Jeff Hobbs is an inspiration to all (Sara Lauch image)
This past Sunday, one of my high school coaches and now friend, Jeff Hobbs, did something incredible. He attempted to run the Chicago Marathon. The reason it is so incredible is that Jeff was born with spastic cerebral palsy, a condition where the brain fails to send proper signals to the muscles causing restricted movements and making normal everyday tasks difficult let alone running. Although Jeff didn’t finish the marathon due to some torn tendons in his foot, he is now more motivated than ever to achieve one of his lifelong dreams and become the first person with spastic cerebral palsy to finish a marathon. Jeff is one of the most motivated individuals that I’ve met in my life and if I had half his motivation, I would be superhuman. As Jeff’s mother best put it in his recent segment on CSN Chicago, Jeff runs a marathon every day. He is an inspiration to all and I highly suggest you check out his amazing life story if you haven’t already. For more information, you can check out his website at www.jeffhobbs.org
One of the athletes on our team has had to endure a journey of his own. When I started with the program this summer, I met senior Jake VanHoff, a newcomer to cross country. When I met Jake, my initial reaction was that he was a highly motivated individual that was willing to do whatever it took to get to the top. He had a quiet, calm demeanor and was very detail oriented on everything we did always wanting to make sure he did it correctly. I was surprised to find out that Jake had not been a runner before his junior year of track season just based on his dedication level to the sport. Despite his lack of experience, Jake was expected to be a member of our top 7 and he showed us that in his first 3 weeks of summer running. Then on July 1st, Jake started to feel some pain in his shin after the workout. Little did we know then that Jake would not run pain free again until September 9th.
Jake VanHoff has worked extremely hard to get to where he is today (Andy Derks photo)
Initially, it was hard for him to accept that he couldn’t run without pain. He would cross train a couple days and then try to run and the shin pain would be right back. After a couple weeks of this, Jake visited a couple of doctors where he didn’t get much relief either. It became apparent that Jake was going to be out for an extended time period. When I talked to Jake about what we wanted him to do as far as cross training was concerned during his injury, I gave him the same advice I give to any athlete who is injured and has to cross train. I said Jake, you have to work twice as hard as when you’re injured compared to when you’re healthy. Not every kid takes this to heart but Jake is a different breed of athlete. He is in it to be the best athlete he can be. He could have easily thrown the towel in and said look ‘I’m injured and I’m just going to sit around and take it easy and wait until I get better.’ Instead Jake cross trained his butt off. Jake was a model of how to maintain aerobic fitness while injured.
When Jake’s pain finally went away, we cautiously brought him back. We would have him run a day, cross train two days, when that went well, we went one day on, one day off cross training, when that went well, we brought him to two days on one day off cross training. On September 15th, Jake resumed regular training. On September 20th, Jake ran his first ever cross country race at the Minooka Flight Invite running 17:05 for 3 miles. This past weekend, Jake lowered his cross country PR to 16:45 for 3 miles nearly winning the open race at the Sterling Invitational. Jake’s hard work while being injured paid off in large dividends for him. On Saturday, he will run as a member of our top 7 at conference. One month ago, this didn’t seem possible and it would not have been possible had he not worked twice as hard when he was injured. If you’re going through an injury, let a guy like Jake be an example of what can happen if you do the right things.
This weekend is our conference meet. The Southwest Prairie Conference Meet will be held on the new cross country course at Lewis University, my alma mater. Last year, we finished at sixth at conference. This year, we are aiming at a much higher finish than that. It will be tough though as Plainfield South and Oswego appear to be the favorites to win with Minooka, Oswego East and us nipping at their heels. After our outstanding performance at the First to the Finish Invite, we have hit a lull in our season’s performances and have not performed to our top capabilities as a team. We know that to compete at our conference, we need to have a much better race effort. We’ve challenged our kids to make this happen and the energy seems to be coming back at the right time. There’s nothing more exciting than championship season in cross country and I’m excited to see how this season plays out for us!