A Little Offseason Fun

Even though it’s now the offseason, there can still be Milk Table related fun. Everyone loves reading these so why shut down when we’re not in school. I can’t say how many times we will update over the summer, but anything good or important will be put up. This will hopefully keep everyone going with their training and get everyone excited for Cross Country season.

During the season, I received an invite from OC to run the St. Monica 5k. On Saturday the event finally came along. I meet up with the O’Connor brothers, and we were joined by Pribe. We got in a little warm-up with a jog, stretching, and drills. The race was a weird time: OC’s career is over and he is just running every once in a while, Matt was coming off his rest period and just getting into his summer training, and I was using it as my race effort before starting my rest period.

The race went well and was a lot of fun. The OC’s and I took it out in the lead and were having a little chat during the first half mile or so. Matt fell off here. OC hung on to me until the hill at the start of the final mile. The three of us swept the 19 & under division. I was 3rd overall in 18:30, OC followed behind me in 18:45, and Matt finished 5th in 19:15 out-kicking an old guy the last 100 meters. It was an out-and-back course on Coeur de Ville and through a neighborhood with lots of hills and a challenging uphill finish.

There were some unique elements with the small race that made fun. First, I finally got the highly sought after St. Monica 5k shirt. Second, there was personal encouragement at the end of the race over the sound system for each runner courtesy of Josh’s dad. You won’t find that in many races. Third, the pace car was a police car. It was as awesome as it sounds. Fourth, there was Powerade when you finished. And finally, there were attendance prizes. You won’t find these awesome things at many other races.


As this picture shows, we dressed to impressed: high socks, flags shorts, boss shirts. It didn’t matter how we ran cause we looked great, and that’s what’s important.

With a new season, comes a new Blogmaster

Last Friday, Blogmasters Kabes, Zach, and Padre appointed me as the heir apparent to the open Blogmaster spot, left open by Hall of Famer Zachary Boyle.

My first duty will be corespondent for week one of Cross Country camp. Kabes will be in Spain. And Jacob, will be at work. I'll do my best to hold down the ship.

Zach, I'v moved into the appartment, it's only big enough for one. Farwell post needs to be up soon (Kabes' orders)

-Potterman

Just Do It

Today was the first ever Milk Table end of season party and awards ceremony. After some stressful days of planning, it turned out to be an enormous success. Originally planned for Sunday it was moved to Friday and started right after the second exam. The attendance was incredible; there were over 20 people there at the beginning. We had lots of food thanks to everyone bringing something. There was pizza, cookies, chips, brownies, cookie-cake, popcorn, and soda.

Once I got everything ready, we started giving out the awards. Here are the awards and description and the winners:• Laugh at This Award- Zach Boyle (Most Jokes of Day)
• Write This Down Award- Coach Traughber(Most Quotes of the Day)
• Hear Me Out Award- Andrew O’Connor (Most Comments)
• Secret Weapon Award- Alex Potter (Most Contributions)
• Co-Dress to Impress Award- Zach Boyle (Most Best Dressed)
• Co-Dress to Impress Award- Kevin Abernathy (Most Best Dressed)
• Special Recognition Award- Andrew O’Connor (Winning Smoothie Contest and Bracket Challenge)
• Outstanding Alumni Award- Rob Garwitz
• Outstanding Coach Award- Coach Leeman
• Followers' Choice: Outstanding Freshman- Glen McGann
• Followers' Choice: Outstanding Sophomore- Matt O’Connor
• Followers' Choice: Outstanding Junior- Kevin Abernathy
• Followers' Choice: Outstanding Senior- Zach Boyle
The Outstanding Awards were given for “Exemplifying the Values of the Milk Table” which would be things like team spirit, having fun, running fast, looking good, etc. The first two were selected by the Blog Masters. The final four were, as it says, selected by the followers of the Milk Table.
After these awards we moved on to a big announcement. The Milk Table now has a Hall of Fame, and Zach Boyle, Andrew O’Connor, and Coach Leeman were the members of the first class. To finish things up, Zach passed the baton on to Potter initiating him as the new Blog Master.
After the awards, we played games. To start we had a baseball game and a soccer game going on at the same time. Soccer was 5v5 using lacrosse goals. Both were a lot of fun. Some people left and we took a break before moving on to a game of ultimate. It was an exciting, highly competitive game. The Callahans were captains and Patrick edged out Michael behind the strong defense of Ed O’Brien and game MVP Drew Higgens. Another baseball with the remaining guys came down to the final batter. Bob came in to get the save giving Michael revenge on Patrick.

Now we were down to the final for guys: both OCs, Seiler, and me. We threw the B in the pavilion for a bit before a 90 minute monopoly game. Andrew won and the party finally stopped after 6 hours and 45 minutes.

Ducks on the Pond

Some of the most exciting events took place today. Here at DeSmet, I ran the 1500m Simulator. At the same time over at SLUH, the final meet of the year: The Highway 40Distance Classic.

Starting with a lonely mile warm-up, I was gearing up for maybe the biggest workout of the year. The 1500m Simulator consists of a 4x200 followed by an 800 with an 800 jog rest and a 300 with another 800 before repeating. The 200s and 800s are at race pace, 33 and 2:13 for me. The 300 is run a little faster. Intense! And let me tell you it’s as hard as it sounds. But after 30 minutes it was all over, and I had another great workout in the bag.

On the other side of town, our guys had a meet unlike anything we’ve ran before. The first ever Highway 40 Distance Classic had a meet schedule that looked like this: 1600 at 4:15, 3200 at 4:25, and 400 at 4:40. For a distance guy, it doesn’t get much better than that. The meet featured only the Spartan of DeSmet and the Jr. Bilikens of SLUH. In the mile, Goetz and Jack Husmann both broke 5 in the mile for the first time. Jack’s 4:53 is a very impressive time for a freshman. Way to go Jack! A couple of the guys lead by Seiler PRed in the 2 mile.

Title: As I was running my reverse mile cool down, Coach Williams pointed out some baby ducks and geese on our pond. Yes, our little retention pond has life. It was actually really cool seeing some ducklings out there. If you keep your eyes peeled you may see them too.

Odd Ratio. Odd People.

Quote of the Day: "If your name is not Abernathy then you don't have practice"- Coach Traughber at the Team Meeting.

As you know, the quote is normally at the end of a post, but today's quote summed up the whole day so it got moved up. We had a team meeting right after school for all the guys still practicing. It was the classic end-of-track-get-ready-for-cross-country meeting. This time it even included a movie clip! We got the run down on everything going on this summer with camps and group runs. Also received the golden packet, the key to success, the summer workout plan. Encouraging words were spoken by coach who said there is a great group of guys and that 2010 could be the best summer on record. The movie clip was from Running the Sahara a favorite movie of Coach. I think one simple phrase could encompass what this summer should be like: "Say Yes." Yes to running, yes to getting better, yes to following the plan. The incentives went unchanged: 80% will get you breakfast at the Traughber's and a dri-fit shirt, which I guarantee will be totally awesome.

On to practice. 3 Coaches, 1 runner. Yep, a very odd coach to runner ratio. But nonetheless practice was good. I did miss everyone, especially on the warm-up. It's weird to run 3 laps and stretch on your own. Being the only guy, I got to pick my run. I went with my favorite Chasselle. Rob, T-bone, and the Milk Man all accompanied me at the beginning. If you are thinking to yourself that must have been awesome, I will conform that thought: it was awesome! Finished up on the track at 50 minutes just in time to field a grounder from the baseball team who was taking batting practice on the turf forcing Coach Traughber and Leeman to play dodge the baseball. I still don't know why they cut me, I have soft hands and made a nice throw. But that doesn't matter, I love running Track. Finished up with some upper body lifts and light core.

Now, about the odd people. With Rob I had the craziest encounter while running in my life. We run in a populated area so of course we will run into people. Some are awesome like the nameless kid from Westminster. We had the opposite end of it today. A complete psycho jerk. So going down Ladue on the right side this guy in a conversion van probably from the early 90s slows down next to Rob and I. His window is down and he yells out, "You guys are on the wrong side of the road." He assumed he would have just carried on then, but not this guy. He went on to say that we were a bad example to his kid who was in the front seat looking like he would rather be anywhere else then between his dad and a couple runners. He said we would be killed; that we were breaking the law; that he was going to call the cops, and crazy stuff like that. He was holding up like 10 cars and filling drove away after Rob said that he graduated college when we were asked where we go to school. Yea, odd crazy dude. Completely true story. It was hilarious.

Best Dressed: Rob in full white out. White shirt, white half-zip, white shorts, white hat.

Are you doing a Stoplight?

An easy, relaxed day for everyone. The freshmen that were not in the 4x800, which was run today, had a Stoplight before their last race of the season. But there were also a few that were "special." They aren't in the meet and Coach for some unknown reason allowed them to do whatever they wanted. So, Patrick, Collin, and Jimmy went on a fairly interesting run. I believe they called it Neighborhoods and Conway & back. The 800 guys minus Potter, who decided to take the day off, were lucky with only a 30 minute run.

Then there was the guys doing Conway-Mason: Stack, OC, me, and just home from Marquette Connor. It was a very enjoyable run. We did some catching up with Connor on how the season went. He told us about his 14:59.72 5k which by the way is insanely awesome. Talked about former DeSmet runners, college life in Wisconsin, all sorts of stuff. I even got a whole mile on the track with just Connor and me at the end. It was great.

We had some great weather to run in today. It was so nice out, almost perfect. As some of you may know, it was not that way all day. This morning, it was pouring. Being the hard workers they are, Coach Traughber and Coach Leeman braved this rain storm to get their run in.

On a side note, OC after starting off behind is now just dominating everyone in the Slug Bug count. He was the favorite coming in, but got off to a slow start. He rallied back yesterday with 3 on the 15 minute cool down. He then opened it up today adding a couple more.

The Milk Table would also like to congratulate Cross Country Standout Blake Bender on leading the Volleyball Spartans to the MCC title this evening. It was an outstanding match. Bender was setting up his hitters, as we would say, like a boss. Good Luck the rest of the way!

Quote of the Day: "No"- Patrick in response to Coach's question that grabbed the title of this post.

Joke of the Day: As practice was ending and everyone was heading inside for their much deserved chocolate milk Boyle noticed that Big OC had a gnarly scratch on his shin. Worried about his teammate's well being Boyle asked what had happened. OC responded that it was a gardening accident. To this Boyle asked "Did a hoe get you?"

Get Your Bubbles Off My Track... Get Your Track Off My Bubbles

Practice today began with the medal ceremony where some serious Bling was given out. The MCC meets are the best time to turn in a great performance as the medals for this meet are BOSS also as opposed to certain medals given out in the past (All-Catholic). The MCC medals come with their own thick strap optimal for neck wearing purposes.


Practice today was split into several groups we had the easy run group, the mile time trial group, and the workout group.

In Mile time trial action Jacob used the power of the singlet to hold off Matt OC. It was a close race all the way down to the last 50 meters. In a close third was Martini who held onto the leaders throughout the race. It was a good race by all and showed how far many have come. KEEP UP THE TRAINING!

The workout group today had an excellent day on the bubble track as they did a ladder type of workout. It was a tough run but now a long rest will follow up until districts were the Desmet track team will Bring Tha Speed.

One of the biggest surprises of the day came from the appearance of Mr. Jordan Nikolaisen. A top 7 member from the 2007 Cross Country Team and now current Murray State student, Jordan stopped by practice today to bring back good memories of rolled ankles and Chris France.

Quote of the Day: “You have to use Hooked on Phonics rules”- Boyle explaining the rules behind his new diet which says you can only eat foods that start with vowels.

Best Dressed Award: Bumblebee, Lance, Banana... all words used to describe today’s best dressed award winner. If you did not notice the man decked out all in yellow then you missed one of Matt OC’s finest wardrobe moments. Matt used his yellow color scheme to do work like a boss in the mile time trial finishing with a sub 4:50 time behind Jacob the sailor.

Potter vs Food
Potter=1
Food=4