alumni

2008-11-02T07:12:00.001-08:00

We just came back from Atlanta where I got to see my daughter Allison run in the UAA Championship. Her team, Washington University in St. Louis, finished a very close 2nd in an exciting race to Case Western 48-52. Allison ran a nice race, breaking 24 minutes for 6K on a fairly hilly course on an absolutely gorgeous fall day.

The best part was getting to see her. She is doing great - loves Wash U, has great rommates and teammates. My parents also came down to the meet, so it was a real nice time. Meet Results.

I figured I would check to see how other MXC alumni were doing...

Eric Holaday at Amherst was the second man on his team in helping them to a 3rd place in their conference meet. Meet results

Kevin Healey is having a good first season at University of Rhode Island. In spite of some injuries, he was 5th man in yesterday's A-10 conference meet. Meet Results.

Brendan Banks continues to run well at Fordham.

Jess Rogers continues to run at Boston College.

Bri Rogers was part of the Brown team that took 3rd in the Ivy League Championships over the weekend. Meet Results.

Ursinus has three former MXC runners - Stephanie Donatone, Alex Morris and Lauren Goldstein. Stephanie and Alex helped them to a 7th place finish in their Centennial Conference meet this past weekend. Meet Results.

Devin O'Connell is also continuing to run at Towson State.

It is really great to see all these runners continuing into college, and I hope it is a trend that continues for future graduates.

19:02 or 15:30? Age and Weight Adjusted Racing

2008-10-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

I entered my first race since 2004 where I have had a goal this past weekend - the Lupus Loop 5K in Philadelphia. My goal was to break 19 minutes - we have that as our qualifying time for Varsity on the Moorestown Cross Country team, something that 20 of the guys have achieved this year. I felt I was in shape to do around that, although I have not really done any speed work and little threshold work.

Well, I blew it. I ran 19:02, which was monumentally disappointing to me. I blew it in two ways. First, I kind of fell asleep in the middle of the race. Maybe it was trying to be conservative with the first fast race I have run in a long time. Maybe it was the Evil Mini-Bob on my shoulder telling me that it was just easier to go slower. Where I really blew it was the long straight finish. I thought I was going to make it no problem. There was a guy ahead of me, and I really do not like to showboat and blow by people in the last 400 meters. Anyway, I stayed just behind him and then with about 10-15 seconds of race left I realized I was not going to make it. A real bummer...

So I made two mental mistakes, but 30 years ago I could have run much faster. So the idea came to me to ask where did I lose it? Well, it is in three areas:
- Weight gain
- Age
- Training

Looking at weight gain, I have gone from about 135 pounds to about 155 pounds - or about 61 kilograms to 70 kilograms. If I reference back to Jack Daniels basic ideas of VDOT and VO2Max, I see that the 19:02 is roughly a 55 VDOT (there were some hills on the course). 55 * 70 kg = 3850 units of oxygen my body is able to process. If I then divide this by the 61 kg that I used to be, I found my VDOT would be about a 63. So my weight gain is worth about 8 VDOT points - if I check my chart, that translates into about a 17:00 5K. So by extralopation, if I lost 20 pounds and returned to my college running weight I would be able to run 17:00.

Next, I looked at the age factor. I used a website to help me understand this. It says my 19:02 would be worth about a 16:40 if I was not so darn old.

Now this makes me wonder how to add these two factors together. If I use the VDOT factor first, and translate the 17:00 time if I weighed 135 again, and then apply the age factor it drops me down to a 14:50. If I go the other way, and use the 16:40 time if I was in college again, that gives me a VDOT of 63. Add 8 VDOT points and it gives me a 71 age and weight adjusted VDOT - which would put me at around a 15:30. Hmm, I like the first method.

In reality, if I had run all out when I was in shape on that course in college, my guess is I would have done about 14:20-14:30. But I was not going all-out even in my current condition - so let's say I would have run around 15:00.

This analysis puts me around the right ballpark. But the third factor is a pretty big one. My conditioning is not nearly what it was. I was running 100 miles per week and doing some pretty hard workouts and races, while today I run about 25-30 miles per week and do not train hard. My resting hear rate was around 32-34 beats per minute and it is around 42-44 now as one example of not being in the same shape.

I think the error factor comes in the fact that the age based rankings probably take into account the fact that older guys weigh a bit more than younger guys. There is also the fact that there are multiple variables being used here, that are based on tables compiled on experience. So the numbers are bound to be a bit off.

Nonetheless, I am hoping this provides me with a bit of motivation to maybe lose a few pounds. And maybe train a bit more. It was fun to run kind of fast again (even with the extra baggage and years). Maybe I will try to find a 5K before the XC season ends and qualify for Varsity...

Moorestown Cross Country Course

2008-10-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

One of the great accomplishments of the Moorestown Cross Country Team was the building of their own home course. This has been a long endeavor that started in 2005. You can read some of the history here. And here and here.

We got a nice article written in the Philadelphia Inquirer. They really captured the spirit of the team in persevering thru 3 years of effort that required about 600 hours of volunteer effort by the Moorestown Cross Country Team. And we learned that it takes cooperation across a wide range of people and groups.

I recall the first day we ran as a team on the trail as it neared completion. Nearly 70 guys running thru the woods cheering and shouting. I wish all of our benefactors had been there to see that. And we got a LOT of help and support, since the multiple phases cost us about $30,000. So special shout-outs to Leonberg Nurseries, Moorestown Alumni Association, Moorestown Rotary, Family Fun Day, RBC Wealth Management, Long & Foster Realty, and the Moorestown Education Foundation!

Chris Barr, a runner from the early 1960’s teams at MHS, was kind enough to make a map of what the course looked like back in 1963. The course was down at Memorial Field and Strawbridge Lake and on the roads for almost 1/3 of the race. At some point in time in the 1980’s the course transferred over to the high school, but involved running on the roads in Stanwyck Glen. This got outlawed by the State in the 90’s and the team has been without a home course since then.

Long Distance Motivation

2008-10-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

One of our runners came up to us after practice yesterday and asked "Runner X does not run as many miles as I do and yet he beats me in races. Why?"

I buy into the logic that runners are good because of three things:
1. Natural ability to deliver and burn oxygen and fuel in their bodies to produce the energy to move them forward (Jack Daniels VDOT). In other words, some people are built with better engines.
2. Mental and nerve system ability. This is a combination of being able to deal with pain as well as being able to run a race well (even pacing, competitiveness with other runners, etc.).
3. Conditioning. How have they conditioned their bodies to best tune their engines. Lots of debates on how this is done - miles, speedwork, thresholds, cross training, etc. But it is clear that people can run faster if they train, and up to a point get better as they train more.

On the logical level, the answer to his question is that some people have better cardiovascular systems, more efficient bodies and strides for distance running and have better abilities to deal with the pain and logistics of a race. Tough luck that someone has a better #1 and #2 even though you feel you work harder.

This seems like such a stark answer. But if you think about it, every runner faces this. Ringwood is the best runner on the Moorestown team right now, and the other 60-70 guys think he is amazing. However there were 35 guys that were faster than him at Holmdel on Saturday. Should he feel frustrated that he only ran 16:44 and Brett Johnson ran a minute faster? In essence, Ringwood could ask the same question this runner asked.

I would propose that the answer comes back to something I call "long term motivation". It kind of fits with "long distance running". Just like distance races last a long time - 15 minutes for a 5K compared to 10 seconds for a 100 meters, or 2-3 hours for a marathon vs. 45-60 seconds for a 400 meter race - long distance runners need to think of their training in a similar way. And I don't mean a single 10 mile run - but years of running to improve the complex systems in their bodies. And even with years of training, it is more likely than not that there will be lots of people better than you.

Therefore to be in this sport, you need long term motivation. The first thing is to find joy in the simple act of running. Some people talk about a "runners high". I'm not sure I have ever experienced that, but I do enjoy the simple act of going out for a run. It feels good, it helps you get away from the rest of the world, it makes you feel like you accomplished something.

The second key to long term motivation is having a set of short term goals and milestones that are realistic and achieving them. These are goals for a particular race or a season. Near term things that measure whether the work is producing some positive results. On our team we focus on Personal Records. It is something that every runner can celebrate from the front of the pack to the back of the pack.

The third key to long term motivation is having a long term plan and set of goals. A freshman coming in to the team should realize they have a tremendous advantage of saying they will work hard over the course of 4 years and get a whole lot better over that time. Ben Friedman is a great example of this. There may in fact be other people on the team that have more talent (#1 And #2 above) than him, but there is no one on the team who has ever worked harder than Ben. He has put in more miles and has worked harder in each individual workout. He took a long term approach and that is paying off for him – last week he went sub-17 at Holmdel with the 8th fastest time ever recorded at Holmdel by a Moorestown runner.

The final, important piece to long term motivation is being part of a team. A group of people you can share your experiences with, the good races and the bad, the training miles, the tossing of frisbies, the jokes during stretching. High school and college teams offer the best environment since there are team-related goals to point toward. Being a part of the team competing for those goals can make a huge difference. From a personal perspective, this was the key aspect that motivated me at Bucknell. Coach really had us focused on running together and helping each other, making team oriented goals that would motivate all of us to work hard and work together.

Dave Simpson (the guy in the middle without his shirt holding the mascot Elk Head) was the best example in my mind of a runner who was motivated by the team. In 2005 we had a very good team that won Group 3 Sectionals and finished 2nd in State Group 3. He was a Captain on the team and had worked very hard all summer and fall to make the top 7, but was edged out by other runners who had a bit more of #1 and #2 above. If you ask any member of that team, they will say Dave was a key part of that team. From my perspective, he was one of the best Captains we ever had. He was a natural leader. He made practice and races fun. He reached out to everyone on the team to make them feel good and to encourage them. And I know he had a heck of a lot of fun running cross country. He had long term motivation for the sport – he enjoyed the training, being with the team, and his role as a leader on the team. Certainly he was disappointed that he was not on that final Top 7 who ran, but he was proud of the role he had in leading that team.

Which gets me back to the question the runner asked us yesterday. We tried to explain this concept that he had to have a long term motivation for the sport. I hope he reads this and it helps put things into perspective some. I hope he internalizes our guiding principles of Team, Work, Learning, and having Fun. I know he can be an important part of this team. Maybe in the way Ringwood is, maybe in the way Friedman is, the way Dave Simpson was, or his own new way that helps himself and the team.

Moorestown XC from 1966

2008-09-26T04:21:00.000-07:00

I got an email from Chris Barr, a graduate of Moorestown in 1966. Here is a great description of the team back then:

"Although we were second at the Bridgeton Meet [our equivalent of the So. Jersey All-Group Meet] and fourth at states, we were seven individuals. That 1963 team eventually had one sub-12:20 runner, two sub-12:30 runners, two sub-13:20 runners, one sub-13:40 runner and a sub-14:00 runner for Moorestown's 2.5 mile home course [one senior, two juniors and four sophomores]. I don't know what mileage the others ran over the summer; but, I remember I put in about 21 miles/week [3 miles a day, seven days/week]. Each day I ran about as hard as I could, developing a 600 yard drive at the end of each race. It may be age catching up to me; but, I do not remember ever being passed during the last 600 yards my senior year. I remember the Edgewood coach telling me my sophomore year, that if you are in shape, winning is 90% desire. That credo won many a race for me. In hindsight, I regretted not sharing this with my teammates."

Three sub-12:30 is roughly equivalent to sub 16:50 at Holmdel today. Pretty darn good team...

Thanks for the memories!

First Batch Meet

2008-09-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

Cinnaminson has a good XC team. They beat our Moorestown team this past Tuesday in the first batch meet of the season 26-29.

They were led by Todd Campbell, who was only 1 second off Steve Grabowski’s 16:19 course record. Ben Friedman (M) ran the whole way on his shoulder before Campbell broke away in the final 600 meters. Friedman ran a 16:27 – good enough for 3rd best on the all time list (actually 4th now), ahead of Jon Anderson’s time from 2002.

They went our in a 5:25 first mile, then Campbell picked up the pace for a 5:04 second mile. This stretched the field out and gaps developed in 3-10th place.

Steve DeLuca (C) has made a big move forward this year (Holmdel best of 18:10 last year) and ran a 16:50 for 3rd place, ahead of Dave Ringwood (M) at 16:53. Alex Matteson ran a nice race at 17:05 – all top 20 times on the all-time list for a course that goes back to 1995 and has seen some fast runners.

Todd Campbell (C) 16:20
Ben Friedman (M) 16:27
Steve Deluca (C) 16:50
Dave Ringwood (M) 16:53
Alex Matteson (M) 17:05
Dylan Tooher (C) 17:13
Damien Clayton (C) 17:16
Brandon Greenwood (M) 17:38
Ian Dill (C) 17:42
Ryan Wolff (M) 17:45
Joel Robinson (M) 17:46
Sam Weintraub (M) 17:47
Tyler Ems (M) 17:55

The good news for our Moorestown team is that we had 10 guys set PR’s of over 1 minute from last year – most of those coming from runners who had made a more serious commitment and did a lot of summer running. Of the 64 total runners we had compete, there are 51 PR’s (many of them coming from new runners establishing their first race time at 5K.

Relaxed Running

2008-09-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

After Usain Bolt won the Olympic 100, setting a World Record, I heard so many people comment “think how fast he could have run if he had not eased up”. I take the counter view – think how much slower he would have run if he was running tight?

Go to any high school (or college) cross country meet this fall. You will see the people who finish at the top look relaxed when they run and the further back in the pack you get, the more the runners seem to labor. Certainly part of this is explained by conditioning. But each runner is running at their maximum – I doubt Bret Johnson is not trying as hard as the guy who finishes 100th in the race. Yet Johnson will look light and easy, with a relaxed facial expression, limber arms and fingers as he blazes up the final 200 meters of grass on Holmdel.

I wrote a blog that form does not really matter. I think what matters more is the efficiency and focus of energy into the effort of moving your body forward. Clenching a fist, scrunching up your face, tensing of any muscle does not make you move forward any faster. In fact, it saps energy from your body. It uses up valuable oxygen on the wrong muscles, and can cause a chain reaction that makes your stride tighter and less efficient.

Back when I was in high school I got into Transcendental Meditation a bit. It is a technique to teach your body to relax and become more aware of yourself. One day during my junior year of track, I did an experiment to try to transfer some of the things I had learned from TM onto the track. I had noticed that the best runners really looked very relaxed and I felt that maybe if I found a way to relax, then I would be able to run better.

It was a dual meet against Catholic Central, and they had a great two miler. I decided my strategy would be to forget about everything else in the world and just focus-in on staying right behind him and zeroing in on his feet. For about 7 laps I was able to keep nearly a total concentration on his feet and forget about everything else and become very relaxed. He dragged me to a 20 second PR and got me close to the magical 10 minute mark.

I still use TM methods when I am running in a race. I close my eyes a bit and actually slow by breathing and breathe more deeply. Focus on making sure my muscles are relaxed – the shoulders loose, the hands unclenched, the stomach just breathing in and out.

Maybe Bolt could have run a 9.65 that day, but I doubt he would have enjoyed it as much…

Pack Running

2008-09-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

Running in packs is something we pride ourselves in at Moorestown. It is something I learned at Bucknell from Coach. He had one philosophy above all else – “The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”

Every runner in every race always has questions going thru their mind “can I keep this pace”, “geez, this hurts”, “maybe I’ll run harder and better next week”. Running in packs helps to get rid of these questions.

In 2005, we had Dan Rinehart, Eric Holaday and Ben Leonberg as seniors who really adapted to that strategy of pack running. They were all about equal in capabilities, yet each had different strengths. They would run together the first couple of miles of the course – using each other as a guide post of where they were in a race. It is always easier to know where you are in the big races at the end of a season if you have your buddies around. They pushed each other to performances (all were sub-17 at Holmdel) that were better than they could have achieved alone. The last mile (and sometimes the last 400 meters) would decide who was better that given day.

I had a similar experience in college with my roommate Lee Edmonds. “Eddie” and I were about the same level of runner coming into Bucknell. Coach put us together as roommates – in my mind he saw something in each of us that would feed off of the other. Eddie and I tied about 80% of our races in college and probably split the rest. Eddie would always start off slowly, but we would always be together by the mile point. There was something comforting about him sliding up next to me “Hey Bic”, “Hey Ed”. If any of those little voices crept into my head about wanting to slow down, I was able to fight them back primarily with the thought that I did not want to let Eddie down.

We also used this to our competitive advantage. I remember running the ECC championships at Belmont Plateau. Mike Glavin of St. Joe’s was right on our back coming up “Sure Kill” the big hill that goes above the Schuylkill Expressway. We worked the hill pretty hard and when we got to the top he was still there. I said in a voice loud enough so he could hear “Ready to go now Ed”. We heard a grunt behind us as we pressed on the flat area at the top of the hill for only about 200 meters and broke free.

I was up at Bucknell this past weekend. While Coach is gone, the team still uses the pack mentality when running. Helping to feed off of each other. Encouraging each other to reach new levels. And making the achievement of those new levels meaningful.

We’ve adopted Coach’s quote for the Moorestown team. We’ve also added another one – “Why run hard? For yourself. For your team.”

Visiting Bucknell

2008-08-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

I went up to Bucknell this past weekend so Mollie could take a look at the school. As always, it was neat to be back and get to run on the hills and roads.

I got to see the opening meet for Bucknell. I loved seeing the top guy from Bucknell turn around in the chute and shake hands with the 2nd place guy from Susquehanna. I also love the video wrap-up and the winning women's and men's runner talking about running in a pack together and helping each other.

I did a nice run early Saturday morning on Turtle Creek/Pheasant Run/Old Schoolhouse Rd. 7 miles and only 9 cars. Real hills. And of course a lot of great memories.

The Right Way to Run

2008-08-23T07:05:00.001-07:00

There is an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer by Gina Kolata from the New York Times News Service with the title "The right way to run? There isn't one".

She articulates one of the discussions we were having last weekend at the store about how the winner of the women's marathon, Constantina Tomescu, had terrible looking form. Paula Radcliffe, the world record holder at 2:17 also has a bobbing, jerky motion that looks very inefficient. Haile Gebrelesassie runs on his toes. Steve Prefontaine wasted energy when he ran.

My Coach always said that if you ran enough miles, your stride would eventually smooth out to be right for your body. Maybe for Paula Radcliffe, bobbing her head is what makes her most comfortable.

The author of the article sites a couple of different researchers. William Kraemer of the University of Connecticut did a study of top marathoners. 62 percent are heal-toe runners like Deena Kastor. 36 percent are midfoot runners like Olympic 5K and 10K champion Kenesia Bekele. 2% are toe runners like Haile Gebreselassie, world record holder in the marathon, and my daughter Allison.

To me the answer always comes back to - go run more miles if you want to get better. It will be the key to building your cardiovascular system and pumping more oxygen to your muscles more efficiently - the key to improving your running. As Peter Cavanaugh, head of orthopaedics and sports medicine for the University of Washington, said of his tests he ran on Pre back in the early 70's - "Pre made up for it (wasted motion) with a tremendous ability to pump blood to his muscles. He had the biggest engine."

South Jersey Returning Runners

2008-08-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

We are getting the 2008 South Jersey Cross Country website ready at www.runningco.com. One of the early pages we have done is to put together a list of returning runners and what their times were at Holmdel.
Returning Boys
Returning Girls

Let us know if you see any updates or corrections we can make.

Getting in Shape

2008-07-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Each year the same thing happens. A new runner comes out for the team. The team starts together and all of a sudden they are breathing hard and falling behind, while the veterans of the team seem to be talking and hardly breathing at all, and running faster. The coaches say “just get your miles in and you’ll get into shape”.

But what does getting in shape really mean?

Well, to push your body forward you need two basic things – muscles and oxygen. Muscles make sense. Just like when you do pushups every day for a couple of weeks, you can do more at the end of two weeks than when you started, the same is true in running. Your muscles become more toned to push your body forward, and you can go further and faster.

Oxygen delivery is the really important factor in distance running though. Every time your muscles contract to push yourself forward another step there is a little chemical reaction between the glucose and oxygen in your body creating that energy. People generally have plenty of glucose – especially for a 5K race or under an hour of running – so that is not the limiting factor. Oxygen is the limiting factor. It is why you get short of breath so easily when you are starting to get in shape.

The best way to improve the oxygen delivery system is to run. Every day. At an easy pace.

Running too fast is one of the most common errors made by new runners (and even veteran runners). Running too fast makes muscles sore and limits the ability to go out and run every day. Running too fast increases the risk of injury as you are stretching your muscles and ligaments to their limits. Running too fast limits the distance that you can go on a single run. Your heart and oxygen delivery system get built up a lot more by going for a slow 5 mile run than a fast 3 mile run.

Coach used to tell us that we did not get the elite level runners at Bucknell, and the only way we could compete with these other schools was to build up our base. We ran 100 miles a week most of the year. Over four years this had an accumulating effect of building very high capacity and efficient oxygen delivery systems. We may not have been as talented as other teams, but we had built up to the point where we could compete with them.

We take a similar approach on the MXC team. We recommend the following template for runners:

Freshman/Year 1: 25-30 miles per week.
Sophomore/Year 2: 35-40 miles per week.
Junior/Year 3: 40-50 miles per week.
Senior/Year 4: 50-60 miles per week.

To optimize this, the mileage should be done on a year-round basis. With some variation of lowered mileage towards the end of a season and a week or two off when the XC and track seasons are over and a gradual rise back up to this mileage level.

While some elite high school teams train in the 70-100 mile per week range, we do not recommend it except for the unusual athlete. We think most high school boys are still growing and developing, and too much mileage can cause injury or burn-out on the sport.

MXC Guiding Principles

2008-07-15T21:49:00.000-07:00

We have 4 Guiding Principles on the Moorestown Cross Country Team:

1. We are a Team. Most people think running is an individual sport. However, MXC is a team. We run workouts in packs. We run races in packs. When one of us has a bad day, the other guys pick him up. We are always there for each other. We can always count on each other. We trust that we are each putting our best efforts forward for the sake of the team.

2. We Work Hard. From the Championship Squad thru the guys trying to earn a Varsity letter by running 19 minutes thru the guys trying to earn their first Mileage T-Shirt. We all know that to be our best, we have to put in the miles – year round.

3. We Learn. While Cross Country seems like such a simple sport (run as fast as your body will allow for 5 kilometers), the fact is we all learn something from the sport every day. What is the best way to get in shape? How do I avoid injuries? How far can I push myself? Can I make the Championship Squad? What does it take to wear the Bumble Bee Shirt at Meet of Champions? How is what I learn running useful in school, in life?

4. We Have Fun. We like running. We like competing. We like seeing far we can push ourselves. We like our teammates. We like seeing our team progress during a season. We like Psych Parties. We like Summer Camp. We like cheering on our teammates.

The MXC 2008 team has the chance to be our greatest team yet in terms of fulfilling our guiding principles. I can’t wait for the real season to begin!

Summer Mileage

2008-07-10T12:38:00.000-07:00

There is one overwhelming key to a successful high school cross country season - a summer full of running.

The chart is of the mileage and performance compare for the MXC team of 2005. It shows that the more mileage run, the better the times.

The only real way to get enough miles in for a season is to run all summer long - starting in June.

I'll do another post at some point to give the physical reasons for this, but the basic principle is that with each mile run, the cardivascular system is built up a bit more. Making the delivery of oxygen to muscles more efficient and effective.

This is not a secret, and most good high school teams have their top runners logging 40-80 miles per week during the summer.

There are a wide variety of summer programs out there. Here are some quick links to give ideas on how different schools approach summer training:
WWP South, NJ - 40-80 miles per week
Flathead, MT - 40-50 miles per week
Claremont - 40-60 mpw
Washington Lee - 40 mpw

Joe's Eugene Pictures

2008-07-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Joe Halin, the manager for the Moorestown Running Company, went out to see the Olympic Trials. You can see some of his photos on our store website. He has pictures with Ryan Hall, Alan Webb, Gabe Jennings, Nick Symmonds, and Anthony Famiglietti. Very cool...

York High School

2008-07-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Joe Newton has been the coach at York High School for over 50 years. Coach Newton and York have created a template for high level success in cross country teams. He has deep teams with over 200 runners, and the team is typically one of the top in the State of Illinois and quite often in the country.

There is an excellent book he wrote called Coaching Cross Country Successfully that should be on any coaches reading list. A movie was made of the team's 2005 season called the Long Green Line, and was introduced at the Eugene Olympic Trials. The YouTube clip below is a sampe from the movie.

Moorestown Cross Country

2008-07-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Lorenzo Eagles started coaching the Moorestown Boys Cross Country team in the fall of 2004. Fortunately, I got to tag along as a volunteer assistant coach. We have a blast.

We set up some basic Guiding Principles that have served the test of time:

We are a Team
We Work Hard
We Learn
We have Fun

One of the things I love so much about cross country is the fact that almost anyone can do it. While some people have more talent than others, nearly everyone will improve by doing work. And the more work they do, the better they get. From our point of view, this is a pretty good life lesson.

Our team welcomes anyone and we celebrate their individual progress. This helps to account for the growth of the team - our first year we had a little over 20 runners. This year we should have over 60 runners of all abilities and levels of personal commitment. What we try to do is have each runner expand their level of commitment and work over their years in our program. It is great to see them move forward.

My Running Blog

2008-07-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

I have another blog that really focuses more on my business life. I thought I would start up one where I could write about the running side of my life. The Moorestown Cross Country team, the Moorestown Running Company, my own current and past running and any interesting topics I find. I'm hoping others can learn and share from this blog.