Coach’s Race Report: AMC Championships As the season comes to a close, I am proud of our runners, for reasons having to do with what they do at practice, at meets, and away from running. It’s an impressive bunch of students. We had quite a few new runners this year, and I am happy with the progress made by each one of them. Our returning runners continued their development nicely, as well. At Hannibal, the women finished 8th of 11 teams, and the men were 8th of 8 teams. So once again, we’re faced with our familiar situation of having team scores that are unsatisfactory but having individual performances that reveal significant improvement. What they accomplish as far as their individual performances, how they’ve grown, that doesn’t show up in those team results. I see how hard they fight, how hard they push themselves day in and day out, and it’s inspiring. We have to improve our team ranking, but that should not detract from what our runners accomplished this season. For the second year in a row, the AMC championship races were in cool, sunny, and very, very windy conditions; I suppose that’s just what we ought to expect in Missouri in November (Columbia last year, Hannibal this year). The course was on Hannibal-LaGrange University’s campus, and it had some rolling hills, but the elevation change was comparable to Union or Vandy or Choctaw. It was a two-loop course for the women and three-and-a-half loops for the men. In the men’s race, Joel and Trent set new PRs, and Drew and Josh set season best times. Joel’s work and dedication has been great this season, so I’m glad he finished with a PR, especially after making a wrong turn at Choctaw and tacking on an extra half mile to that course. This is the second year in a row that Trent has set his personal record at the conference championship, and in tough conditions both times. That Josh also had his best time since his battle with cancer is significant. Both he and Trent are tough runners, and both are seniors, so this was their last race in a Freed uniform. Our other senior, Christean, is still recovering from a hip injury he’s been battling all season. He and Drew paced each other throughout the race, and Drew ended up with his best time of the season. It was nice to watch those two working together. Good to see our three senior men finish their careers like that. We weren’t without an injury: Kyle C. went down about four miles into the race with a knee injury, so I’m eager to get the doctor’s diagnosis. The end of the men’s course was a bit confusing. Runners had to pass right by the finish line for one more short loop of part of the course. Quite a few runners—Freed runners and others—thought they were finished before they were. Robby actually stopped for a minute or two before realizing that he had more to do. In the women’s race, our women who wear GPS watches all had the course as being longer than a 5K, somewhere between 3.25 and 3.3 miles. I believe their watches are correct because we had no PR or season best times from our women, but some of them looked to be running very well out there. Of course, the extra distance has nothing to do with how we placed as a team, but when you’re chasing PRs, it makes quite a difference. I took their finish times and plugged those times into a pace calculator using 3.25 as the race distance, and then I used that pace to calculate the finish time of a 5K race. Doing that showed that Kierra, Anna P., Molly, Kaitlyn, and Becca would have set new personal records had it been a true 5K distance. Sloan finished in 18th place. We knew that there was going to be a logjam of women chasing the leaders, and there was. She ran a good race in what may be her last race as a Freed runner. If so, then I’m pleased with her senior season, too. Libby has been a solid, consistent runner for us, our number two runner in each race this year. Anna P., Anna D., Cassie, and Kierra have been practicing and racing as a nice quartet, which has really helped them to improve. Thank you to all you parents and friends who support our runners. Personally, I value and appreciate your involvement with our team. (I should say I “treasure” your involvement, right Treasure Scott? Whose photos of our runners rival what the people at Sports Illustrated and ESPN are able to do.) So that’s a wrap. The end of the season is always a bit of a sad time for me. I look forward to practices and being able to run with these men and women. I’m not ready yet to entertain the thought of a season without Sloan, Trent, Christean, or Josh, but I guess that’s the nature of coaching. This was a good team this season. We’ll take a little time off to recover from the pounding of this season. Then it’ll be time to start training for next August.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 14:12:45 +0000
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