Over the past year, Chris Derrick's (Sr., Neuqua Valley, IL) transformation from very good runner to great runner has sparked conversation implying Chris could be this year's Foot Locker National Champion. Always a big meet performer, Chris ran 8:54 last year in an amazing 3200m state championship race, where he nearly beat one of the nation's best in Evan Jager. For some, this signified his entry into national elite status. This fall, Chris has stepped up one more level, breaking numerous course records, leading his US ranked squad to an undefeated season, and showing he is perhaps the best harrier in the land. Over the course of the rest of the fall, Chris has been so kind to agree to keep a journal for MileSplit US. Keep checking back from time to time for new installments of Chris' journal, and how he and his team are doing.
Chris Derrick's MileSplit Journal - Entry (Oct. 10)
Hey everybody, this is Chris Derrick from Neuqua Valley High School. I am not to sure how this online journal thing is supposed to work, so I'll just give it my best shot and start by summarizing the season to date:
We (Neuqua Valley) came into this year with pretty high expectations. We returned something along the lines of 20 of our top 21, with one sub-9 guy, one 9:16 guy (Danny Pawola), a cross-country all-stater (Jimmy Riddle) and three sub-10 guys who weren't in our top seven last year. As a captain, I thought I should gather everyone early in the summer and get commitments from everyone that we weren't going to let this season pass us by, that we weren't going to get lazy in our summer training. I quickly realized how unneccesary that was. The guys on the team were all highly self-motivated, and didn't need any rah-rah captain to give some cheesy speech about sacrifice and commitment. One guy who really set the tone for our summer of training was Jimmy Riddle. Jimmy was injured in track and left with about a week left in school to work for a month at a camp washing dishes. He had very little free time, but the time he had he spent running, missing only one day of training, and coming back in phenomenal shape.
Our summer training was 70-75 mpw, on ten runs. We did one longer tempo (40-50 min.), cruise 1200's (8-10 with one min. rest), a medium long run, and a long run each week. The long run often included hills at Blackwell Forest Preserve. This year we stayed away from true VO2 Max intervals until the week after our meet in Culver, Indiana, but a number of workouts told us that we were in really good shape. For me, there was a 8.5 mile tempo on the trails in 46:xx, starting at slightly sub-6 pace and ending at around 5 minute pace. Our annual "runathon" (10 miles on the track) was a really good indicator for us as well. I ran 53:51, Jimmy and Danny were around 56 minutes, and we had a number of other guys go sub-60.
Races this year have gone really well. I've gotten some really nice conditions to race in and consequently have been able to make a run at a few course records. I was also surprised to find myself alone for the majority of races, starting at the Hornet-Red Devil Invite. I've never been a burner off the line (it's hard to be when you can't break two-minutes in the 800), and I normally make a break somewhere in the middle of the race, so running by myself the whole time has been something new and different. The one race where I did run with someone was my best race of the year to date, at the Culver Invitational in Indiana. I got to race a really good Indiana guy named Mike Fout (Sr., LaPorte, IN), who ran 8:58 at NON, and beat me last year at Culver. The pace to my surprise was actually a little reserved (4:47) for how flat the first mile is, and Fout and I stayed together all the way through the two-mile mark (9:33). I was able to get a couple strides on him going hard around a sharp turn and decided to make my push for home. He maintained the gap at a couple yards for the first 100m, but I was able to make a break after that, and finish in 14:47, which is a 5k PR and a three-mile PR (split-14:15), as well as the first cross-country race I have ever negative split the whole way (4:47-4:46-4:42). For the team, our most significant race was the Lockport Invitational, where we beat Naperville North [#2 IL in the ICCCP Poll] without Jimmy. Aaron Beattie stepped up huge for us, finishing as our third man, and Kevin Grady (who bounced back from a down race at Culver) out kicked a North guy to give us a narrow victory (40-50). It will definitely be an interesting race at state once North gets everyone healthy and there is a deeper field (despite the IHSA's effort to weaken it) to fill in the gaps.
Thanks for taking the time to read this far, and happy running.
- Chris Derrick