At Home & Abroad

Coach was jealous of our hard workout yesterday so he had one for himself today. He ran 3 by 2 miles at sub 7 minute pace. He went negative splits every mile. It was a little reversal of roles with Brian and I watching coach workout.

For us, it was 30 or 40 minutes easy. The original plan was to go to Runnymede just like the good old days of winter training. But, we decided to run a mailbox in hopes of seeing coach during his cool down. Well, coach never left DeSmet. To meet the time quota, we did end up going through Runnymede. I extended my lead in Spotter over Brian for the week with a couple Slugbugs on Ladue.

I finished the 10 minutes on my own by running the classic EtoE Rocky Road. Had a bunch of kids that were leaving DeSmet honking and yelling at me as I was coming up Emerson. It was fun. Practice finished up like it always does: stretch, chocolate milk, and ice bath. Woo!

Another solid run to get ready for Sectionals. Brian’s off tomorrow. I have 35 minutes plus 200s. The schedule for this Saturday at Lafayette is a follows:

• 4x800 – 12:00 (Scherping-Potter-Johnel-Pickel)
• 1600m – 1:30 (Abernathy)
• 400m – 2:10 (Pickel & Johnel)
• 800m – 3:10 (Scherping)
• 200m – 3:30 (Durron)
• 4x400 – 4:20 (Scherping-Durron-Johnel-Pickel)

You can find more information here. We hope to see lots of you there. It should be an awesome, very exciting meet.

On a total side note, Jacob Seiler is traveling to Rome. We wish him safe, fun travels. I blogged from Spain last summer and now Jacob is taking the Milk Table Shirt international. Can’t wait to hear about the trip when he gets back. “Milk Table going global, Italian edition.”

Quote of the Day: “Put some clothes on!!!”- Nick Martini screamed while diving by on Emerson Road.

Joke of the Day: “Squirrel! Come back. I want to ask you some questions. And I want to ask your friends questions.”- Scherping talking to the squirrels in Runnymede. He spent a good 3 minutes talking out loud to the different critters in the neighborhood.

2 Fast 2 Furious

No, we were not racing cars or watching an awesome movie for practice today. Coach simply had two fast and furious workouts to get us ready for this Saturday. There might not be two better words to describe these Phase IV workouts. Or Phase 4.5 as Scherping calls it since there are only a few guys left. All three of us brought out our brand new, just in winter training “Snowpocalypse” shits. Yes, they might have came in, kinda late, but they turned out really good. Time to ride all that hard work in the winter to the State Meet. The 800 guys, Scherping and Potter, had the Dream 800 workout. It’s about as short and sweet as it gets: 4x200 with 1 minute rest in between each. They’re goal was to go 28 or faster on all 4. Scherping closed it with a 25 showing his great speed that made him district champ in the 800. His splits added up to a 1:48 dream 800. Potter’s was 1:55 and more importantly he did not throw up. So point Potter!!

Abernathy’s workout was a surprise – coach revealed it as he progressed. It started with a 200 at race pace followed by a 200 jog. Then came a challenging 800 at race pace which he ran two ticks slow with 2:14. Next, another 200 a little faster than the first. After that came the biggest surprise of the workout, 8 minutes standing rest. He’d never had that long of rest for anything ever. But it would be necessary as the 2nd half was tough. It was a 3x400 at between 65 and 66 with 2 minutes rest. The rest must have got Kevin a little too excited though as the first one was a blazing 60.8. He found the pace on the second running a 65.3. For the last 400, he ran a 61.5 showing that speed he loves to unleash on the final lap of a race.

This workout meant it was time for double chocolate milks and an extra cold ice bath. It was a hard yet fun workout. We’re pumped up and excited for the race on Saturday. Let’s Go!!

Quote of the Day: “There are going to be 8 good guys out there. You have to beat them.”- Coach Traughber shouting motivation to Abernathy as he was running his final 400 of the workout.

Joke of the Day: “Brian it’s going to take you longer to put on that bandana than how long your entire workout will last.”- Abernathy as we waited for Brian to get ready when he was already late. It probably ended up being true because he took forever to get it own.

We’re Not Done Yet

Sunday night the seniors graduated. Immediately following graduation was the Final Fling lock-in. After hanging out and having a blast all night, we parted ways at about 4:30 in the morning. It was then time to go home and sleep all the way till practice.

So a mere 11 or so hours later we were up at DeSmet for practice. The work to get through Districts was complete. It is now time to put in the work to get to State.

Today’s work was an easy 60 minute run (Kevin) or 45 minute run (Brian). Of course Brian nearly overslept and missed practice. I called him as I was leaving and he had just woken up. He was late. But it worked out as I did my extra 15 minutes while waiting for him. As for the run, we went south on Ballas. Before turning around at Visitation Academy, we explored campus for a little bit. We pretended to be cars in the parking lot, found an open field with a broken bench, and ran by the defending State Champ’s soccer practice. But, the highlight was definitely the spiral slide. It was awesome!

On the way back we ran on the path in the park at Ballas and Conway (next to the Ronald McDonald House). This path had nice benches that were not broken. Brian concluded that it was because Ronald McDonald sat on all of the benches every day. We also made a stop at the hospitals’ parking garage. As a new DeSmet Alumni, Brian showed his Men for Others spirit when he threw the football back over the fence at the day care.

After practice, it was time for the Track Banquet. It was a great night of food, ice cream, good words, and awards. On the distance side of things the awards went as follows. Michael Callahan took the Most Improved award. To no one’s surprise, Austin Del Rosso won Rookie of the Year. Jacob Seiler received the 110% award. Kevin Abernathy and Alex Potter both got the Leadership Award. And Brian Scherping earned the Most Valuable Runner award.

Jacob who was also gets the unofficial T-bone All 8 Award as he ran for coach Traughber all eight seasons. This was the last Banquet for the Seiler family after a very long run with the DeSmet Cross Country and Track teams. We thank all five of them for everything they’ve brought to the program over all these years.

At the end the seniors took a few minutes to say some thank yous to the people that have made an impact on their time on the track team and at DeSmet as a whole. None of us could have done any of this without our families, friends, and coaches. You are all awesome! Also noteworthy was that senior Kevin Abernathy only talked for less than 4 minutes and 30 seconds (new PR!) much to the approval of the sophomore table in the back.

Title: Despite having the “Final Fling” the seniors are not done with their time at DeSmet. We will proudly wear our DeSmet jerseys this weekend at Lafayette with the goal of representing DeSmet at the State Meet. It was also a bit of the theme of the banquet—great season so far, but it’s far from over.