atoms

“It is the biggest meet in world!” That’s what you hear all the time at the Milaca Mega Meet. It may be the biggest meet in the world, but it’s not the only meet to keep your eyes on this year. There are a couple races on the calendar where we could see break-out races. Whether it’s Milaca, Griak, Swain, or the State Meet, there will be plenty of fast times and great races ran at these meets.       The first major race to watch this year would be the Milaca Mega Meet.  This race will be held on September 20. It is considered the biggest race in the world. For varsity races it is divided into four separate divisions. The smallest schools run in the Class A race, and as the schools keep getting bigger they go up to AA, then AAA and finally AAAA. There are many great teams and individuals to watch out for at this meet. A couple of teams to watch out for in the two smaller races would be Holdingford, Mora, Jordan, St. Cloud Cathedral, Glencoe-Silver Lake, Perham, Martin County West, and West Central Area. Most of these are in the AA race, which will make for a great competitive race sense all of these, besides one, are ranked in the top 10 in single A. Some Individuals to watch in the two smaller races would be Billy Beasmen from Perham, Andrew Zachman from Holdingford, Isaac Overmeyer from Park Rapids, and Jonah Mayo from Martin County West. These teams and runners have been looking good and on a flat course like Milaca, they’re guaranteed to run fast.     Now looking at the two bigger races on the day. The teams to watch, that will be competing are White Bear Lake, Bemidji, Robbinsdale Armstrong, and Chaska. Unfortunately, Chaska will be running without their star runner Joey Duerr. Some other individual runners to look for in this race are Alec Anderson from Chaska, and Nick Wareham from Woodbury. Milaca will be a great meet to go to this year. There are many rated individuals and teams that will make for a good, competitive race (Milaca Mega meet Press Release).     The next meet is the Roy Griak Invitational on September 27th. This is a race that has both college races and high school. College races are usually ran in the morning and high school in the afternoon. For high school boys there’s a Gold and Maroon race. The Gold race is for the bigger and faster teams, Where the Maroon race is for the smaller schools. This meet usually has a lot of great competition. In the gold race, will have Wayzata, Stillwater, Hopkins, Perham, and Edina as the teams to watch run good. A hilly course like this makes for the experienced teams to excel. Some of the top individuals to keep your eyes on would be Shane Streich, from Waseca, Connor Olson, from Wayzata, Ephraim Bird, from Minnehaha Academy, and Micah Mather, from St. Paul Highland Park.      For the Maroon race, look for Lakeville North, Mounds View, Rogers, and Winona to be near the top of the team standings. In the individual part of the race look for Mike Destache, from St. Paul Academy Summit, Collin Kiley, from Roseville, and Hunter Bailey, from Winona. This course has lots of hills that make it hard for the runners that start out to fast. The even paced runners are usually the ones that succeed at a meet like this (University of Minnesota Official Athletic Site).    The final major meet to keep your eyes on would be the Minnesota State Cross Country Meet. This is where the best of the best compete for the highest honors in the state. This year Class A runs in the morning and Class AA runs in the afternoon. It will be held on Saturday, November 1st, this year. In the Class A race anything can happen. Shane Streich, from Waseca hasn’t been touched by anybody all year and is the clear cut favorite to win. If there was anyone else for him to watch out for it would be Isaac Overmyer, from Park Rapids, and Ephraim Bird, from Minnehaha Academy. Otherwise Shane Striech should have a fairly easy win at the state meet. On the team side of Class A watch for Perham to have another great year. Probably not winning this year, but top a top three team. Waseca will be right up there too. Mora, Holdingford, and St. Cloud Cathedral will all be top ten teams. Look for Martin County West to win the team title. They have a strong consistent team this year. They won’t have to worry about any class A teams beating them this year. If they did though, the only one that would have a chance would be Glencoe-Silver Lake. Overall, the Class A meet will be down from last year, but it will still be a very intense race to watch.     On the double AA side of things, look for a competitive race, where there is no clear cut winner for the individual title. On the team side, it should be a blow out with Wayzata putting three of their guys in the top 10 to take the state title. Stillwater, Edina and Hopkins will all be fighting for that runner up spot. The individual part of the race will be a bit tricky. This course is a flat course, that is well suited for all runners. The state title will be a battle fought to the death between Connor Olson, From Wayzata, and Joe Klecker, From Hopkins. If Eli Krahn, from Stillwater, is healthy, look for him to be in the mix also. Other runners that will be in the top 10 include Joey Duerr, from Chaska, Ian Eklin, from Wayzata, Nick Wareham, from Woodbury, and Jaret Carpenter, From Wayzata. Any of these guys could pull off the upset if they have a great day, but they would have to run their best race of the season and life. This will be the meet to watch if you want to see all of the best runners across Minnesota compete against each other and find out who is the best of the best (MSHSL State Cross Country Championships).     There are quite a few important meets to go to this year. You won’t always hear people say, this is the biggest meet in the world! But that doesn’t mean you won’t find just as many great runners at Griak and the state meet, as you see at the Milaca Mega Meet. Going to these meets will be a great experience, where you can see the best high school runners in Minnesota give it their all and run fast times. It might even motivate you to try running yourself. Even though running as fast as some of the runners in these races is out of the question, you might be able to start running and achieve your own self goals.

The final runner to watch this year doesn’t even have to deal with any of the other top runners in the state. He is lucky enough to be in Class A and not in AA. In Class A there is no one that can touch this guy. This guy’s name is Shane Streich of Waseca. Shane has been to state every year from seventh grade through his junior year. According to milesplit he ran a 17:25 as a seventh grader. Not many kids at that age can do that. During the runner’s eight grade year he pulled off a 16:31. That’s a whole minute he cut off between his first two years of cross country. Streich finished 14th as an eighth grader at the state meet. You knew at this point we had a special runner coming up. His freshman year he shocked us even more. He ran a 16:15 and ended up fifth. The athlete kept on impressing into his sophomore year running a 15:52 at state and finishing third behind two seniors. Setting Shane up to win his junior and senior year. Unfortunately, his junior year a guy by the name of Keeghan Hurley showed up and beat Shane by over 20 seconds. He still ran a good race though running a 15:50 finishing second with a big gap on third place (MSHSL State Cross Country Championships).  This will be Streich’s last year to claim that state championship. With Keeghan gone he is the clear favorite to win it all. Shane doesn’t have to deal with the AA kids and no one in Class A can come close to him. Even if the runner did have to worry about Class AA the only one he would have to worry about would be Connor Olson. Now that would be a fun race to watch. We will get to see those two battle it out at the Roy Griak Invitational though. Watching the two best runners go at it is always fun and guaranteed to make you nervous

The next runner that has potential to do great things this year is Joe Klecker of Hopkins. After being hurt last cross country season and not able to run in the state meet, Joe’s looking for a redemption year. Missing his junior year could set him back quite a ways though. But with his determination and his third place finish at the state meet in 2012, he will come back stronger than ever. Joe Klecker looks to have a good team this year that could make it to state for the first time in a long time. With that competition helping to push him, he’ll be able to be very close to Connor Olson. He might even beat Connor in some meets this year but probably not the state meet. According to milesplit, Joe ran a 15:24 has a sophomore and didn’t get a chance to top that his junior year. He was the fastest sophomore in 2012. He has lots of talent and has lots of anger built up for missing his junior year.

A younger contender that is a bit inconsistent, but still seems to show up in the big races is Joey Duerr of Chaska. He has a tendency to end up injured during the season, but somehow runs at the state meet. The runner does show up in big races though. According to milesplit Joey ran a 15:57 his freshman year at state finishing eighth. During Duerr’s sophomore year he ended up sixth running a 15:32. During Joey’s junior year he actually was hurt and wasn’t able to participate at the end of the year. Each one of these years he ended up hurt at some point during the season. Joey ends up putting to many miles on and ends up having to take some weeks of to rest. It’s not a very good thing to take those weeks off in the middle of training, but he does dominate at the state meet. Other than the state meet though you usually don’t see him running any crazy fast times or winning many races. If he would cut down on the miles some he would have a breakout season and run great all season long. Like Joe Klecker, he will also have a lot to prove his senior year after missing his senior year. Look out for a battle for second place between a good consistent runner in Joe Klecker and a very inconsistent runner in Joey Duerr that always runs his best at the state meets. 

“Well folks, looks like Connor Olson will have to wait until next year for his chance at the state title.” That’s what you heard when Obsa Ali beat out Connor Olson for the state title last year. Fortunately, Connor Olson had one more year left to capture the title. He isn’t the only runner looking for a state title this year though. Some other runners that will be competing for the state title will be Shane Striech, Joe Klecker, and Joey Duerr. All of which can achieve this goal.      The runner that has the best odds to win in the Class AA race would be Connor Olson. He’s from a strong Wayzata team that is ranked number one going into this season as a team. They have six of their seven guys back from last year. According to Wayzata’s Cross Country page, Connor was the lone junior in the top five at state last year. He placed second at the state meet last year five seconds in front of third place and two seconds behind first. He ran a 15:17 last year at the state meet. That is under 5 minute mile pace. He was on a whole different level then everyone else last year. This should carry over into this year and he shouldn’t be touched at all. Connor has the fastest returning time this year by more than fifteen seconds. He might have a couple of days here and there, but overall Connor should be a high up contender that shouldn’t have any trouble getting his state title this year. As long as he works hard and eats right over the off season, which shouldn’t be hard for him because some of his biggest competition is on his own team (Middle School Results: Minnetonka (9/16) &Eden Prairie (9/11)).

    On the other side of things, one Wayzata coach says he never tells the kids the distance before they join. He gets them hooked on the sport regardless of the distance. His argument is he coaches the biggest school in Minnesota, so he has lots of opportunities to find and recruit more runners to his team. Whereas, a single a school usually doesn’t have a whole lot to work with. Not nearly as much as a huge school like Wayzata (What's the Right Distance for Girls' Cross-country?).     Minnesota isn’t the only school that doesn’t run a 5K in the United States. There are quite a few more. A couple of the states that continuously produce good runners, even though they don’t run a 5K, are Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Texas. Wisconsin produced the best runner in the United States last year for girls. Molly Seidel easily won her state meet in Wisconsin. She went on to win the regional and National Footlocker meets. She was then named Gatorades National Runner of the Year. Her state win was a 4K, but all of the rest of the races she ran at the National level were 5K’s. It shows that running the farther distance all year long doesn’t necessarily make you better. Hard work and talent can make you succeed at any distant.      Another argument on changing it to a 5K is gender equity. They say girls can do just as much as boys and should be allowed to prove themselves and compete at the same level of boys. Some people argue that keeping the girls at a 4K is a Title Nine issue. Some conferences actually run a 5K for both girls and boys at their conference meets even though they’re in a state that is still a 4K state for girls. Gender has caused a major role in the transformation from girls running a 4K to a 5K. Most people in this day and age believe that Women should be tested at the same standards in everything including athletic events (Christopher Parish).      Changing girls 4K to a 5K would make meet management a lot easier as well. Having both the boys and girls running the same race will make everything easier. You would only have to make a course for a 5K race, instead of both a 4K and a 5K. Even though managing it would be easier it would take a lot more time. Lots of the slower girls that run a 4K now finish the race right around twenty-five and twenty-six minutes. If you add another half a mile on that, some girls won’t be able to handle it, or will still be racing after thirty minutes. This makes everything go by slower, especially when you potentially have four races that could all be 5K’s in a single meet. The four races would include races for boys Varsity, girls Varsity, boys Junior Varsity, and girls Junior Varsity. The Junior Varsity races for girls could get extremely slow and could make the meets a lot longer than what they are when girls run just a 4K.      The increase from a 4K to 5K really isn’t that much of an increase in distance. It is only a twenty percent. Girls are strong. They can handle a half of a mile more in a race. This isn’t the 80’s anymore where people think girls can’t do anything as athletic as males. Girls have developed and have become a major part of sports. Girls can handle the increase. They handled it in the 80’s so they can handle it now, especially with all the new equipment they have to make training and racing that much easier for you (Wisconsin HS Girls: 4k or 5k?).

Bethany Hasz wins state with a 13:53! That is an incredible time for a 4K! That was a great time for a 4K ran last year at the state meet. Too bad next year she will be running a 5K. They have made it official that Minnesota will be changing their girl’s race to a 5K as well. There is many reasons why they have kept it a 4K and are now changing it to a 5K. Another thing you have to ask yourself is how will it affect the girl runners?      Mshsl have kept Minnesota separated from the rest of the nation in not changing the girls 4K to a 5K. Some people believe that girls wouldn’t be able to handle the farther distance. There is a fear of changing it into a longer distance. A longer race may make kids not come out for the sport. They won’t want to run the farther distance. According to Christopher Parish the last time they changed it in 1994, from 3200 to a 4K, they didn’t see any decline in participation. Coaches want to change it to a 5K do to that’s what is run in college and at any national level meet. One small-school coach explained that there are very few runners that will run at a division one school and will have to run a 5K. There is all very few girls that will be good enough to run in national level meets competitively. Many 4K supporters also say that it doesn’t matter the distance. A great runner will be fast in either a 4K or a 5K.

Another key factor in the summer is nutrition. Taking care of their nutrition, just as much as putting their miles on, can make runners a champion at any distance. Not fueling yourself properly could cause them to experience overtraining syndrome. This causes a runner to never reach their full potential. Experiment with new, healthier, foods in the summer to get your body used to different foods. Fine tuning a runner’s eating and drinking habits can help to reach full potential.

“Obsa Ali wins the race with only one shoe! This is amazing!” That’s what I heard at the state cross country meet last year at the end of the class AA race. Obsa Ali didn’t just show up and win. He had intense training and put the right things into his body. He never just expected it to happen. To achieve something nearly as great as a state title it starts with hard work, proper training, and good nutrition. With these three concepts you can achieve everything you’re capable of.

September 20th, 2014