Jed Christiansen Blog
Sloppy Regionals
We drove down to Regionals on Friday in a couple vans, stopping at
Chipotle on the way. I love the bus and van trips, especially around
Regionals and Nationals when you are so close to your teammates and
you're peaking. Peaking does crazy things to people, including
coaches. On the way down to Otterbein, we passed Ohio Wesleyan, which
was the site of my freshman year at Nationals. I was happy to see it
because seeing places that remind me of past occurrences that I have to
battle for make me all the more ready to do everything I can when
racing. We took second that year and I have a bittersweet memory of it. After
stopping by our hotel, we went to the course and jogged quite a bit of
it. It looked very flat and fast, although there were a few sharp
turns, a narrow bridge, and two short steep hills. The other thing we
recognized was that it was extremely low land, so the rain in the
forecast would soak the course. We would have to expect a muddy course
the next day. We woke up the next day to a steady rain. My
focus from the first time I woke up suddenly started imagining myself
running through a cold hard rain. I think that probably helped me
later to not care about it later during the race. The course was
indeed soaked, with some rather large puddles half way up my calves,
and the steep hills were torn to shreds and just a muddy mess. There
was a massive starting line and long initial straight away (making me
think this might be a good Nationals course at some point.) I took off
from the gun at a Nationals type pace, but I found that I was running
alone 800m in. With the wind and the rain, I was like there is no way
I'm running 5 miles by myself, making the race unnecessarily
difficult. So I slowed down a tad and waited for the mass of runners
to catch up. The first couple miles I ran sandwiched between two
Denison runners who I expected to possibly be with me at 4 miles since
one had been with me through 3.5 at the Knight Invite, and the other
had just won his conference in a record time, beating good Allegheny
runner Zac Ross by 13 seconds.  After I was about 2.2 miles in, I
suddenly caught a glimpse of my teammate Dehaan on my right, who I
expected was one of the Denison boys. I looked behind, saw Knight Van
Kampen on my other shoulder, with no Denison runner's in sight, and
exclaimed "oh", because I thought I was running with two Denison guys,
not two Calvin runners. Dominic Smith, Case Western, made a strong
move in the ensuing snaking trail in the woods (possibly to try to make
a break from ONU All-American Jimmy O'Brien) and ran with us for maybe
2k. Then he dropped a little off. Until three miles I wasn't working
too hard and decided to measure it out just a tad, and finally at four
miles started pushing. I knew we didn't want someone sneaking up and
winning Regionals who had already been taken out of the race, so I
pushed that last mile hard to try to stop that from happening. O'Brien
did come back to take fourth, catching Smith from far behind him, which
just goes to underline my point...that you don't just cruise in, you
take the hammer out pound away. It was great that we were able
to run so fast on such a sloppy day. There were several places that
ones rhythm is destroyed, between the tight muddy turns, slippery
bridge, and the cold water from the 8"+ deep puddles that cool your
muscles down. It was awesome having what must have been 50+ Calvin
fans out cheering for us on the course. Most of our team figured out a
way to come down and when you run by such a long line of fans cheering
for you by name, it is pretty amazing. I guess you can start to
realize what it'd be like to have an entire sports arena chanting your
name. About 120x what we hear.
I am excited about racing Nationals at Hanover. It is kind of like a
coming back to where DIII begun for me. The first nationals race I saw
was at Hanover, as my sister Jesi had qualified to run there as a
freshman individually. It also is the site of Regionals a couple years
in which I had an excellent race which I'd love to duplicate. I know
of a ton of friends teammates, alumni and parents that are planning on
coming down, and I have my family coming in from New Hampshire. Also, my teammate Erik Van Kampen got interviewed for Trackshark.com a couple weeks ago. You can find his interview here INTERVIEW.
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Posted by Jed Christiansen at 9:20 PM | Comment
Middle of Semester Craziness
This
week our school had Academic Advising. This is a couple days in which
we get off from classes so that professors can talk to every student
one on one to discuss not only what classes they should sign up for the
next semester, but also their next few years at Calvin; their future in
regards to career; and most importantly their life, what groups they
are apart of, how athletics are going, how things on the dating scene
are going, what you are struggling with. I love this time because you
get some awesome insights on your life from someone who knows you quite
well, as not only do you have this professor for many of your classes,
but you also have the same adviser every semester. By my senior year,
my adviser has turned into a close friend and mentor that I can talk to
about pretty much anything. He is always willing to listen to me and
is interested and engaged in my life. I find this is amazing that he
can keep up on so many of his advises in this way, but it is cool that
he does. Besides
the advising meeting and catching up on homework, students also
sometimes take the chance to hangout with friends. Personally, my free
time I used to help out at our Volleyball game and to go out with my
mentor for ice cream at Russ's. Calvin also has a really cool program
called the Mentoring Program
in which many students who apply get paired with a Calvin affiliated
person, usually a professor or a staff member, in which the two make a
concerted effort to get to know each other. This is my third year in
the program and my mentor and I have talked about many deep topics in
these past few years. He also has helped me to get through some tough
times, helping me to think through my problems and has also introduced
me to several cool places in Grand Rapids that I'd never been to before. The
first day of academic advising, the SAAC group led a bunch of
student-athletes from Calvin to help out at a local Habitat for Humanity
house. I was a little nervous going into it because I have few hands
on skills and Habitat's philosophy is if you don't know how to use it,
ask and someone will teach you. Not knowing how is no excuse. A large
complement of the cross country team
joined athletes from all the other sports at Calvin to take shifts over
the two days to work at the house. My first project was to help build
a mailbox for the house next door in which homeowners were moving in
the next day. Since the post office needed a place to be able to
deliver mail, it had to go up immediately. It actually was a
four-in-one house...it was more like a condo then a house. So I got to
work on that with a few others, in which I learned how to do a few
things that I'd never done before.  After that, I helped move some siding from one garage to another and organized it. I had just a few
minutes left so I did a little bit of siding before having to leave.
It was cool to be able to help and it was also kind of cool that
Habitat for Humanity, as one of the largest builders in the nation, is
able to get so much of their work done with the majority of volunteers
having little to no experience. The
night before our conference race the men's and women's team was invited
over to our JV coach's house for a Pasta dinner. DVD's of past year's
races showed on computers as people enjoyed each others company and
food. Saturday morning
was the MIAA championships. I was excited to be running at Kalamazoo
because that was where the conference championships were held my
Freshman year. It was kind of like my career was coming full circle
and I would sort of be able to see how much I had improved (although
every day and race is different). The race went quite well. We were
not expecting taking the top ten again by any means as both Hope and
Trine had some quality runners that just had an off-day about a month
ago at the MIAA Jamboree. Hope especially seems to enjoy having their
best races at the Conference meet because of our supposed rivalry (I
haven't really cared about this rivalry...I have no reason to want to
beat them anymore than anyone else. The Hope guys have been nice to
me, I've been nice to them...it's all one happy world in my mind. At
least in Cross Country).
As expected there was a big battle between a couple of Hope's runners,
a Trine stud, and our deep pack. The Trine runner tried to make a
break during the race but the Calvin pack and Hope's runners gradually
ate away at his lead and they all finished very close to each other.
When I see studs like Trine's that do not seem to really have a
teammate with them I kind of wish they had come to Calvin so that he
could have someone to run and race with. I'm like "it'd be really cool
for him if he had our pack to run with and I wonder how much faster he
would be if he had this support system we have." Calvin
ended up taking 9 of the top 12 spots overall. We had 7 runners win
All-MIAA first or second team honors (the most any one team is allowed
to have in the MIAA in cross country) which was great but I feel sorry
for my teammates who would have earned All-MIAA honors had they not
been on Calvin's team. I'm waiting for the day (which probably will
never come) in which we have a guy who just barely misses being one of
7 All-MIAA Calvin runners, and then goes on to become an All-American
at the National meet. I also ended up winning my first MIAA MVP award which was cool although I
thought it might be even cooler to say that I am a multi-All-American and the 2007 Great Lakes
Regional MVP, but was never the MIAA MVP. It's kind of too bad that it
didn't happen that way, but my teammate didn't listen to me when I told
him that he better beat me. Saturday night one of our cross-country houses held a Halloween party
of sorts. It was cool, with a maze, lots of soda and candy (I am a
sugarholic, and yes, even though I am a runner, soda is my favorite
beverage and I drink it whenever I get the chance), pumpkin carving and
costume contests, dance music, and Mario Kart.
I thank Calvin for their way of promoting safe parties...whenever you
hold a party prohibiting alcoholic drinks they will help fund your party
with some $. I think that is awesome and has helped us to throw some
great dance parties in the past. I am not one to want to pay much $ or
work too hard on creating a costume, so it takes me some time to figure
out something with a bit of quality to be...but I finally did. I got
the idea from a skit that I did for my church in which I played a
vagrant (the skit was one about accepting everyone into the church no
matter who they were). I decided to do that again since I had already
dressed up like that once before. I also was pretty sure I could play
the part fairly well and enjoyed the comments about being creepy (my
other thought was to just call myself a creepy old man, so I dressed up
with both in mind).  The next day some of our team went with a couple coaches to see the Big-Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
It was really cool seeing some great DI runners and cheering for a
couple people we knew (like a teammate's sister running for MSU and a
former teammate who is now at Purdue for grad. school and still had
another year of eligibility). The toughest thing for me is whenever I
watch others racing my sense of competitiveness just explodes and I feel
like jumping in the race. Coach Diemer had run for Michigan back in
the day so he was reunioning with many of his former teammates and
coaches. It was cool having Diemer introduce us to so many people and
having Michigan Coach Warhurst give us some words of wisdom, as well as
have Alan Webb wish us luck on our season.
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Posted by Jed Christiansen at 3:33 PM | Comment
A Full Plate
It's been awhile. My plate has been full but I'll try to rehash these last two weeks.
Two weekends ago we had our only mid-season overnight cross
country meet at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. We left on Friday after school, stopped at
Warren Dunes Park to have a nice easy jog through some trails there, and then
drove the rest of the way. We get in
kind of late for the meet because we do wait until our classes are done on
Friday before we leave, so as soon as we get in to the hotel each year, it is
already past time to go to bed. Then it
is wake up, go to one of the other bedrooms for a quick breakfast, shower, and
get on the bus. I had gotten a sore
throat the day before, so I started drinking a whole bunch and so despite some
congestion on the day of the race, I was pretty sure that it wouldn't affect
me.
It was very foggy when we got to the meet, so that as we
started off on our warm-up/jogging of the course, we could not even see where
we were heading towards from the starting line.
It made it difficult to commit to memory because the course was so obscured
by the low cloud cover. What made it
more difficult for me was that I was sure that the course had changed since I'd
raced it last, as I didn't remember some of the turns being quite the same as
they were having us run.
I went out just behind the top pack of 15 or so runners, for
two miles. Then Willy Kaul (one of the top runners in the nation) took
off and no one really went after him at first. Finally, Brandon Mull
(Wheaton College
All-American) led us after Kaul, and I decided to follow Mull. Some other
guys also decided to join and we played follow the leader for about 800m, and then
Mull gave up on trying to keep pace with Kaul. Our pack regrouped (I
don't know how many runners) and I tried to keep the pace pushed over the next
few miles. Around a mile to go, I
started applying even more pressure to the pack, and around 1200m Mull and Andrew
McGuire were both still going strong with me. Then, at 800m to go, Dan Greeno made a strong
move. I hadn't known that he was with us
since I'd been leading for most of way and Greeno hadn't been pushing
himself. B Mull and I both matched Greeno's pace.
After the pace slackened a little again,
I heard a Wheaton coach told Mull he needed to start pushing (to break the rest
of us who were with him) so I made sure I matched that effort. Around the
final couple turns, it was Mull and I side by side, with someone else closely
following us I think. Then with maybe 300m-400m
to go, Mull starts kicking with all cylinders. I decided to
try to match his kick and was able to hold B Mull off to the finish line.
I ended up taking second, with Kaul beating me by 13 seconds.
I
was pretty happy with the way I had raced and competed. Our team also
found a couple positives from the race, but a couple things that really
need work. Consequently, this past week we were thinking about those
missing pieces and guys started stepping up in the workouts we had.
Our focus is now to see if we can continue those things going into our
conference week and last meet for a majority of the team. It is going
to be my last time taking off from the starting line with 27
teammates. I have really enjoyed that part of racing, having so many
fast teammates, knowing that it is not just limited to the top 5 or 7.
This past weekend has been quite interesting for me. Friday night
I went to Calvin's hockey game which was quite an experience because I
had grown up outside of hockey. The fans were extra loud (although
Cross Country's are very energetic too), the players get extra worked
up if the opposing team gets even a little under their skin. Not to
say other sports like Cross runners won't get worked up, but we don't
start brawling on the starting line. Saturday I spent working painting
a house all day, which was uncommon for me to find that much work
available in the middle of a season, and I was very thankful for it.
After I got back, we then had a Cross Country team, family, alumni, and
affiliate outdoor picnic/bbq at our Coach's house. It was family
weekend at Calvin College
so a slew of parents were there which it was cool to meet them in that
setting because when they come to races it is tough to talk to them
because you have so many other responsibilities to take care of. I got
to talk to a couple of parents and to enjoy good food and company of
the team. Coach Diemer also told us an apparently true story about his
property around the lake about the Potawatomi Indian tribe and a young
Native American boy who lost his leg in a bear trap and died in some
quick sand. His young love Indian princess then went out to find him
and she lost her arm trying to hang on to a stick when being sucked
into the same quick sand. The arm and the leg now occasionally felt
grabbing at people in the forest at night due to their looking for
their lost soul mates. Then their proceeded to be hay rides through
the forest, wherein I presently heard screams of terror coming from
some of my teammates who had courageously gone into the woods. I
eventually went myself and saw the horrors myself of the casualties in
the woods...there were moans coming from the trees themselves and I'm
positive I saw a body gasping his last breaths hanging from a tree by
the lake. No wonder Diemer was so fast back in the day...he had to
outrun all the spirits of the woods.
Sunday evening many of the guys on the team and a couple coaches had our Fantasy Basketball Draft. I am quite happy to say that I drafted LeBron James
with my number two overall pick. We have a league for Fantasy Football
and Baseball as well...it is very entertaining jabbing your teammates
on recovery runs about the happenings in the league.
I
have to study for my Kiswahili quiz now. So until next week and please
watch out for arms grabbing at your shoes as you run through trails
this week.
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Posted by Jed Christiansen at 11:37 PM | Comment
Are you choking? May I help you?
This past weekend our team went to
Michigan Intercollegiates. The format had changed this year, as
normally it was a 4k race, with an 8k open race, but this year there
was only an 8k race. I enjoy racing at Intercollegiates because it
is just that...a race where you get to see where you stack up against
DI, NAIA, and DII schools. Although powerhouses like Michigan and
MSU do not come, there is still pretty good competition with
perennial DII powerhouses GVSU, EMU, and Wayne State University.
However, instead of racing, I went just to watch and cheer on my
teammates. It changes your perspective quite a bit when you are used
to always being the one racing...you start to wonder where you would
have been in the race and as the race goes on, the itch to jump in
the race grips you. Also, as a fan you can feel like you have such
little impact on the runners, but afterwards I was told by a teammate
that he was encouraged whenever he passed me.
Sunday was the Chicago Marathon. Part
of the team goes down each year to cheer on people we know, which is
usually at least a couple coaches and alumni. This year was no
different and it is one way that we as athletes can show our
appreciation for all that they have done for us.
Monday and Tuesday I had several tests.
One of them was a CPR test which included pieces on rescuing babies
and adults, and unconscious and conscious choking. I can say I
passed with flying colors although who knows what will actually
happen in a real-life situation. I heard one news story where
someone was choking in a restaurant and nobody was helping the person
or calling 911 (which you are supposed to do immediately if someone
is choking and they are getting NO oxygen). Professional football
player Tony Gonzalez was the only one who reacted, who promptly
walked over and gave the person the Heimlich maneuver. The thing is,
with both CPR and the Heimlich maneuver, one has to be pretty
forceful (and do it in the right location) to be of benefit. So
since I haven't actually saved someone's life yet, I'm not exactly
sure just how forceful I have to be.
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Posted by Jed Christiansen at 7:58 PM | Comment
Dual Campaigns
Notre Dame was an exciting meet because of the top notch teams
featured. The men's race featured four DIII teams currently ranked in
the top 8 in the nation, DII 10th ranked GVSU, and Canadian powerhouse
Windsor. Additionally, several smaller DI programs were in the race as
well, providing other top runners to compete against. All of these
teams did indeed bring the house and it made for a nice meet to see
where you are at and get a feeling for some top competition. North
Central looked good. I am glad I am not going to be passing through
DIII athletics without facing a very solid NCC team, as they have been
a staple here so long. DIII CC without a North Central team on the
podium is like trying to have March Madness without a good UCLA Bruins
Basketball squad. You miss part of the experience. The interesting thing for our team this week was that part of our team went to Notre Dame and part of it went to Adrian. There were two different distances featured in the Adrian meet, so the team was split once again between two races. Guys went out and took care of business and ran good races there even though many of their teammates that they usually ran with were not in the same race or even at the same meet. Guys who also usually don't count for scoring also got a chance to step and lead their team in some races, becoming our top runners in the races. This was a unique experience for them, one that is awesome for them while they are on the team. Sometimes when a team is as deep as ours, it can be difficult to see just how good you personally are when you are 15th, 19th on the team, but could actually be in some team's top seven. This opportunity really brought up some guys spirits and has given them some confidence to finish the season out strong. College is all about
growing up and learning to live as an adult. Along with that comes
responsibility and learning to fulfill commitments. I struggle with
commitments sometimes; not with fulfilling them, but taking on more
than I can handle. In college there are so many things to become apart
of and do, yet not enough time to do them all. Some of the activities
you feel like you are compelled to join in on, others you are required
whether because of a job, scholarship, or class. I have to say that
has become one of the greatest things I am learning in college, that it
is not wrong to say no to another commitment. I find it impossible as
a student-athlete to not have SOMETHING to do, and more likely than
not, there a dozen things I could be doing a better job of than I am
currently. Sure, going to college has to do with education, athletics,
and having a blast, but it is just as much about growing up and
becoming better prepared for life ahead of you. A good college
experience pushes you out of your comfort zone a little bit every once
in awhile, helping you to learn skills you never would have otherwise
attained.
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Posted by Jed Christiansen at 9:57 PM | Comment
Crunch Time (literally)
This past week we participated in the MIAA conference Jamboree. This
is a conference meet that counts for 1/3 of the conference title
points. It was held at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana, and
the course was one that I had never run before. I was a nice change of
pace from the normal courses we race as this one was mostly on gravel
paths around some fields, but also featured a nature trail just barely
two-persons wide with a nice boulder at the end of it to practice
steepling over. There were also a lot of sharp turns, but overall we had
fun with a new course that was very unique. Our team also did a
nice job of filling in our gap that had arisen in the Knight Invite,
decidedly decreasing our spread and also taking the top ten places in
our conference for the first time ever. It came as a very large
surprise to me that we were able to do that as there are definitely
several guys in our league that have the ability to break our sweep.
However, several guys stepped up to where we knew they could run, and
with that, we now have a greater foundation to work off of the rest of
the season. This
weekend we are going back to Notre Dame to race in the Notre Dame
Invitational. I am really looking forward to the competition there as
there are some excellent runners there and because some of the best DI
runners run the same course (just at a different time) so we can kind
of see where we shuffle into the bunch. I've always thought it'd be
cool to see where some of the best DIII teams and individuals could be
at DI Nationals. Who wouldn't want to see Kosgei and Kaul race against
the best the nation has to offer? Could NYU have beaten some of the DI
teams at the National Meet last year? Would our best teams be
slaughtered or could we put up a respectable showing? We'll never know
but I'll always wonder. I
just had my first Swahili test today. I had studied a pretty good
amount for it and it showed as I flew through most of the test (I
usually am quite slow, taking my time, and am one of the last people to
finish). However, there was a section on the test that I mistakenly
did not study and was shakier on. This year I am living in an on-campus apartment with Nate DeHaan, also a cross country runner,
and a baseball transfer, Matt Dodrill. We were cooking dinner tonight,
chili on top of rice, and Nate was making corn bread. Suddenly, Nate
exclaimed "There are bugs in our corn meal." I was not totally
surprised because I'd had it for awhile, but was also disappointed
because I hate throwing out food. I looked and there were several
little flat brown bugs, about 1/10 of an inch long, which dived beneath
the surface of the meal to get away from the sunlight. If one did not
look closely, you could easily have mistaken them for large black
specs. I hesitated, really not wanting to throw out the corn meal,
yet not wanting to eat infested food. But after conferring with Matt
and Nate for a minute, I told Nate that he should just make it. The
oven would kill the bugs and we found we could not even see them in the
thick, soupy, yellow mixture a few minutes later. I also did some
research online to see what I could find about eating bugs and
apparently pound for pound, they are just as nutritious as beef or any
other red meat.
They also don't take near as much food and water to raise, so some
people even think Americans will switch over to a larger bug diet like
much of the rest of the world when the world food crisis grips us a little more. So maybe I should get used to eating more
bugs now. Start small, and gradually add more and more.
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Posted by Jed Christiansen at 11:30 PM | Comment
Into the Fray
Saturday we had our first m eet of the season, our home
Knight Invite. The men's race featured 4 teams ranked in the top 16 in
the nation, as well as the 9th ranked team in the NAIA. It is pretty
cool that several good teams decide to come up to our race, and it
helps us to see a little bit of where we are at right away at the
beginning of the season. That is good too because before we started
having our own invitational, we used to go to UW Parkside, which also
was a quality meet with several strong teams. A cool result of having
so many teams similarly talented was that 16 points separated the 2nd
through 6th place teams. I was especially impressed with Denison's
performance. They are just one runner away from having a very solid
team, as if their 5th runner had been with their 4th runner, they would
have beaten two top-20 ranked teams. 
The
temperature spiked right after the women's race and it provided a
grinding race against the heat for the participants. Many guys were
collapsing as they came across the line. Our team had one guy who
couldn't see as he crossed the finish line and had also lost some of
his memory. Another teammate collapsed several times as he approached
the finish line and then eventually made it across by crawling and
throwing his chip leg over the mat. A race like this underlines why
cross country is so hard core. What did this runner have to gain by
crawling those last few feet? He wasn't on our varsity team (18
runners), and he wasn't even going to end up scoring for our JV team
(separately scored as a different team at this meet) as five JV runners
had already crossed the line. But he was running for his team anyway
and doing the best that he could, because he loves to run. Cross
country runners know what it means to sacrifice the body in
competition. Quite literally.
One
of the strangest feelings about this invitational was that it was
technically senior day for our team. Last year we got to race three
times at home because of our pre-regional and regional meets, and this
year we onl y had our beginning of the year invitational. Because it
was just the first race of the year however, it was kind of difficult
to comprehend that this was our last home meet ever. Even after the
race, someone asked me about the feelings going through my head at the
time about that, and I had just plain forgotten.
This Friday we will be traveling to St. Mary's to race in our Pre-Conference Jamboree meet. Until then, kwa herini (Kiswahili for goodbye).
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Posted by Jed Christiansen at 1:59 PM | Comment
Into the Deluge of Rain
Well, this was the first week of
practice and school. I am a K-12 Physical Education major and Health
minor, which keeps me quite busy with my course work. I am excited
though as I had space in my schedule this year to take an
elective...Swahili no less. I have wanted to try to learn Swahili
since before high school, though I never though I would gain the
opportunity. However, after my Freshman year at Calvin, the school
decided to include in its already fairly large selection of courses
Swahili. It may end up being one of my more difficult courses
however because I never seemed to learn languages quite as quickly as
my peers in high school. But with my excitement to learn it, coupled
with hard work and a willingness to look foolish in class by asking
"obvious" questions, I should be fine.
First day of practice we had our
signature workout which we'll do a few more times throughout the
season. I know guys were really looking forward to it because they
realize what it will do for them and they haven't been able to do it
since last fall. There were some nice surprises within the workout
as to where guys ran, although I was not able to see where everyone
was, which disappointed me...I love seeing where my boys are at after
a lot of hard work this summer. It is so encouraging to see them with
grimaces
of pain going through the training because they want it so much. The
next major point in our training that I was going to be able to get a
good sense at
where my team was at would be the time trial Friday.
With Friday came seemingly never ending
clouds full of rain. Although it did take a break from pouring on us
for the race, the course was wet and the air thick. Some of the 180
degree turns on the course were slick and going down
Lumkes Hill I ended up having to dig my spikes in just to stay on my
feet. Looking
around before hand I could see all kinds uneasiness on the Freshmen and
first-year runners faces as they had little idea what to expect in
their first collegiate "race", and so much seemingly depended on how
they performed.
As I had hoped, I got to see where guys
were at at least at the end of
the race, which was cool because not knowing where someone is at and
then seeing them way ahead of exceptions is exciting. For some guys to
not know whether or not they would be able to make the team and then
come out and run how they did was real good for them. I talked to one
of my teammates afterwards and he said just a huge wave of relief had
washed over him now that it was over. He had been worrying about his
training because he had just stepped up to cross country from track
mid-distance, hoping that all of his work would not just be washed away
in the matter of 25 minutes. For him to know that he had given a solid
effort and had earned his spot on this team, it meant a lot to him and
the millstone of stress that had hung around his neck had been cut
away. We learned a lot about ourselves and where we are at and what
kind of character this team has.
Afterwards, the entire men's and women's teams went to
our favorite pizza place and hung out and talked for several hours, the
last time all of us were going to be together before cuts. The next
morning the Varsity and JV lists were sent out. Those Knights
campaigning on Quest 2008 have now been selected.
respond to post >
Posted by Jed Christiansen at 12:22 AM | Comment
Cross Country Bootcamp (preseason)
Last week was our team camping trip to Sault St. Marie, Canada, in
which both our men's and women's teams went up to a cross country
skiing lodge. Thought the trip was not mandatory, we still had 33 guys
on the trip, including 10 freshmen. The week was an amazing time of
bonding between teammates as guys intentionally got to know each other
more genuinely through stories and devotions around the campfire. One
of my favorite parts of the trip was every time I was able to talk to a
freshman, discussing Calvin's program and helping them to figure out
what they needed to do the next four years here at Calvin to be a
success. The Freshmen were like sponges, soaking up anything the
upperclassmen had to say, which was very startling as I still felt new
within the program despite it being my fourth year. Having these guys
hanging on to every word we were saying was empowering yet
enlightening; we were responsible for these guys' performance this year
and the next three years through our interactions and leadership. Running
each day was also a lot of fun, seeing so many guys trodding along the
overgrown Canadian trails and logging roads. It encourages me each day
to have every runner, even those who may not end up making the team,
doing what they could to get in the best shape possible and to help the
team. The most surprising thing about this freshman class was their
willingness and ability to volunteer and contribute to team
discussions, whether it was to speak about the team's goals for the
season or to pray. In fact, one day the first two volunteers to speak
were freshmen, wherein other years getting freshmen to talk was like
splitting hairs. After getting back from the trip, we still had one
more week until the first day of school and the first day of cross
country practice. This week was freshman orientation, and although
many guys still trained together, there still was no official
practice. I can't wait to see my teammates in our first workout next
week. It'll be a blast.
respond to post >
Posted by Jed Christiansen at 11:01 PM | Comment
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jed Christiansen
Junior, Calvin
Jed heads into the 2008 season as a three-time NCAA III Cross Country All-American. He will be bidding to join a group of four-time NCAA III All-Americans that currently includes just 13 individuals. The Division III Great Lakes Regional Male Runner of the Year, Jed also had a stellar outdoor track and field campaign, capturing an MIAA title in the 5,000 meters and then landing an All-America berth with a fifth place in the 10,000 meters at the 2008 NCAA III Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
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