Diary of Seth Hall….Meet my team as we travel to ULL
September 17, 2010
Current Location: Monroe, LA
Destination: Lafayette, LA
Seeing as it’s my first diary in over a year, I need to update you on my new (or old) teammates and my current situation. On the men’s side, we have five guys with us today….yes, that means we have no room for error today. We have Jorel Torres (AKA Latino Heat or Brown Suga), Devin Caldwell (fast 800 meter dude and former high school teammate), Jacob Heckford (newbie to the team…some people call him Heck or Heckford, but his close friends call him Jacob…so that’s what I’m going to call him. Also, he doesn’t wear candy shop shorts…he still wears ballin shorts, GROSS!), and then we have Moses Kiptoo Chelimo (he has the sexiest abs on the team…probably the sexiest abs in the world). On the girl’s side, we have five girls running today…still no room for error today. We have Maddie Robertson (she goes by Straddlin…and I hate her!), Denise Myers (goes by D-My…she’s so gangsta), Tyler Blacklock (just a cool chick), Lauren Rosson (Possibly/probably the most beautiful girl in the world ), and Arianna Jones (a newbie to the team with some cool hair). We also have a new coach….Chris Sandefur. We call him CC. He ran at Lindenwood (sp?) in Missouri….NAIA school.
A little bit about me: I’m entering my fifth year at ULM. I graduated in May with a degree in Marketing, and I’m currently pursuing my Masters in Business Administration. My life is a mess right now. I train like a mad man, I work 20 hours a week with my graduate assistantship, and I’m currently taking 9 hours (which is full time for grad school…for all you people that think I should be ineligible). This is my last chance to run for MY UNIVERSITY! And this is my last chance to have a strong team!
Corey Williams would be at this meet….except he is busy saving babies!
Goals for the meet:
It’s a 6k race….approximately 3.75 miles. I for sure want to run 20:40 (maybe in the back of my mind I know my legs might be a little tired) but I’m not putting past the idea of running 20 flat. Also, the team has to win…and with authority!
The trip:
I woke up around about 6:48…my bladder was screaming at me! I disposed of the liquids in my body, and then jumped in the shower. After I got out of the shower, I shaved only the hairs that made up my mustache. I also brushed my teeth. Afterwards I packed all my gear…uniform, spikes, clothes, etc. I got to campus around 8:45. Around 9:30 I gave a tour to a prospective student from Dutchtown High School (my GA is with campus tours at ULM). I’m just going to be honest, I sold ULM to that girl…she’s coming fo sho!!
Departure: We left our track around 1:19 (pretty good considering our agenda said to leave at 1:15). I haven’t raced at ULL since my freshman year in college. All of the boys were riding with Coach Malone (our head coach), and all of the girls were riding with CC that’s a frowny face. Normally I would be DJ for the van, but I have two problems today….Coach Malone is driving (and he doesn’t like my music) and I have to study for my first test as a grad student (it’s next Thursday and it’s a Managerial Economics class). A few thoughts popped in my mind as we headed for Lafayette….it’s way hot and my legs don’t quite feel springy. I’m a sweating dude…and for some reason (even though we have AC) I’m sweating like an animal! As we were driving to Lafayette, we had several different conversations…one of the conversations was about West Monroe High School versus Ruston High School (Coach Malone graduated from Ruston and Devin Caldwell and myself are WMHS grads)…you can probably only imagine how that conversation went. We also discussed high school education and how some schools can adequately prepare students for college schooling and others don’t. As we start to have some nice conversations….the girls request for a pee stop (or maybe they need to drop a two-zy???) Jorel guessed that it was Maddie who needed to go, but my guess was Lauren! Turns out it was Maddie….Jorel wins! We stopped in the large town of Pollock, LA at a Chevron. The girls were using both the girls bathrooms and the boys bathrooms….and I know they were dropping the dirties! It was a quick stop though….we were out of there in ten minutes.
One topic I’ve always liked to add in my diaries is the music we listen to on our trips. This trip was filled with Christian and Country music….and I’m not a country music guy myself. Taylor Swift is about as country as I get…and to be perfectly honest, I love her!!
After the bathroom break, we had a little Jim Carrey conversation. We really grinded Jorel’s gears with this conversation. I have some bad news to share with you….several times people have told me that I look like Jim Carrey….and to be more specific, they say I look like Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber! I have to give myself some credit too though…some people say I look like him not just as Lloyd!! But since we were on the topic…I tried to figure out which movie would I want people to say I looked like Jim Carrey. I chose Yes, Man, The Majestic, and Bruce Almighty. I feel like Jim Carrey could be a sexy guy…haha. These are the details for the ride to Lafayette. We arrived to the course at 4:38.
My first thoughts of the course: Dang…this course is FLAT!! But Lafayette is all flat I guess.
The Race:
Leading up to the meet, we were told that the boys would run at 6:00 and the girls would run at 6:30. At 5:10 we’re getting ready to start our warm-up and the ULL coach walks to our area and tells us that the girls will be running at 6:00 and the boys are at 6:30. This is not a big problem, however, it is nice to know the correct times in advance. So, the girls run first and they run well!! Maddie wins the race in 15:30 (pretty solid time). Denise gets 3rd and Tyler gets 4th (I think). Lauren finished 9th (whoop whoop…this is her first year running cross country. The previous two years she was a cheerleader for ULM and she actually tore her ACL last fall), and I think Arianna finishes in 15th position. The girls win…yay!! Great job ladies! We start our warm-up around 5:48 and run the course while cheering on our ladies! At our first meet (Southern Miss 2 weeks ago) I wore shorts….this week I’m wearing the all black tights! I’ll just be perfectly honest….I was looking sexy! My donk was looking pretty nice….haha, but of course that doesn’t matter for a race…or does it?? The race is two loops…the loops are almost the exact same loop, but there was a small difference. The course is marked off in kilometers, which is pretty cool. The race goes off right at 6:30 (I think). As we take out, there are several Southern University guys in the front along with Kevin Castille. My four teammates are pretty much in a pack at the start. After about 700-800 meters, I realize the pace is a little slow….so I move to the front! Haha…it’s been quite a while since I led a cross country meet. And I was running right next to Kevin Castille! We hit the first K in 3:28 (pretty slow). Kevin looks at me and says “I’m going to stay at this pace for the next 2 kilometers and anyone is welcome to jump on.” I was all like…fo sho man! Well, he took off about 15 seconds later, but it was partly because my teammate, Kiptoo, went ahead and pushed the pace. After one K, I was feeling pretty rough actually…I thought this might be a long day for me, but I still stuck in there. Brooks LeCompte passed me shortly after that…as did Zach France (ULL). They both put about a 50 meter gap on me. Shortly after we pass 3K, Juan Rodriguez (ULL) ran right up next to me…and even passed me for a bit. As we come through the first loop, a guy from Xavier passes me (he had pretty cool dreads)….and as he passed me, I made up my mind that I needed to wake up and start racing. I passed him right back, ran up and got Juan, and then by 4k I caught back to Zach France. I was in 4th place at that time (behind Kevin, Kiptoo, and Brooks). I really wanted to catch Brooks, but it never happened. I closed the gap a pretty good bit, but it just didn’t happen. I finish up in 20:42 (just slow of my goal finish) in 4th position….2nd collegian. My good friends Brown Suga (Jorel) and Devin Caldwell were 5th and 6th (which means we went 1-4 for collegians….and I know this isn’t a big meet at all, but we were still excited). Jorel ran 20:49 and Devin was at 20:52. We stayed close the whole race. Kiptoo ended up finishing 2nd behind Kevin Castille. Kiptoo ran 19:30…which means he put 72 seconds on me over the final 5K. Jacob, our freshman, finished 10th. I think he ran somewhere around 23 flat.
Overall thoughts: We were pretty pleased as a team. We won the meet…which is always nice. We didn’t beat any national beaters, but we did do well against a team in our conference. And our girls ran great too! Girls ran fast times and finished well…and the boys ran slow times, but finished well.
Extra story that I forgot to put in the diary earlier: While we’re waiting to warm up, I get nervous (as I do for every race) and I need to use the bathroom (and by bathroom I mean port-a-potty). I used the bathroom….and let me not give you too many details, but let me say this….dang, I wish there were sinks that you could wash your hands in!!
So we depart from the course around 7:31…and we’re headed for Jason’s Deli, but before we get there the girls spot a Cici’s pizza and we make a stop! Cici’s is a great decision and a terrible decision all in one. I order the buffet and a cup of water. No lie…I accidentally get Pink Lemonade (and I didn’t pay for it!). Honest mistake. No worries, I got water when I got refills. The pizza was awesome…but it sure did do a number on my stomach on the way home. We finally left Cici’s and filled up our vehicles with gas across the street and were headed back to Monroe by 8:36. I can’t really give you details from here because it was dark and I couldn’t keep notes. I will say this though….Jorel and I did have some good talks on the way home. We made it back to the ULM track by 11:55 and I got home by 12:10….so tired!!
If you read this article, thanks! I hope you enjoyed it! I hope you enjoyed meeting my team and living my racing experience. Go Hawks Go!!