Contributor: The Nerd
Stay safe out there, kids
Distance runners are known for their work ethic but that's not always a good thing. An old adage for marathon runners is that "it's better to be undertrained than overtrained when you toe the starting line" because running twenty-six miles is a great way to expose tired legs.
A corollary for cross country might be "it's better to be healthy than at peak training when the postseason arrives." Over the past month I've heard about the following setbacks for very competitive high school runners: unexplained deep fatigue, broken ankle, torn meniscus, COVID followed by pneumonia, stress fracture of the pelvis, and stress fracture of the spine, just to name a few.
Piling up miles and hard workouts looks good in your running journal and on Strava, but keep in mind that your goal is to run your best five weeks from now. Incurring a significant injury is rarely a one-time deal; it's common to see re-injury or compensating injuries after you've healed from your initial injury, especially if you rush your recovery.
Listen to your body. Listen to your coach. Be cautious about adding extra workouts that increase the chance of repetitive-use injuries. Sleep. Fuel. Be smart.
Parents, play your role
Last week I opened the Nerdsletter with a discussion about how parents can mistakenly add pressure to their athletes' lives by placing more emphasis on results than the lessons learned through sports. It wasn't particularly eloquent so late last week I reached out to Jeremy Haselhorst, a Papio South coach and cofounder of Free2Compete. Free2Compete provides guidance to athletes and coaches about how to get the most out of an athletic effort -- among the many things they teach athletes is how to 'get out of your head.'
I asked Jeremy if he'd be willing to write an article about how parents can constructively support their athletes. While I was thinking specifically about cross country runners, Jeremy spent all of Saturday afternoon writing an article that will be applicable for parents of kids engaged in almost any competitive endeavor. I've reviewed the draft article and it's something I wish I had read ten years ago when Nerd Junior was starting his running career.
I think the article will be a valuable tool for parents, athletes and coaches. We hope to post the finished work in the next week.
Rankings
Our two-week grace period has passed so now we're looking for athletes to earn their ranking; last spring's results are out the window. In addition to the huge PRR meet, a number of smaller meets offered excellent head-to-head matchups that have impacted our rankings this week. We'll cover some of those matchups in the Results section below. As usual, all of the current and past team and individual rankings links can be found at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/rankings.
Even though the grace period is out the window, we'll still consider mulligans for high-level runners who have a particularly bad race. If an athlete runs three minutes slower than usual and we can confirm that the athlete was distressed that day, we may wait to see the results of his or her next race before we make a major adjustment. Fast kids don't become slow in a week's time.
Photos
Here are a few of the photos we've posted to our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PrepRunningNerd/photos_albums over the past week. Our Nerds are uploading new albums almost every day so be sure to follow our FB page. Meets from last week still in the editing room: PRR junior high, Wahoo, Norfolk Catholic and Nike Heartland Preview.
Results
We're still missing results from last week's Loup City and Olathe Twilight meets, but we've collected results for everything else at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/xcresults. A few notable results:
The Platte River Rumble doesn't rival the size of UNK meet but it's a high-quality meet that allows for some Class-on-Class violence. In particular, the large school races provides one of the few chances for us to watch top Class A and Class B athletes race each other, and the small school races have a good mix of Class B, C and D.
In the large school boys race, David Krier of Lincoln Pius had a 4-second lead at 1k. At the 3k mark, Tommy Rice of Skutt pulled even with Krier, Jared Shroeder of Waverly was eight seconds back, while Joe Majerus of Pius X and Westside's Ryan Kugler and Conor Gross were 10 seconds back from the leaders. Rice told the World Herald that he knew shortly after that point that the title would come down to the final 200 meters, and he picked up the win in 15:29. Krier was 2nd in 15:37 while Kugler, Majerus and Gross also finished under 16:00. In the race-within-the race, Pius took the team title with 101 points and outpaced Skutt, its next closest Class B rival, by 83 points. Lincoln East was the top Class A team with 111 points followed by Papio South and Lincoln Southwest.
In the large school girls race, Class B #1 Kendall Zavala and #2 Atlee Wallman of Norris passed through 1k with a 5-second lead over Leah Robinson of Elkhorn North. At the 3k mark Wallman had a 7-second lead over Zavala with Kate Ebmeier of Millard West another 14 seconds back in 3rd. Ebmeier recorded the fastest final 2000 meters in the field to finish in 18:48, but it wasn't enough to catch Wallman. Atlee took home her second career XC win in 18:37 while Zavala finished 3rd (19:01) and Robinson took 4th (19:26). Millard West won with 54 points and Norris had 57; both solidified their #1 rankings in Class A and B, respectively. This was the first Millard West-LSW match-up of the season but LSW finished in 4th with 122 points, hurt by a DNF from one of their top runners. Look for LSW to bounce back this week.
In the small school boys race, Braden Lofquest of Gretna East won by 77 seconds in 15:29. The Gretna East coaching staff chose to have their entire team compete in this race so we missed out on a Class B showdown between #1 Lofquest and #2 Rice. Both won in 15:29 in their respective races although Lofquest ran a few hours later when it was warmer. Kaser Johnson of Class D Doniphan-Trumbull was the surprise runner-up in 16:46 while Nolan Engel of Lincoln Christian was 3rd and the top Class C finisher in 17:01. Led by 8th-place Sam McQuistan, Class C Holdrege took the team title by placing four boys in the top seventeen. Class C Syracuse was 11 points behind. The Holdrege-Gothenburg-Syracuse-Fort Calhoun battle at State should be interesting. Doniphan-Trumbull was the top Class D team with 133 points with NP St. Patrick's 46 points back. In a normal Class D field there would not be as much separation between the two highly-ranked teams.
In the small school girls race, our pre-race expectation was that Class B #8 Amalia Doty of Omaha Gross would take home the title. The Glenwood team from Iowa had other ideas, with Grace Berglund and Breckyn Petersen finishing 1st and 3rd. Doty was the top Nebraska finisher, placing 2nd in 19:26, followed by Avery Heinrich (20:18, Scotus freshman, Class C #6) and Lillie Benes (20:26, Waverly, Class B watch list). Glenwood edged Scotus for the team title. The Scotus scorers finished 4th, 8th, 12th and 20th. Blair finished 3rd as the top Class B team.
At the Wahoo meet Lydia Stewart of Platteview clocked a 19:53 on a Lake Wanahoo course that features some nasty hills. Her teammate Esten Kohl recorded his third win of the season with a 17:26. The course doesn't offer much shade and the temps hit 86 that day, so Lydia's sub-20:00 is impressive. If I recall correctly, two years ago this meet ended early because the high number of heat-related illnesses overwhelmed the limited number of nearby ambulance crews. I left the meet early to avoid being one of the casualties.
The junior high edition of the Platte River Rumble grew so much this year that the Omaha Sports Commission gave the youngsters their own race day. Defending champ Emily Hegge, an 8th grader at Papillion MS, won in 10:42 while Madison Scott of Russell MS was closed behind in 10:54. Both were over 90 seconds ahead of the field. We expect to see both girls at the State Junior High meet at Papio South on October 12th. On the boys side, 7th grader Kamden Cupples of St. Wenceslaus won in 10:32 while Peter Licktieg of St. Margaret Mary edged two other boys to finish 2nd in 11:02.
In a battle of freshmen phenoms at Fairbury, Kayleigh Betka of McCool Junction took the title in 20:29 followed closely by Sandy Creek's Madison Shaw (20:31) and Tri County's Sage Holtmeier (20:35). They are now ranked 5th through 7th in Class D. Josiah Quinones, Lucas Frazier and Tyler Scott took the top three spots as Beatrice cruised to the boys title.
Mason McGreer (16:02) of Perkins County reclaimed the top ranking in Class D with his win at Chase County over his teammate and previous #1 Elijah Goodell (16:20). Ranked runners Haven Hauxwell (Chase County) and Marcus Hernandez (Bertrand) followed. Class D #2 Ashley Robertson won in 20:05 followed by #3 Peyton Paxton (21:19) of Mullen.
Class A #5 Kaden Boltz of Grand Island won the Kearney meet held at the Meadowlark golf course in 16:12, with teammate and 15th-ranked Ruben Caceres Perez 2nd in 16:37. In a match up of ranked girls, #4 Abigail Burger of Kearney won in 18:42 followed by #8 Tatum Nielson (19:14) of Bellevue West and #15 Kori McClain (19:33) of North Platte.
Hemingford's Dakota Horstman ran 22:06 at Chadron to finish 2nd behind a Wyoming athlete. Hemingford won their third team title (or is it their fourth?) of the season powered by three girls in the top six. Class B #13 Trevor Zurn of Alliance won the boys title in 16:55 with Gering's Axton Stone eight seconds back.
Class B #3 Austin Carrera of Hastings was flying in Aurora on Friday with his 15:45 while teammates Nolan Albers and Diego Chojolan took 2nd and 3rd. Hastings placed four in the top seven and should be strong competition for Pius, Skutt and Lexington. Annah Perdue of York blazed to a 19:05 to finish ahead of five ranked girls, including Hastings' Sophia Reynolds (19:12) and Seward's Tessa Greisen (19:41). In a battle of top Class C runners, Jaelyn Witter of Kearney Catholic finished 16 seconds ahead of Aurora's Alexis Ericksen in 20:28. Freshman Lily Daly of Hastings St. Cecilia, now ranked 8th in Class D, finished 6th in 20:47.
A few Nebraska teams headed up to Sioux Falls for the Nike Heartland Preview meet on Saturday. The Lincoln North Star boys scored 71 points to finish 2nd behind perennial powerhouse Minnetonka's (MN) 44 points. Josiah Bitker finished 2nd in 15:23, Easton Zastrow was 3rd in 15:35, Tyler Smith was 10th in 16:01 and J'Shawn Afuh was 11th in 16:05. David Protzman of Norfolk finished 15th in 16:14. Bitker entered the meet ranked 3rd in Class A behind Zastrow and... he's still ranked 3rd behind Zastrow, according to Nerd Junior (for the record, my formal protest was denied). Unless I'm reading schedules incorrectly, LNS won't face off against Fremont until the HAC conference meet. In our opinion they're clearly the top two teams in Class A.
Hope Riedel of LNS made her season debut at the Nike meet, finishing 18th in 19:05 and three spots ahead of Mabel Henningsen (19:23) of Marian. Based on those results, Hope moved up to the Class A #2 ranking while Mabel dropped one spot to 3rd.
Nerd sightings
Wondering whether a Nerd will at your next meet? Each weekend our volunteers pick the meet(s) they'll be shooting and then we update our results page at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/xcresults to reflect where they're headed. A few of us (well, mainly me) tend to commit the day before a meet based on work and family obligations but we do our best to warn you. If you see a Nerd in nature, give 'em a 'Howdy Nerd.' Even better, write 'Hi Nerd' on your arms (see above) or legs and there's a good chance you'll make our Twitter feed.
Don't try this at home
While shooting the Chase County meet, Nerd Stammpede snapped a series of pictures that captured Jordan Arensdorf of Hershey applying a bit of self motivation. According to his dad's reply to our Facebook post, when Jordan's body wants to give up at the end of the race, he gives himself a slap to force himself to keep pushing. We prefer non-violent mantras written on arms, but to each his own.
Hey kid, you wanna race?
While we're on the topic of a series of fun pics, Joyful Nerd snapped the following pics during the Fremont Bergan junior high race. This looks like a scene straight out of a playground. We love it!
Newbury Park
In the fall of 2022 Newbury Park High School in California fielded what is arguably the best ever high school cross country team. Recent Newbury Park stars include Colin and Aaron Sahlman (sons of Valentine's 4-time 400 meter State champ Chrystall DeNayer) and Nico, Lex and Leo Young.
Newbury Park coach Sean Brosnan has co-authored a book about the team's training methods and success, and a South Dakota coach reached out to us to offer our followers a 20% pre-order discount that you can access by clicking here. Full disclosure: I have not read the book nor do I receive any compensation for sharing it with you. However, I can't help but be excited about a book that covers high school distance running.
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First published at www.preprunningnerd.com by Jay Slagle on September 18, 2024. If you find an error, shoot us an e-mail at jayslagle@hotmail.com and we'll get it fixed.
Like this coverage of the Nebraska cross country scene? There's more of this at www.preprunningnerd.com. Check out the Blog tab for our frequent stories and and the Results tab for every Nebraska high school meet we can find. If you want to see meet photos or just need to kill a few hours on social media, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @PrepRunningNerd or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/preprunningnerd.
Finally, if you think runners, jumpers and throwers are the best things on earth, you'll enjoy our two most popular articles. In 2018 we published "The Runner with the Broken Heart" about a high school boy who finished last in nearly every race he ran. In 2022 we published, "The Fall and Rise of Emmett Hassenstab," a story about a high school triple jumper who became a quadrapalegic after a swimming accident.
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