Heps 2012

Matt and Steve asked me to write a guest post for our new blog and I'm excited to be able to share my experience at Heps with the world (or at least the 3 people that read this), so here goes. First, a little background...

If you're unfamiliar, Heps is the Ivy League's conference championship. Anthony Schurz wrote a great article on what makes Heps such a special meet, and I'm compelled to agree with him on all points. Every fall, Heps is one of the most important dates on the calendar. As a team, our focus when we set out to do our first distance run of the summer is four months away, on that cool (or possibly blizzardy) October day.

This season hasn't been without its bumps in the road. We came away from the Wisconsin Invitational not with the at-large points we sought, but with a high ankle sprain for John Bleday '14. Expectations were mixed coming into Heps - the internet peanut gallery decided fourth would be a good day without John, while our own College newspaper misquoted me guaranteeing a victory over Harvard.

While we didn't have the race of a lifetime that we would have needed to pull off the victory, PRs from five of the top seven is a pretty good day. We ended up in third place with 77 points, behind Princeton (26!) and Columbia (58). Phil continued his new habit of knocking 30 seconds off his season best every time he races, and Steve even decided to try! Here are our results from the fast Princeton course:

5. Will Geoghegan '14, 23:54.2
6. Phil Royer '13, 23:57.6
17. Steve Mangan '14, 24:14.8
23. Dylan O'Sullivan '15, 24:25.6
27. Jonathan Gault '13, 24:30.3
30. Curtis King '16, 24:32.3
41. Henry Sterling '14, 24:49.3
45. Silas Talbot '15, 24:56.8
47. Brian Masterson '16, 24:57.6
51. Adam Doherty '13, 25:00.1
54. Mike Danaher '13, 25:03.8

We ran well at Heps, but I think I speak for everyone on the team when I say we can't wait for Regionals, and that the best is yet to come.

Some photos (courtesy Tim Mangan):

Gettin' pumped with some tunes....mostly likely Gangnam Style.

1st k of the men's race

Hammerin' Hank a little after 2 miles.

Philly Cheesesteak clenching the sphincter en route to a 6th place finish.

Jonny and Curtis in the hurtbox.

Da boys.  Nice shorts, Adam.

 -Will Geoghegan '14

Michigan Workout 2012

This past week, our Heps squad (the top 12 runners) completed a famous workout we call the Michigan. It is the last hard effort workout before the Ivy League Championships and has always been known to be a fast one and one that sharpen's everyone's mental toughness. It is a long, fast workout with these segments:

3200m on track
1 mi easy tempo pace on roads
1600m on track
1 mi easy tempo pace on roads
800m on track

The workout is variable in how hard you push the 'on' reps versus how hard you push the tempo miles in between but we have traditionally run the tempo pace at a slightly easier pace than our normal tempo runs. So the goal times often look something like this:

9:24
5:45 rest interval
4:34
5:45 rest interval
2:10

This year the off reps were pushed a bit harder and the guys still ran the on reps very fast, which shows our strength is there at this crucial point in the season. It was a great workout for everyone that ran it and we even managed to videotape some of it and make a little clip of it. We hope you enjoy it.

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/249682-2012-Cross-Country-Season-on-Flotrack/video/659308-Dartmouth-pre-Heps-Workout-2012

Rothenburg Invite

Hey there,

This past weekend the Dartmouth men's team sent its B squad to the Rothenburg Invitational in Newport, RI hosted by Brown University. The men finished 3rd behind UMass and Brown. The highlight of the meet was our very own Tony Anzivino '16 placing first and having the race of his collegiate career so far with an impressive PR of 25:37 on a dry but slow 8k course. Also competing for Dartmouth in order of finish were Matt Pierce '14, Peter Geithner '16, Will Callan '15, Matt Klein '16, Tim Gorman '16, Kevin Stanko '16, and Joe Carey '15.

It was a great day to end the official racing season on and some of the guys even got to take a quick dip in the bay after the cool down just for the novelty of it. The water was just right!

Results of the race can be found here:
http://www.plattsys.com/m1shell.asp?eventid=983

Stay tuned for the last Denny's Cup installment of the season that is coming up in a few weeks: the 5k TT on the track. This years Denny's Cup is shaping up to be a great one with many guys in contention for the win and lots of intra squad competition and energy. This will be the last 'race' effort for the B guys and will be a scorcher to be sure! Monday November 5th is the official date.

-dxc

Introductions

So for starters, it seems that we must tell you who we are. And what we are. We are two cross country runners who live and compete at Dartmouth College. My name is Steve, and my co-blogger is Matt. We're both juniors.  Soon we hope to have other teammates participating in this blog.  The idea is that it will document some of what we do -- racing, training, traveling, eating, sleeping, doing homework, chasing girls, and well frankly, that is just about it.  Plus Call of Duty.

We hope that others, outside of our daily sphere of contact, namely friends, family, and alumni, will be able to use this blog as a line of information and humor to keep them in the loop. And who knows? Maybe someday we'll sell the rights to this blog to 20th Century Fox for a full-length documentary, and we would never have to work again.  Fingers crossed!

Here is Matt throwing down some big moves to be our 14th man at the Dartmouth Invite. Here we go, buddy!

Here is Steve, putting in a bush-league kick past Papa Bear.

Photos, and background photo courtesy of Luke Decker.