“What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle and giving 110% all the time.”- Don Zimmer

The heat index was 100 degrees. Humid but bearable. Walked up to the start line with the lyrics of “Lose Yourself” (I know its cliché) still in my head and ironically feeling it "His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy…Oh, there goes gravity" I did my strides thinking - well at least I was able to wear this uniform once in my career “On your mark” Then I remembered Coach Williams's words still vivid in my mind “you worked hard to get in your position, now show them what you can do” “Get set” take in one last breath because this is the moment I have been waiting for *Gunshot goes off* and the race begins

Recently I have thinking back on years of running cross country as this is my senior year.  The word that comes to mind would be patience. In past years being a runner, I came to believe in the fact that it is hard to compete against people with talent. (And don’t get me wrong, it still is) And in some ways this perspective discouraged me. But discouragement can cause failure and complete surrender of a gift and determination. Most people go through life never realizing their gifts. Recently I saw a video that explained it all to me. One theme I took away from it was that there is nothing a powerful as a changed mind. You can change your hair, your clothing, address, spouse, and residence, but if you don't change your mind, the same experience will perpetuate itself over and over again because everything outwardly changed, but nothing inwardly changed. You have to have to have confidence if you ever want to succeed or else the same experience will occur over and over again because nothing changed. It’s like what the coaches have been saying all along, if you don’t change and adapt the runner’s lifestyle, your times can’t change and same can happen with your mindset when the gun goes off. But don’t give up because it takes patience. And when the time comes for each one us, you’ll be standing in a hall of fame.

But back to present now…

On August 25 the one only De Smet Spartans raced an impressive race at the good old Fleet feet Classic at Arnold City Park.

In the varsity action, we had runners: Joseph Reed, Tyler O'Connor, Collin Donovan, Neil Winter, Michael Ruiz Del Arbol, Matthew Woodford, Christian Weishaar, Teddy Weishaar, Patrick Sanchez, and Sal Alu. The Varsity guys decided to start a new tradition and wear tattoos under their uniform shorts (on the left thigh area to be specific). This theme was Avengers. Our scorers for this race were Joseph Reed with a time of 10:14, Tyler O'Connor (10:38), Collin Donovan (10:41), Neil Winter (10:57), and Michael Ruiz Del Arbol with a time of (11:07). There was a 53 second range between these five runners, taking a solid third place out of fourteen teams.

In the JV action, these guys battled tough in the heat and raced great as a group. Our scorers for this race were: Nick Einig (with a time of 11:33) Alex Smith (11:47), Sean Lane (12:25) Joseph Moffatt (12:29), and Alex Volker (12:54) These Spartans raced an amazing split range of 56 seconds. Nice job JV guys and can’t wait to see more action and race with you guys this season.
But let’s not forget our newest members. We have 24 freshmen so far (which is an awesome turnout for our team) which raises the team roster higher than in previous years. With a bigger team, brings bigger victories. There are more chances for runners to run together and prosper together in races.  And that’s exactly what all three levels are heading towards. At the meet the top 5 five freshmen were: Owen Madigan with a time of 12:06, Luke Jansen (12:56), Joab Hackman (13:17), Nick Abbenhaus (13:31), and Matt Wunderlich (14:04).


Coming back from break, I felt great and ready to get back to longer distance after an awesome track season and a great chance I given to become closer to my teammates during the summer.  This summer our team traveled up to Stevens Point Wisconsin for a running/conditioning camp up at the University of Steven’s point. Around twenty of us traveled up to Wisconsin including coach Traughber and Coach Boehm. When we arrived, we ran a time trial and were put into groups with other runners at the camp. Each day we do a short run in the morning and a longer run/workout in the afternoon. We would also attend a lecture to learn more strategies to living out a runner’s lifestyle and better ways to improve racing techniques. Along with the schedule we had lots of free time to explore the campus, town, and pokestops. Yes I just said pokestops. Being a college campus, the University of Stevens Point offers a multitude of Pokémon, pokestops, gyms and the opportunity to work towards becoming the next Pokémon master. We even got Coach Boehm on in the action. But along with the running with my teammates, I felt more of a brotherhood with these guys as I had the chance to live with them. We drove together, ran together, showered together, and even slept together (in the dorms). As weird as this might sound to you guys who weren’t there, living your brothers really makes a difference and makes the run easier when you’re sweating to run that pace together and even race together. You bring back these memories together and this just makes the next season even better. To this day I still can’t listen to a song by the Chainsmokers without thinking of Nolan’s parody of the song, the Pokémon caught, ameba tag, Keegan’s diving lessons, or even the infamous shower trot.  And I just have a great feeling that more memories will be made coming soon.


All teams showed an amazing effort and raced strong together as we gave other teams and idea of hard it is going to be to beat us this year. We have a really strong team this year and we can’t wait to show our hard work from summer training. Our next meet is in Granite City, IL. Catch everyone next time but until then, this is Sal Alu signing off.

-Sal Alu

A New Project

Here we are. The holiday season has started, Thanksgiving has passed, and winter running has been going for a couple of weeks. I had intended on a couple of the guys to write a couple of blogs on Districts, State, and the season as a whole, but they haven’t done that yet, so I will leave all of the “filling in” to them if they ever do it.

Anyway, back to it.

As most of you know, we started a new off season racing and training squad called “Two Rivers Distance Project”. There are two purposes to this new team: to continue to develop as “racers” and not just runners, and to have a more concrete support group during the off season months. Racing during the off season a couple of times will allow us to maintain that feeling of what it’s like to race instead of going into track without hurting much outside of controlled workouts. It’s kind of like looking over class material during a long break; we will still get the relaxed atmosphere, but we will also maintain what it means to race. The team will also be . . . well, a team. Just like in cross country, the team will be there to support one another, hold each other responsible, and of course have fun.

Personally, I am pumped. It seems like most people are pretty psyched about it, which is awesome, but being motivated during the first weeks of winter running and being motivated after three months of a cold winter are two totally different things. This is why I am writing this blog now (and because one hasn’t been written since State). I don’t want a one or two week commitment; I want an entire off season. I want people to look at this cross country season and say, “we will do better” and I want to see the confidence when I hear people say it. If cool shirts will help with that, then so be it; they’re on their way.

-Adam Boehm

A Coach's Perspective

A blog hasn’t been written in a while, so I figured I would try and tide you over until they start popping up again.

I got back from the State meet about two hours ago. I ate some food, relaxed for a little while, and tried to digest the season without getting too close to the various milesplit tweets and retweets about teams and individuals doing outstanding. A question I hear frequently about cross country is, “why are other teams so much better and how do we copy that?”, “why is (insert individual-champion name here) so much better than the rest of the field?”, and “what do they feed those guys?” and there isn’t one answer to those questions. (It’s about to get math-y)

Picture a circle. That circle has an infinite number of points, and each one of those points has a corresponding slope (as shown below). 

Pretend like the individual or a team is a single circle. These teams and individual champions at the state meet have an infinite number of things that are going for them. Now pretend that each point on the circle is one of those “things”. They have the right genes (talent), they really like the sport, they do the appropriate runs at the appropriate times and at the appropriate paces (half coaching/ half motivation and discipline), they stretch well, they eat well, they sleep well, they hydrate well, they work hard (this sometimes out does talent), they have near perfect opportunities that they take advantage of at the near perfect time, they have a near perfect warm up and a near perfect cool down, they tuned their muscles to a near perfect level, they are motivated intrinsically and extrinsically, they are motivated by their teammates and their teammates are motivated by them, they are confident, they take chances at a near perfect time, they are mentally tough, they enjoy the challenge of running faster, they find purpose in running, they are in the right State, etc, etc, etc. If one of these “things” is off or not perfect, that point on the graph gets skewed, and the circle becomes something different.

This is what I love about Distance running. You can’t just blindly gain muscle mass and out push or out sprint someone else. No, you have to make everything go according to the right plan at the right time. Everything matters even though you can’t control every single aspect, but all of the things you do control have to slope in the right direction, or else a season or race won’t be the absolute best it can be (ie it won’t be a circle).

So, when I am thinking about our season, I am thinking about when we made everything work, and when we didn’t. I am thinking about injuries, sickness, and effort as well as success. I get that things happen. People get hurt, sick, or otherwise unable to run. Life happens, but there is always a way to make some of those “points” slope the way you want them to. World and national records have been set by people who weren’t at their peak physical condition and Olympic medals have been awarded to people who weren’t necessarily the most in shape but to those who made that specific race work.

Part of the reason Joe and Tyler (as well as a load of our JV, freshmen, and Varsity guys) had a great season is because they made it work.

Coach, how do I “make it work”?

You can’t make this last season work anymore. It’s over, but, you can make next season work. Train appropriately over the winter, eat well, sleep well, hydrate well, challenge yourself, have fun, and maintain consistent running (don’t get sick and don’t get injured as much as you possibly can). 

-Adam Boehm

Time Trial

Post-race Struggle

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative."- Steve Prefontaine

I've put my own little twist on this quote. When I first read the quote in an email of the day last year, what really stuck out to me was how Steve seemed to feed off the positive energy of others. So, while I know there's some deeper philosophical meaning in what he's saying, I've boiled it down to  "when you look good, you feel good"( or at least when you think you look good you feel good). For some that may seem pretty self-centered or narcissistic and what not, but for me, it’s just one of the ways to psyche myself up and have fun with races.  On Tuesday I broke out all the special gear: headband, short shorts ,and my spikes from freshmen year. And it made all the difference. I finally broke the five minutes for the mile (thanks in part to the incredible pacing job by Coach Boehm a.k.a. “the metronome”).

But enough of myself; everybody brought their A-game on Tuesday, and it was incredible.  I think it all those PR's come back to our training . Running in training groups was something that really helped me this year. I really liked the group of guys I ran with, and it made practice not only more enjoyable but it’s great to lean on your teammates when you’re having an off day or tough race.  In addition, the cutback in mileage at this part of year just makes you feel so much more rested and ready to race. I think its these things which lead to a strong showing at our most recent meet the Borgia Invitational at Big Driver golf course in Washington, and I'm very excited for the varsity's upcoming district race there this Saturday, especially after the way our season ended last year.

-Thomas Linhares

Post-Season

So, I couldn’t find an athlete to do a blog post about the MCC meet, and I procrastinated way too long to do a good one. So, I’ll just update everyone on how the team is doing, in a super casual (read not edited) style.

                With the MCC meet behind us, the team has shifted its training and focus for the remainder of the season. For the first time this season, the JV teams and Varsity are split to accommodate the differences in scheduling; the varsity squad will focus on the district meet next Saturday, and the JV/frosh will focus on their final meets of the season, starting this Saturday at Borgia.

                The end of the season always catches me off guard. I stop looking for improvement based on fitness, and start looking for improvement based on pure grit, which everyone is starting to develop at this point. It’s fun to watch massive PR after massive PR, week after week, no matter the course or weather. JV are shifting the balance of the Varsity, and Freshmen are developing their own personality as well as their place on the team. But it’s not just performances and places on the team I am noticing changing. They have all grown so much during the last two and half months. They’re fitter, leaner, stronger, and can endure the constant pounding on pavement, as well as the late nights caused by the demand of daily classes, homework, and school. However, they still have this fire in their eyes that's almost entirely new to this young team. Leaders are emerging and attitudes are being focused on their own. It used to be a battle to get this year’s varsity to focus on a race the next day when they were freshmen, and now this year’s freshmen are modeling them so well, that battle is now just a minor struggle.

                This team wants to get better, and they are just now developing a pack mentality as well as a responsibility for their own fitness and health. A frequent question I am asked is, “(Coach) Boehm, what’s my sandwich time”, to which I will respond with an outrageous time for that person. Unfortunately for my bank account, it isn’t too uncommon for me to owe that person their sandwich the next week. However, more and more frequently, they just want a time. They don’t even care about the sandwich (Thank God); rather they want a mark they know will be just out of reach. They also started to take care of themselves, largely without a coach’s direction. I realize that all of this sounds so small, but self-motivation, self-responsibility, and goals are the building blocks of a great team, and these guys have it.

                I am stoked about the last couple of weeks of the season. Let’s make it a good one.

Sorry for the late blog post

Washing Feet

Finding God in all things.

I’m taking a risk by putting myself out there on this post, but here it goes. I noticed a picture as I was going through my camera when I got home. It’s of Neil Winter’s feet. Weird picture, I know, but he had just run most of the race with just one shoe on. I came back to the tent right after the varsity had finished, and I started to tell Neil that we needed to clean up his foot. The rest of the coaches and I were worried about any cuts or bruises even though he said they felt fine.

Anyway, I tried to get a picture of the carnage, and I wanted to clean his feet.

I was scrolling through the pictures, and it dawned on me that this was remarkably similar to when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.

Now, before I go any further, I am in no way comparing myself to Christ. For one, I never went near Neil’s feet. I also know that it is know where even close to the part of the year when this gospel is read.

But I digress.

The point is that I never looked at the washing of the disciples’ feet with a sense of urgency and empathy until today. Yeah, Christ was acting as a servant, and there is a lot of value in that. However, He also felt our pain through his own temptations, and knew that it was urgent to clean us up. It’s like when you help someone after they had a rough day at school or work. You know they could probably do whatever it is that they are doing by themselves, but you help anyway because you can empathize with their exhaustion.

Homily over.

Blog post on the actual race is coming soon.

“Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.”                           -Maddie J.T. Stepanek

I would definitely have to say that this quote describes the bonding of our team and strengthening of relationships this past weekend. Last Friday, the Varsity guys left right after school ended to head down to Jefferson City to practice the course for the race the next day and spend the night in a hotel. The JV and Freshman groups on the other hand ran through our normal pre-meet routine and got out of practice early.

The next day (Saturday) the JV and Freshman woke up at the crack of dawn to meet at De Smet at 6:45 AM to begin the journey. The journey took approximately 2 hours and the way down was mostly quiet for the first hour as everyone took the advantage to rest and fuel up before the race. As we got closer and saw the state capital, enthusiasm rose up. The race was at Oak Hills golf course which was pretty neat as we were racing on the greens and fairway. The course itself was full of hills in the first and third mile while the second mile was flat. This was a unique and enjoying course in which our team competed very well. As far as places he had the Varsity guys place 6^th out of 27 teams and the JV guys placing 3^rd out of 16 teams. Varsity placers were: Joe Reed (16:35), Tyler O’Connor (16:56), Michael Ruiz del Arbol (Smith Cotton, Wilson, Stein, Malone, Jackson) (17:03), Neil Winter (17:45), and Matthew “Justice” Woodford (17:47). Congrats to you guys with your fierce competition. As far as JV guys, we had an awesome race. Placers were Patrick Sanchez (18:36), Nolan Shannon (18:45), Thomas Linhares (18:52), Kole Wetzler (19:00), and Tim(bo) Abbenhaus (19:12). Almost all of the JV runners PR’d (Got a personal record, for those who don’t know). After the race, I went around asking people how they did and the answers were awesome. Juniors, Dominic Kinsella and Caleb Hackman responded with “Are you talking about before this race because THIS IS IT”.  Freshman Alex Voelker responded with “I PR’D BY 1 minute and a half!” I, myself PR’d as well and it was awesome to finish the race with the feeling that I just broke my own record on a course that I have never run before. The results of this race were extraordinarily remarkable and I congratulate everyone that ran and thank all those who supported us and the Varsity guys in the race.

After the race, we headed back to De Smet where the journey back is one to remember. We all (JV and Varsity) stopped by a sketchy McDonalds at a rest stop along the highway for lunch and thus continued the journey home where the varsity guys went their separate ways. Along the journey there were multiple activities going on. In my row, we had Happy Wheels tournament going on where we all struggled to beat some levels. (Happy Wheels is a game on the smartphone).  Car Sickness claimed a victim in which we luckily found a grocery bag to use to improvise a barf-bag. I feel like there is one more thing that I am forgetting…Oh wait we got stranded at a gas station. We stopped for a bathroom break and a 5 min break turned into a 1 hour break. As we stopped, the bus driver thought it might be a good idea to fill up the bus tank while we were stopped. So he paid for the gas and had it running while he went to go use the restroom. Well…..it turns out he forgot to start the filling and filling up a bus tank takes a lot longer than a car tank. So 20 min later, the driver comes back to find out he didn’t start it and starts it. While we were stopped, some of the athletes decided to go into the gas station to use the bathroom and buy snacks. By the time, the tank was filled up, we were about 45 min late on schedule which was a problem for some sophomores who had homecoming and we all joked around about fake flat tires and more stops needed. Anyway we all got back to De Smet around 5 o’clock and enjoyed what was left of a Saturday off. The bus ride was a truly memorable experience as the JV guys (and Varsity the day before) were able to spend an entire day together, talking about strategies, joking around, and competing together on that same day. This trip definitely proves true that the journey is just as important and exciting as the end goal, getting to the race, or end of the trip. 

                -Salvatore Alu

                Class of 2017