This is a busy week in Collegeville with our Fall Finale on Friday and our top eight readying for the Central Regional next Saturday, November 17, at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. Friday looks to be racing friendly: 33 degrees and 10 mph on a course that is pretty-well protected. Visiting teams will be Gustavus, Hamline, Bethel, Martin Luther, five Golden Gophers running unattached, and of course Saint Ben’s running on the women’s side. Race time is 4:30 PM.

Last Saturday at the MIAC Championship on Carleton’s outstanding course, pretty much our whole team stepped forward with much better races, and we finished sixth with 143 points. Senior Trey Collins (17th, 26:02) and freshman Tom Nemanich in (25th, 26:14) earned Honorable Mention All-Conference. Junior Noah Webb (26th, 26:15), sophomore Andy Goldsmith (34th, 26:32), and freshman Mitchell Grand (41st, 26:56) completed our scoring five. Sophomore Justus Fast (49th, 27:05) and junior Ryan Houseman (51st, 27:06) came 6th and 7th.

This was a big step forward for the team. A “finally” meet, and it was fun to see. We were better positioned in the early going and moved up throughout. We come out of this meet with a different view of the Regional, especially with sophomore Dillon Diekmann (a little bit snake bit with injuries) rejoining his teammates in Waverly. I like this team.

We are not finished yet and, to that end, I am including below a column I wrote for The Record in March of 1996. Each coach in turn was asked to report on their team’s season, and it was my turn.

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE

This is undoubtedly the worst time to ask me to write a column. March is the longest month of our season. We have been training either on icy roads or indoors for eight weeks. We competed in the conference indoor meet the first weekend of the month and now are in a watching and waiting mode to see how soon the snow will disappear. (The ice was entirely off the Sag on March 26 in 1981, a very good year.) The Palaestra arena is never more stark and barren than during these days in March. Late in the month I know I will be questioning my life decision to become a track and field coach, never mind that eleven months of the year I am confident I have the best possible "job". And so I was reassured this morning when Dan Besemann, our decathlete who loves our sport as much as anybody I know, told me he's got the blahs, too. He had just finished throwing the discus ... into a net. And it is reassuring to know, from experience, that all will be better than well on that first day I am standing under glorious sunshine and watching our track and field athletes do track and field things.

In the meanwhile, we have a lot of work to do, and we keep on keeping on. Cross country and track and field are much more about training than playing. Fans and fanfare are few, but I am more than appeased by knowing our sport has great appeal to folks who value intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards. These are good people to join in an endeavor.

In 1972 Frank Shorter won the Olympic Marathon in Munich. In 1976 he finished second in Montreal. I was student teaching at Cretin High School in St. Paul, and my supervising teacher's summation of Shorter's finish was simple: "Poor Shorter. Four years of training wasted." Never mind that this fellow was an exceptional chemistry teacher; he failed to appreciate that, for Shorter, the real reward of averaging 120 miles per week over an eight year period was in the journey. When we undertake any serious athletic endeavor, we have to understand that, on that final day, there are no guaranteed walks to the top step (or any step) of the victory stand. The journey alone may have to be enough, and so it had better be.

That being so, I will still tell one story with a happy ending.

Mike McGowan and I began together at Saint John's in the fall of 1979, he as a freshman distance runner and me as cross country and track and field coach. Mike had been a state champion in the mile at Blue Earth, and he enjoyed an exceptional freshman season at Saint John's, finishing fifth at 1500 meters at the MIAC championship. His time, 3:55.7, was the equivalent of a 4:15 mile.

Over the next three years, Mike showed marked improvement in cross country, but after finishing a disappointing fifth in his final MIAC championship, his 1500 meters best remained at 3:55.7. He had yet to ever qualify for an NCAA track and field championship. One week later, Mike toed the line at the Carleton Last Chance Meet. He ran a smart and relaxed race and crossed the finish line in 3:52.1, setting a school record, qualifying for nationals, and sending his teammates into a whooping frenzy. My scalp tingled. Mike graduated the next day (he called it a "good" weekend), and the following Thursday he improved again to

3:51.9 in the qualifying round at the NCAA championship. In Saturday's final he finished ninth in 3:49.9, faster than five of the winning times in years since.

Happy endings are never guaranteed. We know only one thing for certain: if Mike McGowan had not brought his humility and pride to that Carleton starting line, his personal best would still be 3:55.7. His real glory was in having tried. Another moral: it is never too late.

Telling old stories is pleasant. Seeing new ones unfold, especially in outdoor championship competition, is exciting. And so we keep on training in anticipation of new stories and new heroes. It's enough to keep a guy going, even in March.

Tim Miles

March, 1996

Pat Haws, our swimming and diving coach for about thirty years, told me he stumbled onto something that really helped him and his divers in practice and competition. He would time his diver from first motion until the moment of departure. Which had nothing (and everything) to do with what happened in the air. Too fast or too slow got a less than optimal result.

Joe Vardas, our jumps coach, will tell you that if the first phase of the triple jump is too elevated, the jumper will spend the next two phases “in crisis management”.

After watching a bevy of terrific discus throwers in the MIAC in 1980, my first year coaching at Saint John’s, I went to the Olympic Trials in Eugene and could not believe how “slow” the 200 and 225 foot guys were in the back of the circle. Al Oerter, Mac Wilkins, John Powell, et al for you old-timers.

My brother, Bill, tells how, when one of his Wayzata runners opened an early season 1600 meter race in 59 seconds, he (Bill) hollered with great gusto “3:56, Jimmy, 3:56!!” He made his point, and the race result much more so.

A good beginning is paramount, and our team executed much better at the UW La Crosse Jim Drews Invitational this past Saturday. We will attempt to do better still at the MIAC Championship, our next outing. Of course racing fitness is never static. We never know what our optimum pace and early positioning may be on the next race day, but we want to put ourselves in or near a spot where we can get our best result. That is to say, we love it when “5:10 becomes the new 5:20”. Which is really what we are all about. Redefining ourselves.

The wet weather afforded us the opportunity to do 10 x 400 (fast and relaxed) on the outdoor track yesterday (the football team went under the bubble). With the reshaping of the intramural fields, we now have a nice 700 meter loop which has served us well, but it was just a little soggy. Saturday morning we will do a three mile tempo run on Collegeville.

And then the MIAC Championship at Carleton on Saturday, November 2. We race at 11:00, the women race at noon. The State Meet is on the other side of town at St. Olaf. Come and watch us.

Enjoy your fall. It is beautiful up here in Collegeville.

Hello. I apologize for not writing more often. I cite two reasons. First, I need to dumb down my blogging expectations of myself. That is, I need to remind myself I am not trying to write the perfect letter of recommendation for a graduate school applicant. Nor the perfect poem. I read Neil Young’s biography of a few years ago, Waging Heavy Peace, in which he unapologetically admits to having written a lot of lousy songs. Which makes it easier for me to accept having written a lot of lousy poems. And I will ride that horse as I write these blogs.

Second, there has not been much to report. We have under-performed our first three times out (Luther, Carleton, and Eau Claire) largely because I have over-coached, too often telling stories of past teams running an even pace and running their intemperate competitors down. But times have changed. For some time now, fields have been running much more intelligent races than in the past. So far this fall, we have been starting too slow and too far back and not getting engaged in the race. Never more so than our last effort at Eau Claire.

I like our team. As ever, terrific people. And we can run a little bit. Trey Collins (Senior, Royalton, Minn.), off a 1200 mile summer, leads the way. Trey has placed third in both the 5000 and 10,000 at MIAC Outdoors, and he was 7th at the Carleton Invitational. Dillon Diekmann (Sophomore, Cretin-Derham Hall, St. Paul, Minn.) performed well at Carleton, too, in 20th place with his best race ever. And Freshman Tom Nemanich (Red Wing, Minn.) is off to a good start, having run 26:11 at Eau Claire. Noah Webb (junior, Tech, St. Cloud, Minn.) also had a very good summer. Noah was 45th at the Central Regional last fall in 25:58. We have a lot of candidates to flush out our top seven creditably, once we begin racing well. Our next meet is the UW La Crosse Invitational which is now run at the Ettrick Country Club in Ettrick, Wisconsin. We race at 10:30 on Saturday, October 19.

COACHING POSITIONS

Every now and then, I am made aware of college cross country and/or track and field coaching openings near and far. Please let me know if you would like such information forwarded your way.

FINISH THE RUN

It was great to see so many Saint John’s and Saint Ben’s alums remembering David Forster (2011) at the 4th annual Finish the Run 5K on Boom Island on September 8. A great event which reminds us to “live with intention”. See you next year. And next time, hang around until I finish.

HALL OF HONOR

And it was great to see a good number of our storied alums at the Hall of Honor event in Guild Hall this past Saturday. Photo below. John Cragg was unable to accept his award in person, but his teammate, Chuck Ceronsky (1970) and my teammate, Andy Cragg (1978) stood in for him.

SAINT MICHAEL’S GAMES

After four events (Home Run Derby, Egg Toss, Wheelbarrow Relay, Somersault Relay), the score is as follows:

Uncle Moneybags 13

Saloon Girls 12

Mister Rogers 12

Big Red Rock Eaters 7

Very exciting.