Claremont Love

http://www.d3rankings.us/common/Week.aspx?key=22

Track Rankings came out this week and Claremont is ranked first in the mens and 3rd for the women. My 4 years there all we did was win, they are on to something like 17 straight conference titles. This is division three, it is the only division that cannot give out athletic scholarships. Which means the program/sytem philosophy is extremely important. In division 1 or 2 if you need a thrower you just recruit one.

When I went to Live Oak we would win 2 or 3 meets a year just like the team this year and years past. We would pin point some meets we thought we could win and then throw everything we could at the team. I remember having to run the 300 hurdles at some meets just to try and score some more points. We spent a good amount of time talking about winning and losing meets.

Then I went to Claremont, we never talked about winning or losing; only PRs. It didn't matter if you got first or last it was did you improve? Well in my 4 years we won 4 conference titles.

Then I came back to Live Oak. We had Medal Monday and that was it, people who won medals would get recognized. Distance runners would triple jump in dual meets for points. it was the same old story. Nobody knew anyones PR and we are still winning a couple meets a year. I tried to make PRs a big deal but scoring points and getting medals was reinforced. I only worked with the sprinters and jumpers and those were the ones who learned to appreciate PRs, and if you notice they are the alums that visit after they have graduated, they are the ones who do track all four years and they are the ones that set an example for the rest of the team . If you notice the team is made up of many sprinters (25) and few distance (5) and throwers(4).

Now that I am in charge of the program, I can run the full team the way I like. It may take a while but my goal is for the distance crew and throwing crew to grow as well. I know this program will work, it will take sometime. We have a coaching staff who are former athletes and understand what our goals are and I am really happy with them, they have been awesome.

Anyways I just wanted to show you that this program does work, in fact it is the only type of program that I have experienced that has been successful. I still have a long ways to go to be the coach I want to be, (need to find the balance between being trusting and being taken advantage of, Fridays and spring break are a painful reminder) Just like the theme of the day I am trying to improve.

Update

Hey all -

Well we are over halfway to our goal of 200 PRs. HEre is the rest of our schedule:

April 23 - Santa Teresa
April 25 - Alisal Invite
April 30 - Piedmont Hills
(After that the team will be reduced to our top 3 athletes in each event)
May 5 - STAL Prelims (Top 8 advance)
May 7 - STAL Finals (Top 5 Advance)
May 14 - BVAL Finals (Top 8 Advance)
May 23 - CCS Semifinals (Top 8/9 Advance)
May 29 - CCS Finals (Top 3 Advance)
June 5/6 - State Meet
I think it is going to be tough to reach when we set that goal our team had 45 athletes we are now at ~30. I am not going ot change it though we just need to step it up. We racked up 11 more vs Westmont (at least, since I didn't get all the results) It looks like that will be all I get from Westmont. As for the Quicksilver invite we only had 5 PRs but I was really happy with the results.

Stephanie didn't PR in her races but set season bests by good margins, which is a good sign that she is on the right track, hopefully we don't take a step back when she is in Hawaii the next week.

Erika ran her fastest 200 ever with a 27.19 (her old PR was a 27.24, which was freshman year), she also ran a season best in the 100

Pauline broke 60 seconds for the first time since CCS last year, with a 59.81. (Told you guys we have been working on her form this week and you should expect something big from Pauline this weekend) TO top that off she also ran a PR in the 200 with a 27.15 in a great battle with Erika.

Kenny ran a PR in the 400 despite tying up in the last 100, once we can get his legs fresh and his from solid he is due for a big drop in time.

Mason pulled the big throw in warm ups move, but despite that busted out 2 PRs in both throws. He just keeps improving every week, so the longer we can keep his season going the better. Awesome job.

Those were the only 5 people who competed, I think it says something that the people still coming out and working are the ones who are still having great performances. Happy Easter.


Hope to see you all Monday- Coach Mike

Meet at Westmont

Hey All -

Not sure if the phone, internet black out of Morgan Hill had an effect, the start of spring break or the weather. Just a pretty uninspired performance at Westmont. There has just been a lack of focus going around. This concerns me because we now have a week off of school. The fact that spring break is so close to the end of the year makes it even that much more detrimental if we take it off. Basically every year spring break is the time of year that the team separates itself into two groups. The people who show up and get more individual coaching and the people who took the time off and spent the rest of the year trying to get to pre spring break shape.

I posted the results that they gave me, unfortunantly they only gave results for the top 3 (on top of that not sure how accurate they are, it was FAT but there were definitely some errors.) Sorry about that guys, the only time I can control the results is at home meets, Del Mar and Andrew Hill did a good job, Westmont not as much.

This week we are sending a few people to quicksilver tomorrow and then I am going to scratch our meet duing the second Saturday of spring break (Kearney invite, april 18). In it's place we will most likely add the Alisal invite, which will be our last invite of the year (April 25).

Tuesday @ Practice

I think we got a good amount accomplished:

Pauline stayed after to work on finding her 400 form, (in the rain) really focused on getting those hips forward. I think we may be in for a nice run this weekend.

Courtney and Lauren both made improvements in their starts. While Erika and Catherine worked together on their starts.

The distance runners probably did less running that the sprinters for the first time ever (8 * 60 meter sprints) except for the 40 minutes of running they did outside the workout, so nevermind.

Mason may be challenging Mark and Daw for ability to throw a med ball as high as possible.

I should quit throwing the jav while my shoulder is still in one piece.

EVERYONE:

After April 30 the team will get smaller each week. Which means everyone is guarenteed only 21 more days of track. 10 of those days are spring break. If you are going on vacation it is important you still find time to work out. If you are in town it is important that you come to practice. Taking a week off right now will ruin your season. We can't revert to march right now we need to keep moving forward. Other teams are dealing with the exact same thing, see this as an opportunity to gain on others. - Coach Mike

CCS Top Marks List

Well the new top marks list is out. Here are our people/teams that are on the list.

17. Boys 4 by 100 44.54
t-19 Girls 4 by 100 51.98 (I will say this 8th place is a 51.36, so this is a tightly packed bunch)
14. Pauline Olsen - 400 - 60.06
t-7. Stephanie Armstrong - HJ - 5' 2"

Close calls -
Girls 4 by 400 - cut off is 4:20.9 they ran a 4:21.58
Lauren in the LJ- Cut off is 16'2 inches she has jumped 15' 10.5"
Greg in the LJ - Cut off is 20' 5.5 " he jumped 20'4"

Here is the link
http://www.dyestatcal.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/2009/ccstopmk.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZAZgpTU6cA&feature=related

check out Jan Zelezny train for javelin. crazy stuff...haha

Meet this week

Hey all -

I know I mentioned that we were trying to move the meet to Wednesday. Unfortunantly, we were not able to get a bus for Wednesday. So the meet will be on Thursday as planned. They have a good team and it would have been nice to go against them at full strength. Hopefully, they won't save their best runners for arcadia. I guess we will see.

This weekend our invite will be at Leland high school. We have a pretty small contingent going.

Couple More Changes

Found these changes to the records


Boys 4*100 - 42.85 not 43.9

Boys 200 - 22.15 not 22.60


I think this summer I am going to try and create a top 5 list for each event, as best as I can.

School records

Hey all -

Well I have some good or bad news depending on how you see it. When I first started here in 2004. I asked if I could get a copy of the school records so I could post them online. What I got was full froph soph and varsity school records for the boys but the girls were missing:
The time for Gustafson in the 3200
The name of the Long Jump school Record Holder
Both Relays 4*100 and 4*400
The frosh soph girls records seemed a little fishy because they were mainly set in the last 8 years (between 96-2003)

I asked Raymond what I should do so I left the time blank in the 3200 (not sure how anyone could beat it) , just wrote vivian in the LJ, and decided when the girls relay team made it to ccs I would use that time as the school record. In the 4*100 they made it 3 years ago with a 51.87, which was recently beat last year with a 51.42.

In the 4*400 they made it 4 years ago with a 4:19 which was beat 2 years ago with a 4:07.37

Anyways I have gone through all the results in the 70s and 80s. I have confirmed some records and some records have been broken so to speak.

Gustafson ran an 11:42 in the 3200 which I will update as the school record

Vivi Hudson made it to the state finals in the long jump in 1977, this must be the "Vivian" that is written there

The 1979 4*100 team ran a 50.7 (I need to check if this was meters or yards but they did have an 11.8 100 meter runner on the team) so that record will probably change

The 1981 4*400 team ran a 4:07.7 which shows that the team 2 years ago legitimately set the record.


I have confirmed most of our other school records. I think the list is pretty comprehensive now. I will not take any one down but I have added the other records.

Coach's Decathlon (- Pole vault)

Well me and mark decided to have a coaches decathlon this week, it will be 3 days long and we will do 3 events per day.

Today was day 1: Which was our Throwing day. Mark beat me in all three throws so he has a 70 point lead. Here are the results:

Mark
Shot Put: 37'4" (569 pts)
Discus Throw: 103'6.5" (495 pts)
Javelin Throw: 105'3" (329 pts)

Total: 1393

Mike
Shot Put: 35'4.5" (533 pts)
Discus Throw: 100'2.5" (475 pts)
Javelin Throw: 102' 0" (315 pts)

Total: 1323

Monday we will do the long jump, 100m, and 400m (which are both of our 3 strongest events)

Tuesday we will do the 110H, High Jump and 1500m (which are definitely not our 3 strongest events)

My goal is to get 4500 points.

Think of this one as our starting point... we will practice these events the next 6 weeks and then have another decathlon. Despite this I know Mark wants to beat me as much as I want to beat him haha.

Results from Saint Francis

http://www.dyestatcal.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/2009/sf_inv.htm

Here is the video of the girls 4 by 100

Girls SMR... as always remember the HQ button shows the video in higher quality

Saint Francis Invite

Well, Like I predicted the event to watch was the sprint medley. Courtney, Lauren, Erika and Pauline broke our SMR school record by 3 seconds and got second place behind Saint Francis. Video is currently loading... I will also post some video of the girls 4 by100 and the Mason in the discus.

St Francis - Observations:

Courtney is really running up on Catherine...need to change that handoff

Viziry ran so fast he ended up running by himself and ran great... won his heat but more importantly got a 1 second PR.

Pauline took the first 200 lightning fast... just need a little more speed endurance

The whole minimum distance measurement is cheap, probably won't be going back to Saint Francis unless athletes PR is beyond the minimum. The judge scratched Kennys legal PR because it wasn't 18 feet. Fortunantly he said 17'4 first so we knew what it was.

Billy ran well in lane seven until the time he needed to handoff to james

Stephanie matched her PR from CCS last year with a 5'2, just a great jump.

Lammers was the ironman of the day... he got there when I got to the meet at 7:15 and he left when I left the meet at 6:15... 11 hours on the track

Adam barely PRed (since I am a nice guy)

Olivia ran her best of the season, 11:29 in the 3000

Check the home page for results when lynbrook puts them up and I will post those videos I have a little bit later.

What to watch for at Saint Francis

SPRINT MEDLEY RELAY

Tomorrow at Saint Francis they will have the sprint medley relay which is one of my favorite events. We only get to do it about once a year since it is not an official event. It is a 2 lap race that consists of a 100-100-200-400. The most exciting moment in track is the last lap of a close 4 by 4. Well the sprint medley guarentees that you get everytime. The goal of the first 3 runners is just to get the baton to your 400 runner. Then it is every teams fastest 400 runner battling within a range of about 5 seconds or so, in a 4 by 4 by the time the anchor gets it there could already be a 2o second lead.

The sprint Medley relay gave us Mark's great 4 last year aka "The cut off", Allen's finish "The dive", 2 years ago the frosh soph girls team broke the varsity record for the SMR. Last year that record was broken by a team with 3 frosh soph members.

I am excited about the team we have this year. I think this years team will be the fastest we have ever put out there. 4 School record holders: The frosh soph 100 record (Erika), 200 record (Courtney), 400 record (Pauline), LJ record (Lauren). Will team up to run it. Courtney to Lauren for the 100s and Erika in the 200 and Pauline finishing with the 400. As of now the girls 4*100 and Pauline are the only people on the CCS top marks list and we kind of get to combine them into 1 event. Should be fun.

Other things to watch for tomorrow:

Boys 4*100 - Get to build on their fast performance against Del Mar this week

Girls 4*100 - Los Altos (defending CCS champs in the 4*100) are in lane 4, the girls are in lane 3. They should be able to be pulled to a good time.

Olivia - Guarenteed to get a season best since she is running the 3000, more importantly though running a good race with some good competition.

Adam - Hopefully will be recovered enough from 450 meters of bear crawls to take a shot at breaking 5 minutes in the 1600.

Mason - The PR machine gets 2 more cracks at his personal bests in the Shot and Disc. I stopped by the throwers practice yesterday and he is definitely still on the way up

Nikki - Will get to go against some other frosh soph athletes in the shot and discus

Greg - gets 4 shots at 21 feet in the LJ

Kenny - is going to break 17-7.5 that way the false mark on tuesday is irrelevant. (at the very least he will break his PR of 17-3.75)

Lauren - gets a couple cracks at 16 feet in the LJ

Pauline in the 400 another day of good competition but this time she is in lane one and gets to chase instead on lane 9 by herself.

Viz - tries to enter 55 second territory in the 400

Stephanie - other than the throwers she is the only one not doing 1 individual event saturday, she is doing 3. 100h 300h HJ.

Erika - might run the 100 depending on how the leg is feeling, and James might run the 100 depending on if he can stay until 1:40

See you guys there - Coach Mike

Ask the ATC: tight calf muscles

Here's some stuff you can do to unlock those tight calf muscles after a long day.

- get some resistance bands (if you need them - I have some left over from my muscle strain at home, so let me know) and you can work the opposite muscle of the calf which will help relax it and take some pressure off it.. work the resistance bands to the left, right, up and down. these exercises can also be done without resistance, they also help check the range of motion of your ankle... you can also use the balance board the rotate around

- calf stretches!! line up your toes against the fence at an angle and to get the more intense stretch, do a squat and lower your hips.

- pump the calf - this one is probably the most doable and most helpful, sit down on a bench or something and have something put some pressure on your calf.. then pump your calf in and out for like 20 seconds.. repeat.. you can also do this yourself but people tend to cheat and not adjust resistance.. you can also roll it out with a foam roll or stick it and pump it also.. this is a much higher level if you can handle it..

*also, a word of the wise with the foam rolls and stick its, they're a pre-practice or post-practice element since they basically roll out a muscle and the knots. they're not really a middle of the practice thing or game day rescue because what you're basically doing is forcing your muscle to loosen up. if you roll out in the middle of practice, you're teaching your muscles to fire hard when loose. so i'd recommend rolling out as a rehab thing before practice and after practice.

CCS Top Marks

Well the girls 4*100 joined Pauline as our 2 representatives in the CCS Top Marks list. Pauline will get to run in lane 1 against many of the girls ahead of her in the 400 this weekend. The girls 4*100 will get to run in lane 3 chasing Los Altos (51.40 @ Stanford) in lane 4. So both have a great opportunity to move up.

The boys are not on the list becasue the time they ran on Tuesday which would be 12th will count for this week not last week. Greg should be on the list next week too with his 20'4" (16th)

Our closest call is Lauren who is 3.5" from making the list in the Long Jump. (15'10.5"/16'2")

http://www.dyestatcal.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/2009/ccstopmk.htm

April 1st: Motivation of the moment

Seeing sports teams all the time and being part of sports teams at Live Oak means that there's a lot of quotes and cool chants, cheers, and stuff that I've seen over the years.. so I thought I'd share a couple with you today..

Always expect more from yourself..
Always strive to become better. Don't plateau out. PBR's are the best for this, because there is no limit on what you can do. Push yourself.

I believe, you believe, we all believe in you.
This comes from softball and I definitely think that it true. I have faith in what you guys can do, and I hope you have faith in yourself. That was the biggest thing for me when I was an athlete for Coach Mike when I had no faith in myself. Things definitely change when you change your attitude and you have some confidence.

which brings me to the last one.
If you believe, you can achieve.

St Francis Invite Entries

Hey here are the preliminary entries for the St Francis Invite:

http://www.liveoakcaf.com/2009-SFI-MeetProgram-0401.htm

They will re seed based on who shows up, as you can see there are large alternate lists. I will give more information at practice tomorrow.

Oh and Kenny was honest about his mark yesterday, I guess they wrote down the wrong distance so that is one less PR. People worried about winning and losing take bogus times, people who are worried about improving and getting PRs make that correction. Very good to see. He is gonna pop one off at St Francis though so we will get taht PR back. - Coach Mike

PRs vs Del Mar

Hey all just thought I would post our PRs from the Del Mar meet yesterday.
Just a reminder I count PRs at Live Oak but because of the wind and because it is hand timed I don't use those as your offical times. (Which is why having F.A.T. meets are great)

PRs (24 total)

Lauren Drewniany – 100 -14.06
David Pelz- 200 - 27.73
Matt Thomson - 200 - 30.04
Keane Vaziry – 400 - 56.42
Alex Ukanwa – 800 - 2:36.05
Alex Ukanwa – 1600 - 5:38.56
Matt Dariano – 110h - 19.49
Matt Dariano – 300h - 48.39
B4*100 A – 44.54
B 4*100B – 46.69
G 4*4 – 4:21
B4*4 – 3:51
Keane Vaziry – 400R - 56.50
Catherine Sparling – 400R -68.64
Jeff Roberts – LJ -19-1.5
Taylor Alonzo – LJ -18-3.5
Kenny Lee – LJ -17-7.5
Greg White – LJ -20-4
Jacob Daw – HJ - 5-6
Mason Lammers –SP -35-9
Alberto Suarez – SP - 30-9
Nikki Dronek – SP - 25-1
Mason Lammers – DT - 112-2
Nikki Dronek – DT - 80-6.5

4 * 100

Here are the promised 4*100 videos:

Boys ran a season best 44.54 (12 th in the CCS) and the B team did a good job with a 46.69





The girls had their second best time of the year: 52.40