It’s been
a busy week with all kinds of stuff going on so here’s the recap …
Track
In my
world, which is the sprint/hurdle group, we had our toughest week of practice
so far this fall. Basically I killed
them this week. What does a tough week
of training for a sprinter look like?
Here’s the basic outline for what we did:
Monday –
all kinds of sprinting activities (and hurdling for the hurdlers), plyometrics
and weights.
Tuesday –
speed endurance (this only takes about an hour but it’s the most exhausting
workout of the week).
Wednesday
– our easy day, hurdle mobility, a couple miles to loosen the legs, stadium
runs, and weights.
Thursday
– more sprinting (and hurdling) as well as a hill workout.
Friday –
hurdle mobility, plyometrics and weights.
Saturday
– we got up early in the morning and did 10x200m (for most of the group) with
one minute rest.
Sunday –
I told them to take the day off!
Now maybe
for some people that might not seem like a ton of stuff but understand the
intensity level at which most of this work gets done for a sprinter. I also left most of the details out and the
devil is always in the details. Needless
to say my group probably hates me right now but that’s ok, hopefully they love
me when the championship time comes around!
MVC Cross Country Championships
This is a
big week for our program as our cross country team will head to Carbondale,
Illinois (Southern Illinois University), for the MVC Championships. This year’s meet looks to be very close for
both the men and women.
Historically
we’ve had very good women’s cross country, winning a string of five straight
MVC titles from 2006-2010, but after a couple a second place finishes in 2011
and 2012 our young ladies group fell to fifth last year. This year’s group is a year older and running
much better so a higher finish looks very possible. Our men haven’t won a MVC title since 1987
but a third place finish a couple years ago laid the foundation for the men’s
team we have today. The guys probably
would’ve liked to have run better at pre-nationals but we think they are much
better than what they showed. It’s a fun
group to watch work together and I’m excited to make the trip to Illinois for
the meet!
The races
happen Saturday morning. If you can’t
make it in person make sure to check GoShockers.com for the results!
Throws Pentathlon
Our
throwers were the center of attention this weekend as they held their annual
Throws Pentathlon meet at Wichita State.
Coach Hetzendorf started this meet a few years ago as a fun way to do
some testing and now it’s turned into an actual meet with some great
performances! I was able to watch most
of the competition and saw several personal bests – and for that to happen in
October shows our throws group is ready to do big things in 2015! Good job Dorf!
Recruiting
On top of
practice, MVC Cross Country and the Throws Pentathlon, we are all very busy with recruiting. The NCAA changed the recruiting calendar this
year for track and field to include an early mid-November two-week period for
signing. Because of this, more athletes
are visiting in the months of October and November so they can decide where to
go to college. I have a dry erase
calendar in my office that shows all kinds of important dates as well as all of
our official visits in RED. My calendar is full of RED! It will be
crazy seeing how many recruits will be around Cessna Stadium in the coming
weeks – hopefully we will convince our fair share to commit to Wichita State!
Speaking
of that, we got our first commitment recently and I was fortunate enough for it
to be one of the athletes I’ve been recruiting.
Because of NCAA rules I can’t comment in this blog about it specifically
but I can say we are excited how our recruiting is going and the future of
Shocker Track & Field is bright!
Kansas City Royals
Believe
it or not with all that is going on I had a free day (well some free hours) so
I went up to Kansas City to take in the hysteria that is the Kansas City Royals
fans. Being from a smaller market myself
(Cincinnati), I can appreciate not having this opportunity very often. The last time the Royals were in the World
Series was 1985. I remember being in
high school when the Reds were in the World Series in 1990 and how fun it was
to be living in the area. Since they
aren’t playing the Reds I will be pulling for the Royals to take the crown!
There
were a lot of angry Royals fans after the loss Saturday night. Memo to all Royals fans: it’s been 29 years
since the last time you were here, enjoy it!
“I” Movies
This is
the ninth of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) where I list
movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I
do have some that start with numbers). I
currently own a small collection of 164 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.
Most of
the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely. Some are movies that I had not seen but was
curious about. Some were gifts from
people with bad tastes in movies.
I only
have two “I” movies and they are both foreign films so here is the short list
from best to worst …..
Movie Name (year made, length,
MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)
In Bruges (2008, 107 min, R, 8.0, $33.3m) –
I can’t remember how I stumbled upon this movie but it is one of my all-time
favorites. It stars Colin Farrell as a
hitman who is dealing with his personal demons when a job goes wrong. It’s darkly funny and very well put together (Bruges is a city in Belgium by the way). This is the movie that I became a big Colin
Farrell fan as I think he is a very good actor.
The English director Martin McDonagh recently did a movie called “Seven
Psychopaths” that also starred Farrell.
If you haven’t heard of In Bruges, don’t worry its well worth your 107
minutes!
The Idiots (1998, 117 min, R, 6.9, $??) –
Last week when I said I’d give anyone a million dollars if they could guess the
two “I” movies I own it was because I knew no one would get this one. Thanks for those of you who tried, luckily my
million dollars are still safe, haha! A
couple years ago I got into a phase of wanting to buy and watch weird movies (I
guess I was bored with regular movies) so I found this one online and it’s
about as weird as it gets! It was part
of a series of experimental movies made in Denmark in the late 1990’s. The plot of this movie is that a group of
people gather to basically act mentally handicapped in social situations to see
what would happen. Then it went further
to their home lives and that’s when it got really weird. I can’t say I enjoyed this movie although I
did laugh several times and it made me think when it was over so I would say I
was entertained. I’m pretty confident
I’m the only person in Kansas who owns this movie!
Next week
Obviously
I will be back to talk about how our cross country teams did at the MVC
Championships as well as letting you know if my group still hates me! I’ve got 5 “J” movies coming next week
including one about a really mean shark and another one about a jerk!
Until
then thanks for reading and Go Shocks!!!
