Recent News and Updates - E-mail cquick@d211.org

September 3, 2008 - Pirate Boys and Girls Win Openers

We finally got to kick off our season last night in a dual meet with Prospect.  The heat was brutal with the temperature in the low 90s at race time with the heat index in the mid-90s.  Despite the heat, the boys ran impressively, winning 19-41 on the varsity level and 20-39 on the F/S level.  Prospect is a talented and tough team who will be much better down the road when we meet again.  A couple of their key guys were out last night so I am sure they will be ready when the big meets come around at the end of the season.  Our girls also ran well.  I don't know the final varsity score, but we went 1-3-4-5-6 for 19 points.

A nice picture gallery is on the way...as soon as Marcin gets me the CD of all the pictures he took last night.

Varsity Race - Bernardo, Bethke, and Bollman Sweep Top 3 Spots

Prospect is known for their great half-milers so we wanted to make this race a fast one from the gun.  Chris Hayek and Albert Ciolek in particular have a ton of speed so our guys wanted to get out hard and try not to let the meet come down to kicks.  By the 800 mark, Chano and Hayek were clearly separated from the rest of the field, hitting that mark in 2:18-2:20 and then scorching through the mile in 4:51.  The rest of our pack of five guys were right at 5:01 and looking good.

Just past the mile and a half mark, Chano surged hard and put Hayek into difficulty.  This allowed Bollman and Adam Bethke to benefit as they ran a bit more conservatively and were able to pass him coming in.  Hayek probably gets second with a more conservative race, but I really enjoyed watching him go out and battle.  It was pretty sweet to see this tall, muscular 800 meter stud going up against small and powerful little Chano.  I am sure those two will meet again and the race will be much closer.

In the end our guys ran some great opening times considering the miserable conditions.  Chano ran 14:57 to take another spot on our all-time Deer Grove Top 50 list while Alec and Adam finished in 15:23 and 15:24.  Adam had a great last 300 meters to catch Hayek, and he set a 20 second PR.  That incredible summer of work is starting to pay off!  Behind those three, Juan Perez (15:42) and Jeff Larson (15:58) ran solid, but the real surprise of the night (even to himself) was Tom Laskowske.  Only five weeks removed from hernia surgery, he came out and ran 15:48, lowering his PR by 25 seconds or so.  Justin Olson also ran a great race to finish as seventh man in a new PR of 16:08.

Behind the top seven we had some real solid performances if not a ton of PRs.  Matt Wiggen dropped his all-time best from 17:45 to 16:35 to show that his transition from sprinter to distance runner is nearing completion.  The short shorts will be the final step!  Brian Sund, Justin Smith, and Ryan Wojdyla packed it up well and both Vlad Novikov (16:18) and Matt Baran (16:28) gave real solid efforts.  John Pasowicz (19:12) also ran real close to his all-time best.

I updated the list of Palatine career bests for Deer Grove East as well.  This list catalogs the career best for every Palatine athlete who has run the varsity course at Deer Grove East.  There weren't a ton of PRs, but that had more to do with the weather.

F/S Race - Laskowske, Bethke, and Roehrborn Go 1-2-3

I had no clue what to expect in this race.  I had the feeling that our sophs were in great shape, but they have not been able to keep up with the varsity in practice.  Prospect also has three great sophs - Netols, Strobel, and Ashton - and I wasn't sure if they would run varsity or not.  Netols and Ashton ended up running varsity with Strobel not competing, but it would have been fun to see how things turned out with both F/S squads racing one another.

In the end A.J. Laskowske opened his season with the best race of his career thus far, dominating from the gun.  A.J. took control just past the 800 meter mark, turned in a mile split of 5:12, and just kept going from there.  His 13:12 time was #9 on our F/S Deer Grove list, but his effort on this hot day had to be worth closer to 13:00.  Basically, anyone who has run 13:12 or faster has been a very good varsity CC runner at Palatine, including a couple of All-Staters.  Way to go A.J.!

Behind A.J., Erik Bethke (13:37) and Lucas Roehrborn (13:38) battled with a couple of Prospect guys throughout the race, but were able to pull away at the end to complete a 1-2-3 sweep.  The times from our top three guys all made the Top 50 Palatine F/S times at Deer Grove East.  Kendall Cox ran as our #4 man in his first high school CC race, finishing with a game 13:52, and close on his heels were a triumvirate of freshmen.  Tim Meincke (14:11), Anthony Gregorio (14:12), and Tim Johnson (14:13) all had stunning debuts to finish as our 5-6-7 men in their first high school CC race.  To top it all off, Reuben Frey continued his return from last year's broken leg to run 14:25.  I am so proud of how Reuben persevered through a terrible injury to get back in shape and start contributing to the team on the course again.

Erich Kuerschner (14:49) also ran near his PR from last season, and he was shadowed by Zach Gates (15:42) and Jake Alberti (15:47) as our sophs continued to show massive improvement.  Jake had a great kick to hold off a hard charge from a Prospect runner, and I could not have been prouder of the competitive spirit he showed in the last 300 meters.  The rest of our freshmen got an introduction to high school running and survived the heat.  Great job everyone!

These are great improvements when one figures in the extreme heat.  That had to be worth a fair amount of time compared to last year's opener, which was comparably mild.

August 31, 2008 - Miles, New Pics, Practice Schedule

We finally get to see some competition this week, and the boys could not be more excited to move our focus from training to racing.  This first week is a sweet one.  We host a hyper-talented Prospect team at home and then get to challenge defending state and national champion Neuqua Valley at the Hinsdale Hornet-Red Devil Invite on Saturday.  Come out and support the boys and girls!

On another note, Saturday's workout was a great team experience, and I really appreciate all of the great Good Vibes handed out at the end of practice.  The Auction did not  disappoint either.  Blihovde paid a mint for a Grateful Red- FIBO shirt, and Kierys ended up with three vintage T-shirts for $50.  Bogdanowicz also now has the village's largest collection of XL shirts that no one else could possibly want.

Practice and meet schedule for this week:

Pictures Update - I added two separate picture galleries from the Banana Split Relays.  The Cox family took a ton of pictures to form Gallery 1, and Jim Milner used Coach Currins' camera to take a bunch more for Gallery 2.

Miles Update - I added the Miles for Week 3 and posted the first Mileage Progression.  This team is running far and away the most in-season miles I have ever seen.  Let's turn those miles into smiles.

Driving Directions - I fixed the links on the left so that they actually show the directions.  Sorry about that.

August 24, 2008 - Workout Analysis, Practice Schedule, Miles

I've had some time now to look at the workout results, and I see a ton of positives.  Hopefully, these results indicate that we are on our way to another great season.  First things first.  The practice schedule for Week 3 is below.  Varsity starts twice weekly doubles this week.

Miles Update - I compiled and updated Week 2 miles.

Workout Results - Four Varsity Athletes Challenge 15:00

This workout is always one of my favorite ones of the year.  It is a lot of fun getting into a competitive situation with our girls as partners, and the times are often good predictors for how we will race.  When compared to the efforts of previous state trophy teams from 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2007, we stack up well.  Our best version of this workout was in 2004 when the top four guys all totaled under 15:00.  Our deepest version was last year when the conditions were ideal for running.  We ran well on Saturday despite the hot and humid conditions. You could see in both the boys and girls results that performances tailored off badly throughout the workout with the third rep being the slowest by far - probably a bit of dehydration setting in.

Top Seven Runner Comparisons

Athletes who earned All-State honors later in that season are in bold.  Those who earned All-Conference at the MSL meet are in italics.

So what does any of this prove?  Nothing.  We are certainly in league with other teams that won state trophies and the MSL title though.  Our top end is just a bit off the top times set by some of our all-state runners and will have to improve.  We are strong through five runners, but our depth weakens after that.  If the weather had as big an effect as I think, though, we may be much better than the times indicate.  Certainly, a 10-15 second correction per guy puts us way ahead of last year's group.  We ran in perfect conditions in 2007 as opposed to the brutal heat of 2008.  I can't wait to see us race so I can stop analyzing workouts and see real results.

Sophomore Comparisons

I took the top seven sophomore times from past workouts and compared them to our times from Saturday.  Athletes who made the varsity later in the year are highlighted while those in italics are kids who placed top 25 in the MSL F/S race.  

The obvious point here is that our fastest sophomores are not yet on par with other super sophs who have made the varsity team that same season.  Last year's workout was clearly the best one ever run by the Palatine sophs, including Chano, Alec, and Jeff.  This year's group is exciting though.  We have nice depth.  It is great so see Kendall Cox with us and running well - his 16:36 put him at #2 man.  It is also key to our depth to have Ryan McGough (17:10) and Reuben Frey (17:15) added into our puzzle.  I think this group will be outstanding, especially as our freshmen start to improve and get added into the mix.

Freshmen Comparisons

Very few freshmen even run the 3 x mile workout so that says a lot about a group right away.  This year's frosh class is small, but packed with talent.  Noah Yosif and Peter Tomkiewicz ran some of the best frosh times ever in the 6 x 800 workout while our three guys in the longer workout did excellent.  Guys in bold made Top 25 in the MSL F/S race as freshmen.

Baby Christopher's First Pictures - For Friends and Family

Since Madeline got her own photo gallery on PalatineCC, I thought I would make sure to put Christopher Dunbar Quick's first pics out here as well.  He was born on August 4, 2008 at a weight of 9 lbs 9 oz and was 22 inches long.  At that weight he will be bigger than me soon.  Meri is okay now, but it was a tough birth since he was a week overdue. 

We debated about names for a long time (years in fact) and we finally decided to use two family names: Christopher is my first name obviously and Dunbar is Meredith's maiden name.  Rejected choices included John Kenneth Quick (sorry Lancaster), Augustus, Robert Dylan, and thousands of others.  Enjoy!