It was
another busy week in Shockerland …
Track
Last
weekend we had our season opener at home so this week was our first road trip
of the indoor season. Coming off a
competition for the first time all year presents several challenges. The athletes are a little more sore and
fatigued than after a typical weekend so we have shifted to a lighter Monday of
practice than we used to. While it’s
great to give those athletes a little more recovery time it makes for a
difficult organization of the practice week, especially when you compete on
Friday and Saturday the following week.
Sprinters and explosive athletes have to have time to recover from the
intensity of competing or, over time, fatigue will take over. As coaches we are always trying to get a
little more out of each workout when sometimes the best thing to do is
rest. It’s a truly difficult thing to
balance, something that I struggle with all the time. The beginning of the competitive season always
makes this difficulty come to light.
We were
able to have a good week of practice, however.
The good thing about having our first official meet of the season last
week is that it motivates the athletes with direct results. That’s the great thing about our sport –
there is your name with a performance next to it and you can’t blame anyone
else if it’s not what you wanted. You
can only come to practice the next day motivated to get better – at least
that’s the way highly successful athletes react. Our workout on Tuesday was probably the best
one we’ve had all year. It usually takes
a couple weeks to see the benefit of a workout so I assume when we go to the
Air Force Academy in 2 weeks we’ll run very well.
We
traveled up to Lincoln, Nebraska, for our traditional 2nd meet of
the year. We competed in two meets,
Friday was a small college open meet and Saturday was a scored quadrangular
against Nebraska, UT-Arlington and Oral Roberts. Having athletes compete on both days gives
them the experience of what it will be like at the MVC Championships later this
indoor season as well as giving the younger athletes a little bit of transition
into collegiate competition. Overall the
weekend went pretty well, on Saturday both our men’s and women’s teams finished
2nd behind Nebraska and outperformed our pre-meet scoring
projection. This is the first of three
consecutive scored meets for our team.
Having team scored competitions helps us get ready for the most
important scored meet of the year – the MVC Championships.
Next week
we’ll be home again in a very good team scored competition against Stephen F.
Austin, UT-Arlington, Missouri State, Oral Roberts, Iowa Central and Butler
County. If you live anywhere close to
Wichita you should try to make it, it will be a terrific college track and
field meet! If you can’t make it be sure
to watch live on UStream.com, search “Shockertrack”.
We are
about a week away from the national signing date so we are working hard to get
the best recruiting class we can. After
the signing date, we will probably have a press release announcing many of our
new recruits. Stay tuned because there
are some good ones already committed to Wichita State!
Movies
I didn’t
get out to the movie theater this week for two reasons. It was a very busy week and there’s not much
out there that I want to see. The Kevin
Hart/Ice Cube comedy Ride Along is the popular movie right now so other than
that I’m not too disappointed in not seeing anything. I caught the last half of Billy Madison on
cable, the part where he does the academic Decathlon. Classic.
It’s great to be reminded Adam Sandler used to be funny.
Everything Else
We had a
big event occur in our track office this past week as our throws coach John
Hetzendorf got engaged to his long time girlfriend Amber McGown. Amber, who is from Canada, was a terrific
middle distance runner for Cornell and Oregon before joining the Oregon Track
Club after graudation. Most of you
probably
know that “Dorf” was one of the best Javelin throwers in the United
States for over a decade. I’m assuming
their kids will probably be heptathletes or decathletes. Dorf joined our jumps coach Heidi Yost in
getting engaged recently so that only leaves myself and our Pole Vault coach
Pat Wilson as the bachelors of the staff.
Pat – if this is a competition for seeing who will be single the
longest, then you are in trouble my friend.
As I
write this, it is in the mid 60’s in Wichita.
Tomorrow the high will be 25.
It’s been up and down like that for a few weeks and will continue for
another month or so. Hopefully our
athletes (and myself) can keep from getting sick! Too many important things coming up in the
next few weeks!
I talked
my way out of jury duty next week. I
think the court clerk is a Shocker fan.
However, I will be making up my jury duties in March so all you
troublemakers out there beware!
Website of the Week
http://www.imdb.com/
The
website IMDB is to movies what Sports-Reference.com is to sports. It’s simply the best website to find all kinds
of information about any movie ever made.
Like the sport-reference site it came from humble beginnings and the
passion of a movie fan. Now it is an
incredibly fun and hugely informative website to spend countless hours. Enjoy!
Interesting articles/videos to
waste some time with
Songs that are secretly about Track - Phoebe Wright blog
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