Tag: Dartmouth College

NCAA DI Nationals Preview

Nov. 22 Articles no comments

Some helpful info to help you get ready for tomorrow’s XC races.

It’s all come down to this. Saturday November 23rd (tomorrow!), the NCAA Division I Cross Country National Championship will be held in Terre Haute, IN. Thirty-one teams. Thirty-eight individuals. The best of the best. The men start things off with their race at noon ET, and then the ladies cap their seasons off with their race at 1:15 pm.

There were a lot of runners with local ties that did quite well in both the DI and DIII regionals that were two weeks ago. From a nice write up on milesplit.com:

Columbia University senior Jacob Sienko, a onetime standout from Bishop Hendricken, finished sixth overall in the 10-kilometer race with a time of 30 minutes, 24.30 seconds. Less than five-seconds behind Sienko was his former teammate at Hendricken, Providence College junior Brian Doyle, who was timed in 30:29 for 12th overall.

The Friars, who were fourth as a team, had two other ex-high school all-staters finish strong. Recent Cumberland High grad Trevor Crawley, a freshman, was 70th overall with a 31:49.8 clocking. Smithfield’s Liam Hillary was 87th at 32:07.20.

Getting down to it, here’s who’s going from the northeast region:

The Men

Teams
Princeton (automatic)
Dartmouth
Harvard
Iona
Providence

Individuals
Kevin Dooney, Yale
Kelton Cullenberg, Maine
Wesley Gallagher, Northeastern
Craig Hunt, Central Connecticut

The Women

Teams
Dartmouth (automatic)
Providence (automatic)
Princeton

Individuals
Waverly Neer, Columbia
Kate Avery, Iona
Liv Westphal, Boston College
Silvia Del Fava, Albany

Automatic teams were the top two from each of the nine regions. The remaining thirteen were selected at-large. The individuals were also selected on an automatic and at-large basis, based on finishes at regionals. Found out more here.

The countdown is on! Plenty for us to follow here. Can the PC women cap off their impressive season with a championship? Will Abbey D’Agostino finally get that elusive cross title? We’ll find out.

And on a disgusting note, it appears that the entire Stonehill men’s team had their bags stolen out at DII nationals.

 

That is some bad karma for whoever pulled off that d-bag stunt, to say the least. We hope that the boys crush it out there. Nobody should have to put up with that crap while trying to focus on a race of this magnitude.

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Wisconsin Adidas Invitational

Oct. 18 Articles, Racing no comments

The eyes of the collegiate cross country world focused on Franklin Park back on September 27th when the Boston College women’s team held their invitational (The Coast To Coast Battle in Beantown). Wisconsin was one of many strong programs to make that trip, and this weekend they return the favor by hosting many of the nation’s top programs at their Wisconsin Adidas Invitational.

The men’s championship 8k race will take place at 11:00 am tomorrow morning, followed by the women’s championship 6k at noon. Here’s a preview of both, with a focus on the northeast teams venturing out west.

The Men’s Race

The men’s race goes off first, and it should be a good one. Last year it was won by Stanford, with Lawi Lalang (Arizona) taking the individual honors in 23:03. Stanford is not coming back to defend their title, but Lalang is back and he is in fact racing tomorrow:

Flotrack Tweet Lalang
The men’s field contains 36 teams, and the highest ranking teams in attendance are: Northern Arizona (3), BYU (5), and Arkansas (6). The teams venturing out there from deep within the heart of Level Legion are Columbia (8), Providence (17), Dartmouth (27), Harvard, and UMass.

The Women’s Race

After the men are finished warming up the course for the ladies (like true gentlemen), the 37 team field will get to it. In 2012, Iowa State won it as a team with Cal Poly freshman Laura Hollander capturing the individual crown in 19:33. The 25th ranked Iowa State team is coming back, but Cal Poly isn’t. By default, there will be a new individual champion. Who could it be?

Abbey D’Agostino of Dartmouth is probably the front runner for this. Not really going out on a limb there, are we? Abbey looked real good in winning the Paul Short Invitational in downright crappy conditions (excessive heat and humidity) and is poised for a big year. The Providence College trio of Emily Sisson, Laura Nagel and Sarah Collins were quite impressive in taking three of the top four spots at the aforementioned Battle in Beantown. Collins herself took 6th in this race last year as a freshmen. Breaking up that PC trio was Liv Westphal of Boston College.

As far as the women’s teams go, Providence (1), Arizona (3) and Duke (4) are the top ranked teams in the field. The big guns are really showing up for this one. Representing our corner of the map are PC (1), BC (22), Harvard, Dartmouth, Columbia, UConn, Stony Brook and Yale.

Live Feed

Possibly most exciting is that there will be a live stream available via Flotrack. Not sure if that’s free or part of their premium service, but is probably worth looking into if you’re near a computer and are overcome with XC Fever. Remember, XC Fever is contagious so try to spread it as much as possible.

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Day in the Life: Chris Zablocki

Oct. 16 Articles, Interviews, Training no comments

First Person: Chris Zablocki

I’m not very good at doing tricks with balls, so I started running after I got cut from the Xavier soccer team. Once I started running, I began to like it more and more because I realized that if you try hard, you win. It’s not like sailing or team sports that have many other variables. With running, you keep improving if you work hard. And I was lucky to have lots of encouraging family, friends, and coaches. Coach Michalski would get so angry if his runners didn’t try as hard as they could. He would sometimes even take out his frustration on steeplechase barriers and other such objects. He was a very good and motivating coach. His assistant, Coach Swift (no lie, that’s his name), had run the marathon in the world championships. We ran before and after school. Unfortunately, I became anemic and ran so slowly that I almost quit. I would have if my friends didn’t urge me not to. I was very surprised I got to go to Dartmouth College, and at the beginning of my freshman year some guys asked what I was doing on the team because I was so slow. But things got better somehow.

The Release of Issue XV is upon us...

When I’m not running I also like to mountain bike (won the Nutmeg State Games one year and totaled my bike the next) and road bike and open water swim (but I usually have someone in my kayak with me in case a monster fish comes).

When I’m not involved in anything aerobic or endurance related, I like to garden chard, tomatoes, and sunflowers. I also like to paint; I exhibited an art show back in January, mostly of the Marshall Islands. I was on Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands for a year and taught world history at the high school there, and then the chemistry teacher tragically died the first week, so I taught those classes as well even though I failed chemistry in college. I also coached a marathon team while there, and after we went for a 20 mile run on the jungle road, the National Olympic Committee gave us a few thousand dollars to go race the marathon at the Kwajalein Atoll Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Test Base. It was really interesting at the base so when I got back I joined the Marine Corps Officer Candidates School. But working for 23 hours a day and getting screamed at for not lacing my boots fast enough lost its appeal and I came up with the better idea of fixing people instead of killing them. So even though I don’t like chemistry and failed it in college, I went to finish the med school pre-reqs and will be finished with the post-bac at CCSU at the end of the summer. I just applied to American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine on St. Maarten. I also applied to NE Distance in case it’s not yet time to move on from racing competitively.

This year has been going better than expected. It would be awesome to be like Emil Zatopek or Ryan Hall. When I raced the Tallahassee Marathon, I met a Kenyan named Pete who said it was a good idea to race marathons every two weeks or so. He did it to save up money to buy used diesel tractors for his farm in Kenya and go bowling. I decided to try out his advice, and it has worked pretty well. I got a 2:17 PR in Virginia Beach two weeks after racing another in Albany, Georgia. I was hoping to go even faster in Vermont, especially since my friends drove through a snowstorm to come cheer, but it didn’t happen; it was very rainy. This summer I am looking forward to racing the World Mountain Championships qualifier with my old teammate Glen and coaching the Running Rams Track and Field Camp.

Zablocki’s Day in the Life
0630 Wakeup and workout: 2×50 pushups & 3×8 dumbbell twists. Breakfast: cup of Grapenuts, a spoonful of peanut butter, and some orange juice.
Run: 13.7 miles out and back on River Road as fast or slow as the legs feel like going, usually with some surges on the way back.
0819 Return home for core work: 1×30 pull-ups, 1×20 pull-ups, & 100 bicycle crunches. Refuel: chocolate milk and a bowl of oatmeal with Grapenuts. Drive to CCSU in New Britain.
0925 Organic chemistry. My lab partner Shelbi explodes extraction flasks of acid in my face.
1040 Microbiology. Get back papers with points taken off because they are technically correct but still somehow wrong.
1200 Organic chemistry problems in the library. Lunch: ham and kale sandwich, orange, yogurt, peanuts, water.
1500 Middlesex Hospital. Visit joint replacement patients and meet interesting people. Help a lady look for her dentures while she tells hunting stories only to later find out that her teeth are in a different town.
1930 Workout: treadmill (1 mile @ 7% incline warmup, 3-4 miles @ 2.5% incline with 30-60 second sprints added in @ 10-15% incline, so it doesn’t get boring). Swim: intervals of 100m crawl, backstroke, kicking with flippers, 25m butterfly. 1500m total.
2115 Dinner: varies but includes an iron pill. Check email and go to sleep.
Weekend Not much different than a weekday. If no race or other commitments, make the morning run closer to 2 1/2 or 3 hours since I like to just keep running. I also include some post-run drills such as rock hurl lunges (the rock is about 40 pounds and I named it Matt Pelletier as a way to motivate myself while getting ready for VCM) and pull-ups on my pull-up tree. I believe that the correct way to train is to stuff the biggest engine into the smallest package. On the weekend, I also take more time for breakfast, have a sandwich with eggs over hard, cheese, salsa, hot sauce, kale, with some oatmeal on the side and some orange juice.If I’m racing, wakeup, do jumping jacks and pushups to get pumped up, then drive to the place and race. I try to swim after races; it makes me feel recovered and strong again.

Chris Zablocki ultimately chose to go to med school this fall, and he is now studying in St. Maarten. This article was originally published in the July/August issue of Level Renner, which can be downloaded for free (along with all of our back issues). Get your free subscription today, which also will make you eligible for our subscriber only contests.

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Another Weekend Wrap Up

Oct. 07 Articles, Racing 1 comment

The Pros: The US Marathon Championships were held at the Twin Cities Marathon and Tim Ritchie ran the race that we’ve been expecting. That’s not meant to downplay it at all since running a 2:14 in your second attempt at the distance is absolutely spectacular. Summing it up best, Matt Pelletier said, “I think we all knew it was coming.” Indeed, Matt, indeed. What Tim has shown in race results at other distances over the last year or so has not-so-subtley hinted at something like this. The end result was another top ten finish for the BAA stud (6th, to be exact). The men’s race was won by Nick Arciniaga (2:13:11) and the women’s race by Annie Bersagel (2:30:53).

Tim now sits at 5th place overall in the season standings with only one event left (the .US Road Racing National Championship). Over the course of the season, Tim has earned nearly $11,000. That seems like a petty sum for someone who has five top ten finishes in championship races. Just think of how much money the Braves are paying Dan Uggla right now to sit at home during the playoffs. Runners really are underpaid.

The Kids: College kids, that is. A big race this past weekend for the kids was the Paul Short Invitational (hosted by Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA). Dartmouth senior Abbey D’Agostino won her second race in as many attempts this season in repeating at this prestigious event. Abbey ran a 19:44 and easily outpaced the runner up (Samantha Ginther of Indiana, 20:10). Dartmouth scored second place finishes for the both the women’s and men’s teams on the backs of strong races by D’Agostino and then senior Will Geoghegan’s third place effort in the men’s race.

Said Dartmouth coach Mark Coogan of his team’s efforts: “This past weekend was good, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the women ran. I think we handled the heat and ran very well as a group helping each other out during the race. That is best the women have done as a team in a long long time.”

Luckily the Dartmouth squads had their chance to do their thing before the remaining races were called due to the weather. The excessive heat was a bit much for both the runners and the medical staff. How hot was it? Excellent question. Couldn’t find it in a quick web search, but we’ll go out on a limb and say it was hot to very hot.

Ridiculous weather aside, Abbey continues to steamroll along, winning by almost a minute in her first meet and then nearly 30 seconds in this latest race. “I think we all knew it was coming,” said Matty P once again, and it was still oddly appropriate. Anyway, too bad Abbey and the rest of Dartmouth’s top seven won’t be competing at the New England Championships at Franklin Park this weekend.

The Other Guys: One race that caught our attention from the weekend was the Grace Race in Chelmsford, MA. This was a small race, with only 75 people finishing. Think about that: seventy-five people. In that tiny field two runners went under 25:00 for five miles, and another two broke 26:00, and fifth place was still under 27:00. Glarius Rop and his training partner Amos Sang tore it up. Those were the two aforementioned gentlemen who went under 24 minutes. Glarius (24:37) edged Amos (24:44). The rest of the field was running for third.

Lindsay Willard easily won the women’s race with her 29:12 effort. That was fast enough to break into the top ten overall.

Newbould Kozloski Nahant

Newbould cruises along at Nahant, courtesy of Krissy Kozloski.

Brandon Newbould made the trip to Chelmsford, lured by the cash prizes even though his legs still had some Nahant 30k residue lingering in them. Brandon didn’t expect to see such a deep field waiting for him there on the starting line. According to Brandon, Glarius and Amos took it out with a 4:30 uphill opening mile. Perhaps Glarius is really motivated by his loss at the Level Renner 10k back in August and really wants to exact his revenge on poor unsuspecting runners, or perphaps he’s really just that good. Either way, “I think we all knew it was coming,” said Matty P. We’d be annoyed that Matt keeps giving us the same line, but damn it, it’s just so appropriate for everything we’re discussing here. Well said, Matt.

Anyway, Newbould had to settle for only a 4th place finish after running a 25:34. Not bad a for a guy still getting over a 30k and focused on a quickly approaching fall marathon.

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Chelanga Right At Home in NH

Sep. 17 Articles, Interviews, Racing no comments

Sam Chelanga looked pretty solid on Saturday as he cruised to a 23:54.3 8k in winning the Dartmouth Invitational. Sam did not count in the scoring though. Will Geoghegan (Dartmouth) was the top collegiate runner and crossed the line merely seconds behind Chelanga. Will led the Dartmouth boys to a second place showing with his 23:57.6. The top team on the day was Syracuse, but it was pretty close. The top fourteen runners (not counting Chelanga) all hailed from either Syracuse or Dartmouth. Syracuse placed their top six in the first nine and edged out Dartmouth by 10 points (24 to 34).

Sam moved out to the Hanover, NH area on August first, citing family as the reason for the move. The Chelanga’s knew they wanted to head back east, but where exactly was up in the air. Sam’s buddy Ben True helped persuade him to come train with Ben and Mark Coogan. For now it was just a geographical move. As of this interview, Sam was still a member of the Oregon Track Club. In the interview below, Sam opens up a little more about the race, the move, training and whether or not he’s ready for a New England winter:

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D’Agostino Rolls In Opener

Sep. 15 Articles, Interviews, Racing no comments

Dartmouth College opened up its 2013 season on Saturday with the Dartmouth Invitational. For senior Abbey D’Agostino, it was a familiar story line playing out again: winning on her home course. Not only did she win for the third year in a row, but she did it in such a convincing way that the Topsfield, MA native appears to be primed for yet another big year.

Cruising through the early stages of the race, D’Agostino patiently awaited the moment to break it open. Instead of surging right to the front, she sat back with her teammates and glided along in a pack of Dartmouth harriers behind the leading Georgetown ladies. A few minutes later it was the Dartmouth trio leading the way. Despite sitting back early on, Abbey’s margin of victory was about the size of those from 2011 and 2012 combined.

As far as the team competition went, Georgetown took care of business by way of strong races from two sophomores: Haley Pierce (4th) and Rachel Paul (6th).

Here is our interviews with both Abbey D’Agostino and Dartmouth coach Mark Coogan, along with highlights from the race:

For more on the race, check out the full results and the write up on the Dartmouth website.

Special thanks to coach Mark Coogan and media guru Patrick Salvas for welcoming the Level on campus and making our job easier.

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