Sunday, June 1, 2008

2008 UIW Men's and Women's Cross Country Schedule

Below is the upcoming CC schedule for our men and women. The schedule looks very similar to 2007 except that we are hosting the South/Central Regional Championships - the first of its kind in San Antonio. It should be a blast!

Date Meet Location

August
30 UIW Relays Live Oak, SA


September
6 Texas State Invite San Marcos, TX
(B Team)

12 Notre Dame Championships South Bend, IN
(A Team)

27 UIW Invitational Live Oak, SA


October
4 Oklahoma Jamboree Oklahoma State Univ.

18 Heartland Conference Dallas, TX
Hosted by Dallas Baptist

November
8 NCAA II Regional Championships Live Oak, SA Hosted by Incarnate Word

November NCAA II Nationals Slippery Rock, PA
22 Slippery Rock University

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Men's and Women's team GPA for Spring Semester

Here is a quick update on another award for the men's and women's track teams. The men will receive their first team academic All-American award in our short history. The men accumulated a team GPA of 3.21 for the spring semester! The criteria called for a cumulative team GPA of 3.0+. I am very proud of the men for doing such a great job in the classroom this spring. It was a banner year on the track as we broke many school records and it was a banner year in the classroom as well as they lived up to the student-athlete credo.

The women's team once again knocked the ball out of the ballpark with their combined GPA's! They finished with a GPA of 3.50 for the 15 countable women. This markes their highest team GPA yet and will most likely place them in the top 5 teams in the nation. Last year, with a cumulative GPA of 3.45, the women finished 5th in the nation for D-II track teams and had the highest GPA for a Texas school.

The official annoncement should come in three weeks and will be announced on the USATFCCCA website and www.uiw.edu/athletics.

Until next time...

Friday, April 18, 2008

Time to Rock and Roll...

We will travel to the University of Texas tomorrow afternoon for the UT Twilight. I always look forward to running at UT because the competition is always top notch. We always run well there also because the facility is nice and the wind is minimal. It looks like the weather will top out at 80 degrees and the skies will be clear!

I have a strong feeling about several looming performances. Yvonne has had some great workouts lately and is feeling confident about her 3000m tomorrow. We will look to be patient once again and try to get a qualifying mark.

I have an intuition about the men's 4 x 400m. Chacho has felt the best he has all year and the way Christian, George and Taylor have been running in practice gives us a lot of confidence to go in and mix it up. We haven't run the 4 x 400m since March 31st at the Victor Lopez, when we ran 3:17. We know it is time to step up and get the qualifying mark out of the way. We shall see how it goes...

Finally, Jay Wilson's speed coordination has been coming around lately. We are going to try to get out right away in the 800 so we don't get knocked around the first lap. Jay plans to get out, take the lead and run high 55, low 56. He will then try to stay aggressive, be instinctual, and change gears the final 200m.

Needless to say, I am excited and the athletes are ready to get after it. I think the 18 day break from formal competition will do wonders for everyone.

Check back Sunday for an update of results...

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Recent Workout for Middle and Long Distance Runners

Here are the results of a recent (Wednesday of this week) workout we did on the track. The results show the athletes are starting to peak when we need them/want them to! It was exciting and encouraging on many levels.

On a side note, the sprinters and jumpers have been working equally hard. Their practices are setting them up to explode very soon at one of our upcoming track meets.


Middle Distance: 9x200m w/ 3 minutes jog recovery

average:
Jay
25
26
25
25.4
26
25
25.6
26
23.8
Average 25.1

Jeremy
26
26.7
26.9
25.8
27
27
26.58
27
24.4
Average: 26.37556

Michael
26
26.9
26
26.9
28
26
27.3
28
26.4
Average: 26.83333

Alma
32
31
33
31
32
32
31
32
29.03
Average: 31.44778

Long Distance: 10x400m w/ 1 1/2 minutes jog recovery

average:
Yvonne
73
71
70
70
70
72
72
72
72
71
Average: 71.3
Rose
78
76
75
77
78
76
76
78.5
78
76
Average: 76.85

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Cardinals at Texas Relays

Here is a quick update from day 1 of the TX Relays in Austin, TX.

Jay Wilson was our first participant on the day, running the 800m against a strong field. Jay went out and methodically broke the school record he previously set on the same track two weeks ago by running 1:55.33. It was a season best for Jay. He is feeling more confident by the day and his training has been strong. We will tweak a few things as we continue toward our goal of 1:53 for the season.

Yvonne Rodriguez ran next in the women's 5K. We went in trying to grab a provisional qualifier for the outdoor national championships. That is exactly what Yvonne did! She smashed the school record, set last week, by one minute and 6 seconds to finish in 17:42.23. The time places her 14th best in the nation at this point. She will no doubt have to drop the time another 12-15 seconds to assure a national spot. She will run the 5K again at the Rice Twilight meet April 24th. We will do some fine tuning at the UT Twilight as we give the 1500m qualifier another mark as well as the 3000K. After the UT meet we wil focus on her best chance for running at nationals. She ran 5:28 for the first mile, 5:45 for the second mile and 5:45 for the third mile to run her smartest, most disciplined race of the season and finish 5th overall in a strong field.

Adrian Carrillo finished the day for us in the men's 5K. It was only Adrian's second 5K of his college career. He set a seasonal best of 16:06. He will look to drop under the 16 flat barrier this season. Once he breaks the 16 barrier most men never run over 16 again. He will run the open 3000m at UT in a few weeks and then come back with the 3K steeple at the Rice Twilight to finish out the year.

I will come back with another update Friday after Hilario Flores and Hayley Watts run the 100m that morning.

Until next time...

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Victor Lopez - Rice Day 2

Well, we finished the Victor Lopez (a very well run and first class meet every year) on a strong note Saturday!

To keep this short I will quickly recap the highlights.

Little Hayley Watts ran her first 800 of the season and set a new PR of 2:29.xx. That isn't half bad for a 200/400 sprinter with no 800 experience who doesn't train for it either. We don't concentrate on it other than to run if for 400 strength work and to show Hayley that there is something that hurts more than the 400! She realized that and is now ready to set a new PR in the 400 and have that break through. She did come back a little over an hour later and set a season best in the 200 of 26.14. She looks ready to dip in teh 25s the last few weeks of the season.

The men's 4 x 400m had the break through we have been looking for all season. The B team of: John William Zavala, Lalo Flores, Travis Barton and David Martinez set a season best of 3:24.xx with splits of: 50.83, 50.38, 51.32, and 52.09. They finished a close third in their heat.

The A team followed in the final heat and set a big seasonal best and new school record of 3:17.66. We moved the order around to try something different. It seemed to work for the time being. Christian Alicea started us off with a 49.49, then handed off to Chacho Madera, who ran a season best 49.04. Chacho then handed off to Taylor Echevarria, who ran a season best 49.09. George Alicea did a good job in his first anchor action, running 49.89 while also moving us from 6th place to 3rd overall.

It was a good meet. We travel to UT for the TX Relays. Adrian Carrillo and Yvonne Rodriguez will run the 5K. Jay Wilson will run the 800. Lalo Flores and Hayley Watts will run the 100m and the men's 4 x 200 will run Saturday.

After the Texas Relays we take a weekend off in preparation for our last two regular season meets of the year at UT and Rice.

Until next time...

Friday, March 28, 2008

Big PRs on Day One of Victor Lopez

Quick update of Day 1 - Victor Lopez:

Rose Caldwell set a huge PR and broke the school record in the 5000m by running 18:47. She didn't have a good finishing place because of how fast the field was (all girls ran sub 19!) but she ran tough, ran smart, and established a nice PR prior to hitting her peak this season. She will look to run sub 18:30 when we finish the season here one month from now.

Alma Santos also established another awesome PR by finishing the 1500m in 5:00.70, setting a freshman record. Alma finally looked like she put it all together and it looks like the speed work is starting to pay dividends for us right when it is supposed to!

Adrian Carrillo, Jeremy Juarez and Michael Cortez ran 4:14, 4:18, and 4:20 repectively in the 1500m. It was the first 1500m try of the season for Adrian and only the second for Jeremy.

Yvonne Rodriguez finished 17th by running 4:46.xx. She led her heat until the final 150m of the race. We have decided to shake up Yvonne's training and start training her as a middle distance runner, with the goal of working on her speed coordination. With this, we look for her to finally dip under our goal of 4:40 this year.

Finally, Danny Gonzalez set another solid PR in the men's javlin with a chunk of 166'1", good for 6th place out of 13 or so competitors. He has now improved in two consecutive meets.

Our sprinters/jumpers look to continue our PR party tomorrow against some of the best competition in the state.

Until tomorrow...