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
