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Captains Krunch - Week 6

9/23/2014

This last week was definitely a busy one for the team. With a two meets, things got a little chaotic at times, but I'm the end it was a successful week. Monday we started with a normal run & ran up the dike at Riverside Park. We then moved to Saturday with hammer 800's and another normal run Wednesday. Half the team then competed in Bagley where Madde Krenelka had an unforgettable race, earning a spot on the Milaca bus! Friday, we tried to keep our excitement down as we counted down the hours to our early departure of 4:30am on Saturday. The school bus treated us surprisingly well, but definitely affected some of our races. Bus legs were forced to run one of our favorite meets, and for some, the five hour bus ride affected nothing. Karly broke her own record yet again, setting a high bar of 14:25. This led the girls to a 3rd place finish! Yay! Also, even though I'll be graduated, I'm going to have to purchase a Milaca shirt next year.. Considering my past teammate's name will be on the back! (Yay Karly!). This week is supposed to be nice and warm, & we are working for the best Thursday in EGF! Please come & support your Knights!

Jordyn Thomas - Senior Captain

Milaca is one of the most fun meets in the season. Some may argue that it is the most fun of all. The Grand Forks Central team went out there and competed. Everybody ran there race knowing that just half a second in front of them, there was another place to be scored. The race, however, was not easy. Waking up at 3:30 AM to get on a 4 hour bus ride to Milaca certainly took its toll on a few runners. (Not to mention that Dietrich no longer has the nice Charter Buses.)

The GFC boys had solid races. Our seventh grade boys jumped off the bus and were immediately thrown into their warmups. They did not let anything stop them, though! Our first boys went out and showed the world what they have to fear for the next five years! We also had a large 10th grade boys team. AJay Hutton led the pack, finishing with a time of 21:51.8.

The one guy that REALLY impressed me was Gus Tandburg. I'm sure he'll think I'm silly for saying this, but it takes a lot of courage to run the JV boys race in Milaca by yourself! That's right! Gus was our only team member in the biggest race of the biggest highschool cross-country meet in the world!!! That is AWESOME! Varsity boys were also pretty great. Leif and I ran in the top 10, and Richie Osborn ran top 30.

Our Varsity girls placed 3rd overall. A few girls had some tough races, but that only makes the achievement even more impressive. I guess I should also congratulate Karly Ackley for winning the Varsity Girls AAA race. That's a little impressive I guess. Nothing too special. (That is incredible. She also broke her own school record again, and came pretty close to the Milaca record.)

The Milaca meet went great! We had a few bumps and disappointments, but focusing on that will not help us. GFC is pushing the limits, and is ready to show the world the powerhouse we really are!

-David Hettich, Junior Captain

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Milaca 2014

9/21/2014

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Everyone stumbled onto the bus by 4:30 am to make the trek to the Milaca Mega meet. But once we arrived the team didn't let the early start to the day slow them down. The 7th grade boys started us out with our first race of the meet. It was fun to watch our youngest runners get over their nerves and step to the line in a race featuring 302 runners! Next to race was our 8th grade girls, who turned in one of the biggest suprises of the day, by placing 3rd over all. The 8th grade girls were lead by Alexis Spinetta's 18th place, the other top 5 runners were Aislin Hunter, Megan Peck, Sophia Roehl, and Autumn Charette. Our next group to race were the 10th grade boys, who for most of them it was their first 5k ever. They ran hard and gained a lot of valuable experience.

The featured races of the day was next with four different varsity class races, based on school size. The Central teams run in Class AAA, the next to biggest school division. With 16 of the top teams from Minnesota, our girls got out fast, to make sure to secure good positioning in a race featuring 192 runners on a narrow, twisting course. Karly Ackley lead through the first mile in a split of 5:29 and never surrended her position. She finished in 14:24, missing the Class AAA course record by 4 seconds. Alexis Roehl, finished 10th, closely followed by Mandy Williamson in 21st. Rachel Torrey, 34th, and Rachel Cox, 52nd, rounded out the girls top 5 scores to help the girls finish 3rd overall. If you combine all four of the girls divisions for the day, the Central girls finished 5th out of 101 total teams!!

The Varsity boys were led to a 13th place finish, out of 26 teams, by some great individual efforts. Leif Larsen continued his spectaluar season with a 5th place finish. David Hettich, 9th, returned to his healthy form and ran a great race for a top 10 finish. Richie Osborn also turned in one of his best races of the reason to finish a 34th out of 177 runners. Zach Nelson, 112th, and Cedric Reese, 152, continued to keep running strong races, improving their times since last year by over a couple mintues to finish in the boys top 5 scoring positions.

Our JV girls were in the biggest race of runners, 559 and a total of 46 teams. They were lead by Brenna Bertsch, who is returning from her IT injury, along with Maddie Krenkla, Emily Cox, Jordyn Thomas, and Meghan Allan to help the girls finish 26th as a team.

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Milaca Mega Meet

9/16/2014

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I thrive on competition, I look forward to lining up and seeing where we stand as a team, a coaching staff, and a program against others teams in the Midwest region. Saturday's Mega Meet in Milaca, MN is a great chance to do that and I can't wait. This week will move slowly, way too slowly to that early 4:45 am departure time on Saturday.

One of my favorite moments of this trip is when we make the turn onto Central Ave in Milaca, and team members that are new to this meet see for the first time buses parked end to end on both the right and left sides of the road for almost two miles. The magnitude of this meet is evident at that moment. I also love how my heart rate increases as I get closer to the race course and I can hear the music that is broadcasted loudly, for the next five hours, out to the crowd. I grin when I see the long barricaded fencing along to finish used keep the crowds back for the finish. The evidence of having 5000 runners is shown in the colorful rows of tents proudly displaying their team colors behind the finish line. THIS is the experience I want my team to have, I want them to feel, hear, and enjoy all of this attention that is given to them today for their sport. Saturday is a celebration of cross country runners, and I as coach love to see how our team reacts to being on the big stage. Some will have great days, and some will struggle, but hopefully all will have fun and want to return and achieve bigger things next year.

There will be a lot of nervous athletes on Saturday, but I always tell the team, that a larger meet like this is just a chance to beat more people, that this is their day to show off all the hard work they have done. Our athletes have always risen to the challenge of this meet, and I know this year it will happen again. I expect we will see another day with a huge number of personal records.

The atmosphere at this meet is special, there are races starting every 15 minutes, the announcer is constantly introducing the starters for the next race and encouraging the finishers of the current race. There are also races for all different age groups, which allows our team to measure themselves against their peers. Just talking about this makes me wish it was Saturday already!!   If parents travel to only one meet a year out of town, THIS should be the one, other than our own state meet of course.

Hints for spectators:
* there is a admission fee: $2 adults, $1 students
* lines for bathrooms, concessions, souvenir clothing are all LONG!!
* If you want a t-shirt, get there early, smaller sizes sell out fast!
* bring a fold out chair if spending the day, its a LONG day of standing
* bring your own snacks and water
* be prepared for rain
* our team tent is usually behind the starting line
* be prepared to park and walk a long distance to the course

Milaca MegaMeet Race Schedule
10:00    8th Grade Boys        3200 meters
10:15    7th grade Boys        3200 meters
10:30    8th Grade Girls        3200 meters
10:45    7th Grade Girls        3200 meters
11:00   9th Grade Girls         4000 meters
11:15   9th Grade Boys         5000 meters
11:30   10th Grade Girls        4000 meters
11:45   10th Grade Boys        5000 meters
12:00   Varsity A Girls           4000 meters
12:15   Varsity AA Boys     5000 meters
12:30   Varsity AAA Girls         4000 meters (based on school size)
12:45   Varsity AAAA Boys       5000 meters
1:00     Varsity AA Girls       4000 meters
1:15     Varsity AAA Boys        5000 meters
1:30     Varsity AAAA Girls     4000 meters
1:45     Varsity A Boys           5000 meters
2:00     JV Girls                     4000 meters
2:15     JV Boys                     5000 meters
2:40 Alumni race          3200 meters

** Maroon races will have GFC athletes in them

Results will be posted on Apple Raceberry jam
http://raceberryjam.com/

Directions, course map and Meet website
https://sites.google.com/site/megameet/

Below is my own hand drawn map and directions

driving_to_milaca.pdf
File Size:	47 kb
File Type:	pdf

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Captains Krunch - week 5

9/15/2014

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Another week has gone by and it was really great! We started the week by trying something new for practice: training groups! There are 3 big groups, Maroon, Grey and Black. In each of those groups we have smaller groups in which we train. Each "big" group does their speed workout together then the smaller groups run their normal runs together. This, so far, is working very well because our athletes are learning to train at the pace at which we know they should be running. Then on Tuesday, we had our first speed workout within these groups. This was definitely an adventure because throughout the whole speed workout it was literally pouring rain!!! Not only was it very rainy but it was cold and windy!! Welcome to cross country, we run in every weather!! I was very proud of everyone though because all of our athletes stuck it out with most everyone still hitting their times. When we got back to Central, everyone was wet, cold and shivering. So we turned on all the showers in the locker room and finished our push ups and sit-ups in there. This was very fun and although at first it may have looked crazy, it ended up being fun and refreshing!! :)

When Thursday came for the Fargo Shanley meet, I think most everyone was ready to race! We all had a very good week of practice and we were just excited. This was also our first meet to get out of school and it was fun to see the middle schooler's excitement as they ran from the school to the bus. When we got to the meet, I must say we were all pretty disappointed. As we walked the course, it was hard not to let a few negative thoughts pop into our heads as we walked over cement slab, after cement slab, after cement slab. So much so that some of our girls decided not to run in spikes. We could not believe it! But every time any of us would say a negative thing, we would do as coach said, and come back with 2 positives. Even if it was "Wow! My Calves are going to look good going up this hill!" -Emily Cox, or "The weather is actually lovely" -Maggie Powell ,it was still a positive! When race time came there were even more positives as I heard kids say, "That hill wasn't so bad" or "Wow! That course went by soo fast!". All those positives really did pay off because we had several PR's, 5 varsity girls placing in the top 20, 1 Junior Varsity top 20 placer (Maggie Powell), and 2 middle school top 20 placers (Lexi Spinetta, and Megan Peck)!!!

Also, special congrats to Karly Ackley for breaking her previous school record and to Lillian, Fatmata, and Brenna who all ran their first races of the season!!! Over all, we came home with many plaques, smiles and positives thoughts, so I am excited to see what we will do next!

Grace Roehl, Junior Captain

This past week has been breathtaking. Even though we've lost a few good runners I am confident that we have the potential to make top 5 at state. David Hettich especially has shown tremendous improvement over the summer and he sets a great example of how important hard work is. Our boys team also has a very bright future ahead of us. There is a lot potential in our younger boys. We do have to start showing up to practice especially on long run days. One of the highlights was Ryan Keogh's surprise birthday party. After practice on Friday most of the boys rushed over to his house to get there before he would. We played video games, pool, foosball, chess, and some team games. The best part was that there was enough food to feed an army. We've all been working very hard and I'm confident that we have the makings of a great team.

Leif Larsen, Junior Captain

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Captains Krunch week 4

9/8/2014

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WOOOOOO! That was what I call a Cross Country meet! It had all the stuff that us XC runners brag about to our track and field counterparts. Flying elbows, sharp turns, screaming crowds, quiet straightaways, and a whole boxed set of different terrains. That meet was the perfect preparation for Milaca (if such a thing exists).It was pretty awesome to have Varsity run first at this meet. It gave all us Varsity runners a chance to see everyone else race. Normally, we can be found hiding in the shade, not daring to use an ounce of energy before our races. It also was nice to be able to eat some food before our middle schoolers gobble it up!
Our boys Varsity team had a successful race. Leif Larsen won the race, defending his season winning streak after outsprinting Evan Kottsick from Fargo Davies. Richie Osborn ran nearly a 20 second PR, and ran his race right behind the leading pack. I actually overheard some Red River runners saying things down the lines of "Whoa, Central's got a new super fast runner!" and "Who's Central's third runner? Where did he come from?!?"
Our Junior Varsity and Middle School teams also had great races. I was particularily impressed with Jonathon Farnsworth. Jonathon is the kind of guy that you can always count on to bring a positive attitude. I have never heard him say anything negative. Anyways, I saw him running in his last half mile. He wasn't "just running" though. He was soaring. The fact that he started a tad bit fast makes it even more impressive. It takes a whole lotta' guts and determination to pound out the last half mile. You have to run so much faster than the rest of the race, and it hurts so much more. Seeing a seventh grader pull himself together and finish a race like Jonathon did is something that is rare, even for an All-State runner!
I'd also like to give our girls a big congratulations after winning another meet and putting six Grand Forks Central runners in the top 15. It's nice to see that the Central girls took home seven plaques. I guess they didn't want to leave any for anyone else.
All in all, Grand Forks Central has pulled in yet another successful meet. Im super excited to see our team race throughout the rest of the season!

-David Hettich, Junior Captain

This was definitely a great week for the team. On Monday, those who were in town did a speed workout consisting of 800 repeats. Tuesday we had a normal run, while those who missed the speed workout took part in that. As Wednesday rolled around, the younger group showed up to practice in their first day of school outfits, and some with small amounts of makeup. It's so fun to see teammates dressing to impress, rather than just running clothes. Thursday was speed with 400 repeats on our home course. It was a bit breezy, but everyone seemed to be working through it and pushing themselves and their teammates. Friday was yet another normal run, but before we head out, we watched a couple of inspirational videos hand picked by Coach Allan. Saturday was an overall successful day for the team. On the girls varsity side, Karly PR'd to set an even more impressive school record of 14:40. This lead the girls to an impressive score of 26 to take the first place plaque. In JV, Ty had a very impressive race, placing in the top 20. It's been so amazing to be able to watch many of my teammates improve and succeed. Whether it's setting new records, or simply running a race without walking, the work is paying off.

Jordyn Thomas, Senior Captain

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West Fargo - PR's and School Record

9/7/2014

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It was a perfect day for racing at Johnson Park for the West Fargo meet, and the Knights went out and proved it was a fast course by posting 37 Personal Records (PR's)!!

The meet was run in a different order, with the Varsity girls running first. The girls went out and showed that their new number one ranking in state was not a mistake. Karly Ackely won her third meet in 14:40, and broke her own school record of 14:52. Alexis Roehl almost beat the old same record with her time of 14:59 in placing second. Mandy Williamson continues to keep improving, with her 4th place finish and a new PR of 15:31. The girls team placed two more runners in the top ten, with Rachel Torrey tieing her PR of 15:50 to finish 9th and Rachel Cox, 10th, breaking the 16 min barrier for the first time with 15:51. Our super star 6th runner, who would be a top 5 runner on most teams, Grace Roehl ran her fastest time of 16:02 good enough for 15th. Maggie Powell our consistant number seven runner, broke 17 for the first time with 16:52 for 33rd place. The girls won the meet with 26 points and a top 5 average of 15:21, which is now the fastet team average, breaking the 1998 team average of 15:35, that team consisted Emily Tyrell, Kala Campbell, Jocelyne Lamoureux, Monique Lamoureux, and Katie Frushour.

Leif Larsen also won his third race of the season. Saturday's finish was one of the gutsyest finishes I have seen. Leif was passed by Evan Kottsick, Fargo Davies, with about 200 meters to go. Leif sprinted after him, where many runners would have given up, and barely beat Evan at the finish line. It is great to see your athletes battle with that much heart! David Hettich finished with a new PR of 16:51. Sophmore Richie Osborn, continues to be the suprise in the EDC boys division with a another PR (17:36) and a 11th place finish. Zach Nelson, battling sickness, ran tough to finish 46th. Junior Darian Colgrove earned the right to wear a top 5 shirt for the first time with his new PR of 20:35 and 59th place. Ryan Keogh was next in 60th with 20:39, and Cedric Reese (66th, 21:23) rounded out the Varsity Boys team that finished 4th overall with 122 points.

The JV girls were lead by freshman Tyanna Medrud with her 20th place and her new PR of 13:34. Seven more JV girls PR'd in their 5th place finish: Alexia Scott 14:10, Farruzah Hutchinson 14:18, Madison Diemert 14:27, Maia Jackson 14:37, Courtney Demuth 15:!2, Elisabeth Anderson 15:47, and Lexi Grinolds 16:55.

The JV boys continue their process of learning how to race, for 8 out of 10 of them its their first year of running cross country. That group did provide another five PR's in their 4k race!! Brenden Swanson 17:58, Evan Welsh 18:13, Kohlton Peterson 18:54, Joseph Green 18:58, and Chris Green 19:39.

The middle school girls towed the line next and finished 3rd over all. Alexis Spinetta, running her first race in 12:51, finished 7th, closely followed by Aislinn Hunter, using her new PR of 12:55 to capture 9th. Megan Peck 13:54, 26th, and Autumn Charette 14:09, 33rd also PRed. Emily Kilichowski running in her first race of the season was their 5th runner with a time of 14:23 in 36th. The girls also had two more girls PR, Mikayla Weiss, 14:47, and Marley Ferguson 15:20. Also I want to give a special congrats to Jada Mitchell, Fionna Osborne, and Anastasia Holubnyak for completing their races without walking!!!

The middle school boys showed that all nine of them were ready to race, because all of them set new Personal Records!!! The boys finsished 5th overall, and were lead by Cole Oen's 7th place finish in 11:31. Not far behind was Chris Demuth, 11:56, 15th. Seventh grader Jonathon Farnsworth ran a gutsy race in 12:43 for 29th. Sam Lembke and Luke Hoffman showed great team work and ran together, shoulder to shoulder to earn their new PRs of 13:22, 13:23 in 38th and 39th place respectfully. Zach Moore continued his big improvement with a PR of 13:41, 43rd, followed by Seb Reese 14:23, 55th, Daniel Hettich 14:26, 56th, and Cole Powell 15:08, 61st.

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Captains Krunch - Week 6

Milaca 2014

Milaca Mega Meet

Captains Krunch - week 5

Captains Krunch week 4

West Fargo - PR's and School Record

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