Metaphorically Speaking

Saturday night after I got home from work, I watched the movie Unbroken about Louis Zamperini. The beginning of the movie starts with a sequence with him as a child that ultimately ends up with his brother telling him "if you can take it, you can make it," which ends up being a major theme for the rest of the movie. Without spoiling too much that you couldn't figure out by googling his name, Louis ends up in a POW camp in Japan where he becomes the favorite subject of abuse by the sadistic prison camp commander.

In one of the final prison camp scenes, Louis, after injuring his leg, is forced to hold a rail road tie above his head. If he drops the tie, he gets shot. Basically, it's a rigged game of last man standing that is meant to be Zamperini's last. Louis, covered in coal and fatigued from two years of war and captivity holds the tie for what seems like hours. As the light of day changes from the mid afternoon to dusk, Louis's breaking point seems to be inevitable. The commander stares at him anxiously waiting for this thorn in his side to finally be shot and gotten rid of. Louis's fellow POW's all whisper their own words of encouragement, but expect this to be the last time they see him alive. However, something extraordinary happens. In an act of defiance, Zamperini looks the commander directly in his eyes (something he had been ruthlessly beaten for before), and raises the railroad tie well above his head, shouting the entire time.

During every race there is a moment when you don't feel like you can hold on anymore. Your legs burn, your lungs are working at full capacity, and your heart feels as if it will burst out of your rib cage. In this moment, a thought crosses your mind to give up in order to feel that ironic comfort in failure.

Don't. 

Act defiantly. Tell your body or your mind - which ever one wants to quit the most - "No!". Lift the railroad tie above your head and shout hysterically at your metaphorical commander and keep going.

Saturday was the first not great meet of the season. Guys showed up not wanting to race saying that they weren't ready or didn't feel recovered. It was disappointing, but in these moments when a team starts to fall a part, guys like Louis Zamperini emerge and kick some major butt.

PR'ing at Jefferson Barracks is a tough thing to do, but all of you who did or came close had an awe-inspiring day. 

Now that I got all these metaphors and comparisons out of the way, let's get to some results. 

Varsity started the day off at 8:30 and placed 8th, only 48 points from our goal of 4th. Joe Reed ran an incredible race, placing 11th overall with a time of 16:57.  Ruiz placed 29th with a time of 17:25, followed by O'Connor with a sore ankle in 36th with a time of 17:33. Neil Winter and Matt Woodford came in at 55th and 64th with times of 18:05 and 18:10 respectively. Huge Props to Neil Winter for PR'ing by 26 seconds on such a tough course. Sophomore Colin Donovan, despite a tough race and some frustrating workouts, came in with a strong 18:48 in 88th.

The Junior Varsity (freshmen combined) raced an hour later and placed an impressive 5th place. Patrick Sanchez led the JV with an impressive race, placing 22nd with a time of 18:56 (a significant PR). Nolan Shannon also had an impressive race, finishing in 25th and almost breaking that 19:00 barrier running 19:03. The next three scorers were Thomas Linhares finishing 55th with a time of 19:42, Tim Abbenhaus, finishing 61st with a time of 19:44, and Ralph Skitt finishing 65th with a time of 19:48. All of these guys listed above either set a PR or ran extremely close to one, which on this course, as stated above, is an impressive accomplishment. 

Full results are linked below:

Varsity: http://www.trxctiming.com/Hancock/2015_Results/boys_varsity_class_4.htm

Junior Varsity: http://www.trxctiming.com/Hancock/2015_Results/boys_jv_class_4.htm

DeSmet XC is back in action this Saturday in Jefferson City for the state preview meet. Stay tuned

-Adam Boehm

FPXC

“Last Saturday was one of the best times I have ever had at a meet”

–pretty much everyone

                The Forest Park invitational was one of those meets…… if you stuck around. Starting off the fantastic meet was the JV’s performance. They came in at a solid 14^th place, with many of them running PRs on a longer and harder course, headed by Patrick Sanchez, Andrew Smith, Thomas Linhares, Nolan Shannon, and Ralph Skitt. The Varsity coming in at 11^th was headed by me, Michael Ruiz Del Arbol Smith Cot Wilson Stein Malone, Tyler O‘Connor, Mathew Woodford, and Collin Donovan. The Freshmen had an amazing race. They came in at 6^th place headed by Teddy Weishaar, Nick Einig, Will Cramsey, Mathew James, and Joseph Moffatt. The whole team ran a competitive race, not just against runners in the area, but in the whole Midwest and farther!

                Running so competitively was a huge contribution to the buzz and excitement along with the nervousness and dread. What kept me motivated was the sheer excitement of what we were going to do after the race. PAINTING UP!  I could not get the thought out of my head. My mental approach to the race was, “The faster I run, the faster I get to paint up.” After we finished, we hurried back to the tent to see Nolan hidden in the trees making some sort of concoction. When he finally got the mix of red and black right, we all started to apply awesomeness to our bodies.

Beforehand we figured out who was what letter. Tyler was the D, Chris was an E, Michael Ruiz Del Arbol Smith Cotton Wilson Stein Malone was the S, Woodford was the M, Collin was another E, and Neil was the T, I of course was the most important Exclamation Point and painted my whole body maroon, Christian was a poser Spanish Exclamation Point, Nolan painted a Spartan on his chest, Juice (Justin McNeil) painted his whole front and had a white hand print, and Finally Nick looked like he was going to come out of the forest and kill me with a spear.

It was a very swell time cheering on the Freshman. Having already run a hard race, sprinting from one place to another made it even more memorable. This was an extraordinarily great idea from Mr. Coach Adam Boehm. The only downside was the crustiness after! Luckily it was washable paint so it was just a quick scrub to remove.

-Joe Reed

The Season Begins

**Note, this was supposed to be posted last week. A blog about Forest Park Cross Country Season will come soon.

**This post is written by Colin Donovan

To say that we started off our season well would be an understatement.

DeSmet Jesuit Cross Country began their season with the Fleet Feet Cross Country Kickoff at Parkway Central, and they did it in tremendous fashion.

The JV team started things off with fantastic showings all around, with Christian Weishaar, Teddy Weishaar, Patrick Sanchez, Kole Wetzler, Ralph Skitt, Andrew Smith, and Sal Alu scoring. With JV getting the impressive third place finish, they showed not only the depth of the team, but also started off the season the way they needed to: by competing.

The Varsity Top-10 followed up JV with an equally impressive race. Led by Joe Reed, Michael Ruiz del Arbol, Colin Donovan, Tyler O’Connor, Matt Woodford, Neil Winter, and Chris McNiel, the team received another third place finish behind the previous Class 3 and Class 4 state champions, Lafayette and Festus. With a very impressive 1-5 man split of only 36 seconds, the team showed that they could not only run together, but they could compete together. This was a giant success for the team and a definite sign of great things to come...

And come they did.

The following race came at the 42^nd Annual Granite City Invitational with three miles. The Varsity team started the day off this time, and they did it sensationally. Last year at this meet, the Varsity team could only run six people in the race due to injury, and they ended up with an average time of 17:15 that gave them an eighth place finish. Not bad, but the goal for this year was to improve, and we definitely did that. Running seven runners we improved our average time to 16:51, and we did it in much worse conditions than we had last year. Led by Joe Reed, Michael Ruiz del Arbol, Tyler O’Connor, Matt Woodford, and Neil Winter, the team got second place in a field of 30 teams, and they took home a nice trophy to show for it.

Normally at Granite City, DeSmet gets a chance to show off their best young prospects in a Freshman and Sophomore B/C race. This team was made up of Teddy Weishaar, Keegan Callahan, Nick Einig, Joseph Moffat, Tim Abbenhaus, Nick Riordan, and Henry Gloriod. They knew what time to get to the meet, and all of them prepared extremely well for it. But the JV team some attention, too. The JV race was originally scheduled for 10:30, but because of the heat, it was moved up and combined with the B/C race at 9:30. Nonetheless, they handled it like champs and dominated alongside their B/C teammates. The majority of these guys had run better than they had last year despite worse conditions and a rushed warm up.

In the end, the Granite City Invite was a huge success. It’s just another big sign of great things to come. Only two meets into the season, and already we’re experiencing great success. I know that I’m ready and excited for the rest of the season, and I hope you guys are too.

#gethype

-Colin Donovan

Up and Running Once Again

The Milk Table is back up and running once again. Many thanks to Alex Potter, Jacob Seiler and Kevin Abernathy for allowing me to resurrect this blog.
This might be a little bit longer of a post, but a lot has happened since Austin's last blog. So, let's get down to business.

Last year, as many of you know, we did not make it out of our District. It was a tough loss and a very tough district. Fortunately, Tyler Blechle (SR) and Micheal Ruiz Del Arbol (Smith Cotton Wilson) (SO), both made it to the Sectional meet and competed amazingly, but did not make it to State on their own.

Despite these setbacks during the Cross Country season, our sophomore-dominated team matured (just a little) and kicked some major butt in Track, led by then Senior, Nick Dolan. Our 4x800 team (Reed, Dolan, Ratz, Sherping) took 12th in a season best 8:13. Then sophomore stud, Joe Reed, ran both the 1600 and the 800, making him the first Spartan to compete in three distance events at State in over 15 years. Reed finished the 1600 in 15th place and 11th in the 800 with a time of 1:57. His 800 time was the fasted for De Smet since 2006.

We also had two other sophomores, Michael Ruiz Del Arbol (Smith Cotton Wilson) and Tyler O'Connor (SO), qualify for the sectional meet on their own as well. Ruiz qualified for both the 1600 and the 3200, while Tyler qualified for the 3200.

Now we get to the juicy stuff. All those sophomores who were doing some pretty amazing things are now Juniors, and, for once, had an outstanding summer of training. Not to mention, we have a soon-to-be-stud sophomore class led by Collin Donovan.
Both time trials were amazing compared to the last seasons, and the guys ran the alumni run like they never got out of racing shape from track. Reed and Donovan both ran PRs, and Ruiz and O'Connor almost matched theirs.

The top 10 for De Smet's opener meet (Fleet Feet at Parkway Central) are listed below, as well as their times from the 1.4 mile time trial.

Reed (JR) 7:31
Ruiz (JR) 7:31
O'Connor (JR) 7:31
Donovan (SO) 7:35
Woodford (JR) 7:43
McNiel (JR) 7:45
Winter (JR) 7:47
Plassmeyer (JR) 7:50
Linhares (SR) 8:09
Riordan (SO) 8:13

Honorable Mention - Up to the 14th man
K. Callahan (SO) 8:21
T Weissaar (FR) 8:24
Sanchez (JR) 8:34
Abbenhaus (SO) 8:36

Not only were the times pretty fast, but the Juniors led the way. These next two years are going to be fun, so buckle up.

**Alumni, please, please, please show up to meets and practices when you can. If you do show up and want to write a blog post, let me know. The goal of this blog is twofold: to get the guys excited about how amazing their team can be, and to connect them to the tradition that YOU helped create.


-Adam Boehm

Forest Park Conference Action

      Today, the JV and Freshmen teams departed off to Castlewood Park (greatest park ever) to run in the Patriot Classic Meet. Coach Williams (@DeSmetTrackXC) tweeted after the meet that junior Nick Trunko PR'ed and broke the 18 minute barrier! Congrats to him. Full results will be posted at some point in the future, most likely the next post.

       While they were racing in Castlewood, the leftover runners ran a fartlek workout on the track at DeSmet. The workout was 200 easy, 100 hard x 12, making it nine laps in total. This was our first sprint workout of the season, and it will hopefully help us find the extra gear we need later in the postseason. After the workout, Coach Boehm lead us on a nice and easy stoplight cool down. After we got back, we had circuit weight training for the second time of the week, which basically means the cross country team took over the weight room. Coach Albes, Mahood, and Boehm oversaw the workout to make sure no one hurt themselves. After a quick core and stretching routine, a chocolate milk was well deserved by everyone.

       There was a fairly important meet this past Saturday, very important actually, and it was the MCC Championship at Forest Park. Once again, all three of our teams took second in the meet to SLUH. We did have numerous great individual performances, though.

       In the freshmen race, DeSmet's first finisher was Eric Boland who came in 3rd, and Nathan Bira also had a top ten finish with his 7th place. 

       In the JV race, Glen McGann, Nick Dolan, Matt Barkofske, Justin Potter, and Blake Waters all earned top ten honors. Glen finished 2nd with a sub 17:30 PR. You know what that means...new hat! 

       In the varsity, Austin and Collin both made the top ten, and Michael Callahan dropped a big PR of 17:12! Stephen Plassmeyer and Patrick Callahan also broke 17:30 earning a hat! That would make it a total of five hats earned this season with more to come.

Start of the Varsity MCC Race

          I appreciate you reading the blog, I wish you a wonderful day!

One, Two, Three Meet Recap

       I apologize for the blog's drought. Since the last post, the Spartans have ran in three meets, so hopefully this will be a thrilling post to read.

       Up first......Hazelwood East Invitational. For De Smet, the JV and Freshman teams ran, and they both blew away the field in this 4k race. 

       On the JV side, Scott Peetz (junior) lead the way to a team win with an individual victory of his own. The JV runners completed the sweep and perfect score of 15 with all top 7 finishers in the race being Spartans.

       For the freshmen, it was a very similar result as the JV team. Nathan Bira was the race winner and four more De Smet runners followed him to complete another perfect score of 15. This was a great showing for De Smet. Solid work.

       Next race......Rim Rock Farm XC Classic. The top 12 runners on the team were offered the opportunity to race at this huge meet. After a six hour car ride through the exciting state of Kansas, the team finally arrived at the usual Super 8 for the night, just outside Lawrence. In the morning, we headed to Rim Rock Farm. We were greeted by the alums Alex Potter, Drew Higgins, Jacob Seiler, and Nick Martini, who all came to cheer us on. Thank you to them! The conditions were prime, and we were ready to race. Almost everyone ran their best times. Collin Sullivan smashed the 17 minute barrier with his 16:38, and Michael Callahan PR'd with a 17:24. These performances both earned them the coveted "17:30 hat." Glen McGann and Patrick Callahan rolled in next just missing the mark with a pair of 17:35's. Those 5 seconds will surely drop off. Also, junior Stephen Plassmeyer made his return back from his injury and ran the same time as his personal best from before! Expect to see him dropping major time. The team ran spectacular as a whole which paved the way for a happy drive back to St. Louis. Good job to everyone who made it an exciting day with all of the fast times. And one last thing, the mound was due for a visit. This called for the annual shirtless picture.

Job well done, The Mound.

       And the most previous race......Parkway West Invitational at Living Word Church. There were four different races (Varsity, JV, Sophomore, Freshman) at Living Word Church, which was unknown territory. It was not liked very much after the race due to the many sharp turns and scattered mud. This meet had many of the highest ranked schools in Missouri, which made it an important and challenging meet. The Freshman team placed 8th out of sixteen teams lead by Eric Boland coming in 11th place. The Sophomore team came in 7th out of ten teams as Nick Dolan grabbed the 12th place spot. The JV team captured 2nd place out of eighteen teams with Andrew Hubbard's 5th place effort. Justin Potter also turned in a top 10 finish. Finally, the varsity team took 7th place out of twenty-one teams. Overall, this was not the strongest De Smet has looked this year with the exception of the JV team and some individual performances, but we will take what we learned and use it for next meet.

      This Saturday, October 6th, is the MCC Championship at Forest Park. The varsity race is first at 9 a.m. on the Central Fields. The JV and freshmen will follow. If you aren't busy, feel free to come and watch!

                                   After a long wait, thank you for reading.

       

Parkway Central Round 2

       Today the team met at DeSmet at 8 a.m. for a long run. Once again, we ran to Malcolm Terrace Park for some loops. It was chilly this morning as Coach Albes, Boehm, Mahood, and Schumacher lead the groups out to the roads. When we got to Malcolm, Coach Williams and Russo were at the usual park table with the water waiting for us. The three top groups were sure to hit the assigned paces after the outcome of the meet last Thursday, which is described later. The park trails were just a little damp from the previous rain, but the temperatures stayed down which was a nice. This could possibly be the end of the 90 degree days. Fall is in sight.

       Last Thursday was the Parkway Central Invitational. The race was held on the Central course, which will be our district and sectional course again this year. The freshman 2.4 mile race was first up, and the young Spartans did not disappoint. They captured 2nd place out of ten teams with the top five De Smet finishers being Eric Boland, Nathan Bira, Harry Reinagel, Sean Geimer, and Adam Craig. Congrats to the freshman!
       Next race, the varsity 5k, did not turn out as well as the freshman race did. The team took 4th out of 14 schools. Our goal was to win the meet, which was very possible if we ran well, but we could not put it together this meet. Collin Sullivan turned in the team's best performance with a 13th place finish. The team will take this as something to learn from and use it as motivation for next week at Rim Rock.
     The JV race was the final race. These guys really showed up to run. Out of the 13 participating teams, they came in first! Outstanding performances across the board: Patrick Callahan (2nd), Justin Potter (3rd), Jimmy Reed (5th), Andrew Hubbard (14th), and Mason Bracken (17th). This was a dominant performance by all of the JV runners.

Justin Potter, Patrick Callahan, Andrew Hubbard, and Jimmy Reed (1 step behind out of the picture) leading the race

       Thank you for reading and have a great rest of the weekend.