YES

After 3 "specialists", 3 physical therapists, 100 hours (minimum) on the elliptical, and a missed season, I think I have found the solution.


The day after State, I signed up for 24 hour fitness. Coach Williams and I talked a lot about how swimming laps is a very similar workout to running, without the impact. I found myself back to 24 about 5 hours after I registered for my first swim. I was anxious.

A few weeks later, the pain was not getting better. My parents, coaches, and I decided it was time to turn to doctor number 4. We decided Dr. Michael Murphy would be the lucky one to get a shot at the back that no one knew what was wrong. Dr. Murphy is different than the other three in that he is a chiropractor. He is the official chiropractor of the Rams and the Blues. He helped running back Malcolm Agnew with his hamstrings earlier in the football season. Dr. Murphy has pictures in his office of people he has helped. Everyone from Marc Bulger, Chris Pronger, Bruce Springsteen, and Eric Fernandez (Parkway West 2008) who seemed to not be able to be fixed, and just competed in Nationals with Arkansas.

Dr. Murphy isolates specific spots on my back, while his assistant moves my arms and legs around. He's good at finding the right spots, so it hurts, in a good way. He think I have muscle strains. But since this has been going on for years, it will take more than a few visits to work them out. He then pops my back in 3 or 4 different positions, and that feels awesome. He thinks he can fix my back, and surprisingly I believe him.

I will start a workout plan in the middle of December that will be made up high intensity, low volume runs and some pool stuff. Dr. Murphy ran a 1:50 800 back in the day after never running more than 4 miles in practice. Hopefully I can make it through May.

Spcial thanks to T Bone and Coach Williams for spening a ton of time on my back.

Head to the Polls

Dear Milk Table Followers (Readers),

As hopefully all of you know the Milk Table is hosting an end of season party that will include an award ceremony. Because you are a follower (reader) of this esteemed blog you have a vote.

You can vote on 4 different awards:

• Followers’ Choice: Outstanding Senior,
• Followers’ Choice: Outstanding Junior
• Followers’ Choice: Outstanding Sophomore
• Followers’ Choice: Outstanding Freshmen

Pick one member of the class for each award. It is okay to vote for just one class or all four. That’s up to you.

The Milk Table considers ”outstanding” to be an athlete who exemplifies the Milk Table. In essence, it is someone who lives the blog and its values. The Milk Table has six central values: Having Fun, Fellowship/Team Spirit, Running Fast, Improving/Growing, Looking Good, and Preserving Memories.

There are a four ways to cast your vote:

1. Email your votes to milktable@gmail.com
2. Email your votes me at kabernathy@desmet.org
3. Text your votes to me at (314) 630-4836
4. Send your votes to me in a facebook message

Select one of these four methods. Please DO NOT comment your vote. All votes must be in by Thursday, November 18th at 9:30pm central time.

Thanks,
Kabes

p.s. The Party is Friday, November 19th at noon at DeSmet. See you there!

Hay! NXN Midwest Regional

I left my house at 6:50 Sunday morning with my day and Coach Traughber for the last race of my high school career. It was a three hour trip to Terre Haute, Indiana to run on the Lavern Gibson Championship XC Course. We arrived at 11 so that I could pick up my race packet. For participating in the race Nike game me a sweet winter hat. I, just like about all the other kids, wore it for my warm-up.

Potter asked me some questions about the race:

How did driving down the morning of the race effect your preparations?Going down the day of forced me to wake up a little early and it put us at the course three hours early. That extra time worked out as the three of us walked most of the course to check out what it had to offer. With a later race time I had to eat two meals before the race which is different but I handled that well.

Did you look around for familiar faces when you were standing on the line, did you race with any Missouri guys?I did look around before the race but didn’t see anyone I knew expect Billy Leighton who was in the same box as me (3 of 52). I remember watching Billy win the middle school 3k at Cape Notre Dame 2 years ago and I’ve seen him at Frostbite. During last K of the race, I saw and passed a couple familiar people: Ethan Lambert of Eureka, Jordan Cook of Rock Bridge, and Joe Meyer of SLUH. Didn’t really race with any of them but picked from the crowd and then picked them off. I talked with fellow Missouri Jesuit High School’s number 1 runners after the race: Tim Rackers from SLUH and Zach Herriott from Rockhurst.

How did the course play to your strengths and weaknesses?
In general the course was just fast. I went out in 5:01 without it feeling any faster because the first mile is straight and flat with one decent downhill. I thought the four sets of haybails were a strength for me as I made surges at them and got over them easily. The nice flat finish was great and really allowed me to have a big kick. The weakness was just the huge field (359 racers). I didn’t get out crazy so I had a bunch of guys to pass. I was passing guys during the 2nd mile but didn’t realize that pace had slowed down a lot.

Did you change your strategy at all from state?
Not really. I just did what I always do. I got a bit faster but that was just because that’s the way this course ran. I knew I was going to be able to run a really good last mile since there weren’t the hills like State.Happy with the PR?
Soooo Happy! No better way to end the season. And it was great to get some guys that got me at State (Lambert, Wilfong, & Cook).

What’s next?
TRACK! But first taking some days off which should be nice considering I’ve ran 49 days straight and 97 of the last 98 days. Then looking to have a big offseason to get ready for what will be an even bigger track season. I’ve got some important goals I want to reach. Oh yeah, and BLOG PARTY on Friday—it’s going to be awesome!

It was an incredible day. I had an absolute blast. I was so happy that I was able to share it with my dad and T-Bone. The event and race were really cool and a whole lot of fun. It was an awesome way to end an awesome season. Thank you to everyone who made it so amazing and memorable.

Final Preparations

Yesterday I ran an easy 40 minutes out and back from my house. Then I did a 4x200 at mile pace to test the gears for Sunday. Today, I had the typical pre-meet practice except I wasn’t on the course. I ran 4 miles then got a real good stretch in.

Tomorrow morning I’ll leave at around 6:45 with my dad and Coach Traughber. We have to be in Terre Haute by 11:30 (Eastern Time) to get my number and stuff. The race isn’t until 2:15 so I will have plenty of time to check out the course and get warm-uped. The forecast looks good: upper 40s, low 50s, mostly sunny, probably about 53 at race time.

In keeping with how we’ve done things all year Potter sent me some questions.

Last week, you raced against a huge field. This week will be even bigger, is there anything to change from last week?
Yeah, there are supposed to be over 350 kids racing in the Championship Race so it will be packed. I’m going to try and run my race. Get out smart, probably a little faster than last week, then compete the rest of the way and pass as many guys as I can. I just have to be very aware of where I am the whole time and be sure to not get caught in the wrong pack. I’m going to look for some familiar faces like the Everetts and Lambert so I have a feel of where I am. With it being a flat course I’m going to try and run a faster second mile because there aren’t all the hills to worry about in the third like State. I’m ready. I’m excited.

What does it mean to you to be able to race against the best from many different states?
It’s really special. To think back to my humble beginning in the DeSmet XC program as a sophomore and to be in a race like this against great runners. It’s incredible. And besides the guys from the other States its cool to be able to race from the Missouri guys another time, too. I can’t wait. It’s going to be an awful lot of fun.


Do you know what to expect from the course at all?
Well, I know it’s the same location as the National Championship this year, so that’s pretty cool. I’ve checked out the course map and a preview video from MileSplit. It’s all wide open grass that reminds me a bit of the first part of Rim Rock. What’s makes the Laverne Gibson Cross Country Course different is that it’s flat for the most part. And flat means fast, especially the first mile. I think Boyle might have ran there earlier in the year with Maryville so I might try to talk to him tomorrow and get some thoughts. The preview showed haybails, which would be awesome!!

Runny Hall

When the season started to wind down, Coach Traughber starting getting more runs in. That meant he’d go run during Period 7 leaving Scherping and I alone in 204 for study hall. Today was a block day with Period 7 right in the middle. Perfect for a run? Oh yeah!

So Dr. Klug, Coach Traughber, and I went out for a run. On the doctor’s order we did a reverse Greaser. It’s been a long time since I have done a reverse anything, so it was cool. It was different to be out running during the middle of the day like that and I enjoyed it. Dr. Klug dropped out at 5 miles and T-bone and I went another two with some laps on the track and an E2E. I just in time for last lunch, ate and then went to AP Gov like it was any other day. But I won’t forget today. Today I ran during school.

In the News: On MileSplit there was a story about friend of the Milk Table, Krista Menghini. You should check it out; it’s a great story. And she gave an awesome shout out to fellow Blogmaster, Alex Potter. Potterman is mentioned in the “November 5, 2010 10:45pm Friday” section for the help he gave Krista. Truly a Man for Others—Way to go Potter! And congratulations to Krista for her incredible weekend.

Quote of the Day: “You always seem to take me on the worst runs.”- T-bone to Dr. Klug. They were talking about a winter run from some years ago when there was, as Dr. Klug recalls, “a wind chill of -17.” An exaggeration but that was just one of the many rough runs these two have shared.

Title: A play on Study Hall.

Be sure to read yesterday's post and the State Trip post. They were just added.

And I'm liking the comments!

Army of One

It’s not the same without all of you. Today, I ran to Conway Park for my 5k workout. It was a little lonely. Part of the time it was the good, peaceful kind of lonely. The other part was the “wow I wish someone else was here” kind of lonely.

I asked some guys where they thought I should go for the workout before I left DeSmet. The options became Malcolm, Des Pres, Conway, or the track. I decided to stay with my original thought and go to Conway. We started the 5k workouts at Conway so I had to go back there to finish it off.

The workout was 800 repeats on short rest. It was quite the battle. I was completely alone. Yes, I’ve run other workouts by myself, but it was really different without anyone at all there. It’s amazing how much seeing your teammates out there doing the same workout and hearing words of encouragement from coaches helps in a workout. That’s something that can often be taken for granted. In no way was it easy, but I bared down and fought through. I wasn’t right on pace, but still got quality 5k work in. Ready to rock in Terre Haute on Sunday.

I missed you guys on the way back. It was weird to run hard and then not have a good talk on the cool down. When I got back I had flat sprints. It was once again so nice out and I took advantage by doing the sprints barefoot on the turf. Just another solid day at the office.

Title: I chose that because it was what I was thinking about during the workout. I was out there fighting all on my own. But the one man army prevailed.

Under the Crescent

NXN Training Day 2. Today, I had to get my license renewed so I did a solo evening run. It was great. The weather was absolutely fantastic and running in the dark is so cool. I brought my iPod, Isabella, along for the run. We rocked for 45 minutes to a solid mix.

I had a special moment on my run today. I was running in my neighborhood and I thought about all the hours and miles I had spent all these streets thinking about being All State. It was pretty amazing to finally be out there running those same streets as All State runner. The pure joy of achievement.

I spent some of my other time thinking about all people outside of the team (not runners, alums, or parents) who have reading the blog this year. It’s cool and I thank them. The girlfriends like Katie and Jessica. A fellow All Stater Krista Menghini from S.J.A. The DeSmet teachers. And all the others.

The date for the Milk Table’s Cross Country Party & Awards has been set. It will be Friday the 19th since we are off school. It will be at DeSmet but we’d don’t have a time yet. It will be like the one we had after track: we’ll eat, hang out, play games, and give of the Milk Table Awards. All are invited to attend. Stay tuned for more details.

Milk Table Shout Out to Glen McGann who was back at school on Monday after missing two weeks. Glen even ended up in the hospital for a couple days with pneumonia. It was great to see him back at school and feeling healthy.

Quote of the Day: “Good, btw, you are still ALL STATE!” then “Enjoy that feeling, it is something special, I am honored to be a part of it.”- Coach Traughber’s texts to me after my run.

Check out the new stuff that has been put up in the last two days if you haven’t already:
Last Wednesday- Practice
Last Friday- State Trip It's not done yet. I'll get it up tomorrow.
Saturday- State Meet
Monday- Kabes’ Practice
State Week Pictures on Facebook

Leave some comments!!