Still Undefeated (Also Totally On-Time Bronycon Stories (Also Also God Fucking Dammit)) · 6:33pm Sep 24th, 2015
So Bronycon was last week and—
What do you mean it's almost the end of September? I can't even.
No, I'm serious. I actually cannot even.
See what I mean?
Amazing Clever Stupid jokes aside, I've been pretty busy ever since Bronycon ended. Part of it was school starting up again maybe a week and a half later, but most of it has been because of this. Coaching cross country is a lot more work than I thought because these JV kids are so dang soft. I'd go so far as to say that a couple of them are legitimately toxic and negatively impact the team's performance with their presence (regardless of how fast they may or may not be). But that's a story for the end of the blog. Let's start with...
Still Undefeated
As of this point, we've had four meets. You can find results here, here (JV here), here, and here (JV here).
If you don't know which team to look for, you might wanna figure out what "undefeated" means 
Wilmington (Meet #1)
Notable teams in attendance: #10 Lancaster, league rival Elder, and Oak Hills, a solid if not great local team. We need to beat teams like Elder and Oak Hills pretty comfortably if we're going to have a shot at making the State meet by the end of the season. We did exactly that, and varsity looks pretty great. But then again, they're not the soft ones.
- With a 16:20, Brad could win league meet this year.
- Nick, Frank, Jason, Jaylen, and Cam all looked solid in their race. Nick and Frank looked especially good, but the others need to drop to get close to 17 or under by the end of the year.
Speaking of the soft ones, the JV's looked alright for their first meet.
- Jeff looked good, and he's actually been getting less soft, somehow. He started out strong in the first mile; now he just needs to hold it.
- I've had David pegged as easily the #1 freshmen on the team, and he started off with a great first race. He's one of the few JVs that's nowhere close to soft.
- King Softy himself managed to match his freshman PR in his first race as a sophomore. Maybe there's hope for him yet.
- Jerron needs to get his act together if he's gonna have a decent senior season.
- Crail started out too slow in the first mile, but he's also a freshman. I figure he'll be pretty good this year, and this is a decent start.
- Hardig should be a lot faster than freaking 20:42. Good lord, that's slow, especially for a junior.
- RIP Connor Kluesener. It wasn't an awful first race for a freshman, but with the shadow* he's running in, it's a rough start.
* He's had two older brothers graduate. One was a State champion and the other was a solid (4:30 miler) varsity runner. It's a lot to live up to.
Greenville
Once upon a time, the Greenville Treaty Invite was a large meet with plenty of respectable competition. Now it's so small that we had 4-5 starting boxes to ourselves in the JV race, and our entire varsity was actually on the starting line. The competition for both the varsity and the JV was embarrassing. Easy game, easy life, I suppose.
- No Jaylen, no problem for the varsity.
- 18:15 was 10th? That's just embarrassing. Dear god.
The JV looked real great. They even had a pack of six at the two mile mark, and they were doing great running together. That said, I distinctly remember the entire field being about ten seconds faster. Weird.
- Where did this even come from? 19:50 --> 18:30 in one week is pretty great. But the answer is easy. For the 19:50, he started out at 6:35 for his first mile. The 18:30? 5:40. Good positioning and a quick start can make all the difference.
- Jeff led for the first two miles, and then he couldn't quite finish with Crail. It was a good learning experience for him, though, what with being confident enough to lead for so long and not fall apart at the end.
- King Softy improved? I'll be.
- Today we learned that David is struggling to handle racing from a mental standpoint. I've been trying to simplify each race for him ever since so he doesn't overthink things.
- Jason returns from injury and has a decent first race. He should end the year under 18, ideally (along with Jeff, David, and Crail, as it turns out).
- Connor emerged from the shadows and already beat one of his brothers' freshmen PRs. Obviously it runs in the family.
- Thank you, Hardig, for not running some god awful 20:xx again.
Troy
The competition looks better here, but not by much. We've already seen and beaten Oak Hills, but Anna is supposed to have a good team. Varsity is down Brad (ACT), so things could be interesting.
- ...Or not. Frank wins the whole thing, and Nick comes in second. Jaylen comes back from strep+sinus infection and picks up right where he left off. Cam stepped it up big, though. That's exactly what we needed since we were down Brad.
- Shelton, Crase, and Siemer need to step it up because...
Overall, I thought the JV once again looked pretty solid. The kids are continuing to improve, in spite of how soft some of them are.
- ...here comes Crail. 18:09 already. Hoboy. We got ourselves a real freshman right here. We haven't had a freshman this good since I was a senior, and I'm hoping he continues to improve. He might find himself on the varsity by the end of the year if he keeps this up.
- Jeff and Crail run real well together, but Jeff needs to finish a race. They were together with about 4-600 to go, then Crail kicked and Jeff did not. 18:25 is no small jump, though. Just wanna see continued improvement.
- Jason made the jump I hoped he would make, but somehow he dragged King Softy with him. Huh.
- Jerron returns and makes a good jump, but David needs to get his mental game together. There's no reason he shouldn't be up there with Crail with the way he's been training all year.
- Connor's no one hit wonder. This 19:xx is where he is, not that awful 21:xx he was at the first race.
- Merk was somehow not awful and broke 20 for the first time all year. Considering he was better than King Softy last year, though... :/
Michigan State
As far as I can remember, we've never done well here. The race is on a golf course, though, so it should at least be good for times. Except for the part where it rained all morning, and now the course is muddy, and the humidity is kinda ridiculous, especially for a meet in Michigan in September.
- Somehow the varsity pulled it off. I'm not sure, but I guess the muddy course threw everyone off? I dunno.
- When the results first went up, I immediately went to congratulate Brad on breaking 30 minutes (he ran a 29:59). My jokes are obviously the best.
- Shelton and Siemer join the JV this week, and they both ran decent races in terms of position. But even with the slower course due to mud and humidity, they should be faster than that.
- Jason and Jeff close the gap on Crail while Crail falls further behind Shelton and Siemer. Also noteworthy is that while most everyone else slowed down by at least 10-20 seconds, Jason only slowed by three.
- David, on the other hand, didn't slow down at all. I'm hoping for a breakout race from him this week.
- King Softy and Jerron let Jason and David get far ahead of them where last week those pairs were really close. And so far, only Jerron has stepped it up this week.
- Results cut out after 106 people. Huh. How rude.
So somehow, after years of being pretty bad, LaSalle is looking pretty good this year. The JVs also look to not be awful. All in all, things are looking good, and I'm pretty happy with the results at this point.
Also Totally On-Time Bronycon Stories
- Corejo and Wanderer D kidnapped me and dragged me all the way to Baltimore for this event called Bronycon. It was fun, I guess. The car ride, I mean. I'm pretty sure I asked Core no fewer than 15 times if we were there yet. I continued doing this throughout the event (especially while waiting in line to get my badge) and on the way home. It was fantastic.
- We also found this thing on the car after we stopped for lunch:
We never found those responsible at the con, unfortunately :(
- Just like the 2013 'Con, I spent a lot of time hanging out with Burraku_Pansa. He dragged me down to vendor hall quite a bit. The end result was something I did not at all anticipate: I bought things. I don't know what came over me, but it started with a couple bookmarks, then cascaded into commissions and stuff. Note to self: Increase Bronycon budget for next year.
Not pictured: My bag of pascoite from Pascoite.
- You can go here for more closeups, but I'm only going to bring up the last three, for obvious reasons.
- Before I get into the cool art stuff, I would like to point out that I was 0% prepared for RazgrizS57's 'fro. I still can't handle it, and it's been almost two months. I just can't, man. It was far too much for me.
- So at some point on Friday, BP and I were wandering about through vendor hall. We ran into Raz, and he and BP started talking about artists that were there. Raz mentioned that someone named GlacierClear was there. BP got excited and headed over in her direction. It turned out she's doing $15 inked commissions. BP grabbed one without any sort of hesitation. At this point, I'd already noticed a distinct lack of Sunset Shimmer, so acting on impulse, I got one too. Once I went back to get it, especially since I had already seen BP's at this point, I was pretty excited. I mean, when a $15 commission going off of, "Trixie, go nuts" looks like that, man, I'm pumped. And then I saw it. I was pretty insufferable for a while. I know that at one point, BP, Core, and Raz made a concerted effort to make me upset because up until that point, I was insufferably giddy. On Saturday, I sat in line to get into the vendor hall when it opened with BP so I could get one of the first commissions of the day. I did the same thing on Sunday (though they were "only" $5 pencil sketches by then).
I just asked for Sunset. I got two and a half. I don't even.
I can't believe I forgot to mention the need for a Santa hat in the first one. Oh well. That got fixed here.
Oh hey, it's my current avatar.
- I'm still pretty insufferably giddy about all of this, I'll have you know.
- Moving on from art stuff, all the writing panels were pretty cool. The Q&A parts should definitely have filtering by Jake, though. He did a great job with that, and he should do it more.
- Rooming with MidnightDancer is the worst thing you can possibly do. Just don't do it. Which, of course, is probably why I'm going to end up in her room next year.
- If you run, bring your running shoes. Core and I got up in the early morning to go on runs, and we could have been joined by Cold in Gardez if he had brought his shoes. Don't be CiG. Bring your shoes. If you don't run, start running. Get in shape and join us. I promise I won't push the pace ;)
- Board games are great. The entirety of Sunday evening was spent playing board games with BP, Core, Raz, RedSquirrel456, and Flashgen. If you join us next year, make sure to announce which color your piece is before you move it. Every time. I did so to great success. "I'm black." See? Easy peasy. It's also worth mentioning that the few occasions I didn't do this, I moved the wrong piece. It's also also worth mentioning that at some point during this time, I became a human pretzel. Obviously I need to ask Core if we're there yet more often.
- I have some ice cold water. It's only one dollar. Not unrelated: I'm black.
- I regret nothing.
All in all, Bronycon was a fantastic experience. It was great to see everyone again from the last time I went. It was great to meet a whole bunch of new people. I would make an attempt to list everyone out, but it's been almost two months. I'm almost guaranteed to leave multiple people out, and that's no good. So you better be there next year, yeah?
Also Also God Fucking Dammit
As I mentioned early on in this blog, I've been busy coaching cross country at my old high school. It's been a pretty fun and enjoyable experience overall, but good god, some of these kids just might be the death of me. Or something.
So today yesterday* this past Tuesday, we ran running hills. Hills mean fast. Fast means under seven minutes per mile for the JV kids. So we get to the hills, and I decide to try something new. Normally I'll just run with the front of the group and push them him. This has been especially true since the front of the group is usually just David the freshman. He's not used to running all this distance, so I figured if I'm there to push him, he'll run consistently good workouts. But now I'm thinking he's been doing this long enough that he might be able to push himself all on his own, which means I can run with the next group of guys and push them. So I tell David to go fast on his own while I slow down to let the next group catch me.
God fucking dammit, these kids were crawling. At a cul-de-sac, I see Jason turn around and start running backwards. I don't know if you've ever tried to run fast before, but you can't run fast, turn around, and maintain the same speed. You can try, but you'll stumble and fall pretty quickly. So they're going really slow. At this point, I've already slowed down to nine minutes per mile. It felt like I was walking, and they still took forever to catch me. When they did, I told them they were going slow, and that they're never going to get any better at this rate. They insisted they were going fast. I laughed. A lot. Thankfully, Jeff and Jason, and later Siemer, all picked it up. Thank god some of them responded.
Then King Softy and King Softy Jr. (Jaxson, for reference on the results pages) had the nerve to go, "Why are you guys going so fast?"
God
Fucking
Dammit
Those two are two of the most toxic kids I've ever seen on a sports team. They have no idea what it takes to get better, and whenever someone else is doing what it takes, they point and laugh at the "tryhard."
And the worst part is that King Softy could actually be good if he spent less time being a toxic fuckboy and more time working hard.
If anything drives me to regularly curse, not to mention drink, it'll be these goddamn toxic softies at cross country.
I needed this.
* I did start writing this on Tuesday, but then I got tired and went to bed. Then for the entirety of yesterday, my 'a' key did not work. I really need a new laptop.
Oh, hush. I'm awesome and you know it.
Those GlacierClear sketches are criminal... I'm always too shy to just go up and make a super-vague request, but clearly they had no problem delivering :V
Um... I hate to say it... But if your team is undefeated they can't be THAT soft.
I wish I were still running off my BronyCon high.
3417091
The varsity is not soft. The JV is soft as hell. Additionally, if the guys can run faster and they don't, it doesn't matter if they're winning. They're still soft.
3416874
Lies! Horrible lies!
3416899
I think the word at Bronycon was, "Just do it!"
3417126
Dagnabbit. I forgot to mention how awesome the grilled cheese lunch was. Sorry :(
3417189
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/8/4/950416__safe_oc_pinkie+pie_meme_human_ponified_discord_wat_fwslash-mlp-fwslash_oc-colon-anon.jpg
open in new tab for fullsize rly
3417189 On a semi related note. How do the runners feel about a random cyclist joining them? My job has me trained as a great sprinter but unable to run distance which works well for biking apparently... Well at least on the trips I do.
3417362
I dunno.
3417189
3417362
I run with my friend on his bike all the time. Come on along next time!
Don't worry, when King Marshmallow the Soft and his cushiony offspring get to the end of the season and find that their race times are the joke of the team, you can give them the old "I told you so"/shit-eating grin combo.derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/12/14/496859__safe_solo_rainbow+dash_flight+to+the+finish_spoiler-colon-s04e05_artist-colon-qcryzzy.png
^approximate Csquared face^
But seriously, 9 minutes/mile is a fast pace only if you've just visited an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and then went running immediately afterwards. Their degree of softness is only meant for fluffy kittens, and not athletes. They have shamed runners everywhere with their soft laziness. Shamed, I say!
Neeeevvvveeeeeeeerrrrrr!