Sorry for the delay. Due to my laziness, I now have A LOT of exciting news to fill you in on. First item of business, the IWU women's track team won the CCIW Conference Championship for the 2^nd year in a row (which is also just the 2^nd time in the history of the program), and our men pulled out a 4^th place finish! There were SO many standout performances. It was the definition of a team effort to put us at the top. A couple highlights that I can remember - Amanda LaRocca scored an unprecedented 46 total points I believe (1^st in the 55m and 55 hurdles and long jump, 2^nd in the high jump, and 3^rd in the 200), our DMR of Ashley Heilengoetter, Jessica Christy, me, and Kerry Devitt qualified for nationals with an 11:56, Kyla Motz had an enormous PR in the weight throw, Darien West won the men's weight throw, and Wally Farris sped through the mile in a 4:15! There were plenty more PR's and point getters, but I'll let you check that out on your own: http://iwusports.com/news/2009/2/27/MTRACK_0227093237.aspx?path=mtrack

It's a plane, it's a bird, no, it's Superfan! Fan of the Meet Award goes to my grandma. She arrived at the meet early to set up chairs at Shirk, but unfortunately when she got there, a set of bleachers was blocking their usual spot. This was no problem for Superfan, who simply picked them up and tossed them aside. Superfan and her lovely husband, Gramps, have been to almost every meet throughout my collegiate career. They're pretty great. It was also awesome to see a lot of our highly respected track alumni come back to root us on. Among these greats were Brooke Halcott, Rachel Anderson, Mary Ellen Barron, and The Big Man Nick Burge. It's always a pleasure to see their faces. Even Team McCoy made the long haul from Texas to the bitter cold of Illinois to support their little Alicia.

At our last chance meet up in Stevens Point, our pole vaulters, Erin Moran and Alex Lambert, had lifetime best heights. They both ended the indoor season at #17 on the national performance list, narrowly missing qualifying for the meet, but as a freshman and sophomore, that's very exciting for the future.

And then came nationals. We had 10 women and 1 lone man making the trip to Rose Hulman in Terre Haute, IN. We made the journey there on Thursday, got in a practice on the track, and then had some fun at the banquet. LaRocca was named Regional Track Athlete of the Year for the Midwest and Coach Shoe earned a well-deserved Regional Coach of the Year award for the Midwest! Already a pretty good showing for IWU before the meet even got started. Friday, we had LaRocca competing in the high jump and prelims of the 55 hurdles, LaRocca and Shavantay Thomas in the 55 dash prelims, Ali McCoy in the 400, me in the 800, and Heilengoetter, Christy, Amy Burns, and Devitt in the Distance Medley Relay. Darien West came up big in the weight throw with a 6^th place finish, marking him as our first All-American of the weekend. As usual, we had the best fan section in the joint. Then I pissed off the whole team by taking 2.5 hours to fill a beaker for a "random" drug test. I really think they just pick out the people that look the most like steroid users. Anyway, the team was a little hungry and tired of waiting, but Miss McCoy was nice enough to leave me an encouraging voicemail. Saturday was a big day for us. LaRocca started us off with a 4^th place finish in the 55 hurdles (8.23). Ali won her heat in the 400 (57.65) to score a 5^th place spot on the podium, which was crazy awesome to watch. LaRocca came back to place 3^rd in the 55 dash (7.11), and then I took the track in the 800 (2:12.64) for a 4^th place finish. The field in the 800 was pretty tough this year, with Ashley Graybill from St. Norbert running a blazing 2:09.95 for the win. At this point, all we had left was the 4x400 relay. We needed a 6^th place finish to tie for a 4^th place team trophy, and 5^th place finish to claim it as our own. We decided to go ahead and cut over 3 seconds off our PR to take 2^nd place behind Wartburg. Ali, Lauren Alpert, LaRocca, and I all ran our fastest splits of the year (I think, not sure) for a 3:52.25! That put us in 4^th place as a team!! Woohoo! Wartburg ended up winning the whole meet with 51 points - very solid team this year. Wisconsin La Crosse and Wisconsin Oshkosh took the 2^nd and 3^rd spots. As if this wasn't exciting enough, we just found out that our very own Amanda LaRocca was name the NATIONAL TRACK ATHLETE OF THE YEAR! That's AMAZING! She's following in the footsteps of our beloved Rachel Anderson :)

I'm most likely forgetting a lot of details that I was planning on adding in, but this will just have to suffice for now. And this is far too much to go back and read through to proofread, so sorry about that too. We'll all be heading back to campus this weekend, and we'll start up our outdoor workouts on Monday. We're hosting the Illinois Prep Top Times indoor high school meet next weekend, so we won't be back in meet-mode until the beginning of April. I'll do my best to have some fresh jokes for you by then.