Joe Gentsch finished 14th at the 2009 SUNYAC XC Championships placing him on the second team ALL SUNYAC list.  Joe ran 26:22 on a very slow Cortland course that saw only five runners break 26 min.  Joe and his teammates will compete in the NCAA Atlantic Regional Cross Country Champs at Letchworth State Park this Saturday.  Joe will attempt to be the first Cross Country athlete from New Paltz to qualify for the NCAA Championships.   The top two teams in the region as well as the top 7 individuals will qualify for Nationals.

Joe Gentsch crushed Phil Goodwins 8 year old 8k New Paltz school record today at the Albany Invitational with a time of 25:29 seconds.  This bested Phils time of 26:15 by 46 seconds.  Joe’s average pace per mile was 5:08.

Danielle Harmon obliterated Janet Walsh’s five year old 5k record of 19:36 in a time of 19:05.  This eclipsed the old record by 31 seconds.  Danielles average pace per mile was 6:08

Lisa Cassaro also bested Walsh’s mark with a PR of 19:19, moving into second place in the ToP Ten All Time list for 5K Cross Country.  Lisa averaged 6:13 per mile.

The last time I was at the Paul Short Invite was in 1981 as a sophomore at the University of Maryland.  It was called the Lehigh Invite back then but it was always a big meet with top teams from all over the region and country in attendance.  Nearly 30 years later it was not much different.  

Our Women’s team competed in the second most competitive field of the day in the Brown Race.  There were many DI and DII schools in the field as well as our conference rivals: Cortland, Plattsburgh and Oneonta.  The race conditions were excellent and the course is rolling but fast.  It was our first big invite of the year and I think it was a bit intimidating for some of the younger runners who are not used to competing in highly competitive fields with 300 to 400 runners.  I thought the women may have been a little bit too conservative the first mile but they have not been doing alot of the kind of work that would make them feel comfortable going out hard and mixing it up with very good runners.  The women looked great overall for where they’re at this time in the season.  Danielle crushed the school record with a 23:25 and looks like she’ll be ready to go under 23 on her next fast 6k course.  Lisa was a little under the weather but still ran 24:07, just 9 seconds off last years best.  Nikki McCarthy and Nichole Wishchoff both ran there first 6k’s in 24:43 and 24:51 respectively.  Lisa, Nikki & Nichole were all out in 6:30 which was a bit pedestrian for them and need to be a bit more aggressive in the future.  Sara Wenger ran 25:22 which was a big PR for her and was through the first mile in 6:40.  Kate Frick ran 25:47 with a steady performance and a personal best and Alex Berenis ran a PR in 25:58 to round out our top 7.  

It’s about time to start to switch gears and begin to focus on sharpening.  We have less then three weeks to SUNYAC.  We will start to see how all the work begins to pay off in the coming weeks.

The men had a wake up call at Paul Short. Jr Captain Joe Gentsch ran a personal best in 26:17 for his first 8k of the season.  I think Joe was a little disappointed with his performance and knows now what areas he will need to improve on if he wants to take his running to the elite level in our conference.  Albany will give us a clear indication as to whether or not he is ready to make the move.  Rob Grazier followed Joe with a 28:28, 8 seconds off his PR. Dex Larsen ran solid with a 28:50 tying his pb from his freshmen year.   Shawn Gannon and Jeff Raab struggled in together in 29:15.  Rob Webster ran a personal best of 29:24 finally cracking the 30 min mark.

The men still have a chance to get themselves into a more competitive postion by the 31st  It will take focus and determination on their  part at Albany to set themselves up for a great race at Conference Champs.

These two teams still have alot to prove but they are both headed in the right direction.  I can’t wait until Albany this weekend.

Congrats to the Men’s XC Team taking both the overall individual and team victory at the Bard Invitational.  Joe Gentsch once again lead the men’s team in an easy victory on the 4.75 mile course in a time of 25:55.  Joe helped keep Rob Grazier, Shawn Gannon and Jeff Raab on pace for the first mile and then moved up to pass the leader by mile two and never relinquished the lead.  Greg Hanusch rounded out the top five having run a very heady race.  Dex Larsen and Rob “BrownBurns” Webster placed 6th and 7th respectively.

Congratulations to the Women’s XC Team for the overall and team win at the Bard Invitational.  Danielle Harmon lead the Women’s team and set a new course record in a time of 20:14 on a very challenging  5k course.  Danielle was followed by Chanelle Santilli,  Lisa Cassaro, Nichole Wischoff, Sara Wenger, Nikki McCarthy and Alex Berenis to round out the top seven runners.

I want to send out a belated props to Joe Gentsch for being recognized by the SUNYAC as the Runner of the Week last week for his performances at Mt. St. Mary’s and the Vassar Invitational.   Joe ran an outstanding race against an excellent runner in Jon Erichson (1:53.00, 800) by outkicking him on the final straight away.  Coach McGowan of Vassar said to me Jon was not accustomed to being outkicked and was non too pleased.   Keep up the good work of making other runners “non too pleased” Joe!

Eagle cliff run

Men run up to the top of Eagle Cliff.

Jeff mixing it up

Jeff Raab competing in his first collegiate meet at the Vassar Invite.

Most blogs that I have read seem to include some form of daily mental outpouring of thoughts and observations.  On occassion I will  comment on things that I observe during workouts for those of you who may be interested. 

Today’s workout was cruise interval session of 5 to 8  X 900 meters with 90 seconds active recovery.  This basically means that a runner runs at a pace for the prescribed distance that is about 90% of maximum heart rate.   This is approximately the Lactate Threshold or just below the point that a runner begins to go into oxygen debt and produce lactic acid.  Working consistently at just below threshold is the point where an endurance athlete can most effectively raise the lactate threshold and improve speed endurance.   This is crucial to successful distance running.

Optimally a runner would have there blood lactate levels tested while running on a treadmill to help the coach determine the ideal training pace for a specific runner.  A heart monitor can become an effective tool as well but can sometimes become a crutch that an athlete ends up too reliant upon.  At this point the athlete-coach relationship becomes crucial in helping to determine how a runner can learn to run within themselves to achieve the best result possible for a given workout.  More often then not I find that it’s important to hold back an athlete from training too hard in threshold session.

Our venue was new today.  Justin and I have been scouting out locations where we can watch the runners cover 1 K to 1600 meters in a large oval on a slightly rolling course.  I want to more closely approximate the typical terrain we might encounter during our championship meets.  We found a nice course around some ball fields out at the Ulster County Fair Grounds.  It has grass. dirt and shale and relatively level footing on easy rolling terrain.   I thought the conditions were ideal to try out the location today for the work bout we had in mind.

In todays workout session our women completed 5 X 900 meters with 90 seconds of active recovery completely under control and locked into  a pace that was consistent throughout the work bout.  Nikki McCarthy and Danielle Harmon completed a 6th repeat because they were easily capable of tolerating the additional work load and have consistently maintained 50+ miles per week for several months.  We finished the session with 4 X 200 meter race pace repeats to pan over to some higher intensity without completely depleating the system after the long cruise interval session.  The women seem to respond positively to frequent shorter bouts of higher intensity running in conjuntion with the tempo based workouts.  Psychologically, they believe it is beneficial and that can go a long way.

The Men completed 8 X 900 meters with 90 second recovery.  At this point most of the guys know where they’re at in terms of fitness and settled into threshold pace fairly quickly.  Joe and Rob worked well together consistently hitting 3:07ish.  Rob Webster, Shawn and Liam worked well together.  Dex and Jeff worked solo but held their pace consistently.  Some of the younger less experienced runners are still learning but seemed to manage to run within themselves today.  Dan and Greg worked well together as well.

I think we found ourselves a great location that we can return to and measure our improvement during the course of our season.  We have three days to recover for Bard on Saturday and I think we got just the right amount of work for the recovery time we have before race day.  I think they’ll be tired the next couple of days but the legs won’t be quite so beat up .  We shall see.

Good news today.  Nichole Wissler seems to be able to run pain free with a light wrap.  She ran pain free for 25 minutes today.  J-Boz is still side lined with shin splints and Ryan Bauer is struggling with IT Band syndrome but they are doing what they have to rehab and work through it.  Marian is struggling with ankle pain not unlike last fall.  My hope is she’ll recovery quickly to get a full season in.