Below is the second installment of VMI's track and field/cross country blog, "Tales From The Track". The first year's updates can be accessed at the link to the left of this page.
Entry Four - Jennifer Fazioli - October 25
For our fourth race of the season and the last one prior to the conference championships, we returned to Appalachian State for the Blue Ridge Open. This was a good way to test how much progress our athletes had made over the course of the last 6-7 weeks, since our opener there on August 30th. With few exceptions, every single one of them had progressed to the point of taking anywhere from 20 seconds to a full two minutes off their times from the initial race. To see that type of advancement is both rewarding and encouraging to me as their coach, and should give both of us confidence headed into our conference meet.
The field was much larger this time than last with nearly 30 teams entered in each race. We had settled on a similar race strategy to the previous three races: a conservative approach early based on pack running and then trying to push the pace down at about midpoint through the race, attempting to pick as many people off as possible. However, what quickly became evident in the women's race was that this was not a viable plan or at least one that wouldn't prove to be as effective as if the women had more room to run. Hannah and Dalton, who had worked so well together in the past, quickly lost each other in the pack of 250 + runners and never found their rhythm, having to weave their way around athletes from other teams that were rapidly dying in front of them.
Hannah was out quicker than we had anticipated in 5:55 for the mile and still found herself behind two thirds of the field. In hindsight I should have had them go out faster than usual and then, once clear of the field with room to run, settle in. However, every single woman that raced was markedly faster than last time they raced at the App State course in August so there were definitely some positives to be taken from this race. In fact, Kelly Russell ran two minutes better than she had previously and looked far more energetic and her form more composed. Even struggling with a shoulder injury that we are in the process of diligently rehabbing, Hannah Best was a minute quicker than the earlier meet. Dalton has been dealing with some 'dead legs' in her past few workouts and long runs. Overall, the women seem to be rounding into form as conference rapidly approaches.
The men's results were even more encouraging as they were able to place 7th in the field of 28 teams, finishing only seven points behind one of our biggest conference rivals, High Point University. Based on what I witnessed with the women, I amended my race plan for the men and encouraged them to be aggressive in the early parts of the race. I was hoping to see just how assertive they could be early in the race and not have it impact them later in the race (i.e. having no drive or energy to finish strong). They went out quick; in fact Avery and Sean were in the top 20 early and went through the first mile in 4:45, certainly faster than advisable in a regular race, but this was the time to experiment in order to determine just how aggressive they could be without crossing the line (once over “the line” there is no recovery during the course of the race). Neither of them were hugely affected by the quick open mile, especially relative to the rest of the field with Avery maintaining his positioning throughout. Cabell and Patrick started a bit behind those two and made up ground as they went. Though Cabell would run over 30 seconds faster than he did on this course in August, I think he was a bit discouraged since it was 20 seconds slower than he had run here at this time last season. He and I discussed and we both agreed that the amount of sleep (or lack thereof) he had been getting the past 2 weeks while working on his thesis and application for the Rhodes Scholar was really wearing him down.
Patrick continued his torrid pace of improvement in his racing and took nearly a minute off his time since August – he has found a method that works for him and has executed it to perfection each race this season. Luke Phillips, though only a rat, has quietly stepped up as my 5th man the past two races and every time I saw him on the course I let him know he needed to move up closer to the top four. Heeding my calls, he picked up 10 men in the last half mile alone. His improvement will be big for us at conference. Will Thompson continues his return to form although I think he may have more of an impact for us at NCAA Regionals rather than at conference; right now he is serving as an excellent mentor to Luke and Brandon White, guiding them through workouts and races.
My original goal for the men was third at conference, but after seeing them race this past weekend I am not ruling out the possibility of potentially sneaking in for second place. It will be difficult and maybe not fully realistic with such a young roster but I don't see a problem with encouraging the men to aim high.They have not demonstrated any nerves or overanxious behavior which would cause them to go out too hard early in a race and then die due to a 'rah-rah' type speech that does not often work in endurance races. This group is focused and prepared as we head into the final stretch for the Big South Conference Championships.
Entry Three - Jennifer Fazioli - October 7
Our third competition of the 2013 XC season was a quick turnaround following our home invitational on the 21st. Both teams would get right back at it the following weekend on September 28th at the Charlotte Invitational at McAlpine Park in North Carolina. While certainly not the ideal scenario, considering they had just raced the week before on a very difficult hilly course, which had the potential to beat up their legs and bodies, the majority seemed to handle it well. The men especially seemed to relish the idea of heading to a relatively flat and fast course. I was pleasantly surprised that no one came out of our home meet overly sore and we were able to enjoy a solid week of training leading up to Charlotte.
Because I am still trying to determine where the back end of our men's team will fit into our conference plans, I chose to race 10 again to get a better feel of where some athletes are in their training and racing. However we were only permitted to race 7 in the championship race, meaning the other 3 men would be relegated to the secondary race. While in theory, times should be easy to compare as they were racing the same course, in reality they are racing under two vastly different scenarios making it difficult to fully judge where they might have ended up if they had all been competing in the same race.
In any case I was very pleased with how the men ran in the championship race, finishing 4th out of 27 teams and only 9 points out of 2nd place. The spread from 1 to 5 was just over a minute, actually increasing since the week before. Yet the spread from 1 to 4 was only 25 seconds which is encouraging. Runners 5-7 were only 3 seconds apart, meaning one of those three (Luke Phillips, Brandon White, or Danny DeNijs) will have to step up in the coming weeks in order to narrow that gap. Even more so than the week before, each group (1-4 and 5-7) managed to pack run for the first half of the race before breaking off and starting the real racing. I truly believe the more they can employ this tactic the better they will race.
Avery Martin had his best cross country race to date and looked strong through the finish, employing his track speed to move up into the top 10 individuals. I think this race will give him even more confidence going forward as we work to keep him healthy. Cabell and Sean would finish together after spending virtually the entire race going back and forth, and Patrick continued his strategy of starting more conservatively behind the main group and working his way up to them by the conclusion of the race. This time that approach led him to a significant PR. Luke, Brandon, and Danny did not separate from each other until the last 200 meters of the race, a living representation of what true pack running looks like. Danny was injured for the majority of the summer with shin problems and did not start training until mid-August, so I was particularly delighted to see him rounding into form so quickly.
There was some added “excitement” during the men's race, as sometime around the middle of their race I realized I had lost my phone racing around the course to see them and had no idea where or when I had dropped it. Luckily after the race we discovered that someone had picked it up and I was able to retrieve it at that time. Lesson learned: do not run with your cell phone in an unzipped pocket.
Jacob Lysher, Will Thompson and Zach Chase would run together in the next race. Though they were able to settle in and run together early (with even splits) I do think there was somewhat of a mental let down after having to watch the other men race before them, and not being able to be in that same type of competitive atmosphere. However, there were many positives to take from this race: Will continues a steady progression down in time, running nearly a minute faster than at Appalachian State the month before on what I would equate as a similar course. After having been away from training and the team since the previous October with Marine obligations, he is once again rounding into racing shape. Jake is getting his first real taste of cross country racing and seems to be doing well with it, even after falling off Will he continued to race and finish strongly. He was reading “Running with the Buffaloes” on the trip down and it seems to have made him energized by the idea of long distance aerobic training. Zach had a solid effort, but is struggling a bit with the effects of the rat line and having to modify his diet around Crozet's 'meal plan.' We are working to get him a more balanced nutritional plan so that his weight stays steady and he is properly fueled to race and train.
The women's race went much like the weekend before with some strong performances up front but some better efforts needed from the back end. Dalton Kuhar and Hannah Dickinson repeated their race strategy of each doing the work for a mile of the race and then, upon hitting 2 miles evaluating where they are, and then starting to race. The largest difference was that this week's meet was a 6k instead of a 5k but because they both have such a solid base the additional distance did not faze them. They remained together until 600 to go when Dalton used the last uphill to pull away, with Hannah running over 2 minutes faster than she did on this course at last year's NCAA regional meet. Their progression forward is aided by the efforts of the other and they are truly well-matched training partners. Yet another great effort by Molly Western gave us a solid top 3. Casey Clune, our walk on, had a bit of a break through as well and has improved on lifting her knees more when racing. Now we just need to work on having her keep her head steady and up when racing. Our other rat, Kelly Russell, struggled a bit this week and did not race to her potential as she was dealing with an ailing calf and with a bit of a head cold. Even though I usually encourage my athletes to evaluate their races in terms of what they could have done better in order to better prepare for their next race, I believe if she is able to throw this race out, and just move on to focusing on getting healthy, and recovering it will be better for her in the long run. I would also like to see my 4-7 runners race together a bit more so that they are pushing each other.
Overall, we came out of Charlotte with all still healthy and no one the worse for wear; always important when you travel and race on back to back weekends. We will now begin the process of preparing for another meet at Appalachian State in 3 weeks, allowing us to put in 3 weeks of substantive training that is essential to our performance at the conference championships. All things considered, we are moving in the right direction.
Editor's note: The team results from the men's championship race vary from what is listed in the statistics page due to a variance in FlashResults.com's reporting.
Entry Two - Jennifer Fazioli - September 30
Our second meet of the 2013 XC season was at our home invitational, which took on great importance because it would serve as the preview meet for the conference championship meet course. Originally scheduled to be held at the Virginia Horse Center, as all of our home meets have been for the last decade or so, I discovered in April, when calling to confirm the dates that the Horse Center would not be available to us on the date of the conference championships. After some scrambling and uncertainty of whether we would still be able to host the meet without a readily suitable venue to do so, we finally came to an agreement with the Vista Links Golf Course in Buena Vista to stage both the preview and the conference meet there. Coach Webb and I spent a great deal of time during the late spring and summer months constructing a course that could best be described as “extremely difficult” and at worst as “torturous.” Set over all rolling and steep grassy hills, it was not meant to serve as a place to PR. Certainly no one would be even approaching their respective 8K and 5K cross country personal bests.
It was under these circumstances that we staged the VMI Invitational on Saturday, September 21st and invited all conference schools to participate. In the past preview meets usually attract about half of all conference schools and as such I was expecting a maximum of 5 or 6 to show up. Instead we ended up with 9 women's teams and 8 men's teams (including VMI) from the conference registering to race. The course's reputation preceded itself apparently and many teams and coaches were anxious to see just how difficult the terrain would be. There would be no home field advantage for the VMI Keydets, however, as we were unable to close the course to the golfers that were using it during our practice time. Our own athletes would see the course for the first time during the course inspection time the day prior to the meet just as all the other teams would.
In preparation, I had been sure to incorporate plenty of hill training in both their daily training and workouts as well as in their weight room exercises. All members of our staff along with several volunteers spent the day before the meet setting up the course including flagging, marking, measuring, mowing, etc. all of which is usually done for a regular cross country meet over the course of a week, but had to be done in a condensed time frame owing to the fact that the course could only be closed for a limited timeframe due to its regular usage as an actual golf course.
As I mentioned the course was not constructed to produce track-like times and it definitely did not do so. For the men the winning time was 26:12 and most of our top athletes were in the 27-28 minutes, at least 90 seconds slower than they would run in a typical 8k. However, they ended up finishing 4th following the three teams that we finished behind at the 2012 Big South Championship meet: Liberty, High Point, and Campbell. I considered it a solid performance and about where I expected them to be for a September meet that was still 6 weeks out from conference. Plenty of quality training time and then tapering to be had in that span to meet my goal for the team of a top 3 team finish. What I appreciated was that they were beginning to buy in to the benefits of pack running. In fact our gap between our first and fifth runner was only 50 seconds, which could prove quite essential come conference time. We need to continue to work on this particular aspect of racing as a true team so that the entire pack moves up as a whole at conference.
I also found that, just as last year, several of our rats are ready to step up early in their VMI careers and we will count on several of them to fuel our top 7. Luke Phillips is putting his Blacksburg roots and extensive hill training to good use and is a constant presence as our 6th and 7th man while Brandon White, a walk on from Ohio, has been a true revelation in only a few short weeks with the team – he clearly put in the summer training necessary to succeed at this level. Our top 4 of Cabell Willis, Sean Helmke, Avery Martin, and Patrick Spahn continue to be interchangeable on any given day and are all capable of leading this team in their own way. Cabell is training through all of these early meets with the goal of peaking for conference and NCAA regionals and has accepted the fact that he won't be at his best right now, but will when it counts. Patrick has charted his own course and has made a conscious decision to start every race more conservative and move up gradually over the course of the race; meaning no late collapses or floating (or what we refer to as the “Patrick fish face” when he's sucking air at the end of a race!).
The women, as a team, bring a bit more uncertainty for me and this race was no different. I know that I have a solid top two in Dalton Kuhar and Hannah Dickinson, both of whom have shown drastic improvements with each workout and race. They work extremely well together, each one taking control of a mile a piece for the first part of the race to help aid the other and then taking off from there. Dalton got plenty of hill (and altitude) work in this past summer training in Utah and it shows. And they both were able to run significantly faster than they did 3 weeks prior at Appalachian State despite racing on a much more difficult course. I continue to be impressed by Molly Western's efforts despite dealing continuously with various hamstring and Achilles issues that have caused us to resort to cross training her on non-workout and race days. It is paying off and she is racing strongly and has settled in as our number 3 runner. The back end of our women's team will have to make an effort to race up with Molly if we are to score in the top half at conference, something they are certainly capable of.
For the most part we received positive feedback from the other coaches following the conclusion of the meet, although all were amazed at the difficulty of the course. Nothing quite prepares you for it until you witness it yourself….quite similar to VMI's ratline. There are some minor adjustments and improvements that we will discuss and make in the coming weeks in preparation for the conference championships, but overall, I felt that we put on a good meet and represented the Big South Conference well. Certainly the manager at Vista Links appreciates now what it takes to put on a cross country meet and is better prepared for the next time. Without his help and the aid of his staff the meet wouldn't have been possible. As the last team to host a Big South Championship before we move to the Southern Conference, I think that we will do VMI proud.
Entry One - Jennifer Fazioli - September 3
The first meet of the 2013 VMI XC season seemed to arrive quickly this year. It seems like I just barely got the rats on Post and through matriculation week, before it was time to travel to our first meet of the year. Ideally, I was hoping to find an under-distance race, especially for the men, but the quality (and quantity) of the meets this early was limited, and Appalachian State always puts on a good meet so…..Appalachian State it was. I went in without any preconceived notions on the men's side as it was especially difficult after only one real workout and a time trial to know how any of the rats would adjust to racing an 8K – emphasis on 'racing' the distance and not just 'finishing' one. But I came away pleasantly surprised.
Cabell Willis led the way for the men, a not so surprising development for the men, as his summer training was the best he has experienced during his time at VMI. It looked smooth and easy and he was able to tempo the first couple of miles before cutting down his pace to finish strong. He recovered so well that by Sunday he was able to get in a 2+ hour progressive long run without any difficulties or lingering effects from the race. Patrick Spahn, a 3rd classman, wasn't too far behind him and had definitely taken his own step forward this summer. Patrick's race only validated what his few early workouts have shown me, namely that Patrick would be a key contributor to this team this year and rarely will I struggle to see him finish races at the same pace he started them at as he had last year. He looks much stronger this year and is running more carefree and pressing less (a fact he verified after the race when he confided that he believes the mental and physical pressure from the ratline got to him last year and negatively affected his performance).
Avery Martin continues to develop his distance prowess and his biggest hurdle will be to maintain his health. He has been dealing with hip/glute tightness due to weak hamstrings that requires him to constantly be stretched and adjusted, and the treatment and strengthening of which is a full time workout in and of itself. After struggling through his initial workouts this season and experiencing some 'heavy legs,' Sean Helmke looked back to his normal self during this race and demonstrated the patience early in the race that was lacking last year. Sean also must adjust his mental outlook to reflect the fact that he started his summer buildup later than most and thus will not be in top form as early as last year; certainly a benefit come conference time.
I was perhaps most amazed at the performance of Zach Chase and Max Midkiff, both of whom had just completed the rigors of matriculation week 5 days prior to the competition. This was not due to the fact that I didn't believe that they were capable of racing an 8K well; only that they were able to do so this soon. In particular, I had recruited Max primarily as a mid-distance athlete and fully intended to use the cross country season as a strengthening phase for him with the focus towards the indoor and outdoor seasons. However, this first race has me re-thinking that strategy as he clearly is going to contribute to our team success during the cross season. Conversely, I had felt that Zach would be able to step up this year but again not this early. His toughness was further demonstrated, when I discovered after the race that he had forgotten his racing spikes and had to borrow a pair of Max's, wearing them without socks and incurring 4-5 blisters over his feet, heels, and toes where the skin had literally rubbed away – a rookie mistake that I am sure he will never repeat!
Encouraging as well was senior Will Thompson's race as Will had spent 5 weeks immersed in Marine training which did not permit him to train for the cross season beyond the occasional PFT. He only had had 2 weeks of running under his belt at race time and I threw him into the race last minute so that he would at least get in a tempo effort and get the feel for a race again (he also graciously offered to lead the rats as well during the early stages of the race to ensure that they did not go out too fast). The race hardly took anything out of him and he will be in our top 5 within another month. The absence of Hartnel Paultre, who should be in our top 3, was also felt. HP has been dealing with a tight and inflamed IT band issues since just prior to the start of our training camp, 3 weeks ago. He has been diligently cross training and should be back soon.
The women's team did not perform as well as a whole as the men did. On the women's side we are lacking depth right now. We have a total of 8 women on the team, only 6 of whom are healthy so it doesn't leave a lot of 'wiggle room' if one or two women do not race up to expectations. That being said I am looking as this past week's meet as an opportunity to 'get their feet wet' and as a learning experience for all involved. The winning team, Florida State, occupied the top 7 spots and has consistently been a top 5 school in the nation for the past 5 years; finishing as high as 2nd at the NCAA championship meet.
I believe it was an eye opener for several of my women as to how hard they will need to train in order to compete at a Division I level. I was happy to see Dalton Kuhar and Hannah Dickinson work well together for the first half of the race; they have become good training partners and will continue to push each other to new heights, leaving us with a strong top 2. The rest of the women will need to step up to this level if we are to put our best foot forward at the Conference championship in November. Our next race, VMI's home invitational on September 21st, will give all the opportunity to see where they are on the conference course on the Vista Links golf course in Buena Vista.
