Blog #7 - 2/5/10

Okay, I know it has been awhile.  Where to start....How about a recap of the season? 


We won our home meet!  Had three runners (Mo, Josh, & Julius) finish in the top 10 of the LSC meet, which earned them All-Conference honors!  Finished 5th in the region meet and in doing so beat two nationally-ranked teams - Abilene Christian #15 and Central Missouri #20! Julius Korir represented Cameron well with a 23rd place finish at the national meet earning him All-American honors! What a season!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm really proud of how hard our guys worked this year!!!

Blog #6 - 11/6/09

Wow, I can't believe this weekend is the NCAA DII South Central Regional Championships.  The fall semester has flown right by.  I'm pretty excited for this weekend.  I'm looking for my team to have the best finish in its short history.  The guys run at 10:30am in Abilene.  The top 3 teams make it to nationals and the top two individuals not on a top 3 team make it as well.  Our region is one of the toughest with 6 teams ranked in the top 25.  My guys are ready and I look forward to the race.

The conference championship was a little less then two weeks ago.  It was hosted by West Texas A&M University, which is located in Canyon, TX.  We had a great day with a 4th place finish and placing 3 runners (Josh, Mo, & Julius) in the top 10.  If you place in the top 10 at the LSC meet, then you are named to the all-conference team.  This was Josh Stewart's 4th time to be make that team.  I'm not sure if he set a record, but he definitely tied it! haha!

Now, its time for a challenge!!!  That's right a coach's push-up challenge!  I call out all the Cameron coaches to see how fast they can do 100 pushups.  I ask that they film their try, so I can laugh at them!  haha!  I have attached my video which is only 30 secs due to the fact that my runners can't work the camera!!!! (Someone will be doing an extra pool workout)  Anyway, I set the bar at 3:28.  BTW, my arms are still burning and I almost cried on number 98!  Okay, coaches lets see what you got!!!!

Blog #5 - 10/22/09

The season has flown by!  This weekend is our conference meet.  Tomorrow, the team will be heading to Canyon, TX and will be racing Saturday morning.  I know the guys are ready to roll!!!!!!

We are a little less then a week and a half from Halloween.  I hope you have an awesome costume picked out!  I have narrowed my choices down to three, a pirate, an outlaw, or a ninja!  To get us in the mood for Halloween I have put this little music video together with the help of JibJab.  I think you will enjoy it.  I must give credit to the stars of the video, Jim Jackson, Kim Vinson, Tina Jensen, Rick Goodwin, and Jerry Hrnciar.

Blog #4 - 10/7/09

I was on a run the other day and it was just one of those days where everything felt harder than it should.  I begin to think; I need a nice relaxing night with a good meal and a motivational movie to get me going.  So what movie would I watch?  The first thing that came to mind was the usual suspects of Prefontaine, Running Brave, Rudy, or Rocky, but then I went in a different direction. 

The movie I watched that night was Nacho Libre!  Ok, I know what you are saying “how can this movie be motivational.”  Well, once you get past the crazy jokes and stretchy pants you find a man who realizes that there is more to life than being rich and famous.  If you haven’t seen the movie the main character is named Nacho and he is a friar at a monastery in Mexico where he is the cook.  His dream is to be a luchador but it is frowned up on by the monastery.  He finds a tag team partner and begins to wrestle in secret.  Well, I will not ruin the movie for you if you haven’t seen it, but to make a long story short, Nacho realizes that all the luchadors including him only care about fame and money.  Nacho knows this is wrong and decides he will no longer wrestle for himself.  He asks God to give him the strength to win and he will buy a bus for the orphans with the money he wins.

I try and ask myself daily.  Am I the Nacho at the end of this movie and or the Nacho at the beginning?

Which Nacho are you?????

Blog #3 - 9/15/09

AGGIES WIN!!!!!!!

What a great day for a race… that is if you are a runner!  For the coaches and volunteers it was pretty nasty.   BTW, the volunteers were awesome!!!  I want to thank all the coaches, administrators, P.L.U.S. students, trainers, and athletes, especially the men’s basketball team for coming out and helping!!!!  Because of them we had a quality meet. 

The rain held off for the open race and the college women’s race, but right in the middle of the college men’s race it begin to pour.  My guys didn’t seem to mind, because they all ran pretty well.  Julius got his second win of the season and beat unattached runner and former college teammate of mine Koby Styles. 

Josh had another top 5 finish with 4^th place and Mo ran great Saturday with a 5^th place finish and beating 3 East Central runners that beat him last week.  Casey and Juan rounded out our top 5 with 14^th and 19^th and Bhupendra finish 21^st.   

You would think after a race, which we won, that the Aggie Cross Country Team would get a day off, right?  Wrong!!!!!  At 6:45 am on Sunday the guys were back at it running their weekly long run, which for some is 18 miles.  Now, we will have three weeks before our next meet which will be at Stillwater. 

When you get some time, check out the video of the race at goaggies.cameron.edu.

Blog #2

Well, where to begin?  Last Thursday, we had our first meet.  It was at Midwestern and was a night race.  We did okay.  Josh Stewart was our top finisher at 5th place.  Julius Korir ran unattached and won the race.  We hope to have him wearing the Black and Gold this weekend at the Aggie Showdown.  We finished 5th as a team, which isn't great, but once we get our full team suited up we should be strong!!!! 

I have some sad news.  Genaro Garza's father passed away in a car accident last week.  Genaro is a freshmen runner from Houston.  I ask that you join me and pray for him and his family.  This also puts my mind on Julius Kosgei.  It has been 13 months since this death and he is missed dearly!  I want to share with you a verse that helped me get through Julius's death. 

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
¹³ Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. ¹⁴ We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

This verse is telling us that it is okay to grieve, but that we must remember that there is HOPE.

Cameron's first ever home cross country meet is this weekend at the Big Green soccer fields.  The college women run at 9:00 and the men at 9:35.  I hope to CU there!

Blog #1

Wow, would be the best why to describe the last two weeks.  With school and practice starting and the team hosting our annual high school cross country meet things have be busy.  Things look to stay the same this week with the Health Fair on Wednesday and our first meet the Midwestern State Mustang Stampede this Thursday. 

I would like to take a little time to touch on some of the high points of the last two weeks.  Two weeks ago the team got back to campus and the guys are looking pretty fit!  They have been putting in a lot of hard work, but we did take a day to have a little fun.  I have posted some pictures.  We had a scavenger hunt, which had some great singing, and played a couple of games including the mummy game that had three of our new faces Genaro, Ramiro, and mummy winner Jose, being wrapped in TP. 

Last Wednesday the south central regional rankings came out and your Cameron Aggie XC team is ranked 8th.  That ties our highest ranking from last season!  We hope to continue to move up the ladder! 

Last Friday it was time for our annual blood test.  I test all my guy's ferritin levels and complete blood counts.  Ferritin is a protein in the body that stores iron.  If a runner has low ferritin levels then their body will not recover properly from hard workouts.  That is why I like to keep a close eye on their blood work.  These bloods test are very simple procedures, except for a few of my guys. Haha!  I won't name any names, but we had to lay one athlete down and elevate his legs and another it took about ten minutes to get up out of the chair.  They both looked pathetic!  But at least they didn't cry!!! 

Our first meet is this Thursday night at Midwestern.  The gun goes off at 8 PM and I hope you can make it down to watch a great race.  We will be holding a couple of runners out, but I still think we have a shot at the win!  Have a good week and run hard!