WHAT A YEAR!
Wow.
What a year it has been!!!!!!!!!
Four sets of
Nationals (Outdoor '08, Cross Country, Indoor '09, Outdoor '09), 5
All-American honors. I simply couldn't ask for more. It's been
incredible, amazing, fun, & a blessing to have experienced what I
did in the past year. It's been the best year of my entire life and I
am just so lucky to live the life that I do! My family has been at
every single meet (with the exception of maybe a couple) of mine in the
past year, and when my family's not around, I have been able to turn to
the incredible support of my 2nd family - my Coach and teammates.
Without them around to push me, most if not all of the success I've achieved never would've happened!
Of course it's not just me that's been fortunate enough to run at a high level and achieve success. My
teammate and best friend, Ashley Graybill, has had an AMAZING year as
well. She recently capped off a fantastic career at St. Norbert with a
"sweep" of the 800 meter run for the '09 season. As you all know, she
won the Indoor title (by over a second I might add) in a time of
2:09.95... well, on Saturday, she did it again, besting her competition
for a spot at the top of the podium with a time of 2:09.18. I think she
did about all she possibly could to go out on top! :)
Ash also
finished 3rd at our Conference cross country meet last Fall - after
running the 400 meters at '08 Nationals, which just went to show her
ridiculous and incredible versatility! She credits a good amount of her
success in the 800 to her hard work during cross country season, and I
would definitely have to agree with that. For someone who thought
distance running wasn't for her, she proved otherwise as she was as
solid as ever as our #2 spot on the XC team!
What makes Ash
special is that just as she is an incredible athlete, she is an equally
incredible person! She is one of the most compassionate and caring
people I've ever met... she listens and understands and is always there
to pick teammates up when they're down! Our team will greatly miss Ash
next year - she's someone that will never, ever be replaced! I just
keep reminding myself of this quote I've heard many times: "Don't cry
because it's over, smile because it happened." Ash & I certainly
have a lot of memories that will keep us smiling for years and years to
come. Ash is moving to North Carolina for at least a year to explore
career options, so we'll all miss her a lot but wish her the best of
luck in all she chooses to do.
Since it's been a month since I
last wrote, I'll give a quick synopsis of Conference as well, where we
had 3 of our other seniors compete in their LAST track meet. Connor,
Kelsey, and Dustin competed hard at Conference and we all thank them as
well for their tremendous commitment to the program!
The women's
team finished 3rd at Conference behind Monmouth and Carroll. The men's
team finished in 5th. Ashley and I finished with Performer of the Meet
honors as she won the 1500, 400, 200, and 4x4 relay and finished 3rd in
the 4x1!!! I won the 10K on day 1 and finished 2nd in the 5K on day 2.
Dann Schneider was SNC's lone representative for Performer of the Meet
on the men's side as he won the 400, placed second in the 200 (thanks Roden for correcting me!), 6th in
the long jump, & 7th in the triple! Overall we were pretty
satisfied with our performances but obviously know we still have a lot
of improving to do towards the ultimate goal of beating Monmouth!
The
next week we headed to Last Chance at North Central College. I was able
to improve my time from 17:18 to 17:12 in the 5K which finally punched
my ticket to Nationals in both the 10K and 5K.Our girls 4x400 relay
team ran a 3:57, just barely missing the provisional mark of 3:56. We knew by that Friday night that St. Norbert would have 3 representatives at the Outdoor National meet: Dann in the 400 meter dash, Ash in the 800 meter run, and myself in the 5,000 & 10,000 meter runs.
On
Monday the 18th we headed out of the Green Bay airport and landed in
Columbus. We were pretty pleased to have the opportunity to fly -
definitely saves our legs a lot not being crammed in a car for 10-12
hours! We spent Monday night in Columbus and then were able to
practice at Ohio State on Tuesday! After practice we made our way to
Marietta. Wednesday we picked up our mementos (a blanket, an iPod
speaker, & a knit hat) and had the banquet that night. Ash narrowly
missed Regional Athlete of the Year for her phenomenal outdoor season
where she made it on the list in the 400,800, & 1500. Running with
her all season long, there's no doubt in my mind she truly deserved the
honor, but we just remind ourselves that we don't run just for the
honors & write-ups! They're just an added bonus I guess.
Thursday
was the start of competition, at least for me! I was pleased to run at
7:40 as the sun had mostly set and the temperatures were lowering.
Temperatures still hovered around the 75 degree mark, so still a little
warm for me, but they had water being handed out nearly every lap, so
it was fine. I finished 4th as previously mentioned and finally made it
under the 36 minute mark. Philbrook of Williams was the winner with an
excellent time of 35:24.
On Friday Ash and Dann each guaranteed
themselves All-American status as they won their heats in the 400 &
800, respectively. We were also able to watch the steeplechase, which
is definitely one of the best spectator events in all of track and
field! I hope to run in that at Nationals next year. It's such a fun
event.
Then came Championship Saturday! Dann started things off
by placing 6th in the 400 meter dash (48.06) for his 2nd All-American
honor as only a sophomore! Even bigger things are in store for him in
the future for sure! Graybill then made it a clean sweep in the 800 for
this season by taking the title; this time the race was a little bit
closer, but with her amazing kick, she edged out Spadacinni of TCNJ in
a new PR, a time of 2:09.18. In temperatures hovering around the 85
degree mark, I was able to make it a 4-for-4 performance for St.
Norbert at the National meet by placing 4th in the 5,000 meter run with
a time of 17:23. Definitely not a PR, but I was happy to have placed
that high given the conditions. Props to Ayla Mitchell who came back to
win the 5K (17:14) after placing 2nd in the 1500 earlier in the day!
With Ashley's National titles and my 2 4th places finishes, we led St.
Norbert to a 10th place finish (20 points), its best finish ever at the
Outdoor National meet!
It's really hard to even put in to words
how amazing this season was. I continued to run PR's throughout the
entire season in several different events but also PR'd in the level of
fun I experienced. From Indoor Nationals to Spring Break in Myrtle
Beach to Outdoor Nationals, I've just had an awesome time with a
seemingly constant smile on my face :)
As previously stated,
it's going to be extremely difficult to run without Ashley next year -
one of my very best friends and someone who's been a tremendous asset
to our team! She'll never be replaced; her legacy in St. Norbert track
and field will forever live on: 16 school records, 7 Midwest
Conference individual titles, 3 All-American honors, and 2 National
titles!!!
Thanks always to my Coach, Don Augustine, who has
had faith in our abilities since the minute he arrived at St. Norbert.
He's helped all of us achieve more success than perhaps ever thought
imaginable! With his hard work and level of dedication, I have no doubt
St. Norbert will continue to have unprecedented success!
I hope
you've all enjoyed my Blog this Track & field season. I hope to be
back again, possibly for cross country! Till then, have an amazing
summer, filled with plenty of running of course! :) I plan on taking a
little time to relax and get my legs back under me and then I will
excitedly begin training for the fall Cross Country season!!
Thanks again for reading... happy running!
~Jenny
~Visit http://pioneers.marietta.edu/track/09championships/ for a full recap of Nationals, including a YouTube video of an interview with Ashley after she won her 2nd National title!
Here's a picture of us at the Banquet... we all matched :)
 And
here's a picture of Dann, Ashley, and I with Coach on Championship
Saturday, after we had claimed our All-American trophies in our
respective events :) View TONS more pics from Nationals as well as Conference and Last Chance at KodakGallery !
respond to post >
Posted by Jenny Scherer at 3:26 PM | Comment
Taking it up a Notch...
Wow.
What a weekend we had at the Gina Relays at Hillsdale College, MI! 5 provisional marks in 2 days! Not bad :)
We unfortunately started off the trip with one of our guys having to race the 10K at 2 pm on Friday in 85+ degree heat. My Coach thought it may have even been 90 down on the track. Absolutely brutal conditions, especially for such a long distance race. Props to him for getting through that race. I was lucky enough to get to race the 10K at around 10 pm that night, once the sun had gone down, and the winds died down as well. It was around 70 at race time, which is still a little warm for my liking, but it was cool compared to earlier that day, that's for sure! I discovered a little more than half way through the race that I had not eaten enough that day to sufficiently provide me energy for a 10K. I'm not sure why I didn't eat more - I guess maybe I wasn't used to racing so late? I ended up able to hang on and finish 4th with a 36:11, so I improved my time from Slippery Rock. It still wasn't the time I was shooting for, but after feeling pretty dizzy during the race I was happy to have finished and hopefully that time will hold up to send me to Nationals.
The real story of that Friday night was Ms. Ashley Graybill. She continued her insane track domination by running a 4:34 1500, over an 11 second PR from the first time she ever ran the event 2 weeks prior. She now has 3 nearly automatic NCAA qualification marks in the 400, 800, and 1500. I'm really not sure how she does it. She just amazes me, week in and week out!
Saturday was another great day for SNC track! Dann Schneider nearly auto'd in the 400 meter dash with an insanely fast time of 47.71 seconds. He is now ranked 2nd in the country in this event!!!! He followed up his 400 with another blazing effort of 21.74 seconds in the 200 meter dash, again provisionally qualifying him for Nationals. Ashley improved her time to 2:11.33 in the 800 meter dash, bringing us to our total of 5 provisional marks in Hillsdale!!!
Also definitely noteworthy are the efforts of John Barrett and Emily Schudrowitz. John busted out a 7 second PR in the 1500 with time of 4:04, and Emily ran a 2:17 800, also a PR! Provisional marks, PR's, and cookies seemed to be the story of our weekend. Yes, cookies. It's always an adventure with guys who have metabolisms even faster than their times. Between Alex, Dann, and John, I believe somewhere around 20 (maybe even more?) chocolate chip cookies from our hotel were consumed. Looks like we're going to need to find more hotels that serve cookies in the future - seemed to be their ticket to fast times! ;)
For their performances over the weekend, Dann and Ashley were both named Midwest Conference Performers of the Week. Congrats to both of them - only slightly deserved honors! :)
All in all, it was a very successful weekend and we'll definitely look to duplicate those performances in a little over a week at the MidwestConference meet at Carroll University! The men and women will both look to improve upon our perfomance at last year's meet where we both finished 3rd. With injuries, it's not going to be easy, but one thing is for sure: we'll be ready to perform at our best.
This weekend, we'll be at the University of Wisconsin Open. It'll be a tune-up for most of us to gear up for next week's big races. Some people will need to get their times down for seeding purposes for Conference, so we'll hope for good weather to help achieve those needed times.
One quick photo story: below you'll see a picture of us all next to a sign for O'Brien's. Coach turned around special after he saw this sign just so we could stop and get a photo next to it. Why you may ask? We have an incredible teammate, Jon O'Brien (probably one of the nicest, & most unique guys you'll ever meet) and to honor him and give him a laugh we snapped a picture with a sign for his very own restaurant. Upon seeing the photo, JOB commented that "I'm everywhere!" Yes, Jon O, you sure are. :)
It's nice to FINALLY be running without gloves, hats, and tons of layers on. Hopefully these next few weeks we can continue to have warm weather, little rain, and calm winds! (hey, I can dream, right?) Between Conference, finals, and Nationals, it's going to be a crazy next few weeks, but I know the Green Knights can't wait to make a splash in both the MWC's and the NCAA's! :)
Found a quote that I really, really like that I think perfectly serves all of us Green Knights:
"Life's battles don't always go
to the strongest or fastest man, but sooner or later the man
who wins is the fellow who thinks he can..."If you believe it, you can achieve it!!
I'll be back again soon, probably after Conference, to update you all on how well we ran!
Till then... enjoy Spring!
~Jenny
**This week's running site to visit: http:/www.runnerspace.com There's lots of up to date info on prep, college, and professional running along with blogs from all sorts of runners, so check it out! :)
Oh, and one more thought: just wanted to say THANKS to my superfans - that would be my parents! They travelled all the way to Hillsdale, over a 5 hour trip, to watch me on Friday night! :) Thanks, you guys are the greatest!!! I wish I could've had more time to chat with you - too bad we didn't get out of there till almost midnight!
respond to post >
Posted by Jenny Scherer at 2:23 PM | Comment
Ready to Step It Up at Gina!
Well hello again everyone!
Sorry it's been a couple of weeks since my last entry! As usual, my life's been pretty crazy!
I'll first off update you on our trip out to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania over the Easter weekend! It was a pretty spontaneous trip, but fun nonetheless. We got there around 6 am on Thursday morning and ate at a Bob Evans! Surprisingly, we weren't the only ones in the restaurant! After a yummy breakfast, we headed back to the hotel and took a long nap. Then it was off to practice and eventually dinner at a great local Italian restaurant. The next night we had an epic bowling match - it was Ash and I against Coach and a friend (girls vs. guys!) Sadly, we didn't pull off the win, mainly because I'm probably the most inconsistent bowler alive! I think I bowled a 153 and came back with a 100 or something. Yikes. I'll stick to running, thanks :)
It was a little bit windier conditions than we had hoped for at the meet on that Saturday, the 11th, so our times weren't exactly where we wanted them. I ran a 36:43 10K, which is a provisional mark, so I was pleased to make it on to that list, but I was actually shooting for the automatic mark of 35:45, so the disappointment was there, just in knowing that I will definitely have to run it again in order to make it to Nationals. It just so happened I was the only female in that race, so it was an interesting experience. It was still fun and I'm looking forward to improving my time at the Gina Relays this Friday night! Ashley ran the 1500 for the first time in her life and finished with a 4:45, over 10 seconds ahead of her next competitor. I have no doubt in my mind she'll provo in this event when she has some decent competition! She never ceases to amaze me! :)
We flew back from Pennsylvania that Saturday night, my Mom picked us up at the airport in Chicago, and we were both able to get to our families for Easter! All in all, it was a really fun experience and despite it's spontaneity, I'd do it again in a heartbeat! It was a blast meeting some of my Coach's family, and seeing places like his old high school. He seemed pretty happy to get back and check up on his hometown!
So, Easter Break was a nice time to at least relax and get away from studying for a few days. This past weekend the entire team competed at Wisconsin Lutheran near Milwaukee. It was about 75 degrees and sunny for most of the meet - it almost felt like summer! The girls ended up winning the meet with 153 points! We swept the relays - the 4x100, Sprint Medley, Distance Medley, and 4x4! Danielle Krause won the 100 meter dash, Emily Schudrowitz placed second in the 400 meter dash and 3rd in the 200, and Megan Domnick ran a collegiate PR in the 400 with a time of 1:03.36. She has been dropping time like crazy!! Nikki Swanson made her collegiate debut in the 400 hurdles and the triple jump. She managed to take 3rd in the triple - no big deal! ;) Our throwers, Kelsey Marsh & Sarah DeShambo, also had PR's in both the shot put and the javelin. I won the steeplechase with a time of 11:26. I was shooting for the school record of 11:09, but hopefully I'll get it yet this season. I'd love to provo in this event and I'm already looking forward to the next time I can run it, which will only be my 4th time ever! I think I have a love/hate relationship with the steeplechase event. Part of me loves the craziness of it, but part of me dislikes that, too! One thing's for sure, though... I'm not going to stop running it!
On the men's side, we took 2nd by just a couple of points. Dann Schneider PR'd by a foot and a half in the long jump with a PROVO mark of 7.02 meters! He is so ridiculously talented... it's crazy to even comprehend PR'ing by that much. He also won the 200 in a very speedy 22.04 seconds. My congrats to him, again, and I have no doubt he'll continue putting up crazy impressive marks/times the rest of the season! Alex De Villers continued to impress by winning the steeplechase with a PR of 9:58. Jordan Gobert took 2nd in the javelin throw in only his 2nd time ever competing in the event. He's going to make a great decathlete in the future!
We had some great performances to build on at Wisconsin Lutheran and at least for the men, they'll look to defend their title at the Private College Championships this weekend at Carroll. 6 of us are headed to the Gina Relays at Hillsdale College in Michigan on Thursday. I'll be running the 10K on Friday night at 9:15 pm. As of right now, the weather forecast is a high of 80! for Friday, so I am pleased I'm running after the sun goes down! We'll have Ashley competing in the 1500 on Friday (in the Olympic Development section!) and the 800 on Saturday, Alex De Villers competing in the 10K right after me on Friday night, John Barrett competing in the 1500 on Saturday, Emily Schudrowitz running the 800 on Saturday, and Dann Schneider running the 400. We're looking forward to the terrific competition and will look to come back to SNC with plenty of provisional (or automatic!) qualifying marks!
It was a lot of fun to follow Goucher & Hall's success in the Boston Marathon on Monday. I know Goucher in particular was a bit disappointed in placing third, but I am definitely proud for the USA and for the sport of running that these two Americans had the success that they did in Boston! I have no doubt Goucher will be a Boston Marathon champion someday. She seems to have the right attitude to strive to always be the best. I know both Hall and Goucher gave it everything they had on Monday, and I know all of us headed to Gina will do the same this weekend. After all, "to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." :) I can't wait to race against some amazing competition!
I'll be back next week - I promise! - with results/stories from the Gina Relays. If you can't wait till then, just visit http://www.hillsdale.edu/athletics/mens_track/ginarelays.asp for the complete results!
Thanks for reading!
Till next time,
~Jenny
**Oh, and this week's can't miss track website is Flo Track
. I think I may have already linked this site before, but it has tons of stuff from Monday's Boston Marathon that you should definitely check out! They have some really awesome videos!
--Make sure you check out pictures from this past weekend's meet at WI Lutheran as well HERE!
respond to post >
Posted by Jenny Scherer at 2:27 PM | Comment
A New Season!
Hey Everyone!
Well, it's officially outdoor season! I think one of the best parts about track & field is that there's 2 pretty different parts to it, and that, no matter what happened in indoor, it's basically a brand new start (a clean slate!) for outdoor! This might mean improving upon what you did indoors, or for some, re-proving what they did indoors and translating it to the outdoors where you're exposed to all the "elements!"
As you know from my earlier blog post, some of us (about 18 of us to be exact) started our outdoor season down in South Carolina, but this past weekend was our first full squad outdoor meet and it was at UW-Oshkosh. I absolutely love Oshkosh's track, and this was my first race there since Outdoor Nationals last year! This past weekend would be very different races for me from the 10K that I ran there last spring, however! I ran the 1,500, 800, & 4x4 - a little "speed" workout for me. I ended up missing the 1,500 school record by less than a second with a 4:53. It's still definitely not the time I wanted to run, but an improvement on what I ran at Coastal Carolina a couple weeks earlier. My 800 & my 4x4 split were both pretty atrocious, so on to bigger and better things -- Ms. Ashley Graybill continued to show just how AMAZING she is by provisionally qualifying in the 400 meter dash! She ran a 56.39 after many times proclaiming that she's felt "slow!" I think she can now make a note to herself that she's REALLY FAST, and that just because she's a National Champ in the 800 doesn't mean she can't run a suuuuper fast 400! She nearly automatically qualified with that time, and it was very nearly a PR! Absolutely crazy awesome. Yet again, I am so proud & honored to be her teammate! :)
We had a couple other great performances on the weekend - Ash also finished in 2nd in the 200 with a 26.1, which is ridiculously fast as well, and Jordan Gobert finished 2nd in the javelin throw - the first time he ever competed in this event!!! I think he's found himself a new event :) Alex De Villers PR'd in the 5K with a time of 15:38, Emily Schudrowitz PR'd in the 400 with a 59.8, & Dann Schneider showed his versatility by claiming 3rd and 5th in the triple and long jumps! All in all, it was a pretty good first meet, although we definitely all know we still have a lot of work ahead of us before Conference rolls around - which is actually only a month away! WOW!
My Dad took over 500 pictures at the meet this past weekend, so rather than try and post some on here, I'll just let you take a look at them HERE! (Thanks Dad, team photographer ;) You're the best!)
Now today we had no classes due to advisement day (got to sleep in, hooray!) and we are off on Friday for Good Friday, so it's a relatively easy 3 day week. Most everyone is headed home for the holiday, but Ash & I will be heading to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania to run at Slippery Rock U on Saturday the 11th. Our Coach is from that area and he's headed home for Easter so we decided to tag along with him and get in some good competition along the way :) This week worked out perfectly in our training schedule to compete so I'm really excited that I'll finally be running the 10K! We'll both fly back on Saturday night so we're home with our families for Easter - and with SNC being a Catholic school, we also have Monday off, so that will be nice!
Our next full squad meet will be on the 18th at Wisconsin Lutheran College, followed by the Private College Championships/Gina Relays, Wisconsin Twilight (at UW-Madison!), and then CONFERENCE at Carroll!
Hopefully the weather will hold up for this weekend - it'd be nice if the wind would die down! We did a workout on the track today with 30+ MPH wind gusts! It wasn't easy, that's for sure! But I guess it's like they always say, "what doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger!" ;) I'm just appreciating that Spring seems to finally have arrived and there's only small traces of snow remaining! It's so nice not to have to watch for ice with every stride taken...
Well, I wish everyone a very happy, blessed Easter! I'll be back next week, hopefully with plenty of good stories about our road trip to PA!
Till then... enjoy the holiday...,
~Jenny ;)
***Oh, and this week's running website to visit is: CoolingRunning.com self-described as 'the complete online resource for runners of all abilities!" Definitely check it out! I learned about coolrunning.com from Twitter! I'm definitely starting to become a fan of Twitter and think I'm getting the hang of it! You can "follow" me and we can "tweet" together if you'd like - knightrunner22 is my profile name!
~One more shout-out to my MOM - it's%
Posted by Jenny Scherer at 9:37 PM |
Living with a NATIONAL CHAMP! :)
Hey Everyone!Wow! Sorry it has been a couple of weeks since my last entry! It's absolutely CRAZY what has gone on since I last wrote!
First
off... my roommate, one of my very best friends, and an absolutely
amazing teammate, Ashley Graybill, won the 800 meter run at Indoor
Nationals -- she is officially a NATIONAL CHAMP with a time of 2:09.95,
which also set a Rose-Hulman Fieldhouse record!!!! I am so proud of Ash
- she works so hard and it's just plain awesome to see the hard work
pay off! Believe it or not, her title winning run at Nationals was just
the 4th time she'd ever run the open 800. Absolutely unbelievable!! Her
time was the fastest at Nationals in 16 years. The best part about all
of this? She's still the same 'ol Ash :) A little National title isn't
gonna change who she is, and that's what I love about the girl!
In
addition to Graybill's AMAZING performance, we left Terre Haute with 2
more All-Americans. Dann Schneider finished 8th in the 400 m dash as
only a sophomore, and I finished 4th in the 5,000 m run with a PR of
17:05.04. I definitely will admit I was quite disappointed with my
performance due to the fact that I led for nearly half the race before
being passed with about 800 meters to go by Tropiano of Amherst, who
went on to win the race. It was just discouraging considering I felt so
good when I made the surge to take the lead. Tropiano truly ran a great
race, as did McNamara of Tufts who passed me with probably 600 to go,
and Simone Childs-Walker from Carleton, who's only a freshman and
surged at the very end to beat me with probably 25 meters to go! So,
while I am somewhat disappointed with my performance, I'm taking it as
a lesson learned and just moving on to outdoors, keeping in mind that a
year ago I didn't even qualify for Indoor Nationals!
Our girls
4x4 team of Graybill, Emily Schudrowitz, Nikki Swanson, & Marisa
Trakanovich missed All-American status by .25 seconds, finishing ninth.
They had a PR for the season, though, with a time of 3:55.75. With
Graybill's title and my fourth place finish, St. Norbert finished in a
tie for 8th place, our best showing EVER at Nationals! Pretty exciting
:)
So, after an overall very successful National meet, we headed
back to SNC - although most of us would have a very short stay there as
we headed off to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a training trip the
next day, Sunday the 15th! We were short on sleep as we boarded that
plane, but knowing we had the whole week with no studying or even
thinking about school made it all OK!
Overall a little less
than half of us made the trek to South Carolina for the training trip.
We stayed in condo type rooms (4-6 people per room) and practiced each
day at Coastal Carolina University. It wasn't nearly as warm as we had
hoped - hovering around 60-65 degrees every day (I think it made it to
70 one day!), but it was definitely the most fun I've ever had on a
Spring Break!! There are memories made on the trip that will last a
lifetime!! Despite the not-so-warm temps, I still managed to get quite
sunburned and my wonderful National Champ teammate managed to get
herself even more tan! I think we're just about as polar opposite as
you could possibly get when it comes to skin tones, haha! I'm quite
jealous that she can get so tan, but being a redhead I've just come to
live with being ghost-like!
On Friday the 20th and Saturday the
21st we competed at the Coastal Carolina Shamrock Invitational, which
was held at the brand new Myrtle Beach Stadium! It was a gorgeous track
and we were all really excited to compete there. We were 1 of only 3
Division III teams, so we had plenty of great competition. I ran in the
5K on Friday night and managed to provisionally qualify with a time of
17:28.It wasn't the time I was shooting for, but I'm happy to be on the
list early with time to improve if needed! It was pretty exciting to
place first in the race at a primarily D1 meet as well (plus I got a
free winner's t-shirt! hehe!) On Saturday, Ashley continued her
dominance by winning the 800 meter run, despite quite a heavy wind,
with a time of 2:11.47, provisionally qualifying her for Outdoor
Nationals at Marietta College in May as well!
Other notable
performances came with from Emily Schudrowitz, who ran a lifetime PR in
the 800, placing eighth with a time of 2:18.33. Melissa Menne and
Kelsey Timm had their first steeplechase experience on Friday night and
managed to finish without too many bumps and bruises, so props to them
for giving that crazy race a try! :)
After the meet finished
Saturday night, we went out to dinner as a team and then went to bed as
soon as we could (or for some, just plain stayed up all night!) because
we left for the airport at 3 AM on Sunday morning to head back to SNC!
Ash was the driver of the van I was in and I was very grateful she
picked up some Red Bull the night before so there was no chance she'd
be falling asleep on the drive to the airport!! We made it back to
Green Bay by about 2 pm and it's definitely taken till today for most
of us to feel somewhat back to normal! But, long story short, it was an
awesome experience and I hope that next year we can go on another trip
somewhere - maybe someplace a little warmer? I can wish ;)
Phew,
so there you have it - in a nutshell, that's my life the past 2 weeks!
It's been crazy and hectic, but mostly, the times I've had with my
Coach & teammates have been absolutely amazing, unbelievable, and truthfully some of the best experiences I've had in my entire life!! I
can't imagine my life without my teammates and without running. Life is good :)
So
now we're taking a bit of a sigh of relief this week - a lot of us
won't be competing this weekend which is honestly a very good thing as
we have agreed we need to get our legs back underneath us! Our next
major meet will be April 4th at UW-Oshkosh.
One quick story,
probably my most favorite memory of our Spring Break trip, just because
it seemed so random to me: Coach got us all tickets to go to a Legends
Concert, which featured impersonators of (are you ready for this?)
Elvis Presley, Reba McEntire, Jerry Lee Lewis, Louis Armstrong, and the
Blues Brothers!!! It ended up being really awesome, and all the
impersonators looked & sounded so much like the real people! I was
impressed, and also loved the fact that we were the youngest people in
the audience by about an average of 40 years! Hahaha. So scroll down a bit and you'll see an amazing picture of us with ELVIS!!!! :)
I think that's all for this time. I'll post a couple more pictures from Nationals below!
Oh,
and one more sad bit of news: Trackshark has ceased to exist :( I guess
with the economy the way it is they could no longer afford to keep the
site up. It's such a bummer because it was definitely the most
comprehensive site around for the world of track and field! The creator
said they're hoping to get something going again in the future - I sure
hope this is so!
Till next time... enjoy the weather - it's
finally feeling like Spring out there! :) (watch just because I said
that it'll probably snow within the next couple of days...)
~Jenny
So first is our pic at Legends with Elvis...
Next is an AWESOME picture of Ash as she's crossing the finish line, realizing she's a NATIONAL CHAMPION!!!!
  Here's a picture of all of us National qualifiers at the banquet with our new jackets on, looking quite spiffy...
Right below that is funny picture of us
posing in Schererville -- that's right, we drove straight through the
heart of Schererville, Indiana, and couldn't miss a great photo op! And
a couple miles down the road was a town called Schneider (Dann's last
name), so we considered these to be good omens :)
  And here's one more from the banquet:
Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to Terre Haute we go... :)
Hello again everyone!
It's been really hard to focus in class so far this week... I'm just so ridiculously excited to get down to Terre Haute and be in the Championship atmosphere!! We had a great Last Chance meet at Point this past weekend where Dann Schneider ran a 49.33 and qualified for Nationals in the 400!! Our DMR ran amazingly well, too, and if the field wasn't so deep this year, we'd be at Nationals too. Our team of Ashley Graybill, Nikki Swanson, Emily Schudrowitz, & myself ran a 12:03.55, setting a new school record and putting us at 15th on the Nationals list. They ended up taking 10 teams for this weekend. Oh well - we were happy to finally run to our full potential! :)
Now it's on to Terre Haute!!! There are 7 of us going along for the trip (8 including Coach!), which I believe is a record number of participants for St. Norbert. Friday will be the prelims of the 400 and 800 -- Dann is ranked 10th on the list in the 400, Ashley ranked 2nd, so I know they'll both run well and make it on to finals on Saturday. Along with the 400/800 finals on Saturday, my 5K race will be at 3:55 (EST) and our 4x4 team of Ashley, Marisa Trakanovich, Katie Meyer, & Emily Schudrowitz will run after me (they're ranked 8th currently out of 10 relay teams)! I am ranked 3rd going in to the Championship, so I definitely have my sights set on the big prize. The race is gonna be crazy - with no clear cut favorite, we'll probably be packed up for quite some time. But I'm confident I can do what I need to to accomplish my ultimate goal.
Next week I probably won't be blogging because I'll be on SPRING BREAK! We have a training trip in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and we'll be running at a meet at Coastal Carolina University. Of course, first things first are to run well at Nationals, but it'll also be nice to get a break away from studying for an entire week in warmer weather next week!
You can check out all Championship info as well as video from all the races at :
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/sports/ncaatrack/
"If you can dream it, you can do it..." Now we're off to the DIII Indoor National Track Championships at Rose-Hulman Institute in Terre Haute, Indiana, making dreams a REALITY! :)
Till next time...Go Green Knights!!!,
~Jenny
Conference Success... looking ahead to Nationals! :)
Hello again everyone!
What a week it has been! As I previously posted, this past weekend was our big Midwest Conference Indoor Track Championship meet. By and large, we considered it to be a pretty successful weekend! We took 3rd on the women's side out of 9 teams with 125 points. Our goal going in was to take 2nd because that would be our highest finish in quite a long time, but we fell 12 points short of Carroll U & per usual, Monmouth once again used its depth to a tremendous advantage, winning with a total of 195 points.
We finished 4th on the men's side, but with their best point total in quite a few years at 112 points. Monmouth once again won the men's title as well with 149 points.
Easily the most incredible performance of the weekend in the eyes of our team was that of John Barrett. Just one year ago today he missed our Indoor Conference meet due to the death of his father. He has been so strong throughout his loss - I never see the guy without a smile on his face. Speaking to us before the meet, he told us he was going to run his hardest for his Dad this weekend and suggested we, too, run for someone who inspires us. Clearly feeling the presence of his father (who was always so supportive at every single meet), John became Conference Champion in both the mile and 800 meter runs. In the 800, he was seeded 8th and finished 1st. Absolutely awesome. His performance was awe-inspiring and I truly feel honored & proud to be his teammate!
We had plenty of other great performances as well - overall we had 9 Conference titles go to St. Norbert, which seems pretty impressive to me! Our relay teams were phenomenal, with our 4x4, 4x2, and Sprint Medley Relays all taking home the gold! Emily Schudrowitz, a freshman, won the 800 meter run in 2:20. Ashley Graybill continued her dominance by defending her title in the 400, improving her provisional mark to 57.84. I was able to defend my conference title in the 5,000 meter run with a conference-record time of 17:25. I also finally was able to beat a rival from Carroll (O'Grady) - who had edged me out in the last 100 meters to win both the open mile and the DMR - in the 3,000 meter run, winning in another new conference record time of 10:06. In addition to the 2 conference records I was able to set, our 4x4 and Sprint Medley Relay teams each both set new records of 4:01 and 4:09, respectively. Paul Leeman was also able to tie a school record in the high jump with his 2nd place jump of 6-6. Ashley, John Barrett, and I were all very excited to be named Outstanding Performers of the meet!
All in all, 9 new Conference records were set at this year's championship - 4 by SNC, 3 by Carroll (men's 4x4, Grafenauer in the PV, & Hurlebaus in the 55 dash), and 2 by Monmouth (Turczyn in the 55H & Lehr in the SP) . I think that's pretty awesome, and shows that the MWC is continuing to improve & is starting to establish itself as a prominent D3 track conference!
So there's a bit of a recap of this past weekend's BIG event. I think overall as I said we are pretty pleased with our performance, but as always, there's room for improvement! We had some really great performances, as I noted, and we'll definitely look to build on those as we head in to outdoor season!
BUT, first... there's a slightly big event coming up for a few of us on March 13th & 14th... that would be Indoor NATIONALS in Terre Haute, Indiana, hosted by Rose-Hulman! Right now, we have Ashley who's automatically qualified in the 800 and sitting 4th (side note: there are now 7 auto qualifiers in the 800 - what a crazy field it is this year! WOW!), Ash in the 400 sitting 8th, I'm sitting 3rd in the 5,000, and our 4 x 400 relay team of Ashley, Marisa Trakanovich, Katie Meyer, & Emily Schudrowitz sits in 5th! We're going to attempt to run our DMR one more time this weekend at the Last Chance meet in Stevens Point, so we'll hope to be able to add a couple more names to the list of who's heading to Terre Haute by the time the final list is released on Monday! The list will be on Raceberry Jam , so you'll definitely want to check that out when the time comes! :)
We'll have a very good chance of scoring some serious points at the National meet, so I'm super excited for the opportunity that awaits us! Less than a week till we'll head out, and then the following week will be Spring Break (when we'll head as a team to Myrtle Beach, SC to compete!), so it should be a very fun next couple of weeks!
Today it's really starting to feel like Spring here as the snow is finally melting. Let's hope that maybe, just maybe, Spring is actually here to stay?!?
I'll be back again early next week to give you a "preview" of what's to come at Nationals, hopefully with our DMR added to that qualifying list! :)
OH, and PLEASE check out pictures from our Conference meet at Monmouth - my wonderful Dad set a new personal PR in taking over 1,000 pictures - he captured every single member of our team competing!! That's quite an impressive performance :) (Thanks, Dad!) Check them out HERE!
Back again soon,
~Jenny
~This week's running site you've gotta take a look at: USTFCCCA
, This is the US Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association website. It has all the up-to-date info you could ever need on D1, D2, & D3 track & cross country!
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Posted by Jenny Scherer at 1:55 PM | Comment
For the love of competition... Indoor Conference '09!
Hello again everyone!
It's been a busy couple of days as the Green Knights prepare to run our absolute best at the Midwest Conference Indoor Track Championships this weekend at Monmouth College! We leave tomorrow morning - bright and early at 6 a.m. As I've said previously in some of my other posts, I really think both our women's and men's teams are ready for a breakout year. Monmouth is really deep - they have twice the number of individuals on their team as we do - but we have quality, and while that may not be enough to overtake them, I know it's enough to compete with them and at least come in a close second.
First off, we had 2 school records broken last weekend. Our DMR (consisting of Kelsey Timm, Emily Schudrowitz, Ashley Graybill, and myself) ran a 12:36 which erased the previous record of o12:42. We couldn't help but be disappointed in our performance, however, since we were attempting to run a sub 12:18 to get on the NCAA provisional qualifying list. It wasn't our best day, but at least we did get that school record finally. Our men's DMR (consisting of Aaron Roden, Jordan Gobert, John Barrett, & Mackenzie Laska) also ran a 10:38, eclipsing the previous record of 10:39! All in all, It probably wasn't our most solid meet of the year, but we had some PR's and solid races... and after all, it's really this upcoming weekend that matters most...
As I was running this morning (in the pouring rain, I might add!), I started thinking about why I love running so much. I realized that of course a big part of it is having wonderful teammates that I have so much in common with and support me through thick and thin, but that the biggest single reason why I can't get enough of running is my love of competing. I don't think there's a much better feeling than getting up to that starting line waiting for that gun to go off. My love of competition is definitely at an all time high on a weekend such as this, when Conference rolls around. Conference truly brings out the best in everyone...so much so that nearly every race is a close one. This is when I strive to thrive - in those close races where the person with the most guts wins. I know I'll be in a couple of very close races this weekend - and it's my love of competition that will hopefully help me cross that finish line first.
There's a couple of great quotes from Steve Prefontaine, who obviously loved to compete and talked often about "guts." I've definitely taken to some of his philosophies about racing:
"I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I'm the only one who can win it..."
"A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then, at the end, punish himself even more..."
And perhaps his most famous quote...
"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift..."
So, this weekend, we'll see who has the most guts - who is willing to sacrifice for a Conference title or to get that last point for our team. I know we have plenty of people, myself included, who are ready to run/jump/throw the fastest and furthest that they ever have this weekend. We'll hope for PR's galore... which will lead to a happy ride back to Green Bay come Saturday evening!
I'll have a full plate this weekend as I'm running 4 events, and we have several other people - Ash, Marisa, Dann, Nikki - who will be doing a lot - but I know we wouldn't have it any other way! We're ready to help St. Norbert to its highest finish ever at the Conference meet.
So, to any of you reading this that also have Conference this weekend - best of luck to you! Results of our Conference meet will be on the website come Saturday evening, so check out how we did if you get a chance. I'll be back next week to share how things went, hopefully with a couple of good stories along the way as well!
Oh, and this week's site to check out is definitely the most comprehensive and well-known running website out there: Runner's World. There's plenty of new stuff posted every single day, so check it out! :)
Here's to the Green Knights - Ashley, Marisa, Katie, Emily, Melissa, Kelsey T, Kelsey M, Meg, Anne, Hope, Nikki, Danielle, Kayla, Kim, Dann, John, Jon, Aaron, Dustin, Paul, Brent, Bret, Tony G, Tony D, Steve, Benji, Connor, Alex, Jordan, & Mack... we've put in so much work so far this season... it's time to leave it all on the track...Determined to Dominate this weekend! :)
Till next week...
~JennyHere's a link to a pic of our DMR in action! :) : View image
Doing Work :)
Hello Again Everyone!
Well, I'm
taking a break from studying - 3 tests this week - yeah I know, ouch! I
have some times when I wish I could just major in running, it would
make things a lot easier! ;)
The best news of the week, though,
is that Ash and I had great success at Iowa State! It started off on
Saturday at around 10 am - Ash ran a spectacular 800 - a 2:11.37 (which
converts to a 2:12.07 for an oversize track) and AUTOMATICALLY
qualified for Nationals in Terre Haute on May 13/14! She beat several
D1 runners... it was so much fun to watch! Then, later on, I was able
to run successfully as well by nearly automatically qualifying in the
5K. I ran a 17:05.92, which converts to a 17:11.12, just a little over
a second off of the auto mark. While it would have been really nice to
have auto'd, I'm still happy with the race I ran against some amazing
competition! Ash now sits 4th on the 800 list, and I'm sitting 2nd!
Overall, it was a pretty darn good Valentine's Day. It's no surprise to
most of our teammates that Ash & I would spend Valentine's Day
running! The only downside of the day? Trying to find somewhere to eat
dinner! There were HUGE waits everywhere we wanted to go! We finally
settled on a little restaurant in downtown Dubuque, Iowa (yes,
picturesque Dubuque! haha!)... ended up waiting over an hour for our
food... yikes! Ohhh well... didn't spoil our day :)
And now by
tomorrow at 12:15 (when both my tests are OVER!) I can put all my focus
on running a great mile leg in our DMR this weekend back at Stevens
Point. We're going to try to get on the qualifying list for Nationals -
aiming to run at least a 12:05. It's going to take a huge effort from
all 4 of us to reach that goal, but I have no doubt we can get it done!
It'll be my first time ever running with these 3 other girls in a
relay, so I'm pretty pumped. Kelsey Timm will lead us off in the 1,200,
she'll hand off to Marisa Trakanovich who will run the 400, then she'll
pass the baton to Ashley Graybill who will run the 800, and finally
I'll be anchoring us with the mile! If we can get on the list, Ashley
would be qualified in 4 events, which would be absolutely awesome!
(side note: our 4x4 is still sitting 3rd on the list!!! AWESOME!!!)
We
have Dann Schneider trying to qualify in the 400 this weekend, as well
as our men's DMR trying to break a school record. School records have
been captured like crazy so far this season and I really think we're
just getting started! :) This weekend will again feature some great
competition and will really ready us for the MWC Championships, coming
up already next weekend at Monmouth College! I'm so pumped - I can just
feel that we're ready for some real breakout performances! It's an
exciting time to be a Green Knight! :)
Unfortunately, I think
I'm going to have to end this entry a little short as I do need to get
back to studying. I promise I'll have a good story for next week's
entry!
Till then, occupy your time by visiting http://www.flotrack.com
There's a bunch of videos from this weekend's meet at Iowa State,
including my 5K race!! I know there's even interviews with a couple D3
athletes - Ayla Mitchell & Willie Kaul, who each ran times so fast
they made the D1 provisional cut! Wow!
Thanks for reading...
Till next week,
~Jenny
Here's a couple pics from over the weekend, courtesy of my wonderful Dad!:
View image
View image
Gearing up!
Hello Again Everyone! :)
I can't believe it's already been a week since I last wrote. Seems like time has just flown by! I'm excited to write, though, because there's plenty of buzz around the SNC Track team right now. With our meet last weekend at Stevens Point, I feel like we are really starting to make strides in regards to our ultimate goal of becoming Conference champions! The MWC Indoor Track Championships are just 2 weeks away!
For the first time in school history, our 4x400 women's relay team has qualified for Nationals!! The team of Marisa Trakanovich, Ashley Graybill, Katie Meyer, & Emily Schudrowitz ran a 3:56.9!! The provo mark was 4:00, so with their time, they should be in - as in, they've pretty much earned their ticket to Terre Haute! I'm so pumped for them, and I just really hope I will be joining them on March 13/14!
Ashley also qualified in the 400 this weekend (58.55) and on the men's side, Dann Schneider was just .1 second away from the school record in the 200 (22.50) so I have no doubt he'll get that soon as he looks to get qualified for Nationals in the 400! He would be the first male to qualify Indoors for SNC in quite a while, so we're all hopeful he can make it there! On a personal note, I achieved success over the weekend too, which felt really good after running pretty mediocre at Northern Michigan. I ran a 5:09.06 mile, which was a PR by 10 seconds! I finally claimed the school record which was previously 5:16! My time is also just 4 seconds from the provisional mark of 5:05, so I'm hoping to get another shot at getting on the list for the mile in addition to the 5K (as well as hopefully our Distance Medley Relay, which we'll be running on the 21st)!
Now I'm gearing up for a BIG race on Saturday at Iowa State. I'll be the lone Division III runner in the 5K race. I'll be up against the "big dogs," but that doesn't bother me one bit. I'm so excited to go there and race - and hopefully race well - to improve my time and move my way up on that qualifying list! I'm currently sitting 9th so I really need to shave off some seconds off my time to ensure my trip to Rose-Hulman in mid-March!
Well now that I've shared track news, I have another short story to share with all of you - a key influence on my newfound love of running and the success I've had throughout the past couple of years! This influence happens to be... black & white and furry...constantly yearning for affection... and always ready to exercise... it's my Australian Shepherd dog, Skyler! We got him from a family who couldn't handle his need for exercise, and at first we thought he'd never get along with my older dog (who sadly passed away a year ago), but within a few weeks of having him, we realized he was just plain perfect for our family. He would normally have 2 walks in a morning (one from my Mom, one from my Dad), but still seemed eager for more, so during my senior year of high school, I began to run with him every day after school, before soccer practice. First we started out going only about a mile or so, but then, with the passing of a couple more weeks, we'd both look at each other after a mile and easily decide we wanted to continue on. By the end of that summer, we were running at least 5 miles a day. He honestly whipped me in to the best shape of my life and truly sparked a newfound interest in distance running for me! The best part was always how excited he got when I stepped foot in the door after school. If I wasn't feeling particularly motivated on a certain day, Skyler would step in, practically dragging me out the door!
Since my senior year of high school, we continue to run here and there, especially when it's not hot outside. The moment I walk in to the door, no matter if it's been a week or 3 months since I've been home, Sky jumps up to greet me and pretty soon he's tugging at his leash - "Come on Jenny, time to get some more exercise!" There are definitely days when I go for runs here at school by myself and miss how I used to have a furry companion alongside of me day after day! It was so much fun to be getting myself in to shape and making him the happiest little pup in the world at the same time! He's an amazing dog and it's probably one of the toughest parts of being away at college - no chance to have him around! If I hadn't had him throughout my senior year of high school (and the summer before college!) I honestly don't think I'd be where I am today! He gave me a whole new perspective on running and helped me enjoy it in a way I never thought possible!
So, there you have it. An unlikely furry motivator and a definite contributor to my success. Gotta love dogs - man's (woman's) best friend! :)
Hope you've enjoyed my entry for this week. I'll definitely think of Sky as I prepare to race my best this weekend in Ames!
Till next week,
--Jenny :)
~This week's running site to visit: Cool Running.com It has plenty of tips on how to run at your best, as well as suggestions for road races across the country! Definitely check it out!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jenny Scherer
Junior, St. Norbert
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