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.