Coach Mikes Blog

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 31 Oct 2010

Neil Diamond is one of my favorite singer to listen to and I had so much fun “singing” Sweet Caroline with the team on the bus ride home. Even scobie Steve was singing along. Was Bruce singing? I have seen Neil in concert twice. Great time. Eating at Ryan’s Steak House. Just want to say thanks to Cameron and Jordan for the special talk we had. Thanks to Tyler, because who else can we pick on? Mollie and Shannon have extra miles for breaking bus rules 14 and 16! Back to the race, Voss you did not mess up and you have one more race to beat that big guy from Danville. The Rams won today and looked good doing it. Olney won their sectional, Robinson had three guys in the top 15 and did not make it out as a team. Nashville’s girls advanced led by Brandi. Sparta had the sectional champion and was 2nd as a team to Olney. Jacob Heser of Salem advanced and Colten Strotheide advanced from Mater Dei with a real good time of 15:38 or something like that. That’s about it for now. Except-GREAT JOB MY BLUE DEVILS AND ANGELS!

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 31 Oct 2010

Ok-lets talk about the women results. After the race and when the results were being announced the girls sure were excited about finishing in 3rd place. We were trying to beat Lincoln, but when they announced us as 3rd and then Lincoln as 2nd we were confused. Turns out Danville was down to 4 runners. This is the way I see this-there are 5 schools in our Region and if they can’t field full teams that’s not our problem. We lined up and we put together a team score. We had a good race. The ladies probably ran their best race of the season, so we deserve 3rd. We were 3rd. Moe and Toni ran great races, their best times of the year on what I would refer to as a not fast course. We wanted our times to drop into the 21 minute range and we were close. If this course ended with a flat finish, their times would of been in the 21 minute range. And where does this Janelle girl come from, she just keeps getting better each race. She took off after the first mile and continue to push the pace for the other girls. This in affect had Shannon running faster and Chelsea and Megan. This causes a chain reaction, I do not coach, racing to beat your teammates, but racing is an individual thing, and when you are out there, its you against the world, so if one of you are coming up on a teammate then may the best racer take the prize. Good job Janelle and Good job Shannon. Glad to see Megan recover after her last race. And this was by far and away Miss Miller’s best race. And that is what I work for and look for as a coach-are we getting better at the end of the season? And right now the answer is yes-now the real test-can we work 2 more weeks and run our very best at Nationals? With this group I know we will.

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 31 Oct 2010

I can say I’m very proud of the efforts and extra efforts of the Blue Devils and the Blue Angles. Team wise we had our goals set and were able to meet those goals. On the individual, Jordan broke into the top ten and finished 7th, he was probably seeded 8th, so he moved up a notch. Colin finished 11th just out of the All Region spot of top ten. His effort was there, he just ran out of real estate. I like the way he and Jordan went out and battled at the beginning of the race. They knew they had to do that and they did what had to be done. Mr Goff once again had a very slow start to the race but picked things up in a big way to run 3rd for us and break into the top 20-and he finished strong to pick up a place at the end of the day. Nix ran his best race of the year, he did not have anything left at the end, I would say he left everything out on the race course. Dirty ran a typical Dirty race-battled hard, worked hard and gave what he had. So our top five carried us to a 4th place finish. That was our team goal, to beat a team in the Region, we knew we could not run as a team with the top three teams, so we set our sights on the team that was rated right in front of us. More later, I’m still waiting to get the official results, with our individual times. We need a manager to be at the end of the race to get the times.

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 18 Oct 2010

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 17 Oct 2010

First about my health. I have over the years had some issues with kidney stones. I can attest to the fact that this has to be the one of the most painful feelings you can have. I wish this on no one. On the trip up I started to get some familiar pains in my left kidney area. The pains back down some but I still felt some tightness in that kidney area. I was able to contact my doctor who called a nearby pharmacy for some pain medication. Robyn Owen was kind enough to take me to the pharmacy after the meet to pick up the medication (which I did not have to use but want to have in case it flared up on the trip home) Of course that lead to hid and go seek game with the bus and the GPS device. All of this just becomes part of the legend of “The Travels of Coach Hargis and his Traveling Cross Country Teams.” But thank you Robyn for your help, I have been very luck over the years to have some great runners and some super great parents. But I’m fine now and have not had any pains since, so either I passed the stone or it settle somewhere to “fight another day” And the stone always wins!
Another item-thank you to the workers at the small class state cross country meet-things went well-I did feel bad that you were put at the gates to help collect monies-I knew there would be some unhappy people-but Jordan they don’t hate you-they hate the system!

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 17 Oct 2010

Thoughts on the Millikin Race-not sure I like the new course. I think that it is tougher than last years, which was hard enough. But with that being said, I think we raced it just as well if not better than last year. I also thought that in the front end we raced well-Jones went with the top two runners from Danville and dogged them as long as he could. Voss battled the hills well and the freshmen raced well-Goff probably had one of his best races of the year-he looked solid with a good pace. I would think he might of ran negative splits are at least seem to be all the same. Nix looked better after coming off the sore ankle and just needs to get some of his endurance back. And Neff battled as he does and finished number 3 for us. Cameron once again made sure that we did not pick up that cart spot! The ladies had some good races as well- I’m thinking maybe Toni likes the hills! Mollie looked strong as well-Shannon bounced back from her last race very well. Chelsea fought the hills and did a good job for us- I know she was upset with her race but this course was a beast! Janelle, she just amazes me-she sets out in pace and just keeps it going and I would not be surprised if her splits were all about the same for the 2k loop. Megan had some problems and went down. She might of blacked out for a bit-but seem to be ok after we got back to camp. Which brings me to a coaching point-I’m not saying this is what caused her to go down-but when we race later in the day-you have to make sure you eat breakfast and something around lunch time-or snack on something to keep your strength up. And even though its cooling down, you still have to hydrate. As a whole I was pleased with the results of the day. I know that we went to this meet with the idea that we had a chance to win it, based on who was there last year and who was not coming back. And when that last bus drove up and we saw the name of the school on the side of it-we sort of went “oh crap” or something along those lines. But I did not see us back down during the race. I was specially proud of the way Jones raced. Voss you will get that DV guy at the Region meet. I liked the way Toni attacked the hills as did Mollie, Janelle and the rest of the ladies-sometimes the hills win-but the racing on hills is just a speed workout for a flatter course later in the year and ladies you are done with the 6K distance. Going into the Regions meet we are ranked 5th out of 5 on the men side and 4th out of 4 full teams on the ladies side. But we have a chance to do better- and that is what we need to set our sights on, racing to beat people!

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 13 Oct 2010

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 12 Oct 2010

Scovill Golf Course
3909 W. Main Street
Decatur, IL
Women start at 4 pm
Men 4:45 pm

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 11 Oct 2010

We ran at this weekend at Terra Haute. The very course that many NCAA D I races have been ran. Lots of history. Unfortunately, a little on the warm side. We were the best community college there! The women finished 11th out of 12 and the men were 11th out 13. Jones and Voss continue to lead the men, both had good races. We struggled a little after that, Neff ran well, both Nix and Goff are both hurting. So I need to get them better, physically. Going to spend a lot of time on the stationary bikes this week. Plan is to bust Voss and Jones, so they are ready for the Region and Nationals. Mollie continues to run number one for the women and Toni number two. I told the ladies to day, that we want someone or better yet someones in the 20′s by the end of the year, so we ran 3×1 mile repeats two and then a 3 mile run back to the school. I was please with the 3×1 miles, probably as hard as I have seen them run them all season. So we continue to work to get better, that is all we ask, work hard and lets drop those times!

in Uncategorized by coach mike on 05 Oct 2010

http://www.kaskaskia.edu/Athletics/CrossCountry/Default.aspx