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This weekend, the Illinois Cross Country Club split squad and headed downstate to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville’s John Flamer Invite for the first time ever. There were a few of significant firsts on the hilly terrain of the SIU-E Cross Country Course   against strong Division I and II competition.

This weekend marked the first meet in club history that more women competed than men. It’s an important historical note for the team. When things got started, the club was heavily male-dominated, but the female membership has been steadily on the rise and this weekend, the women’s team fielded more racers than the men. Nice job ladies.

A big first came for Evan White on Saturday. Running all by himself on a very difficult, hilly course, Evan broke 26 minutes for the first time, clocking 25 minutes and 59 seconds to garner a 13^th place finish for the team. He held his own and the back of his jersey was a familiar sight for several competitors that we had previously seen from Mizzou and SIU-E. It’s another strong performance for Evan after just missing out on a top 35 t-shirt at Augustana (that’s probably what drove him on Saturday.) In all seriousness though, Evan’s been putting in the time (#PITT) and has been on a tear through the first half of the season.

Alex Erwin has been dropping time like it’s his job. After improving by 5 minutes and 25 seconds from EIU to Augustana, Erwin dropped another 90 seconds this weekend. Ilyas Taraki also had a nice race, improving by more than a minute from his club debut at Augustana, this time on a much harder course. It was also the club debut for several members of the men’s team. Brett Barsanti, Tony Gao, Sean McCarty and Alex Shirley all raced with “ILLINOIS” across their chest for the first time. Nice job guys.

For the women, Hannah Smith stepped up and led the way with a good race on the tough course in 25:37.  Shortly behind her, former Nittany Lion Gwenn Porter made her debut for the Illini. She’s a grad student to keep an eye on as we move towards the post-season. She will hopefully be helping us take down her alma mater’s running club about a month from now in East Lansing.

Track Club President Paige Oboikovitz took the third spot for the women, continuing her steady improvement this season. Steve said she’s the kind of runner who gets better and better as the season goes on, so look for big things as we head into the NIRCA competition season. Next up was esteemed travel coordinator Monica O’Connor, making her season debut under a false identity. Monica organized everyone’s departure from campus at 6:15, and even though that’s brutally early for a Saturday morning, she said it was a fun trip and a great bonding experience for the women’s team.

Anna Piazza completed the scoring five, shaving 15 seconds off of her Augustana time on a much more difficult course. Rounding out the top seven was Selena Wallace and Corina Jurczyk, making her collegiate debut with the club. This weekend also marked the collegiate debuts of Megan Frintner and Robin Manarik, as well as the season debut for Nicole Cinquino.

Now, the other half of the team heads to Kenosha, Wis., this weekend for UW-Parkside’s Lucian Rosa Invite. It’s a big meet, with more strong competition and another challenging course. For any club supporters near Chicago, it’s only a little more than an hour drive, so consider heading North and supporting the team!

The Illinois Cross Country Club was back in action last week and put together some fast times at Augustana’s Brisman-Lundeen Invite. The race teed off at Rock Island’s Saukie Golf Course and the flat course gave way to some fast times for the club. The men placed eighth of 39 teams and the women placed ninth of 35.

There were a lot of fast performances, but the biggest head-turner of the day was Mr. David Oskar Choi. David was the fourth runner for the Illini with a blazing time of 26 minutes and 29 seconds. Head coach Steve Krauklis said he finally ran the way he should and wow! While most know David as the team’s title-holder for “Most Awesomely Awkward Facebook Pictures,” he showed he really has some serious wheels on Friday. The performance was a huge 1 minute and 41 second PR and one of David’s highest-ever finishes with the team

Before the race, Steve said to look out for Jared and Cobert, and I had noticed the freshman LZ-Boys, Brian Griffin and Austin “Chief” Kuehr, had strung together some nice workouts. The Lake Zurich crew delivered on Friday. Jared had his best race of the season so far as the team’s third runner, running his second fastest 8K ever with a 26:27. Cobert wasn’t far behind in his strongest race of the young season, clocking a 26:40.

The freshman, B-Griff and Chief, also had breakthroughs. Brian said he wanted to break 30 at Augustana; he went and broke 29 while he was at it, running a 28:56, a 2:55 improvement from EIU. Chief dipped under 29 minutes with a 28:56, a huge 3:36 improvement.

Greg Netols was the Illini men’s top finisher and perhaps more significantly, earned a Brismann-Lundeen Top 35 t-shirt with his 28^th place finish. Evan White was a few places behind him, tantalizingly close to a t-shirt in 40^th place.  Rounding out the top seven were Jared, David, freshman phenom Nick Bushelle, Cobert, and another freshman phenom, Michael Frintner (about 20 places behind Nick, “his rock”).

Every member of my car had a breakthrough performance and ran much, much faster than EIU. The Might Quinn Todzo, the self-proclaimed “Chancellor,” dropped 3:09 from his EIU time in his old racing flats to hit 28:41. Quinn also displayed some bilingual prowess at Maria’s after the race, dropping phrases like “sí” and “gracias.”  Ziggy “Stardust” Zamora dropped 3:09, Jacob Wilson dropped 4:04, and Alex Erwin dropped a whopping 5 minutes and 25 seconds! I don’t think any other cars showed that level of improvement!

Also, shout-outs are due to David Lundline, Steven Orta, Michael Schaible, Ken Sprague and Ilyas Taraki for making their IXC debuts at Augustana.

For the women, it was the first 6K of the year, which will be the standard distance come the post-season. Emma Grimes led the way with a t-shirt-clinching 18^th place performance. She was followed by the captain, Megan Mocogni, and freshman star Erin McKee. While Erin had a good day on the course, her most valuable contribution to the team may have been her parents, who came to cheer on the Illini and baked 52 (!) oatmeal chocolate chip muffins for the team. Thank you to the McKee’s!

After track social coordinator-elect Emma Burkhardt finished in the four spot for the women, Lexy Rudofski completed the scoring 5 for Illinois. It was her second race for the club, and second time scoring points. Thea Cudnowski and Hannah Smith rounded out the top seven.

The two women who made their debut at EIU, Anna Piazza and Angela Wu, saw big time improvement. EIU was a 5K and Augustana was a 6K, so comparisons are harder, but Anna averaged 7:23 pace at EIU and dropped that to 7:07 in a longer race. Angela’s average mile pace jumped all the way from 8:48 to 7:20!

Overall, there was improvement across the board for the club. After terrible conditions at EIU for the start of the season, the Illini took advantage of a fast course and started to reap the benefits of their first few weeks of training. The club will split-squad the next two weekends to two difficult courses. Some runners are heading downstate to SIU-Edwardsville’s John Flamer Invite, and some runners will travel to UW-Parkside’s Lucian Rosa Invite.

Also, a friendly reminder to give our own Joe Zeller, @ZanyZeller a follow on Twitter!

It was a brutally hot day for the club’s first full meet of the season, but the blazing heat didn’t stop some blazing performances. When the team got an e-mail from President Eric titled, “HHHOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT!!,” everyone realized that conditions would be less than ideal. Both the men and women put together solid performances as dozens of IXC runners made their collegiate debut. By my unofficial count, the men placed third of 14 teams and the women placed third of 15.

Leading the charge for the men once again was Evan White. The heat didn’t seem to bother him as he covered the “Panther Trail” in 26:51, nearly a 15 second improvement from last year’s meet, a much faster race.

Freshman Nick Bushelle turned heads last week at the Illini Challenge, those heads turned again this week as another freshman followed close behind him the whole race. Michael Frintner made his debut in an Illinois singlet this weekend, and finished just a second behind his classmate. On Nick, Frintner said: “He’s my rock.” This dynamic duo of freshmen will be a pair to keep an eye on this season.

Rounding out the scoring five for the Illini men were Greg “Old Greg” Netols and Eric “El Presidente” de Guevara. Another tight pack followed as Jack Morrissey, Joe ‘”Zany'” Zeller, and Jared Ripoli finished together in the span of three seconds. Morrissey’s performance is even more impressive considering his bountiful facial hair, which probably made it feel even hotter.

Shout-outs are due to all of the new club members who grinded out their first collegiate 8K in the scorching heat: Jack O’Neil, Austin “Chief” Kuehr, Quinn “the Mighty” Todzo, Brian “B-Griff” Griffin, Cody Hansen, Danny Johnson, Ziggy “Stardust” Zamora, Eduardo “E-Money/E-Ticket” Martinez, Jacob Wilson, Corey Zeinstra, Alex Erwin. These guys toughed it out on a rough day for a five mile race and will only get faster. The men’s team also won in number of participants, there’s something to be said for that on a day with awful running weather.

For the women, freshmen Erin McKee didn’t mess around in her collegiate debut, finishing first for the team in 19:25. Emma Grimes, coming off a huge track season, finished second in 19:33, a whopping 40 seconds better than last year, despite the sweltering conditions. Finishing out the top five were women’s captain and post-race cookie distributor Megan Mocogni, Emma Burkhardt, and Heather Guetterman.

Everyone’s favorite social coordinator Thea Cudnowski and freshman Emily Foley finished back to back as the final members of the top seven. EIU dominated the top of the race by sweeping spots two thru six, but the ladies of IXC held their own, edging out SIU-Edwardsville by just three points to take third place. (There will be a rematch on the Cougars’ home course in a few weeks at the John Flamer Invite.)

Anna Piazza and Angela Wu made their debuts with the club team at EIU, pushing through the heat to kick off the season and their college running careers. It was great to see so many athletes race with the club for the first time, and it’s a huge freshman class. Also, for those of you counting at home, there are already two freshmen, for both genders, who already look like top seven contenders: Nick Bushelle and Michael Frintner for the men and Erin McKee and Lexy Rudofsky for the women. That’s a pretty impressive start for the class of 2018, and who knows what to expect from everyone else as the season goes on.

Coach Krauk said that the results from Friday were about what he expected. After the race, he explained that the first few weeks of training together in Champaign probably hasn’t kicked in. Now the club has time to put in some hard work and prepare for Augustana’ Brisman-Lundee Invitational on September 26.

The Illinois Cross Country Club season will kick off in full swing this Friday in Charleston, IL, at the EIU Walt Crawford Open. While the men’s and women’s teams each competed in the Illini Challenge last week, it was with limited entries. This will be the first meet that the majority of the club runs this year.

Last year, the men’s team took 3rd of 12 teams at this meet, behind EIU and SIU-Edwardsville. All but one of the top seven from that meet return this year, including last year’s top finisher Joe Zeller, in 26:42 for 8K. Also returning is last year’s five man Evan White. He put together a strong performance to be the club’s top finisher at the Illini Challenge, and it looks like he had a big summer of training. Not a returner, but a runner to keep an eye on is freshman Nick Bushelle, who turned heads last week at the Illini Challenge as the club’s second finisher.

The women’s team took 6th of 13 teams at last year’s meet. Looking at last year’s results show just how much can change over the course of the season, as only four of the top seven finishers would race in the women’s top seven at nationals. The women’s top returner this season is Emma Grimes, who finished first for the club at last week’s Illini Challenge in 19:03 for 4960 meters. Last year at this meet, Grimes ran 20:13 for 5K to finish fourth for the team, look for that time to drop on Friday. Like the men’s team, the women also have a freshman to watch in Lexy Rudofski, who finished third for the team last week.

The race is held on EIU’s “Panther Trail,” just outside of O’Brien Stadium, where the Illinois State Track Meet is held each year. It’s mostly a flat course with a few gradual hills around EIU’s athletic fields and facilities. The course should lend itself to some fast times to start the season, but runners will also have to battle the heat for this early season meet. After a summer of running and two strong weeks of training on campus, both the men’s and women’s teams are ready to compete in Charleston this Friday night.

It”s that time of year again. Cross country season is upon us and the Illinois XC Club is ready to hit the ground running this fall!

Anyone who is interested in running with the club this fall should fill out this form.

The 2014 meet schedule is posted here.

Practice is 4:15 Monday-Friday at the west side of the Armory. See you there!

Hey Everyone,

So apparently I was incorrect last week. This week isn”t the last meet for the majority of the team, last meet was.

This week, we had one brave soul carry the ITC flag into battle competition at the Redbird Invitational (results). That single, brave, self-sacrificing, uncompromosing soul was… drumroll:

Beth McGreal.

She ran the 5000m. It was very exciting. Alas, she didn”t PR, meaning that this is the first update for which I have no PR”s to post. Way to let the team down, Beth.


Anyway, that”s all I have to say today. Don”t forget we have our board elections on Thursday at noon in the Armory, Room 134. If you”re a member of the team, make sure to be there and help us Make Democracy Work.


Only kidding! I”m sure you ran well, and had as much fun as you could possible have running the 5000m.

Before we get into the meet of the post (get it?), I have the following announcement to make:

The club will be having elections on Reading Day, on Thursday May 8th at Noon. If you”re on the team, you should have received an e-mail with more details (if you haven”t, you”ll want to contact our club president Eric De Guevara. His e-mail can be found under the Contact Tab. Make sure you scroll down to the Track and Field board NOT the Cross Country board). Unfortunately, because graduate school is a horrible, soul-sucking monstrosity (seriously, just get a job), I will not be standing for re-election. Therefore, we need people to run for the position. Otherwise, our beautiful website will be neglected, and your parents will start calling you to ask you how you did (and we don”t want that, now do we?).

Minimal responsibilities for webmaster are the following:
Upload the results of each meet into our performance database.
Post weekly updates about the meets (a bit of gentle humor appreciated). You should post the list of records (both club and personal) set at the meet, as well as anything else you may decide is worth mentioning.
Keep the club calendar and meet schedule up to date.
Post the minutes of each board meeting to the website.
Anything else related to the website that needs to be handled.
Note: Unlike previous years, the webmaster DOES have a vote on the board.

A technical background is nice, but by no means necessary. Writing proficiency is probably more important, considering the whole ‘”post updates about the meets'” thing.

If you are interested in the position and have questions about it, feel free to contact me (Andrew Cholewa) at acholew2@illinois.edu.

Anyway, now that that”s out of the way, meet results.

Our team split, and went to two different meets this weekend. Many of our distance runners went to Gina Relays in Hillsdale, while everyone else went to the True Blue Open in Jacksonville. True Blue Open Results. Gina Relay Results.

At Gina Relays, we had the following personal records:

Abby Madden ran a personal record in the 5000m with a time of 18:49.24 (so…many…laps…)

Steven Decker ran a PR in the 800m wiht a time of 1:59.37. This was also his first time getting under 2 minutes, at least while running for ITC. Congrats to Steve!

Michael Giocolo ran a PR in the 800m with a time of 2:01.41.

Kevin Lapp (I love this guy”s name so much) also ran a PR in the 800m with a time of 2:06.14.

Meanwhile, at Illinois College:

While Quenton didn”t run a PR in the 100m, he did run the exact same time down to a hundredth of a second in both the prelims and the finals (11.13. He also ran that at NIRCA Nationals, meaning that he”s run the exact same time three out of five of his outdoor races). What are the chances of that? (Answer: While the chances of it happening to Quenton in particular is quite small, it”s pretty much guaranteed that this would happen to somebody at some point, considering the massive number of people running the 100m in any given year).

Anyway, in the 1500m, Hanna Smith PR”d with a time of 5:30.18.

Jayme Roberts PR”d in the 400m with a time of 51.75.

Quenton Hardaway PR”d in the 200m with a time of 22.66.

Ryan Brewster also PR”d in the 200m with a time of 22.74.

David Choi PR”d in the 5000m with a time of 16:23.02.

Next week, the team runs at North Central, for the last meet of the Season for a large fraction of the team (after that we start getting into finals, and beyond).

Till then, everybody.

This past weekend was another small one. The team went out to the Big Blue meet hosted by Millikin. Full Results

However, just because only a few of our runners went, that doesn”t mean we didn”t have some excellent performances. Indeed, if the Conservation of Ninjutsu (Warning: TV Tropes link) is to be believed it”s expected. And Ninjutsu was conserved. Oh yes was it conserved.

Not sure quite where I was going with that. Anyway! We had two club records this past weekend:

Emuze Tare continues to obliterate the shot put records. This time, she broke the Shot Put record with a throw of 9.12m

Erin Murphy, determined to have been the record holder in every event below 800m at least once, has broken the 400m Hurdles record with a time of 1:07.31 minutes.

Meanwhile, we also had several personal records:
Erin Murphy set a PR in the 400m dash (and broke a minute for the first time) with a time of 59.96. Congratulations on that passing that particular milestone!

Jayme Roberts got a PR in the 400m with an impressive time of 51.91.
Ben Kanevsky was hot on his heels with a 400m PR as well, in a time of 52.07 seconds.

Short and sweet, and I”ll see you (well you”ll be seeing more words on the computer screen, anyway) next week.

Andrew Cholewa

This has been a rather quiet week, as our runners take a little bit of a well-deserved break after NIRCA Nationals. However, that didn”t stop a few runners from competing this weekend. We had people at the Eagles Invitational hosted by Benedictine University, and many of our top-tier runners competing at Illinois Twilight, the meet hosted by the UIUC Division 1 track and field team (not us!) this past Saturday. Results:

Eagles Invitational

The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Clearly the Weather Gods were pleased with Scott”s sacrifice. Guess we just got lucky. Between that, and the excellent competition we broke quite a few club records on Saturday, despite the small number of people competing.

Records:

Illinois Twilight:
Emma Grimes set a new club record for the 5000m with a time of 17:48.14.
Quenton Hardaway has set a new club record for the 100m Dash, with a time of 10.80.
Jack Skelton set a new club record in the 200m dash with a time of 22.01.

Of course not all of our records were broken at Illinois Twilight. Jess Ayers set a new record in the 100m Dash with a time of 12.74 at Benedictine.

Now, for PR”s.

Illinois Twilight:
Yemi Sonoiki ran the 100m in 11.50 seconds.
Ryan Brewster ran the 200m in 22.76 seconds.
Greg Netols ran the 800m in 1:59.95

Benedictine:
200m:
Beau Barber ran a new PR with a time of 24.19 seconds.
Erin Murphy ran 26.43 seconds.

400m:
Scott Luedkte (totally not a soulless automaton that the Gods gave us to replace the real Scott so that his parents never discovered that we sacrificed him in a bid for nice weather) ran a 52.46.
Erin Murphy ran a 1:00.88.

800m:
Shannon Sledz busted out a 2:24.18.

Great job guys and gals! Next week is … somewhere. I”m not actually sure, because a certain Head Coach (in the name of professionalism, I won”t mention any names) has rearranged the schedule a little, and hasn”t sent me the updated schedule yet.

This past weekend the Illinois Track Club traveled to Bloomington, IN for NIRCA Nationals. We threw on twelve layers, brought half a dozen blankets each, and prepared (with great glee I assure you) for a long, cold, rainy day…Only for the weather to actually not be that bad. Rather cold in the morning, but by the afternoon, the sun came out and the weather flirted with warm several times. Clearly, we should sacrifice someone something to the Ye Olde Weathere Godse in thanks. Yes. Something. Like a hat. Not someone. Like not Scott Luedkte. We”re totally not going to sacrifice Scott to ancient and malevolent weather gods at exactly 00:00.58.11 (military time) this Tuesday in the Armory in thanks for decent weather at Nationals. That”s patently absurd. On a completely unrelated note, we”ll be needing some more hurdlers soon. If you know anyone whose interested, have them send our head coach Ben Kanevsky an e-mail.

Quickly moving on, it was a fun meet for both the girls and the guys, with lots of close, and exciting races. For the men in particular, it was an intense meet, with us and Penn State fighting desperately for every last point. In the end, both of our genders managed to take first place, though the men by a measly three points. Now we have two very large very fancy trophies to be placed…wherever we put our trophies. But wherever they”ll be placed, I”m sure they are easily found, and are seen by thousands of people every day.

Now, for the real reason you”re skimming this update, records and PR”s!

First, we had several club records set by the women on Saturday:

Lauren Choi set the club record in the 3000m Steeplechase with a time of 12:40.57.
Lauren Jonen set the club record in the 400m with a time of 58.67
Beth McGreal set the club record in the 5000m with a time of 18:05.91
Hayley Dorfman set the club record in the 100m with a time of 12.86
Emuze Tare set the club record in the shot put with a distance of 8.49m
Erin Murphy set the club records in the long and triple jump with distances of 5.04m and 10.59m respectively.

Now, for PR”s:
5000m:
Abby Madden – 18:58.49

200m:
Mike Kreiser – 23.43

400m Hurdles:
Scott Luedkte – 58.11

100m Dash:
Jesse Ayers – 13.00
Erin Murphy – 13.10
Quenton Hardaway – 11.13
Jayme Roberts – 11.50

1500m:
Megan Mocogni – 5:08.10
Greg Netols – 4:03.40
Evan White – 4:04.65
Joe Zeller – 4:13.09
Zach Boehmke – 4:16.5

400m:
Lauren Jonen – 58.67
Erin Murphy – 1:01.2
Beau Barber – 54.68

800m:
Emma Grimes – 2:19.60
Aleta Wurfel – 2:35.37
Greg Netols – 2:00.45

200m:
Hayley Dorfman – 27.5
Quenton Hardaway – 22.82

Long Jump:
Yemi Sonoiki – 6.08m

Discuss:
Thea Cudnowski – 16.14m

Great meet had by all.

This upcoming weekend will be a relatively quiet weekend: A few sprinters will be traveling to Benedictine, while much of the team volunteers at the Illinois Twilight meet hosted by the UIUC Varsity team.

Also, now that we”re done stealing all of your liberties apparently, I”m supposed to be posting the minutes for our Super Secret Executive Board Meetings. My bad. Anyway, check out the board meeting minutes for Sunday April 6 2014. Very exciting. I get to vote now! And I didn”t have to dump any tea in Eric”s sink to get it.