Well, last Friday was a fun meet. The meet at Macalester was a little larger than I expected (10 terms compared to 3 teams at the same meet last year) and it ran over an hour behind schedule. It meant for a late night as I crawled into bed about 1:00am, but our guys adapted to the delays and performed extremely well.
If you looked at any of the results, you saw the big news of two new school records. Drew Dockendorf (JR, Holdingford) upped his school record by two centimeters to 4.90 meters (16-0.75ft) and is currently ranked fourth in the country. The other school record came in high jump. Maguire Petersen (FR, Hutchinson) cleared 2.10 meters (6-10.75ft) to break the old school record of 2.09m set in 2014 by Nick Welshons (‘15). Maguire drew quite a crowd at high jump and had good attempts at 7 feet. He is currently ranked second in the country.
With distance runners competing, the meet showcased how the team is well-rounded currently. We had good performances in the mile with Mitch Grand (FR, Hutchinson) running a gutsy race by taking the lead at the gun. He was nipped at the line, but ran 4:24.85. Two other Johnnies were close behind with Lloyd Young (FR, Bloomington) and Noah Webb (JR, St. Cloud) just over one second behind.
The throwers are coming along nicely. Eli Mollet (SO, Jefferson SD) and Ryan Murphy (JR, Mounds View) have had big improvements in the weight throw this season. The other guys are still trying to figure out how to control the big 35lb weight. I am currently coaching both the sprints and throws (not a normal combination), but they are fun groups to train.
Sprint practice has gone extremely well this week, with a fast day Wednesday. To give you an idea of what we are up to, the 400 runners had a series of 150’s. They did 2-3 sets of 3x150m fast with 30 seconds rest. They took about ten minutes rest between sets. The workout for the short sprinters doesn’t sound nearly as bad, but they honestly shudder at the thought of anything longer than 60 meters. They had 1x180m, 1x150m, and 3x50m. I enjoy these days when everyone is on the track and running fast.
We have two more meets to qualify for the MIAC Indoor Championships. This weekend we are at home on Saturday. Start time for both track and field events is 11:00am. The following weekend we are at St. Olaf on Saturday. Don’t forget, we also host the MIAC Indoor Championship meet on February 28-29. The heptathlon will start on February 27th for you die-hard SJU track fans. Hope to see you at an upcoming meet!