Markham Park Meet

Yesterday was just what we were looking for! All the hard work we have been putting in and now we were ready to go out and really run fast.....and we did! All of our runners competed yesterday and out of the 13 boys, 9 had Personal Bests, and 3 had Season Best times. Out of the 13 girls that ran yesterday, 12 had Personal Best times with Kara running her Season Best time. To clarify those that did not have their Personal Best, Christian Wackes and Michael Luzinski were both 1 second off their PB times. Kara Gahagen's fastest time was recorded back in 2002 when she was in 6th grade when she last competed.

Overall for the meet both the girls and boys teams finished 1st overall bringing their regular season records to 9-1 for the girls and 8-4 for the boys. But even more importantly was the look in their eyes before the race. They were extremely determined and approached the line ready to go out and do their best.

The girls were led by Layna Roycraft who probably ran one of the best races by a female runner in Broward County this year. She ran a Personal Best time, by 41 seconds, of 19:33 and finished 1st, her 4th victory of the year. In addition to that her time moves her from 12th in the Sun-Sentinel's All-Broward Country rankings to 5th overall. But that's not it. Her time also ranks her 10th overall in the State according to the FACA/Flrunners.com rankings. It seems like her recruiting visit to the University of South Carolina this past weekend did her well in getting her ready to run fast. Running 7th overall and #2 for the team was Emily Carlson who looked really strong the entire race. She ran a PB by 52 seconds to finish in 22:19. Running in the #3 spot was Circe Burnett who took 1:45 off her time to finish in a PB time of 22:42. As excited as she was to do this I believe the most excited person was Circe's friend Bertha. Bertha is not her brother or sister, but her inflatable porpoise......yes, that's right. Ever since it caught her eye while visiting the WA school store last year she had to have it. Even though it wasn't for sale Mrs. Wackes though $3 would be a fair deal. Why is "Bertha" happy? Well before the season started I agreed to a little wager that if Circe ran in the 23's I would give her a uniform for Bertha, but I also went as far as to say I would get her a custom made uniform if she ran in the 22's. Well needless I will be searching for something that's about a size 2 in porpoise.

Finishing 10th overall and our #4 runner was Kara Gahagen who despite lots of pain continues to do just what she needs to do to compete. She had a Season Best time of 22:52. Our next three finishers were part of a group of girls that dropped over 2 minutes. Kayla Cochran (2:00), Brittany Carey (2:03) and Ali Battista (2:19) ran 12,15 and 16 respectively. Our next finisher was determined to make a statement even though she has struggled with breathing problems all season. The weather turned out to be her friend and while still not 100% she managed to drop 48 seconds to run 23:41. One second behind her was Katie Auld who had her breakout race of the year and did what I knew she was capable of doing all year. She dropped the second most time for girls. She improved 2:56 to finish with a PB of 23:42. Rounding out the finish for our girls was Nathalie Grosz-Tenger who dropped :59 to run 24:43 and Tawny Grogin who dropped 2:41 to run 25:06. But the biggest improvement for our girls came from 6th grader Jessica Madhukar. She dropped 5:26 from her best time to run in a blazing 24:54! What a great accomplishment for just a beginner.

The boys were led by Christian Wackes who looked for the shortest distance to run, but sacrificed some time by running in the high grass. You were allowed either the road or just off the road on the grass as the course. Despite that he finished 1st for his 2nd victory of the year and 1 second off her PB with a time of 18:39. Running right on his heels was Teddy Hess who had an outstanding breakout race. He dropped 1:12 from his time and finished 2nd with a time of 18:41. A very good time for a sprinter. Running in the #3 spot and finishing 10th overall was Michael Luzinski who before the race led one of the most bizarre cheers I have ever heard. The problem is that nobody understood what we were saying, but they looked afraid when we were done. He ran a season best time of 20:08, just 1 second off his PB. The biggest improvement yesterday was turned in by Dylan Burns (pictured). He dropped 1:37 to run in the #4 spot and finish with a PB time of 20:09. The next group of guys rounded out our top 7 by all running PB times. Josh Longerbeam dropped 1:03 to run 20:23, Thomas Carrie dropped :50 to run 20:36 and Timmy Moses dropped 1:03 to run 20:57. Finishing next and running an extremely consistent race was Mark Newsom. He dropped 1:28 to run a PB of 21:13. Running a SB time of 21:38 was Remmy Rickel while Ryan Sharpe took off 1:33 to finish with 22:02. Next was Javier Pulido who has been recovering from an injury. He was not planning on running, but ended up learning how to try to run your best when you are not at your best. Afterwards he said he was very glad that he ran and his teammates had the same sentiment for him as he ran 22:02 which is just a few seconds off his PB. Rounding out the teams were Javier Pena, 22:06, and David Luzinski, 22:49, who also ran PB times dropping 1:06 and :57 respectively.

All in all yesterday felt like Christmas. Getting so many gifts and being so excited you kind of feel overwhelmed, but in a very good way. I have to say that yesterday's meet is just what we were looking for right before the Championship part of our season. From here on out it's all about racing and competing. Times will not matter much as long as you are focused on place and passing people up. Our focus not is getting our teams to move on to the next meet. Lord willing this is just the start of an amazing end of the year!

Footsteps of Faith article from Sun-Sentinel

Here is the link to the article on Layna and our Cross Country program from Sharon Robb of the Sun-Sentinel. It originally ran on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007.



http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/highschool/trackandfield/sfl-flspbrowcc10nboct10,0,6367700.story



Here is the text of the article:



Small-school runners follow in footsteps of faith
By SHARON ROBB South Florida Sun-Sentinel

October 10, 2007



Keeping the faith has a special meaning for Layna Roycraft and Stefon Napier.Roycraft, of Westminster Academy, and Napier, of Upperroom Christian, run for two of the county's more established small-school cross country programs steeped in Christian values.But what else these runners have in common is they are ranked among the county's top 15.


Napier, a sophomore, is ranked fourth among mostly large-school runners. Roycraft, a senior, is No. 12."Running cross country is a great equalizer for runners in all the classes. Some of the fastest times are in 1A and 2A," she said. "For sports like football and basketball the classes definitely matter, but for running it doesn't."Roycraft has been running cross country since seventh grade because she attends a private school. She is following in the footsteps of her older sister, Loren. The additional two years of experience have helped, she said. Most high school runners start running their freshman year.Last year, Roycraft ran a season-best 20 minutes and 14 seconds for 3.1 miles and is looking to run sub-20 minutes this year."When you're young, you learn more what it's about," Roycraft said. "It's not so much that you are that fast back then, but you learn what kind of commitment it takes. I am really happy I started out when I did."For Roycraft, it's not all about winning or running fast, she said."We believe we are running for God's glory and we go out and give 100 percent," Roycraft said. "With that kind of mentality we are just a closer team and we know we are working and praying together. We just stay positive. "It's not the most exciting sport to watch and people are always asking me, 'How do you do that stuff?' But I love to run. It's what I am good at."



Westminster Academy fourth-year cross country coach Paul Baur and his wife, Ashley, are in charge of the school's Fellowship of Christian Athletes."Our goal in that is to encourage athletes to grow in their relationship with Christ and to use the platform of athletics to be witnesses and examples for him," Baur said.



Upperroom Christian coach Jimmie Butler, a former star runner at Stranahan and Appalachian State, echoes Baur's sentiments. Butler, a pastor, has used running to stress life's lessons through discipline and dedication in his 13 years of coaching. "This sport is helping to teach these kids that life is a marathon," Butler said. "It's a race of patience, discipline and not giving up. I am just trying to educate the kids all the time and our results seem to be favorable. "Our faith is a very strong part of it because sometimes kids can be influenced by a lot of the elements out there. I just want to help that kid believe in himself and his creator and that there is something better in life. I don't want them to feel that running is a job, but something they like to do."Napier and teammates Marc-Kender Cheribin, James Dorcius and Jahmaine Richards are hoping to repeat as district champions this year."I think if you believe and work hard you can accomplish anything you set your mind to," said Napier, coming off a summer of Junior Olympic meets. "I know I have to work hard. I'm not always consistent but I run because I love it. I don't care who I run against, large or small schools, I just want to better myself as a runner and person."



Upperroom Christian will compete against 30 teams at the inaugural Broward County Championships on Friday at Mills Pond Park in Fort Lauderdale. Westminster Academy is traveling to New York to run the Manhattan Invitational on Saturday.Sharon Robb can be reached at srobb@sun-sentinel.com

Coach Baur's Sprint Triathon--Insanity at it's best!

Yes, I am absolutely crazy. Thanks to my wife's uncle, Walt Jominy or Mr. Jominy--fellow teacher at WA. We decided we would enter into a Sprint Triathlon this past Sunday morning at Tradewinds Park. The crazy part was that we didn't plan this until the day before and spent the rest of our Saturday making sure we would have the right gear to survive the race. The triathlon consisted of a 1/4 mile swim, a 10 mile bike and a 2.5 mile run. I thought why not do it. It sounded fun and the variety intrigued me. Doing well was not hinged on one event. Before the race we received a few sets of numbers and our yellow swim cap to distinguish our group. One number was to stick on the front of our bike helmet, one to put on our shirt or race belt for the run and one to put on our bike frame. They also wrote our numbers in permanent marker on each arm and right quad and then put our age on the back of our left calf. I think the age part was just to motivate everyone when they saw someone older in front of them to go faster, but who know the reason why? We were set to go off in the last group called "first timers". While the first 3 groups went off on their swim we anxiously waited to begin while trying not to get bitten by ants. When we were finally given the start I felt I would do pretty well being that I swam competitively since I was 7 and up and through high school. But within 10 strokes into the race I had a problem. The timing chip that was on a velcro strap affixed around my right calf slid down to my ankle and was beginning to come off. I immediately stopped and tried to first stop it from falling to the depths of the murky water then undo it and put it back on so it wouldn't come off. In the process Uncle Wally noticed what he thought was just some random guy drowning and and immediately alerted lifeguards. But after about 15-20 seconds and before the lifeguard to get there I had the strap back on my leg. That's when I noticed that my group was pretty far in front of me. I gave it my all and pretty quickly caught up to and passed my entire group. But I then proceded to catch up to the group that started 2-3 minutes before us and pass up a good bit of those people. I have to say that was one of my proudest comebacks as an athlete in my entire life. I got out of the water, pretty delirious and headed into the transition area to get my bike. My time for the swim was 7:12, but if you take off my sinking time I without a doubt finished in less than 7 minutes. Good enough for 1st in my group of 1st time males under age 40.

After an embarassing transition time of 4:19 it was off to my $185 Diamondback Outlook bike that got me to and from class on the campuses of UF and Malone College. The biking part turned out to be pretty stupid due to the fact that I was on one of the toughest gears to try and keep up with women in their 40s on $1500 bikes. But hey I was the only one with my type of bike, a camelback and offroading gloves! During the beginning of the ride I noticed that I was not sweating and needed to force myself to drink my water. Even thought I didn't want too it made a big difference and after a few minutes I felt better. Towards the last mile I went to an easier gear to try and help my legs recover and flush out some of the lactic acid before the run. That didn't help. I ended with a time of 37:31, officially 38:28 depending where they got the split and two seconds behind Uncle Wally. I was a little faster this time in transition going 2:59 while enjoying a chocolate electrolyte gel.

By the time I got to the run I felt like I replaced my legs with mahogany tree trunks. They were super heavy, but I just started passing people up and shocked myself with the times I was running. They had markers at each half mile. My splits were 3:17 and 3:38 for the first mile (6:55 total), 3:39 and 3:37 for the second mile (7:16). The last half mile doesn't make any sense. I ran 4:15 to bring my total to 18:26. The good thing is that I passed up at least 30 people and had the 3rd fastest time for my group. Overall the biking part and my slow transition time killed me and contributed to my 8th place finish out of 19 in my group. My official total time was 1:10:32.025. That's 1 hour, ten minutes and 32 seconds. On my watch I had 7:18 of transition time. Most people had between 2 and 4 minutes.

All in all I have to say I was really happy with my performance. Without a doubt this makes running 5k's similar to watching paint dry. I can't wait until I can do another one, but maybe I will do some training first.

SOUTH ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEET--October 18, 2007

It was our first time participating in the SACC, South Atlantic Coast Conference, and today we made a big first impression. Our girls team is the Conference Champion and we also placed 5 of our girls on the All-Conference Team. Those girls are Layna Roycraft, Kara Gahagen (pictured), Emily Carlson, Circe Burnett and Kayla Cochran. Great job as we start building momentum towards our District meet. Conference Champion was Layna Roycraft with a time of 21:42. She was followed by Kara Gahagen who finished 3rd with a Season Best time of 23:55. Other outstanding performances were turned in by Kayla Cochran, PB time of 25:12 and 7th overall, and Brittany Carey who also ran a PB time of 25:35 finishing 8th. All in all we placed 7 girls in the top 10. What a great accomplishment!

Congratulations to the boys team who ran an outstanding race. They finished as Conference Runner-up by only 5 points, but continue to impress and get faster. Christian Wackes, 2nd overall in 19:30 and Teddy Hess, 6th overall in 20:28 were named to the All-Conference Team. Outstanding performances were turned in by Michael Luzinski who went out in 6:17 only to follow it up with a 7:27 and finish the last 1.1 mile in 7:41 to run a Season Best time of 21:26 and finish 9th overall. Dylan Burns also ran a PB time with 21:46 while Timmy Moses and Mark Newsom both turned in WA Personal Best times running 22:41 and 22:45 respectively. Those two also were among the 8 WA runners that finished ahead of the #5 Coral Springs Christian runner.

New York Pictures

Phantom of the Opera--Josh, Thomas, Michael, Javier, Teddy, Christian, Dylan, David and Remmy.

Tough guys in Times Square--Michael, Teddy, Coach Baur, Christian and Remmy.

Future Economists--Teddy, Michael, Remmy and Christian.

On top of the Empire State Building. They forgot to mention how windy it would be.

Look out! Tourists coming through who don't know where they are going.

"Tourists" in ESPN Zone in Times Square.

JV Boys--Javier and David.

JV Girls--Ali, Nathalie, Tawny and Katie.

Just a walk in the park.

Can you find our boys among all those teams?

Varsity boys after their race.

Varsity Girls after their race.

New York Trip--Manhattan Invitational

What an awesome time we had in New York. One thing that we all figured out was why so many people move down here to Florida. It is non-stop busy and driving up there is a nightmare. But we still had an incredible time. We got into La Guardia early afternoon on Thursday, got our vans and then tried to head to Van Courtlandt park. We then got lost, found some food and finally found the park. By then it was raining and too late to go out and run. Later that night we decided after our earlier driving experience that we would take the NJ Park and Ride bus into Manhattan. After about 1.5 hours on the bus we finally got to the Port Authority bus terminal to be dropped off so we could barely get something to eat and head to Phantom of the Opera. The normal drive would take about 20 minutes, but with the rain and rush hour it was a mess. Our kids did their part and dressed extremely well to see the show and had a great time. Even if you are not a fan of musicals you had to admit that it was outstanding.

Friday morning we got up and headed to a nearby track complex in Palisades Park. The rain had stopped and the cold weather had moved in. It was a great morning getting that day of travel and our cramped Broadway seat soreness out of our legs. A great thanks to Kara for finding my wedding ring after it fell off while we were throwing the football during our run. That afternoon everyone got the chance to do what we were all looking forward to, shopping on Canal Street for the ladies and sightseeing for the guys and Kara. We were quite happy to have Kara hangout with us due to the fact she had just been to NY and was all shopped out. My wife and all the ladies had a great time getting some amazing deals on name brand purses while the guys saw some of NY's most famous landmarks. Being guys we could not just ride the subway we had to make it a game. We tried to see who could keep their balance while not holding on to anything. Michael got a little ambitious and tried to keep his feet together only to go tumbling head over heels on the "clean" subway floor. After that we saw the World Trade Center cite and to our dismay they were still taking debris out of the site. What an awful reminder of what happened on 9-11. After that we walked to Battery park to get a look of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We then walked to Wall St. to the New York Stock Exchange and then went to the tallest point in NY, The Empire State Building. What an awesome view despite the cold and wind. After that the guys felt we didn't stand out enough as tourists and we should really make a statement. We got a great deal on "I love NY" t-shirts and all put them on as we continued to walk the streets. I never felt like I stood out as much as I did that day, but was it hilarious! That night we had dinner at the ESPN Zone in Times Square and later visited Toys-R-Us before heading home.

Saturday we got up and finally headed to the race. From the minute we got off the Major Deegan Expressway we knew how nuts the meet would be. Parking was not even an option. Nothing within 1.5 miles! And we thought we participated in some big meets. How about 419 schools and over 12,000 athletes. They started a race roughly every 12 minutes from 9:15am until 3:49pm and never got off schedule. Our JV boys went first and lined up at the start line with 600 other athletes along with the JV team from the school that has the #1 ranked team in the country! David and Javier were the guinea pigs, but their excitement and attitude about the course showed that it would be a fun day. The course was tough, but everyone ran hard and well. The course was only 2.5miles, but I have a calculation that gives estimated times based on what you actually ran. To our excitement everyone ran just about what they have been running or better. Our top finisher was Layna who ran 16:51, 21:12 5k estimate, and finished in 41st place. Emily ran 18:48, 23:29 5k estimate, and finished in the top 150 of her race. Rounding out the top 150 was Kara who ran 19:34, 24:46 5k estimate. The guys were led by Christian who ran 15:28, 19:27 5k estimate, Teddy who ran 16:24, 20:38 5k estimate and Remmy who had an outstanding day to run 16:39, 20:57 5k estimate. After the race you knew we were from Florida as the cold air turned out to be too much for our lungs and gave everyone some sore throats and a chorus of coughs.

Later that night we stayed in NJ and had a great team celebration eating outside in 50 degree weather at Cheesecake Factory. Thank goodness for space heaters! The manager really thought we were crazy being from Florida and asking to bypass the 90 minute wait to sit outside that night.

Saturday morning we got off to a slow start, some slower than others due to oversleeping, but quickly got some energy thanks to breakfast from the NJ staple, The B & W Bakery. You've never had crumb cake until you've had their "heavy" crumb cake. All those calories and fat were definitely worth it. Driving back to La Guardia turned out to be a piece of cake and we were all checked in by the fastest ticket agent in the world. No lie she got all of us checked in, with bags, in less than 8 minutes! After that it was back to Florida and some rest.

I want to say that it was truly an honor to travel with the best students and people in our school. We had such a great time and NY turned out to be everything we were looking forward to. Thanks also to our chaperones who did a great job helping herd 20 kids through NY. I have to say that I am really looking forward to doing this type of trip again. Everyone is already asking where are we going next year. I will think about it, but Chicago sounds good to me!

WA HOME MEET #2

It was a great day to race and enjoy everyone accomplishments and it was exciting for me to share the great blessing that God has given to Ashley and I. We are so excited that we are going to have a baby and were very encouraged by everyone's excitement.

Congratulations to the girls for winning the meet. Overall (boys and girls combined) we had 9 Personal Best times, 5 Season Bests and 3 people ran their fastest times for our home course. Outstanding performances were recorded by Layna Roycraft who won her 2nd meet of the season with a time of 21:37 and Kayla Cochran who ran down a competitor with about 20 meters to go running a Personal best of 25:13 and finishing as the #5 runner. Also running well were Brittany Carey who ran a PB by 1:30 and Katie Auld who knocked off :50 off her time.

The boys continue to get better and are starting to come on. They finished 4th and were only 15 points away from the 3rd place team. They were led by Christian Wackes who finished 4th overall, 19:20. Outstanding performances went to Josh Longerbeam who ran a PB by :49, Thomas Carrie who ran a PB by :28 and Dylan Burns who ran a PB by :13. Also running well were Ryan Sharpe who ran a PB by :53 and David Luzinski who ran a PB by :30.