MHS Cross Country 10.17.2015 Big Rivers Conference Meet Girls Comment Sheet You are What you do When it counts Well, that was fun! We were 2nd (barely, but we ll get to that). We had some massive PRS, made some great progress and re-wrote the record books! Based on times, PRs and overall team effort, this was easily the best day in the history of MHS girls cross-country. I am so proud of all of you and your toughness. What an amazing day! We ll break-down the times in a minute, but I thought I d write about the varsity race as I saw it unfold. VARSITY RACE Holy cow, I m nervous. Grace was soooo boogery on the warm-up. She s coughing. Is she going to be able to make it? She didn t feel good on Saturday at Old Abe and she ran great. She ll be fine. The hay is in the barn. I hope we do well today. Keep the crowd back. Hey, there s Mr. Munoz! I m hungry. I wonder what s for dinner. Focus! Gun s up. There s the gun. The gun. They re smart at the start of the race. Stay relaxed ladies. Who was it that went out with Roberts? Not one of our girls, but someone from River Falls. Really? OK, our groups are forming-up. Emma, Grace and Tyra are finding their match-ups and hitting that first K. It s fast. It s fast for everyone! Our next group is going through; Ellen, Ingrid, Madee and Erin are shoulder-to-shoulder. They were fast too, but in great position. (This is going to play a huge part in the overall outcome, but more on that later). As the group hits the 2k, RF and EC North girls are making a move. Hudson girls are out hard. Grace is moving with RF. Emma is back just a bit and Tyra is sitting off of Emma. Then the 2nd group comes through the 2k, and Ingrid is making a move. Ellen is responding, as are Madee and Erin. Then the group disappears down the hill. This is the hardest part. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Three minutes and 11 seconds of waiting Suddenly Grace is at the top of the hill. She s in 10th place, and looking fierce and strong! Emma is 12th, and the River Falls girls are right behind. Tyra is in about 20th place, behind RF s big three. RF s #4 four is right there, too. There s Tyra s nemesis, Morgan Barnhardt, and the Turbo Frosh from Rice Lake. This is going to be a battle. Tyra looks tired, but she s responding. Find that gear! Battle! There s Ellen coming up the hill, looking up and looking awesome. Go after yellow shorts! Then Ingrid, then Erin are up the hill, not too far behind Ellen. Madee is behind them. She s making a move. I look at my watch, (expletive), how fast are they going? I m doing math in my head as I run to the divot. Either they re going to crash and burn or they re going to re-write our records. Madee is really moving now. She s right behind Ingrid.
Grace hits the last loop and she s closing. She goes by Hudson. There s Ferris. Wow. Could Grace finish in the top 8? Yellow short are chasing Emma, but she looks so strong. They aren t going to catch her. She s separating. Could Emma catch the Hudson girl? It s going to be close. Tyra s sitting. Sitting. Sitting. Right off of the Rice Lake frosh. Sitting. Yellow shorts are right there. Is Tyra tired or is she waiting? No one is tougher than Tyra, but she s going to have the battle of the day! Here comes Ellen! She s making a HUGE MOVE on yellow shorts. She goes by Hudson s #3, and is closing on yellow shorts. It s going to be close. Wow, River Falls looks good. Ingrid is leading Madee on the loop, with Erin about 10 seconds back. The times are going to be fast, but can they close out the race? They are in space, with only each other to work with. Ingrid s is moving, Madee s responding. Erin, hang on! It could come down to our #6. Where s RF s #6? Hang on, Erin. Then to the finish. Grace went by Ferris somewhere and finishes in 7th. All-BRC 1st team! What was her time? Was it a school record? Then Emma. She brilliantly held-off the three RF girls in yellow shorts. Wow, River Falls looks good. Are they going to beat us? TYRA! You have to kick! She s going by RF s #4. Now get two! Nobody kicks like Tyra kicks. Here s Ellen. This is going to be close. Come on, Ellen. Let s see that speed! She s battling RF s #5. Did she get her? Where s Ingrid? No, it s Madee! Wow, this is going to be a HUGE PR! Go Madee. Ingrid is hanging on. She ll break 20:40! There s Erin. She s spent, but this will be a nice PR, too. Did we get 2nd? RF looked awesome. We gotta be happy with those times, even if we were third. We sure ran well. I hope we were 2nd. I wonder if it came down to tie-breakers. If it did, we were 2nd. It did, in fact, come down to tiebreakers, and we were 2nd. Sure, EC Memorial is beastly. They are the best team in the state and one of the best in the country. There s nothing we can do about them. But when it came time to battle, we battled. We outkicked! Tyra passed three girls in the final 100m, and got ahead of one girl by.5 seconds. For Ellen, it was.3 seconds! What a battle she had. We haven t done a hard stride-out all season, and we outkicked our opponents when it mattered most. That s because a kick isn t about speed. It s about strength, toughness and guts. That s Ellen and Tyra. Strength, toughness and guts. Every place counted, and when it mattered you ladies raced brilliantly. Every place is going to count this coming Saturday - every single place and every single point. Our opponents are hungry. They want to go to state. LaCrosse Central is very talented. River Falls closed the gap. They are going to battle. You have to be willing to go after every place. You cannot be outkicked. It could come down to.3 seconds on Saturday, too. If it does, I like our chances. In other news, we had four All-BRC runners. Grace was All-BRC 1st team, Emma and Tyra were 2nd team. Ellen was honorable-mention. Even though we didn t quite score as few points as last season, we improved greatly. Leading the way with improvement were our 4, 5, 6 and 7 runners. Ellen beat a bunch of girls that beat her last season. She went from being our #9 to being our #4. Madee went from being our #1 JV runner, finishing 5th in the JV race in 2014, to being one spot out of all-brc in 2015. Madee and Ingrid improved by over forty seconds. Ellen by a minute and a half. The three combined for 1001.5 miles this summer, and they cashed in every single mile at BRC! Then there is Erin. She improved by over two minutes from last year s BRC. Remember last year? She was battling to win a letter. Now she s battling to earn all-conference awards! She s
healthy, which is a first in her running career. More than that, though, she s so focused and tough. Remember last year? The slumped shoulders and the tired looks during races that s all gone! Now she s a beast. And she s 15 th on our all-time list. All- time 5k list (2002-2015) 1 Jordan Kelch 2009 19:25 2 Tara McCoy 2005 19:33 3 Grace Bilse 2015 19:34 4 Nicole Schmidt 2012 19:48 5 Emma Welch 2015 19:50 6 Tyra Boettcher 2014 19:57 7 Courtney Sawle 2009 19:57 8 Ellen Peterson 2015 20:25 9 Katie Thoe 2009 20:34 10 Madee Sorenson 2015 20:36 11 Faustina Zertler 2014 20:37 12 Kristen Bischel 2011 20:38 13 Ingrid Kilde 2015 20:39 14 Brianna Boecker 2013 20:44 15 Erin Schmidt 2015 20:45 16 Kaylee Nelsen 2009 20:59 17 Anna Drazkowski 2015 21:02 18 Kiko Wemmer 2009 21:08 19 Kaylynn Imsande 2015 21:12 20 Alex Dye 2013 21:15 Speaking of the all-time list, here it is. Grace is 3 rd, ahead of two scholarship athletes (Nicole Schmidt and Courtney Sawle). She s only nine seconds off of the school record. Ellen is 8 th. Amazing. Madee is 10 th. Ingrid is 13 th, having battled back from breathing issues brilliantly. There s Erin in 15th, and look how far she s come! There is no doubt that this is our best team ever. It s also our deepest team. We had 14 girls break 22:00 this year. That s a record. Last year we had 9 girls sub 22:00. In 2009, we only had seven girls do it. In 2008 only four girls did it. This year, 14 girls were sub 22:00! That s simply amazing. To make the point, check the 17 th best 5k runner in school history; Anna Drazkowski. And there s Kaylynn Imsande in 19 th. Both were running in the JV race. Both would have been in the top 30 of the varsity race. Anna would be River Fall s number six runner. She would be North, Rice Lake and Chippewa s number three runner. And she s our number eight. And Kaylynn is our number 10! But she s 19 th all time. That shows how deep our team is this season. JV RACE Anna ran an unbelievable race. She ran 21:02!! This is an amazing time. She s 17 th on our all-time list, just four seconds behind Kaylee Nelsen (2010) and six seconds ahead of Kiko Wemmer (2010). Both went on to run in college; Kaylee for UW River Falls and Kiko for the University of Chicago. As a college freshmen, Kaylee was the rookie of the year for UW River Falls. As a senior, she was an all-conference runner in the WIAC. Anna finished with times that were nearly identical to Kiko and Kaylee. Both were great college athletes. Can Anna be a college runner? Absolutely! Her improvements this season indicate that she is just starting to find her ability. 21:02! Wow. All of those long runs and hard workouts, all of the miles! Think of how many miles Anna had to run to get to this point. Remember last year? She didn t quite get the letter standard and had a tough time finding balance. Look at her now. 21:02. The 17 th best time in the history of our team. Way to go Anna. I m so proud of you! And what does it say about the depth of our team when we have a Kiko Wemmer running for Chicago runner in the JV race finish on the top 20 all-time list? Actually, it was two runners in the JV race that made the top 10 list. Kaylynn Imsande ran a brilliant 21:12. That s 19 th on the all-time list and 7 th on the all-time freshmen list. I think Kaylynn would have run 20:30 or, maybe, 20:20 if she hadn t gotten hurt, but the BRC meet shows that she has a lot of talent and toughness. She s just starting to turn the corner, but her talent is limitless. Then there is Bria. It was great to see her smile after her race on Saturday. She might have cried, too, but it was tears of joy. She s only run faster three times! Bouncing back from her illnesses, working hard the entire season it was all worth it. It gives her, and us, some hope heading into her junior track season and senior year. It s clear that she isn t quite 100% just yet. She s a little wobbly out there on the last k. But there is hope. When she s healthy she ll be running beastly times again, yet it s great that she could finish her season with some awesome times.
MHS Relays v. BRC Time Differential Name School Relay BRC Diff. Look at the chart to the left. This is the time Drazkowski MHS 22:56 21:02-1:54 differential for our varsity girls (and top JV) Schmidt MHS 22:16 20:45-1:31 against most of the varsity girls (and some of the Reckin MHS 22:44 21:28-1:16 top JV) for the rest of the BRC. At MHS Zertler MHS 22:37 21:28-1:09 Relays, Hudson beat us badly in the varsity and Sillman CHI 22:32 21:23-1:09 Schmidt ECN 20:34 19:28-1:06 JV race. They were looking unstoppable. Wik MHS 23:03 21:58-1:05 Chippewa was fierce. Even North was looking Kilde MHS 21:42 20:39-1:03 as though they were going to give us some Boettcher MHS 21:06 20:04-1:02 trouble. What a difference a month makes! Batten HUD 22:24 21:23-1:01 Look at the chart. Ten girls improved by Peterson MHS 21:22 20:25 - :57 over a minute, and seven of them were from Sorenson MHS 21:33 20:36 - :57 MHS. Meanwhile, our BRC opponents didn t Priem ECM 22:42 21:47 - :55 Bartrang ECM 20:53 20:00 - :53 improve nearly as much. For Memorial this Barnhardt ECM 20:56 20:05 - :51 isn t surprising. Their top end girls (Roberts S. Smith ECM 19:48 19:01 - :47 and Roske) have a diminishing return on Cole ECM 21:31 20:48 - :43 improvement because they are so darn fast Jol ECM 22:07 21:25 - :42 already. They can t improve by a minute, but Welch MHS 20:33 19:54 - :39 Hudson, Chippewa and North certainly can. Yet S. Miller HUD 22:21 21:42 - :39 it was our girls that made the huge Bilse MHS 20:09 19:34 - :35 Faust HUD 20:53 20:28 - :25 improvements. Everyone in our top 11 Trivdei ECM 22:10 21:48 - :22 improved by over 30 seconds and we had seven Roske ECM 18:24 18:07 - :17 girls that improved by over a minute! Wingert CHI 20:29 20:13 - :16 Sure, some of this is due to the taper. Farris CHI 19:55 19:41 - :14 There s more to it, though. Many of you came Gilson HUD 19:34 19:26 - :08 into the season with an amazing base, but you Roberts ECM 17:25 17:17 - :08 weren t in race shape. Look at the girls that Mills ECN 20:51 21:00 +:09 Anderson HUD 21:06 21:27 +:21 made the huge improvements. Madee, Ellen, Farago HUD 19:30 19:51 +:21 Emma, Grace, Katelyn, Anna, Faustina and Tayia combined for over 2400 miles this summer. So they came into the season with base and they were in great shape, but they weren t race ready. They are now, and it shows. They are cashing in those miles and fitness for speed. Everyone s healthy for the most part and we are improving greatly. This is the way it s supposed to work! Faustina had her best race of the season. After her race she said, I feel like I m finally getting into shape. Yep. In an perfect world she would have started the season at 21:28 and worked her way down to 20:20, right alongside Ellen. But it isn t a perfect world. The best lesson athletics teaches is that life isn t fair. Faustina did more to battle, stay positive and hang on than just about any athlete we ve had. And after her race, there were some tears. Tears of joy at a great race? Tears of sadness at her last race? Tears of relief after a stressful couple of days? Whatever the reason, she cried. So did Anna. Katelyn Reckin ran an awesome race. She tucked in with Faustina and hung on her shoulder, about 5m back, for most of the way. Then she kicked. She somehow got slightly ahead of Faustina at the end of the race, also running a 21:28. Katelyn has some terrific talent, and if we can get her to continue to work hard we ll continue to see improvement. For Katelyn, I think she started to turn the corner when she ran some 3200m races in track. She likes longer distances, and this bodes well if she becomes a college runner. I think she d be a natural 6k runner (that s the college
distance). But she still has one year left as an MHS runner! By the way, in the JV race there were 24 medals given out. Memorial won 10, Hudson won 5, Chippewa won 2. We won the other 7. For a minute, I thought we might be able to get ahead of Memorial, but they beat us 22 to 35. Last year they scored 19 to our 51, and the year before that they scored 15 to our 79. We re catching them, and distancing ourselves from our BRC opponents along the way. Then there is Katri. She s from Denmark, by the way, and she cried too. She ran 21:57 to finish in 22nd place in the JV race. She ran a race, got a medal, had a huge PR and she cried. If that doesn t sum-up the American experience then I don t know what else does. Most importantly, though, she is getting very fit. After a couple of days off, she ll start winter running. Watch out, ladies. She s good. A fit Katri is going to be awfully fast! Tayia had the race of the day. She wanted to earn her varsity letter badly. Now, she ran 22:31 at Old Abe (that course was 12m long) and we would have given her a letter for that effort, but I didn t tell Tayia this. She was going to run her race and prove to herself that she was capable. And when she came around for the 2k I didn t think she looked very good. But when she hit the top of the hill, she was surging. Then she looked awesome on the loop at the top of the hill. I looked at my watch at 4k and it said 18:07. She had to run that last K in 4:23 to get a letter. She ran it in 3:51. This was outstanding! Tayia cried too. She had huge tears of relief after finishing her race. And what a journey she s had! How many times did she have difficulty breathing on the RCT? How many times did she fall back over the summer? Remember last winter? But she never gave-up, and it was all worth it on Saturday. Megan and Clara were also chasing the letter standard, but it was elusive. 23:03 and 23:08; not quite the 22:30 that is required. I think Megan hasn t raced healthy all season. Her legs are constantly bothering her. Clara, on the other hand, had some inconsistencies in her times this season. This is pretty typical of someone that didn t run much over the summer and is only starting to get fit. Clara, you need to run over the summer! You are a beast. And Megan, the sky is the limit with your talent and leadership! You could be anything you want to be as a runner and athlete. And I m proud of your efforts this season. With Annie, it was a great race with a 10 second lifetime PR. She was so tough running much of her race with Kali. At the top of the hill Annie made a nice move and started to catch people. She moved very well on the loop, then finished brilliantly. It was easily her most important race. After the race she cried, just like everyone else. Annie has such amazing leadership skills. She works hard and is finding balance between basketball and running. Keep working hard, Annie! You could certainly be a varsity cross country runner if you had some nice summer miles! Kali broke her wrist at the start. The gun sounded and after 10 steps Kali went down. The starter stopped the race and went over to Kali. It was a broken wrist. She was in a bunch of pain, laying in the fetal position in the grass on the sophomore football field. There was no way she was going to be able to race. But after a couple of minutes something happened. Kali found her focus. She got up, walked to the starting line and was able to start the race. And wow, did she race well! She
had a season PR by 15 seconds and helped Annie to a massive PR. That s toughness and leadership! Great job Kali. Great season and great career, too. And great speech at the preconference meeting! I m going to miss you next year. Lindsay worked with Kali for most of the race, and she held on when Kali made her move. Lindsay is another talented runner who has a lot more in her. A great summer of running and you ll drop some massive times. But Lindsay could be a varsity CC runner as well. One of the things I saw develop with her this year was her pace discipline. Lindsay is quietly becoming a pace animal, and she worked very well with Kali and Annie at BRC. Jordyn had a cattle show and wasn t able to race. But wait! She moved her showtime somehow, and she was able to race after all. She sat with Brooklyn for most of the race, but then made a great move to finish sub 25:00. In her first race on this course she was over 4 minutes slower. Now she s getting fit, and she s starting to love cross-country. She told me, my biggest regret in high school is that I didn t do cross country all four years. Well, you can keep the running and ice baths and hard workouts going if you join track in the spring! Because there is some great talent in you, Jordyn. Brooklyn was right there with Jordyn for most of the race. She was on her shoulder until the last 100m, then Jordyn put down a massive kick. It was awfully impressive. For a rookie senior in her fourth race ever, Brooklyn showed some real growth. She also started to get fit. I also heard her say I wish I had done cross country all four years. Me too, Brooklyn. Me too. Because you have some talent! Think of what we could have accomplished with your talent over four years (and about 5500 miles). Jessica and Brenna races as a team, and wow they raced together very well. This was the first time they were together after 2k. Yet, on the home stretch, it was Jess and Brenna, both shoulder to shoulder until Jess threw-down that awesome final 100m. For Brenna, it was easily her best race ever. She attacked! For Jess it was also easily her best race ever. She attacked, too. She wasn t passive, waiting for an opponent to pass. Instead, when Jess got to the top of pipeline she started passing everyone. And she did wonderfully. Brenna had some pep in her eye. She was hungry for the competition. I haven t seen this side of Brenna, yet it was great to see. In the end, Jessica managed to outkick, but Brenna made her pay for that great PR. Andrea is working 35 hours a week. She s staying awake to do her homework until the wee hours of the morning. She s busy as heck. But she never gave up on her racing. It was hard with the asthma. She didn t have a huge mileage base from which to draw. Instead, she just raced. It was all guts for Andrea, and she did her best. In the end, she had a great season PR and a very nice career. Finally there is Sylvia. She PRd by a minute and a half. From her first race to her last, she PRd by nearly five minutes. This is amazing! Sylvia is becoming a runner. It s awesome to see. I hope you stick with it, Sylvia. And even though you didn t say it, I m guessing you also wish you had done this for the past four years! Well, we finished in 2 nd place. This is awesome. We have sectionals next week, and pictures Monday, and we vote for most inspirational. JV, please turn-in your uniforms. Varsity, there is one week left, and if we re luck it will be two weeks. Be smart with your sleep and routine. Stay relaxed. Keep up with your schoolwork and don t think too much about your race on Saturday. We have a shot, which is all I can ask at this point. For those of you that are finished, thanks for making this the best season in the history of MHS Girls Cross Country. Please come to winter running. This is a life-long sport, and most of you are just starting your journey as a runner.