 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
POST #1 POST #2  POST #3
Heyy everyone... my name is Mckinzie Schulz, and I am a senior at Benet Academy in Lisle, Illinois (¡Vayas a las rojas! –Go redwings! ☺). My high school running career thus far has been better than I ever would have imagined!
I came in as a freshman with no expectations really whatsoever. Abby Higgins was I’d say my biggest mentor that year, and I strove to be just as good as her. Which involved a lot of distance runs where I went out way to fast and died in the end. By the end of the season I was where I wanted to be, crossing the state finish line right next to her. We got third as a team that year. The best any girls’ team at Benet had ever done. After that, track went well and I surprised myself again, getting three all-state placements in the 800, 4x4, and 4x8.
Sophomore year went a little differently. Cross-country I went in expecting a lot of myself, and ended up getting hurt and raced my worst ever race at sectionals. I remember standing at the start line crying in my brother Roman’s arms. It was a sad day, but also motivating. “If you are always winning… you ain’t living.” (Dr. Ottley) Track season came up and I finished third in the 800, and the 1600 I beat the Benet record in semis, but finals didn’t go very well. Ashley Verplank became my role-model that year, because after seeing her double in the mile and the 800 I thought she was some superstar that I could never be as good as, but I wanted to try.
Junior year has been my favorite thus far and mostly due to track… that’s definitely my forte. I won the 800 pretty handedly, but was focusing on the mile. The race was awesome! Although, we missed the state record by a smidgen and I ended up in second, I was really happy with how it all played out. The summer came up, and I was invited to go to Puerto Rico for the NSSF Nike team. My summer track season came to a close with Worlds in Bressanone, Italy. Those two experiences changed my life. Onto this season…
 | | We dressed up as zombies for our second pasta party of the year... |
This weekend we raced at Marmion Academy, but with no real competition since Geneva split their team up. Apparently if you win the race, they give you a tree. However no such thing happened. It’s disappointing because I actually wanted it… but I heard they mail it to you? We’ll see. (Benet Head Coach) Brooks seemed to be in a pretty good mood on account of our team winning, and the army (that’s what we call the Benet girls cross country team) competing pretty well collectively. But then he surprise attacked me with a ball of ice hitting me in the neck. In a hurry to shake it off I threw off my bag and I thought I tore something in my shoulder… it was already sore from intense badminton in gym class, where I got destroyed mercilessly by Jerry Olp.
Funny story about the meet. I woke up race day in a rush to find my uniform, because I like to “sleep in” as much as possible. The fact is I couldn’t find my uniform top. Unlike the time I got to the line and realized I had no shorts on, I searched for a jersey before the race. I asked around/got made fun of, but finally Clare Jansen came to my rescue. Not that funny of a story, but indicative of my personality, which is I guess forgetful/spacey. It’s a work in progress.
 | Next Weekend we race at Kaneland, which = hills. Somehow I’m excited and also excited in general for this cross-country season… but I’d also like to be here with my bro!
|
 My favorite runner of all time, Steve Prefontaine, once said “To give anything but your best is to sacrifice the gift.” I believe that I am given a gift, and it’s an insult to others if I am not doing my best to expound on that ability. However, sometimes I get lost in the mess of self-pity. The one thing all athletes face is the challenge of pushing yourself everyday, while watching your friends go out and have fun while your stuck at home or having to go to an extra practice. It seems as if they don’t have to worry about a thing, which is false, but that’s just how it plays out in my mind. Then there comes those moments of realization when you come to find that life isn’t just rainbows and butterflies. We all have something we’ll have to struggle through. As cross country runners, I think we get a heads up to how tough life can be. Those races aren’t just a “three-mile run”; they’re a test of guts and stamina.
So the point of my little spiel is this past weekend at Kaneland I let “pain of the knee” stop me from racing how I should have. If you haven’t heard or didn’t know, I didn’t finish the race. This was going to be my second race of the season and I knew there would be pretty good competition, mainly Kelly Whitley. I went in thinking I was going to stay with her for the first two and a half miles and then take it out as hard as I could for the last 8. However, I never got that opportunity. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through cross-country it’s you can’t run for yourself. You owe it to others to work your hardest. I owed it to my team to finish that race.
On the bright side, my teammate Katie Porada had a pretty descent race and so did Whitley. Geneva is looking pretty awesome as usual but, if they want to win state again it’s apparent that they’re going to have to do some pretty serious damage at Detweiler come November. And I’d just like to give a shout out to Kelly Whitely… you’re my hero haha I probably shouldn’t be saying this to my competition but whatever. Anyway, we race again on Friday so watch out for the sea of red at the Naperville Invite ;).
Here are some pics from the race…
Yayy Katie :D
 |  | McKinzie Schulz and teammate Katie Porada take on the tough Geneva Vikings and State Favorite Kelly Whitley at the Kaneland Invitational.
| Schulz (#903), Kelly Whitney (#12) and Katie Porada (#893)
at the 1 mile mark of the Kaneland Invitational
|
A little re-cap of the weekend:
It seems like The Palatine Invite was the place to be. The times from what I saw were pretty darn fast. Rebecca Batliner set the course record while second and third place were just milliseconds apart from each other, also beating the record. However, I think that the people who ran at the Naperville Invite had more fun running through the elements, the mud and the rain, and cutting the course. 62 out of the 63 girls who ran the varsity race took the wrong turn. A runner from Downers Grove South (Grace Magnolia) received an honorary medal for completing the course and not taking any wrong turns, so props to her! The rest of us followed Amanda Fox off the “bridge”. I think everyone actually enjoyed running in the mud. Too many a time it seems we are babied as runners and we get great conditions and track like courses (i.e. Detweiler) to run on. For once, I felt like a “real” cross-country runner with mud all up my legs and all up in my spikes. I don’t have much to say about my race per say. I’m taking baby steps on my way back into the cross-country swing of things. But, I think the key to a good season is staying healthy and obviously continuing to improve.
I don’t want to neglect the A or AA runners from the scene. Katie Adams seemed to have a pretty good race, and I’m just saying…she’s one to watch out for. Which reminds me of some superstar freshmen we have [Batliner, Wolfe (another one of my heroes :D, Verbecke, and Maddie Gilleran (my little sister)].
I want to end on one last thing… For all you Shakespeare fans out there, there’s a great production of Richard III going on at Navy Pier, if you have the time or the means, I highly recommend seeing it! It’s a big world out there and surprisingly it’s not all about running. “Now is the winter of our discontent”... Now there’s a guy with a great attitude.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week of training and is studying hard!
Love, Kinzie
 | | P.S You might not know, but I’m a world-class marshmallow roaster. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
