Drake Relays and Conference Multi

So far this has been a very busy weekend. Most of the athletes traveled to Madison South Dakota to compete at Dakota State. We had some very rough weather but returned from the meet with some great performances in the bag. Karissa Pepin started the day of right as she cleared 5'3 in the high jump to establish a Collegiate PR (personal record). She had excellent attempts at 5'5 and I fully expect her to compete for a conference championship in the high jump when we travel to Moorehead. Following that performance both Paul Mallory and Claire Severson posted season bests in the hurdles with 14.51 and 15.72 respectively. The times were hand held and convert with an addition of .24.

Freshman Katie Hjerpe captured a victory in the 1500m. Both she and Laura Johnson ran well. The race went out pretty hard and would have resulted in some great times had the weather not been a factor.

The rest of the team was at the Drake Relays. Yesterday Tom Karbo broke the school record held by Luke Baltrush with a 8:54 clocking. That time puts him 4th on the current national list. Runa Falch competed in the 10k and posted a 37:49

That

recruitMEaugie.com Launches

I'm constantly trying to find a better way to get information from recruits to our database. My latest effort has resulted in the creation of recruitMEaugie.com Interested High School athletes now have a short web address that they can easily remember and navigate to where they can share their information with us. We'll be sending out post cards to the young men and women who fit our recruiting profile this next week asking them to visit recruitMEaugie.com to share their information. Do you know some one that wants to run college track for a competitive college? We'd love to hear about them. Tell every one you know about recruitMEaugie.com

My goal is to make this the best year of recruiting in Augustana's history. We've signed some phenomenal kids this year and I fully expect next year to be just as great!

Below is the form to send us your information. It's never to late to let us know what you've done!

Looking Back at Cross Country

I've been fighting with my computer to get it to code the video that I have correctly. Unfortunately after letting it run for lord knows how long yesterday the file I created was still in the wrong format. So I'm posting some of the work I have done right now. I hope that you enjoy it. If you really want me to post more like this please send a fully loaded Mac so that I can more efficiently process all of the raw video I have. Otherwise you'll just have to wait!

Coach Vahrenkamp


Cross Country Pre Regionals from Jim Vahrenkamp on Vimeo.

Multi's to Kansas full team to Nebraska

This coming week get's started on Thursday. Emporia State will host their annual D2 challenge multi event where Jake Pohlmann, Bobbi Jo Buyck,Claire Severson and Meagan Grandgenette will compete in the Decathlon and the Heptathlon respectively. The Decathlon is made up of ten events while the heptathlon is made up of seven. The competition is a two day affair that begins Thursday afternoon and wraps up Friday afternoon.

The rest of the team will travel to Lincoln, NE for a track meet at the University of Nebraska Lincoln on Saturday. Both meets have great weather predicted and should produce some great times. Last week out the men had several great performances.

Paul Mallory ran 15.07 to open the year this past weekend, look for him to run faster provided the weather is good and we don't have a strong headwind. Both he and Zach Morris competed in the 400m hurdles last week and with some good weather this weekend both young men should look to run below the 56 second mark.

Adou Omot ran a collegiate best of 49.32 in the 400m dash this weekend. Had he gone out harder in the first 200m of the race he would have been able to crack the 49. barrier for the first time in his life. Each week look for him to run 48. As his fitness improves I wouldn't be surprised to see him run 48.low

The Augustana women had some great opening races in the 400m hurdles from Megan Erspamer who clocked a 1:10.18 It was her first collegiate attempt at the race. Look for her to run faster each week and move her time down toward the 1:07 area. That time will be competitive at the conference level. Meagan Grandgenett will join her in the following weeks in this event.

Augustana had a group of men run very well in the 1500m. They were led by Brian Werner who clocked a 4:03.25. Werner who typically specializes in the 800m turned in a great performance. Later in the year he'll move down to the 800m. Both Austin Vande Burg and Jordan Slusser also ran and will look to cut their times each week as the season progresses.

Look for more coverage after this weekend! I'm off to bed and will be celebrating Easter with my family tomorrow.

Coach Vahrenkamp

Oquendo Posts Provisional Qualifier at Spartan Opener

In his first race of the year Diego Oquendo ran 14.62 to surpass the 14.65 provisional qualifying in the 110m hurdles at the Spartan Invite in Lansing, MI on Saturday April 3rd. The meet was postponed multiple times because of rain and strong winds. In spite of the strong wind Oquendo's race was run under legal wind conditions and will count as a qualifier. Oquendo's time will rank as the 2nd fastest time in the conference by just .03 seconds. Both he and Paul Mallory now rank in the top three in the conference and finish the weekend sitting 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Oquendo also competed in the 100m dash where he clocked the fastest time of the day in a 10.82. That time also places him second on the conference performance list. The NCAA provisional mark in the 100m dash is 10.60 while the automatic mark is a bit faster at 10.35.

"Its early in the season, I fully expect Diego to run much faster in both the hurdles and the 100m dash. The poor weather was less than ideal for sprinting and I can only imagine just how much faster Diego will be able to run with a few more weeks of training and some good weather. As always the ultimate goal is running fast at the conference meet and qualifying for nationals. I'd say we're on track on both fronts."
- Vahrenkamp

"The cold wind and rain made it difficult to keep warmed up throughout the day but I was able to get through the race and at this point that is what is important."
- Oquendo

Oquendo Featured in Staten Island Live.com

Recently an article was published on Diego Oquendo. Here is the link.

"When I left Tottenville, I never thought six years later I'd be in South Dakota," he laughed. "But I'm not complaining about two scholarships, one for undergrad and now for a Masters. And I really like Division II. It's a smaller atmosphere. And it doesn't feel like a business. Division I always felt like that, a business."

http://www.silive.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/03/oquendos_journey_full_of_hurdl.html

Conference Pictures

I finally received pictures from conference and want to share them. If you are looking for specific pictures of your son or daughter feel free to contact me and I'll be sure to send some along to you.

We've had a great year so far and this weekend was no different. We had a ton of fun in New Mexico where we experienced snow, rain and sun all in the same day! I managed to fall asleep in the sun and caught some color. The most exciting thing was returning to Minneapolis only to find that it was a balmy 64 degrees. We need to take another trip to the south if this is what happens when we come back.

Augustana Vikings Fare Well at Nationals

The lady Vikings placed 6th in the DMR to capture four All-American awards. Diego Oquendo placed 9th in the 60m dash. Linn Nilsson placed 11th in the mile. Cecilie Udstuen was the lone Viking to advance to tomorrow's finals. She advanced in the 800m dash and will compete tomorrow in an effort to capture her second All-American trophy of the meet. I'll upload pictures and video after we have dinner. Let me just say that it was a great day at a great meet at a great venue. Look for more great news tomorrow. Go Vikings!


Women's DMR - NCAA D2 Championships - 6th place from Jim Vahrenkamp on Vimeo.




Diego Oquendo - NCAA 60m Dash 6.89 from Jim Vahrenkamp on Vimeo.



Diego Oquendo Post Race Interview from Jim Vahrenkamp on Vimeo.



NCAA Day 2 from Jim Vahrenkamp on Vimeo.

Welcome to Albuquerque!

Here we are in New Mexico. We had a good time traveling here and now we're ready to race. We've taken some time to warm up and catch some food and sights. We're having a good time. Tomorrow there is supposed to be a streaming video of the meet. Below I'm including links for you so that you can enjoy the meet with us. From what I hear there is terrible weather out in the mid west. My condolences to those who were hoping to come to the meet. I hope that the video feed will help.


Welcome to Albuquerque! from Jim Vahrenkamp on Vimeo.


In the next few days we are hoping to have great news to pass along. Here is the link to the video.

NCAA Indoor Championships

Looking for more information? This page has it all!

NCAA D2 Home

Below I've included some video and pictures from our early time at the meet. I hope that you're having a great time. I'll try to make sure that I get some great video of the meet that I can upload tomorrow. Please feel free to email me at jim.vahrenkamp@augie.edu if you have any questions about the meet or our coverage.

Augustana at the 2010 Indoor Meet!

Diego posed with us just to illustrate how serious he is about being an All American.

Ever had a band play in your ear while you try to eat?

Listen here......

Coach Hellman Receiving his Regional Coach of the Year Award

Coach Hellman and other recipients.

Welcome to Albuequerque!

US Team at NACAC

I was checking the web site where I get most of my running news, www.letsrun.com and found that they had a link up concerning and mentioning one of our young ladies today. I'm pretty proud that our program made mention on such a high profile site. Coach Hellman took off for Trinidad yesterday and texted me this morning letting me know that he was on the ground and in the sun! All of us here should be a little jealous. Below is the link to the story on letsrun. It's not long but just mentions the field. The field is made up of a bunch of girls from mainly D1 schools and unattached high school seniors. Kyle is the first Augustana Viking to represent the program at this event and we wish her will. I will post more information as I come across it on the internet. Otherwise I'm off to work for the day. Two recruits on campus today. We'll soon be posting profiles of recruits that have signed with us so you can get a good look at who is coming in and how they will impact the team.

Coach Vahrenkamp

http://www.letsrun.com/2010/nacac0304.php

Same article but at USATF
http://www.usatf.org/news/view.aspx?duid=USATF_2010_03_04_07_02_01