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:
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:
