Coach Mikes Blog

in Personal by coach mike on 16 Sep 2007

My little girl is getting married this weekend, so the team will travel without me to Springfield. Audrey is 25 years old and has been away from home for several years now but it just seems like yesterday that she was cheer leading, playing basketball and running. She ran in high school, was on a regional championship and sectional championship team. And one year in college. She was a solid runner and good leader. I got to coach her one year, her 8th grade year at Selmaville. That was my first year coaching cross country.  I don’t really remember much about that year, just a lot of kids, noisy  bus rides.  I do remember winning 4th place at state, the excitement of the ride home. We would always get the fire truck treatment when we got back into town to the school and then a pizza party. The meet was held at Clay City High School. We drove the kids over because we didn’t want to take a bus for reason I can’t talk about! The race started, up close to the building, the kids had to run over the curve of a old track to a small bush and make a 90 degree turn. It was a very tricky start, I saw races where whole teams would be wiped out trying to make that turn. Then you ran along the street and made another 90 degree turn by some temporary  building with concrete steps  in the path of the runners.  The Selmaville parents started  moving those steps out of the way. One year we forgot to put them back, the next year the meet director put us in charge of moving them and putting them back. Seems he had to move them himself.  This race was something to watch, lots of kids and parents.  Some real tough finishes, some real knock down action at the end of the race.  Neat place to race. Anyway that team won 4th, so thats a memory  for  my daughter and I to share for ever.

She’s getting married in Bloomington, Indiana at IU. Where they met. Its going to be a great day. She is a great person and her husband to be a great young man. I very happy for them.  My little girl!

in meets by coach mike on 16 Sep 2007

First the girls-There were 7 of the Apollo Conference schools  there yesterday, the only one missing was Mt. Zion.  So this was a good test to see where we are at. Of coarse I understand that things can and will change by the conference meet. There will be people stepping up and some may be hurt later or sick, the key is to stay healthy and keep getting better.  The girls race their best race of the year. Mollie and Meghan went out with good starts and had good first miles.  LB wasn’t to far behind them. The rest of the team ran good races and are getting better. Alyssa was a little leg weary and had some problems, but she has to realize, she worked hard all week.  Certain runners recover quicker than others, with the extra miles we did this week, she probably didn’t recover. But this will only make her stronger later on. Stay tough girl!  Kaity is starting to race and is going to be a big help toward the end of the season. Paige was number 6 and since we finished in a team tie, her spot gave us the edge.  EVERYBODY IS IMPORTANT! Ellie is getting in shape and could be a difference later. Tessa and Abby ran well in the open. Courtney was on the side lines with a sore hip.

Boys-Jordan and Jacob went out with a great first mile, and kept racing the whole race.  Jordan looked real strong at the end, and believe it or not he needs to be faster on the first mile. Jacob is looking real strong right now. Nix raced hard the first mile , backed off the 2nd a little and then finished hard, nice job. Drew raced his race, as hard as he could go the whole way.  Number 5 was worrying  me for a while and then Thomas picked it up and had a great finish. I was real proud of the boys, I thought maybe we had won the meet, but a good T-Town team went 7, 8 and 9 to win the meet. From what I hear they are one of the better 1A schools this year, they have a good program.  C Davis keeps working hard and giving his all. Kolin had a great open race, which he won.  Alec keeps getting better and I thought Grayson ran well, but he wasn’t happy. Just keep working.

The meet was good for us, we got to see conference schools and regional schools. But doing well here is good, but more work is still waiting for us.

in meets by coach mike on 15 Sep 2007

Quick less than 20 seconds reading: Very pleased with the efforts today. We raced like teams today. Two second place finishes. More thoughts later!

in Practice by coach mike on 14 Sep 2007

Toughest practice all year. Ran the last 2 miles of the course, then went for ice cream. Decided to take the whole team. The Olney meet in the morning is big for us. Mt. Vernon will be there and Mater Dei. We need to start to compete, we need to race with some intensity both girls and boys. I will know more after 11 am tomorrow.

in Practice by coach mike on 13 Sep 2007

I’m Back! I made it back to practice today, was there even early, got to see Coach Tom working with the basketball girls and Coach Boles with the basketball boys, preseason workouts. Lots of jumping and stuff like that. Decided to make practice a little different today. Split the teams into two groups for a race of sorts, winning team, out for ice cream the next day. The teams were lopsided. The senior group won, I meant to give the one team a little lead, but forgot to do that. But things worked out, so 3 miles at a nice pace, then about a 2 mile cool down back to the track for some very hard 100 yards pullouts. I’m trying to install into them, that sometimes they have to work hard and feel like crap at the end of practice. I don’t want to finish the year and say we didn’t work hard enough because thats my fault and I don’t want to let them down!

in Practice by coach mike on 12 Sep 2007

I missed again today. Some of the troops came in for a morning run. Then the afternoon for the boys consisted of some 800m repeats. Not sure what the girls did. Except one that ran distance then sprinted 200m on track. I’ll have to check with Meg.

Its that time of year, Jaron pulled muscle, Tyler sore knees. thats cross country for you, doesn’t matter how much you prepare, the body can break down. This weekend we run against some of our conference schools, that will be a first, we usually don’t see them until the conference meet, times have changed! Question, if you never practice hard, can you run hard? If you never practice fast, can you race fast? If you never push yourself to the limit in practice, can you push yourself to the limit in the race?

See ya!

in Practice by coach mike on 11 Sep 2007

Missed practice today I’m working in the Chicago area. I don’t like missing practice and I don’t like being away from home. My loyal asst. coach took care of things. They ran the course that we race on about every three years, so happens we have two meets on it this year. One being the Apollo conference championship. So it would be nice if we knew how to run it. He then added a couple more miles to the workout. The weather is getting nicer for running, so that should help the times and the workouts. We have a big race this weekend at Olney, there will be around 20 teams, all 1A and 2A schools, will be a good test for us.

in Personal by assistant coach on 11 Sep 2007

Coach Mike is a TV star, well maybe not a star, but he was recently on ‘The SPORTS COUCH TV Show.” He went down to Mt. Vernon on Sunday. The show aired through Charter Cable that same day. If you missed it, or don’t have Charter, I have the link to watch it over the Internet.
The SPORTS COUCH TV Show (Episode #61) (IL)

Video Highlights of the Mt. Vernon Invitational Cross Country Meet with coaches, Clint Turner, Connie Harre-Blair, and Mike Hargis. Video Highlights of the Triad vs Mt. Vernon football game, and video highlights of the Salem vs Mt. Zion football game. We’ll also have an interview with Don Laur of 618Football.com and Terry Gamber of the MVTHS Sports Hall of Fame committee.

I’m not exactly sure what is needed to watch it, but I had to use Internet Explorer and it opened and played in Winamp – though I’m sure Windows Media Player will work fine. The video is streamed over the Internet, so a semi-fast connection is required.

Thanks to the folks at AreaSports.net for all their hard work and showing some interest in Cross Country.

***Note: Coach Mike isn’t on until about the 14th minute***

in Practice by coach mike on 10 Sep 2007

6 am thats early! They wanted to do it, so we met at the school a little before 6 am today. Nice little early morning run. Some of the boys went over 4 miles and some went 3 miles, the girls went 3 miles. They ran well. I was proud of them. I then went to work, my job requires me to do some traveling, and this is the week for traveling. I had planned on being back in time for practice, but got a late start from work. So I had to set up practice over the phone, I’ll be gone most of the rest of the week. Sometimes I feel I’m letting the kids down by not being there, but I have some good help. The afternoon practice was set up for different workouts for different runners. The group of girls that ran that morning ran a warm up and then 2 sets of 4×400, time range of 85 to 90 seconds. Then a mile cool down, good days work for meghan,alyssa, courtney and paige. Sent Mollie and Lindsay on a 4 mile run straight back to the track for 2 hard 200’s. The rest of the girls kaity, ellie, tessa,  and abby did 4 miles and 8 x 100, 2 of which were sprints. The top groups of boys did a warm up then 3 sets of 4×400, hitting around 70 seconds range, then a cool down, lots of good hard work today. Drew, Jacob, Jordan and the rest did a great job today. I’ll miss the next couple of days, but I’m sure they will work hard.

in Personal by coach mike on 09 Sep 2007

Makes me feel good as I’m sure it does with most coaches, when one of yours goes on to college and competes on that level. Right now there are at least four ex-Wildcats runners out there. Wes and Amber up in Chicago, Justin at EIU and Corey at SIU-E.  Wes and Amber are running cross country at Illinois Institute, Justin is running track at Eastern Illinois University at Charleston, and Corey is jumping at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.