MHS Cross Country THE GRIAK Girls Comment Sheet

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1 MHS Cross Country THE GRIAK Girls Comment Sheet You don t own success, you rent it. And payment is due every day. Brutal conditions. A whole crap ton of competitors. A really, really hard course. It s GRIAK time! Yea. First, if you didn t run well, or if you weren t close to your PR, don t worry. The conditions were terrible, especially considering the difficult course. And it was really difficult. Constantly rolling hills. Heat. Stress. Nerves. It was hard. It s always hard, by the way, but as you get older, you get tougher and it s less difficult. This is, perhaps, why Emma and Faustina were our number 1 / 2 instead of Grace and Tyra. I love that we have such a deep team that it s uncertain who will be our leaders on any given day. Anyway, I think age and experience paid off a little more today than it has in any of our other meets. Also, Griak was pretty long. Instead of 5k, it was more like 5.1k. If you were able to run every tangent perfectly, you would have run But you most likely couldn t run every tangent perfectly simply due to the huge numbers of girls, so you probably ran something like Ouch. That will kill anyone s PR. Holy crap, it was hot. And windy. I hate both. The course was difficult, kind- of like the state meet course, but with more rolling hills. This course, on this day, did not favor stupid racing. If you went out too hard and you weren't fit, you died. For example, in the women's D1 college race, 390 women started the race, but only 349 finished. That's over 10% of the field that succumbed to the heat and put up a big ol' DNF. 158 D1 women ran slower than 24:00, but the slowest runner in the entire field was 3:56 at the K (which is 23:36 pace). All but a handful of women were through the K in 3:40, which is 22:00 pace (for 6k), yet only 23 women ran faster than 22:00. Stupid. And these are college runners from the best schools in the nation! How can you expect a high school kid to be smart and run pace! Well, you have me as your coach and you ve been training to run pace for a while now. You have teammates and a race plan (you d be amazed and how few runners race with a plan, even at the college level). You ve also learned what racing stupid does and you know first hand how dumb some runners can be. You can race stupid on a course that is more forgiving with weather that is also more forgiving. Run stupid on a hard course in hard weather, and you die. Many, many people died, either the slow death of an exhausted runner slogging through the last K barely walking, or the abrupt death of a runner that just gives in and falls down somewhere on the course. None of these girls were from Menomonie, though. Smart racing. That s what we do, that s what we re known for. We may never, ever defeat EC Memorial or River Falls, but we are going to race smart. As soon as we got to the meet sight, Jim told me that 40 girls went down in the D1 race. With the heat, I quickly adjusted the race plan. Make it 4:15 at the K, ladies. Not 4:00. Don t worry about team place at all. Get out slow and catch people. Try to relax.

2 Hands were wiped clean, and new split times were written down, and check the results. Griak is awesome because they take 1k split times for us. 1k, 1mile, 3k and finish. We can see the splits and the places at each point. GRIAK SPLITS AND PLACES NAME 1k Split 1k Place Finish Place Runners Passed Faustina 4: Emma 4: Grace 4: Taiya 4: Madee 4: Tyra 4: Ingrid 4: Ellen 4: Breanna 4: Nicole 4: So, did we were perfect at the K, and we passed as many people as possible. The plan worked. In fact, it couldn t have been much better! We could have gone out hard, and died the slow death. Instead, we were controlled, while our opponents were not. We all finished the race upright (unless you count Faustina). Sure, we were 17 th place, but big deal. Who cares? The weather and conditions threw our top 10 goal out the window in favor of a smartly run race. Imagine the pressure of having to run fast in this weather! Imagine having to really try to beat certain girls in certain match- ups. That would have been too much for you ladies, both physically and mentally. Look at our opponents: BRC TEAMS AT GRIAK HEAD TO HEAD BASED ON TIMES Team Scores. RF 42 MEN 53 ECM 56 HUD 101 RL 145 ECN Incomplete CHI Did not race Name Time School 1 Annie Frisbie RF 18:50 2 Aubry Roberts ECM 19:07 3 Rachel Anderson HUD 20:40 4 Ali Casey RF 21:17 5 Hannah Roske ECM 21:20 6 Hannah Guckenburg ECN 21:38 7 Emma Handlos RF 21:51 8 Faustina Zertler MEN 21:53 9 Emma Welch MEN 22:00 10 Elana Smith ECM 22:07 11 Grace Blise MEN 22:09 12 Taiya Wik MEN 22:25 13 Madee Sorenseon MEN 22:36 14 Taylor Lindaman RF 22:42 15 Tessa Rayne RF 22:42 16 Sara Miller HUD 22:52 17 Elizabeth Gunderson RF 22:56 18 Tyra Boettcher MEN 22:58 19 Zoe Smith ECM 22:59 20 Sophia Smith ECM 23:02 21 Catherine Luo ECM 23:08 22 Morgan Barnhardt ECM 23:12 23 Ingrid Kilde MEN 23:14 24 Mary Knutson HUD 23:28 25 Emma Stone RL 23:52 26 Emily Farago HUD 23:58 27 Mackenna Welke RF 24:14 28 Kali Langer RL 24:35 29 Allison Buchli RL 25:00 30 Tessa Ness RL 25:26 31 Kiera Bever RL 25:46 32 Meghan Rudquist HUD 25:47 33 Kaylen Ward HUD 25:58 34 Lilly Hartnett HUD 26:29 For some reason, there is no Miranda Miller (HUD). Lauren Ichel (HUD) dropped out sometime after the 3k, EC Memorial had about the worst day they could have, we had an OK day for some of our girls and a not OK day for others and River Falls ran out of their minds. Basically, a typical year at Griak. So what does this mean? First, River Falls is good. Second, It shows us that Memorial is not unstoppable. Yeah, Memorial is a wealthy school with 1600 kids, and we re a poor school with 980. Yeah, they have a tradition and 90 girls on their team and Aubury Roberts and one of the best coaches in the history of the universe. And, yeah, their team is super nice with really hard working girls. But

3 they are beatable, just like anyone else. They are prone to a bad day occasionally, just like everyone else. And, for at least one day (and maybe the only one ever), you were a better team. That should certainly put a smile on your face. Now, once we add in Chippewa and Miranda Miller and Lauren Ichel and Memorial runs like they can and Tyra and Grace have a normal day, the BRC looks as confusing as it has in a long, long time. Could we win? Sure. So could Memorial or River Falls. Chippwea is starting to run well. Hudson runs well on their home course. Who knows? Still, I didn t think we d be this close, but we are. And that should make you smile as well. Back to Griak; it s a mess for our kind of racing. Staying as a pack is very difficult. Many of you were running with teammates but you didn t know it because you were 10 feet away from one another. Faustina and Emma ran the entire race together, but they never saw one another. So our style of racing, group pack Starting Line 474 runners work, moving up as a team, it wasn t really possible after the mile mark. And while I m glad we go to Griak, I m also glad we don t have any other races like it. As for the individual performances, Faustina had the race of the day. She was very patient, then attacked the course very nicely. Every time I saw her she had her eyes up and was moving. I m sure she was in pain while racing, and we know she put herself in some pain in getting as close as possible to passing out without crossing that threshold (she was in the medical tent for a while after the race feeling passy- outty ). Awesome race, though. She was 2 minutes faster than last year at Griak, and with much worse weather this year. Emma continues to impress. She s a machine out there focused and determined, showing no pain or fatigue. Watching her run a race is pretty impressive. Emma hasn t had a bad race all season, and she s due for a huge breakout race. Maybe she can win on Saturday at New Richmond. That would be cool. Anyway, Emma also ran a very, very smart race, moving up throughout. Taiya ran super amazingly as well. In fact, maybe it was the short girls time to run fast. Faustina, Emma, Taiya they all ran well. Maybe there is something to this. Rolling hills are better for shorter runners? Anyway, it wasn t that long ago that Taiya was down in the dumps. At Rice Lake, she was our number 11 runner, having run 22:54 on a course that s pretty fast in comparison to Griak. She ran well at Hudson, then turned in this awesome Griak performance with a 22:25. Outstanding! She was able to let the one bad race go, refocus and then move forward with two great races. The quote of the day, by the way, came on the cooldown; quitting swimming was the best thing I ever did. While I can t say much about swimming, I m certainly glad you switched over to running. And I m glad you are enjoying it.

4 Grace looked lost out there without Faustina by her side. While her time wasn t bad, she wasn t our number one runner for the first time in a while. Griak favors the experienced runner, and you re not quite there yet (this was only your fourth race, after all). This gives you some excellent experience for the next three years. Grace did move- up more than any runner based on 1k split to finish time, and even though she wasn t the #1, she didn t look like she had a bad race at the end no passing out, no crushed spirit, no painful hip. Just a very slightly off day in comparison to our other runners. Tyra, on the other hand, looked really rough. I don t think she smiled all week! It s tough to be positive when you don t feel well, and Tyra wasn t feeling well at all! She was sick, sore and grumpy. None of these is conducive to good racing. Yet she ran her race, and made her moves, did her best and gave a great effort. That s all a coach can ask from an athlete. Give me your best effort. And, she did smile a little bit. For Tyra can smile, after all! pictures, at least. Here she is on one of the run- outs, relaxed and smiling and goofing off. That s what you need pre- race. Relaxed and fun. Oh, and in the picture below, somehow she took the time to grab Roy s hat. Was she really grumpy? Or just a big faker! Either way, at least you can tell she s enjoying cross country, even if she wasn t feeling well. The pictures don t lie. Madee had a terrific week. Wow, a great performance at Hudson and another great performance at Griak. Collecting those miles over the summer has made Madee a really tough kid. She has some injury history, and the Menomonie Method is that injuries are best prevented by running easy miles. Your body naturally finds it s best and Roy's Hat? most efficient form, and you don t get hurt. Madee is extremely strong right now, able to run two hard meets in a week on two hard courses, and to run strong. Strong and healthy. Ice baths at lunch, eating carbs and proteins during our anabolic window after a workout, good sleep, healthy diet, hydration and a great summer strong and healthy. Madee s bought in to our philosophy and it s really paying off.

5 Ingrid s been in the doctor and is figuring out her puzzle. She had a great, awesome day at Griak, hitting pace perfectly and moving up nicely, all the while bringing Ellen along for the ride. Remember, Ingrid was an all- conference runner last year, and she s working hard to figure out why her vocal chords are messing up her breathing. She s staying positive and moving forward and running very well. Have you ever seen her without a smile? She s been a great leader for the JV group this year, and is responsible for great times and races for a good number of the JV ladies. I remember her at Extreme Meet, with that helpless, fatigued, oxygen debt look on her face. That s gone, and she s charging over the final 2k of her races. What an amazing turn around! Ellen runs well with Ingrid, and Ellen is also figuring out her puzzle. Remember last year? I think she was two minutes slower at Griak last year, and she ran the entire race suffering. This year, she looked sooooo strong. Nice and patient while moving up throughout. 4:22 at the K was perfect, and Ellen gave Ingrid a nice push throughout the race. Boecker s puzzle is still very puzzling. Iron deficiency? Maybe, but her mileage has been amazing as she s leading nearly every long run. What is it then? We ll try some stuff this week, but it s important to remember that every runner has their own puzzle. Faustina took two years, and four seasons to figure everything out. And she s still learning! Last year was easy for Boecker, and this year is hard. But there are still five seasons left, and summers and winters and college running. Going through this will make you stronger. Bischel ran great. It wasn t easy for her to toe the line, and I know she was nervous before the race. It was hot, it was hilly, it was crowded everything that Bischel hates. Still, she ran, she didn t pass out, she had a nice race (even though she was a little wobbly around 4k). Still, flat fast courses benefit Nicole more than most runners. Well, I couldn t have been much prouder than I was on Saturday. Great race, ladies. Well done. No one ran stupid, and no one passed out. We saved ourselves, and it s going to pay off over the next three weeks!