MHS Track Weekly Update

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

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

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.