“The Lord brought about a great victory that day”

The Sweepers and the 1st Place Trophy

What a day! Today was the All-Catholic Meet at Chaminade. The DeSmet Track Team showed up looking to defend the title. That title was defended in force in large part to great performances from the distance squad. The team finished with 169 points, 67 more than 2nd place CBC and 43 more than our winning score from last year.

In a schedule change, the 3200 race was first. Stack and Seiler represented the Spartans in this contest. Running a smart, controlled race Stack took the lead on about the 6th lap and finished with a PR of 10:14 and the gold medal. Seiler also PRed coming in at 10:48.

Next up was the 4x800. Matt OC led off with a 2:12, a 13 second PR. In a reversal of earlier this year he handed off to his brother. The baton moved to Husmann and then Waller who brought it home for 5th place. After the race, as typical brothers, the OCs argued over who ran their leg faster. Big OC, whose time was a couple ticks slower than lil OC’s claimed it was because he received the baton before the line and that if he would have received it at the line then the times would have been even. Who was actually faster? It will always depend on who you ask.

A little later on, Boyle and I lined up for the 1600. The field got out a little slow, and I had trouble adjusting. I moved to the front on the 3rd lap and took the bell. I ran a solid final lap to earn my second straight gold in a time of 4:35, two seconds over my PR. Boyle was dealing with prom-legs, but still ran well, a solid 4:45. This is not the last you will hear of the milers.

The 800. The pressure was on Potter in this race. He’s the defending champion and trying to complete the DeSmet distance sweep. Like any great runner, he delivered. And on top of that, it was also PR fashion, 2:02.2. Scherping bounced back from last race with a 2:09. This race was a good learning experience for him because it showed that he has to get out faster if he wants to bring his time down.

In the final event of the day, the 4x400 Relay, Boyle filled in and joined me to give the distance team control of half of the relay team. We both cranked out the one lap like it was nothing. Seriously, who runs one lap? We finished in third to close out a great day.

Quote of the Day: “Time out! Calm down!”- the Archivist to Boyle, Potter, and I. Now you ask, who is the Archivist? He’s better known as Fr. Wally Sidney’s evil twin, and he stopped and chatted with pretty much the whole team today. He interrupted Seiler and Stack’s warm-up for like 10 minutes after they stopped to look at a creepy statue. Later he got the rest of us and asked if we were from “DJ.” Remember to be on the lookout for evil Wally at all times.

Joke of the Day: Gibby took some shots at me before the 4x4.

Kabes: This will be the first time in a while that I might have to hold somebody off.
Gibby: What about when you had to hold off like 130 guys? Does that not count?
Kabes: Hey! Don’t bring State into this.
Gibby: Oh, still don’t talk about it?
Kabes: It’s okay. We’re on the track now.
Gibby: So you have no hills to crawl up?

The title is a Bible quote (2 Samuel 23:10). It was inspired by Gibby.

A Whole New World

Because this is belated, this post is simple.

With it being the day after the meet or speed workout, it was an AE day. Everybody went west (right) on Ladue for a certain amount of time. On the way out, heading towards 141 we had a big pack and it was fun.

What I really want to talk about in this post is a common theme of running. This theme is newness in sameness. It’s the idea even in doing the same thing there is always something new. For example, on the today’s run, Boyle and I ran somewhere neither of us had ever ran before. When we got to Ladue and 141, we had ten more minutes to run. We weighed our options and decided to go left. The large shoulder was very inviting. Getting to go somewhere different was great. Ran by St. Luke’s Hospital and made it just far enough to see Highway 40. A second example of this newness in sameness, this one even more common than running in a new spot, came up on the way back. We’ve ran this same route several times before, but we saw something crazy that we had never noticed. This seems to happen every run; there is always something new. This time it was a pond in someone’s front yard. It took up the whole yard and had a fountain and everything. Newness in sameness. Just some thoughts.

Quote of the Day: “Hey! Look at that! It’s a Lake!”- Abernathy to Boyle on Ladue as I noticed someone’s front yard lake for the first time.

Super Smash Bros

Most of the team was at a Tri-Meet at SLUH today; there were only six of us practicing at DeSmet: Boyle, Stack, Seiler, Potter, Scherping, and me. Being a small group was nice. We got to hang out with T-Bone which is always a lot of fun. He doesn’t quite get what we do or why we do it, but he likes us anyways. We were split into two groups for the speed workout, 800 guys (Potter, Scherping, Boyle) and other guys. The 800 guys had 3 4x2s at race pace. The rest of us had an 8x400 at race pace. It was short, but still reasonably tough.

The title comes from the today’s meet. On the team, we have three sets of brothers: O’Connor, Potter, Morgenthaler, and Callahan (the last two sets being twins). All these brothers had showdowns in the 3200m race. It is not often that brothers race against each other, but three sets of brothers on the same day, simply impressive. Here is a meet recap from Matt OC:

First of all I would like to congratulate everybody on a fantastic track meet. We started out by taking home the silver in the 4 x 8 with our power house team of Higgins, Fitzpatrick, Rudolph, and Reed. After that great race we had a great mile with top 5 finishes from Goetz and Hamilton. After that we went off to open 800 with one top 5 finish from Reed. Then we moved on to the 2 mile were DeSmet basically dominated. Lead by lil OC, then OC, Next Hussmann, and M. Callahan. We also had a couple of other DeSmet runners behind them I just don’t want to say who because I don’t know who they are for sure. If you read this you can put your name in the comments and I am sorry for not knowing for sure. Today we had an all around great meet and congratulations to everybody who competed in their awesome races.

Best Dressed: Boyle. He had a simple look that that mirrored the simple practice. He wore the awesome Ricky Bobby training shirt with green shorts that were a great match to the green writing on the shirt. On top of this, he also continued his streak of outstanding workouts.

Like A Boss

Today was the first time since uniforms were given out that the whole track team gathered as one. At the meeting some bling was given out to runners from the previous two meets that ran like a boss. Congrats to all those that collected some medals and for those that missed out let it serve as an inspiration. After the medal ceremony the long awaited t-shirts and hoodies were distributed. These hoodies could not have come at a better time with the recent weather.

Next on the agenda was 1000 repeats… Oh Baby! At first there was some turf dispute with the sprint team but once the distance time made it clear that we run like a boss lane 1 was all ours. As one of the harder workouts that we do everyone did a great job and there was plenty of support from those doing the recovery laps cheering on others.

After finishing the workout like a boss the team split up for a cooldown with T-Bone gracing the top group with his presence. On the cool down we learned that T-Bone has already started training Baby-T by running with Liz in the Go! St. Louis Half Marathon. Rumor has it that when the Boy is born he will be taught to run before how to walk. I think I speak for the team when I say that I approve.

This is kabes adding on to Boyle's post:

The other thing that made today "Like a Boss" is that today is the Milk Table's one month Birthday! Yes, we've been around for a whole entire month. 23 followers and 22 posts over that time. I would like to thank everyone—Blog Masters, contributors, commenters, followers, readers. Without each and every one of you the Milk Table wouldn’t be anywhere close to what it has become. I have enjoyed doing this so much and hope you are getting as much out of it as I am. I hope that there are many more months to follow that are accompanied with even more success and fun. Just imagine what it will be like when the Milk Table turns one. Again, thank you. Please keep reading and commenting.