Adam Niemi/Staff Reporter

I’m convinced that the Central Michigan track and field long-distance runners could outrun Twitter trends.

A recent trend: CMU track and field distance shattering records.

There are three reasons to watch track and field this season:

1. Let’s be serious — the basketball program is not good at all. Lately their games remind me of The Hangover. After the game, I’m left wondering what the hell just happened.
   And word on the street is that Trey Zeigler’s bricks from all his missed free throws will be used to build the new graduate housing facility on north campus.
2. The long-distance runners on the current team are among the Chippewas best ever. Seven records have been set by distance runners, indoor and outdoor, since 2007. That’s including three this season – two in the past eight days. That’s not including sprints or field events.
   Two of the recent records include sophomore distance runner Tecumseh Adams, who set his second CMU record in as many weeks. On Friday, he set a record in the 3k with a time of 8:02.39.
   The week before he set a 5k record at the University of Indiana with a time of 13:53.08, the first time a CMU runner finished that race in under 14 minutes.
   Senior distance runner Holly Anderson also set a 5k record Friday with a time of 16:49.93.
   Don’t forget Josh Kettlewell, the senior multi-event athlete who shattered the previous heptathlon record by over 300 points. Track and field athletes are purely breaking records almost faster than it can be recorded.
3. Track and field is one of the few sports where athletes are encouraged to focus on themselves for the good of the team. Track and field is an individual sport where being slightly selfish is part of the success. The only other sport I can think of with that kind of team structure is golf. Good luck staying awake for that. The blasts of the gun to start each race will keep you awake and alert the whole time.
   Oh, and you ever see someone pole vault 17 feet? That’s first floor to the second floor of the library, but don’t try it.

Basketball games are a marathon. Or a boxing match, if you prefer women’s games.

Anderson, senior distance runner, set a 5k record with a time of 16:49.93.

“(Assistant) coach (Matt) Kaczor was excited about the record,” Anderson said. “But neither of us were happy about the race.”

Anderson said she aimed to run in the low 16:40′s.

“There were some parts where I didn’t make moves that I should have,” she said.

Sophomore distance runner Adams set a 3k record with a time of 8:02.39.

Three distance records have been set so far this season – two in the past eight days.

Anderson said the 5k time is also her personal record by about 20 seconds. She said the personal record, or PR, is an authoritative mark of success.

“PR is really exciting because you put so much work into getting them,” Anderson said. “The races are really a culmination of what you do all day every day, so it’s really the best indicator.”

Senior thrower Kevin Mays set a career-best weight throw Friday in Findlay, Ohio with a distance of 67-06.25. Although his first five throws were foul, Mays said he didn’t lose confidence because the foul throws were as far as he’s thrown all season.

“The level of competition helped me focus,” Mays said. “I didn’t want to embarrass myself or my team.”

Nike-sponsored professional thrower A.G. Krueger threw the best distance of 80-11.75. Mays and Krueger both competed in the elite section of the weight throw.

In the other weight throw section, senior Ryan McCullough and sophomore Calvin Jackson both finished third and fourth respectively. McCullough threw 60-01.75, and Jackson threw 57-11.

Mays said he has high confidence going into the week and upcoming meets, but still must focus on fundamentals. Weight throwing requires a fine touch and repetition like a pitcher in baseball, he said.

“I think that’s the most important thing for me is to focus on my technique and my control,” Mays said.

At Notre Dame, sophomore Ross Parsons finished eleventh in the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.93.

Freshman Lucas Bade finished fifth in the 500-meter with a time of 1:04.43.

Firefighters investigate remains of a Mercedes Smart Two on Broomfield Road Saturday evening. The cause of the fire is unknown and the two passengers, Glea Cashen and David Line II, both escaped the car uninjured. Line said the flames grew up to about 10 feet. (Adam Niemi/Staff Photographer)

The cause of a car fire at about 6:30 p.m. Saturday on Broomfield Road is unknown.

Glea Cashen walked over to her friend David Line II and pointed at her burned, new car.

“It’s going to end up costing me about $500 to have him tow it away for me,” she said.

Cashen and Line, both Mount Pleasant residents, had seconds to escape from Cashen’s new Mercedes Smart Two before it caught fire just a few hundred feet east of the US-127 overpass.

“When it went, it went quick,” Line said.

Cashen said she bought the car a month ago and had put only 50 miles on it.

“The car wouldn’t let me shut it off, wouldn’t let me put it into park — the windshield wipers even came on,” she said.

They watched the flames grow for 15 minutes before firefighters arrived.

Line said all of the lights on the dashboard turned on. They both smelled smoke and saw flames coming from around the rear wheels as they exited the car.

The flames grew 8 to 10 feet as they waited for firefighters.

The photo, taken during a team huddle at the end of the 2009 track and field Mid-American Conference championship, is clogged with arms and hands. Central Michigan director of track and field, Randolph, pointed around the photo and listed the names of the athletes’ hands and arms reaching from every direction to the center of the team.

Randolph said he takes the same eye for detail he uses to recognize those in an old photo, to watching his players in practice and prepare strategies for them to pursue in upcoming meets, like this weekend at Findlay and Notre Dame.

It is also the first major adjustment for the team, Randolph said, as they prepare for the first pair of meets against high-level competition as a complete team. The sprint, jump and distance athletes will travel to Notre Dame for the Meyo Invitational Friday afternoon.

Throwers will travel to Findlay, Ohio for the Findlay Open the same day.

“You pay attention to the little things that make big things happen,” Randolph said.

He said this is the part of the season when it is important for athletes to sharpen and maintain their focus ahead of the championship meets.

“The biggest thing is the focus, attitude and execution,” Randolph said, who emphasizes that those three elements factor as importantly as actual performance.

Senior thrower Kevin Mays said professional throwers, like A.G. Kreuger, will also compete in Findlay in a meet he considers the biggest so far this season.

“This is a pretty big weekend for us,” Mays said. “Findlay is a D-II school, but they have the invite section, so the competition will be tough. It’s going to feel like a national meet because of the level of competition.”

He reads the brand names on opponents’ jerseys, or the colors of the shoes they wear.

“Sometimes when I’m running, I’ll study people’s shoes or jerseys to take my mind off the amount of laps we have to do,” Adams said.

Adams, a sophomore distance runner on the CMU track and field team, won an individual Mid-American Conference championship in cross-country last fall.

He will compete today at the Indiana Relays at the University of Indiana for a spot in the 5k event in the NCAA Indoor Championship in March.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” Adams said. “My training has been good.”

Adams took a week off between the cross-country and track and field seasons. He said he is aiming to finish with a time around 13:50, which is about 20 seconds faster than his personal best.

“Most of the guys I was running with in cross were sub-14 runners,” he said. “And I’ve always been a pretty good track runner.”

Adams said he has spoken repeatedly with assistant coach Matt Kaczor about his race strategy.

“Me and my coach, Kaczor, have been talking about times, and where I should be at different parts of the race,” he said. “My coach is basically saying to follow the leaders within reaching distance, and not get separated.”

Apart from Adams, the Central Michigan men’s and women’s track and field teams will be intentionally limited by director of track and field and cross-country Willie Randolph.

Randolph said the team is at its point in the season where it bears down on fundamentals to prepare for a run at a MAC championship.

“If we can relax ourselves and focus on the things we have to do, the execution will come a whole lot easier,” Randolph said.

Among the 15 competing athletes this weekend are senior multi-event athlete Josh Kettlewell and sophomore multi-event athlete Tim Reynolds, who will both compete at the Penn State National today and Saturday in College Station, Penn.

It will be Kettlewell’s and Reynold’s first multi-event meets of the season.

Randolph said he has no concern about the athletes performing without the company and support of their teammates.

“It’s a bunch of basketball and football games,” Randolph said about track and field as a sport. “You can’t stop and take a timeout. It’s always going on – it’s happening.”

The Chippewas competition included Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Detroit Mercy.

Senior multi-event athlete Josh Kettlewell set a personal best in pole vault with a 17-01 vault. He nearly matched the indoor pole vault record of 17-06.

Despite the women’s event went unscored, both CMU teams provided strong performances, with 10 top-five finishes out of 16 events.

Senior thrower George Flanner finished first in the shot-put with a distance of 51-00.25. Senior thrower Kevin Mays also finished first in the weight throw event with a distance of 64-07.25.

Tecumseh Adams won the mile run for the men’s team with a time of 4:12.82, less than a second within his personal best. Senior jumper Kevin Bacon won the long jump with a distance of 21-08.25.

Some of the women’s best performances came in the 3,000 meter. Senior long-distance runner Holly Anderson finished first with a time of 9:58.17. Anderson’s teammate, sophomore long-distance runner Krista Parks, finished in third in the same event with a time of 10:16.34.

The women’s team also finished second in the 400-meter relay, with a composite time of 3:57.9.

Senior Stephanie Hurley won the 400-meter dash with a season-best time of 58.02.

The men’s and women’s track and field team will compete Friday at The Cardinal invitational in Saginaw.

The team finished the season No. 7 in the Great Lakes Region of the U.S. Track and Field and Cross-country Coaches Association poll. The only MAC team that finished ahead of Central Michigan was Toledo, ranked No. 5.

CMU director of track and field and cross-country Willie Randolph said the women’s cross-country team was one of the best cross-country teams CMU has ever had. The Chippewas placed second at the MAC championships for the second-straight year, something that no other CMU cross-country team, men’s or women’s, has ever achieved.

The team finished eighth out of 33 teams in the regional race on Nov. 12. None of the runners qualified to run in Nationals.

Randolph thinks its MAC championship team is closer than ever since the Chippewas return all but a handful of their roster next season.

“Even though we fell short of a MAC championship, we did a lot of things that we’ll bring back next year,” Randolph said.

Junior runner Charnele Lyons said it’s weird to think about the complexion of the team changing with the leaders, Raeanne Lohner and Holley Anderson leaving the program.

“It’s going to be hard to lose Raeanne and Holly,” Lyons said. “I definitely counted on Raeanne and Holly a lot to help me.”

Randolph said he feels confident that those returning next year can take over as leaders.

“We have some runners who can step up and fill those roles,” he said.

With the season over, the team was given last week off to rest before training for long-distance in track and field this spring.

Randolph plans a get-together for the team Dec. 8 after the runners’ final exams are finished.

“The biggest thing is to get them rested,” he said. “There’s no real time to celebrate, yet.”

Lyons said the week off was her first time off from cross-country workouts since May.

“I texted (assistant cross-country coach Matt) Kaczor and said it was the first time I said I want to work out.”

To help the Central Michigan women’s cross-country team run better in the Pre-Nationals race Sunday, Kaczor tried a new approach.

For five minutes, Kaczor played music and told them to lay on the track with their eyes closed and visualize themselves running well.

The practice and preparations are aimed for the the Pre-National race at 11:40 a.m. on Sunday in Terra Haute, Ind. 

The Chippewas enter the weekend ranked No. 9 in the Great Lakes Region of the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association polls. They are unranked in the USTFCCCA national poll.

Kaczor said he is looking for junior Maddie Ribant and sophomore Krista Parks to lead CMU.

“I’d like to see how they do,” Kaczor said. “I’d really like to see them put it together this weekend. I believe they can.”

Kaczor said he also expects senior runners’ Raeanne Lohner and Holly Anderson to perform well.

“I have no doubt in my mind that those two can put together great races through the end of the season,” Kaczor said. “They’ve been putting together really good workouts and racing well.”

Junior runner Charnele Lyons, who was redshirted last year, ran in the Pre-Nationals two years ago in her sophomore year of eligibility. She said the team is poised to run well in the race.

“We just really need a fifth runner and we have a couple girls that have the potential to do really, really well,” Lyons said. “We’re enjoying running together, it’s such a good feeling. It feels like nothing can bring us down.”

The results of the Pre-Nationals, Mid-American Conference Championship and the NCAA Regionals determines who advances to the NCAA Nationals on Nov. 21. The Chippewas No. 9 rank is their second-highest of the season. They were ranked No. 7 in the pre-season polls.

Kaczor said the rank is unimportant to him at this point of the season. He is more focused on the weekend and the NCAA Regionals on Nov. 12.

“To me, it’s only a ranking, so the only thing that matters to me is how we do on Nov. 12,” he said.

The men’s and women’s teams were pulled out of the Michigan Intercollegiate Championships to rest for this weekend.

“We were just trying to keep everyone healthy and get ourselves ready for Pre-Nationals,” Kaczor said.

Lyons said that she is not worried about the weekend.

“We’re going to have a really good weekend,” she said. “We have a lot of confidence.”

Junior runner Charnele Lyons shattered her personal best time in the 5k race with a time of 18:07, about 50 seconds faster than her previous best. Lyons finished in eleventh place.

“When I stepped at the line, I knew I was going to shatter my personal record,” Lyons said.

The weather, as CMU cross-country assistant coach Matt Kaczor said, was “almost everything rolled up into one.” The temperature was in the low 50s and 40 mile-per-hour winds were recorded on the cross-country course.

“I had a jacket on before the race because it was windy,” Kaczor said. “I took it off during the race because the sun came out, then it started raining so I had to put it back on. The wind was brutal. If you weren’t patient with your moves, you were blown around.”

Lyons was patient and she said she let the other runners do the work in the high wind.

“I just kept thinking,  ‘I don’t want to get detached.’ I tried to stay behind others, out of the wind,” Lyons said. “That made it a lot different race for me.”

Kaczor said Lyons ran the best race for CMU.

“Our top four ran well for us,” Kaczor said. “Charnele had the best race for us — Charnele ate people alive in the last thousand (meters).”

Senior runner Raeanne Lohner also set a new personal best with a time of 17:50 and finished third. Senior Holly Anderson finished soon after with a personal best of 18:04. Seconds later, freshman Breanne Lesnar finished 18:06 in her first attached race. Lyons finished a second after.

Lyons said she liked what she saw from the team.

“Friday was probably the best race so far this season,” Lyons said.

Kaczor said he is looking for someone else to step up for the coming championship races.

“We need a fifth runner to step up for us in the next couple weeks so we can really make a push in the championship segment,” he said.

The Chippewas race on Friday at the Michigan Intercollegiate Championships in Hillsdale.

Honors Program director Phame Camarena, speaks to his HON 100: Introduction to Honors class Tuesday afternoon about his no-grade program. Camarena maintains 25 students in the program, which withholds their grades until the end of the semester. Camarena said that students in the no-grade program typically produce more thorough work than those not in the program. (Adam Niemi/Staff Photographer)

Honors Program Director Phame Camarena challenged his students to do one simple thing — ignore grades.

Camarena accepted 25 students to participate in the no-grades program from his HON 100: Introduction to Honors classes this semester. The NGP students do not know their grades on tests and assignments until the end of the semester, but receive more extensive feedback instead.

“Grades are a way for us to measure ourselves against others,” Camarena said. “(The NGP) is a qualitative way to see the world differently.”

Ossineke junior Amberly Dziesinski, who participated in the no-grade program last fall, said it changed her approach to writing.

“(In the program) I would write what I thought, rather than what I thought the teacher wanted,” she said. “I see myself being less grade-oriented.”

She said the program helped her to grow as a person and do things thoroughly in other areas of her life.

“There are applications for the no-grade program in real life, like doing things with your full ability because you can,” Dziesinski said.

Nashville sophomore Amanda Erwin also completed a semester in Camarena’s no-grade program last fall.

As a biochemistry major, Erwin does not anticipate doing a no-grade system in the future, but has kept her no-grade mentality.

“I think I brought certain aspects of the NGP to other classes,” she said. “I’m more willing to take risks.”

Midland freshman Kelli Warren is among the majority of students not participating in the NGP.

“That way, I know if I’m doing good or if I have to do better,” Warren said. “(Grades) just always have been important.”

The costs of college also keep pressure on students to perform. Warren said she sometimes feels pressure to keep her grades up, and has no interest in trying a no-grade program.

Other colleges also use no-grade concepts, including the University of California-Santa Cruz, which has an optional pass/no-pass system. Students who earn a grade of “C” or better receive a “pass”.

Camarena said students can discuss doing a no-grade plan with their other instructors, and ask them to assign a score of “zero” until the semester ends.

He would accommodate more students in the program if he had time.

“It takes 20 to 30 minutes to read and evaluate an NGP paper because of all the feedback,” Camarena said. “A non-NGP paper takes about 5 to 10 minutes to read and grade, because it doesn’t take long to grade the paper with a rubric and assign a score.”