Ramblings by Steve Taylor...: Stephanie Paradis

Showing posts with label Stephanie Paradis. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Richmond Women 2nd, Men 3rd at 2012 William & Mary XC Invite

Stephanie Paradis led 5 Spiders
across the line in 7 seconds.

The Richmond Spiders traveled to Williamsburg for the 2012 William & Mary Cross Country Invitational this past weekend. The women's team placed 2nd with a 7 seconds split between their 1st and 5th runners. Stephanie Paradis led the way for the Spiders placing 8th (6th in team scoring)...

Watch Video Highlights from the meet HERE

Spider Men Win 2012 Alumni XC Open, Women Second

The Richmond Spiders opened the 2012 cross country season at Pole Green Park for the Spider Alumni Open. Pole Green Park was the site of the 2008 USATF National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships...Here are the results as reported by the University of Richmond Sports Information Officies:

Ryan Lee (SO) and Jill Prentice (JR) led the Spiders

Men Win, Women Second at Spider Alumni Open

Courtesy:Richmond Athletics
Release:09/01/2012

Spiders Busy Weekend at 2012 Mt SAC Relays, Princeton and CNU

VIDEO PLAYLIST from 2012 Mt SAC Relays

Our teams were split this past weekend between the Mt SAC Relays in Walnut, CA...the Princeton Invitational in Princeton, NJ and the CNU Invitational in Newport News, VA...Here are our results:

Jason Skipper (JR) and Liz Schinski (SO) were victorious this weekend
for the Spiders.

Underclassmen Strong as Spiders Wrap up Weekend

Spiders Post Records in 2012 Atlantic 10 Indoor Championships

Stephanie Paradis and Alyson McGonigle in the 800M Trails...

Below are a couple article links from UR Sports Information and several photos by Mike Scott detailing our team’s success at the 2012 Atlantic 10 Conference Championships. The meet was hosted by URI on their 200M flat track within Mackel Fieldhouse.

NOTES: Congratulations to Spider Nicol Traynor who ran 2nd fastest 3K in the NCAA for this weekend. Her A10 meet record setting time on a flat track (9:32.20) converts to 9:29.20# for the NCAA DI rankings...

Also, Spiders Women's Distance Medley Relay (Alli Mannon-SO, Taylor Clevinger-FR, Stephanie Paradis-JR, Nicol Traynor-SR) ran the 5th fastest time in the NCAA for this weekend. Their A10 meet record run of 11:39.03 on a flat track converts to 11:35.13# for the purpose of NCAA rankings.

Ryan Lee and Nicol Traynor look forward to the
2012 A10 Indoor Championships.

Spiders Set for A-10 Indoors This Weekend

Courtesy:Richmond Athletics
Release:02/15/2012

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - The Richmond men's and women's track & field teams travel northward this weekend for the Atlantic 10 Indoor Championships in Kingston, R.I. The two-day meet, hosted by Rhode Island, is set to begin on Friday at 9 a.m. in the Rams' Mackal Field House with day two action also scheduled to start at 9 a.m.

Meaghan McGovern won the Weight Throw in a personal best
at CNU while many team members were in
New York City for the New Balance Games.

Spiders Complete Final Conference Tune-Ups

Courtesy:Richmond Athletics
Release:02/05/2012

NEW YORK CITY/NEWPORT NEWS,VA- At the New Balance Collegiate, junior Stephanie Paradiscame out strong to win her Women's 800 Meters heat with a time of 2:16.07. Paradis returned to the track to team up with freshman Taylor Clevinger and sophomores Alyson McGonigle and Alli Mannon in the 4x800 Meter Relay. The foursome would turn in a fourth-place finish with a time of 8:57.30 and break a 30-year old school record of 8:57.44 set in 1982 by Josephine White, Betsy Spillman, Alsyon Hendricks and Melissa Mullet.

Richmond Spiders Win William & Mary XC Invitational

Sophomore, Jill Prentice returned to the Spiders lineup
this past weekend. An NCAA 5K East Region
Championships qualifier last spring,
Prentice ran a meet record 17:37 to lead the Spiders
to victory over William & Mary and Hampton.

20 Questions with...Stephanie Paradis

Throughout the 2011 season we will be bringing you either a set of 20 questions from a Spider cross country squad member or an article focusing on a student-athlete from this year’s team.

In our first crack at 2011, RichmondSpiders.com talked with Junior Stephanie Paradis (Leesburg, VA) who won the Spider Alumni Open on September 3rd leading the Spiders to victory over William & Mary (Here is a link to her video interview following the race.):

Richmond Cross Country Competes in Spider Alumni Open

The Spider women swept the Spider Alumni Open over William & Mary

Below is an article, links to results and a Video Recap...along with a few stats for our men's and women's 2011 Spider Alumni Open Cross Country meet held this past weekend.

Lori and I are pleased to see several members of the team stepping up into leadership roles and doing a great job as leaders this season. As my high school coach Jerry Rea said, "Choice, not chance, determines destiny". Within our sport this is especially true. As with any team, we must have leaders and those leaders along with all team members can expect to see success only when they make the right choices and pursue their individual and team goals with an unrelenting passion. Having and establishing a team environment that fosters, supports and enables teammates to make the correct choices is much of what leadership, on all levels, is about.

Our destiny depends on a multitude of factors. As coaches, athletes and students we must all focus on those factors we can control and simply manage and deal with the ones we cannot. Managing stress, proper nutrition and hydration, sleep patterns, and study habits are only a few of the things outside of the training that pave the way to success…Managing each of those is critical.

Our teams hear Lori and I often speak about the importance of their education. Being at Richmond it is given they are committed to excellence in the classroom. That is their primary purpose for being here. Additionally, our student-athletes must achieve balance and continue to test their limits daily as they pursue two passions: academic and athletic success. As athletes they must attack each choice they make with a simple question: “will this help me run better?”

As a wrap up to the weekend, we are thankful to the many Alumni who came back to watch and/or participate in the race and watch the 2011 team compete. Lori and I can't express how important this is for our teams and preserving history. Over the years we tell the stories over an over to establish the foundation and historical relevance of the men and women who worked so hard to build this program from back in the era of Fred Hardy and Bill Jordan through the current teams.

We appreciate all the former athletes, who made great effort to come back to support the team. Athletes like John Ciccarelli, who won the first Atlantic 10 Conference Cross Country title for the Spiders...blasting away on the final climb in Pittsburgh on a cool October day in 2004...to Jon Lauder, Seann Mulcahy, Sherry Sikora Hannay, Matt Hannay, Jeff Watson, Charlie Ban, Ryan Jobes 'Band of Brothers', Sean Welsh, Greg Hoffman, Derrick Jensen, Shelby Faircloth and many, many others who came back this weekend and during their time at UR fought for this team, laying it on the line in practice and in races. To all the Spider Nation of track & field and cross country Alumni...new and old...We can't thank all of you enough for your continued support!!

We also want to thank Collegiate School for providing a great venue on their Robins Campus. Our course layout was a 1600M loop repeated 2 times for the women's 2 mile and 3 times (+200M) for the men's 5K. Their facility provided a great vantage point to watch the races for parents, Alumni and spectators.

As you can see from results our women won (19-44) over William & Mary and our men came up a little short in a 25-30 loss while defeating ODU (15-50) (Note-ODU is a club program that will be elevated to varsity next year.). Our loss to W&M was close...Both Jason Skipper and Chris York led most of the race and kicked hard at the end, coming up just short of the over-all win but certainly making the race (Skipper was 0.5 behind W&M's Tyson and York was 1.8 seconds behind him.). Add this to the fact the Tim Becker passed W&M's Gunnerson with 120M to go and then was passed back 10 meters from the finish line getting edged by 5 tenths of a second (15:48.5 to 15:49.0) and you can see it was close. A combined total of 2.8 seconds was the difference between us winning by 1 point instead of a loss by 5 points. That’s not a negative, simply stated as fact.

Here are a few stats from the 2011 Spider Alumni Open:

Over-all WOMEN: Stephanie Paradis (11:02.4)...ran the 2nd fastest time in Spider Alumni Meet history (behind Richmond's Jill Prentice's meet record of 10:57.3 set last year in 2010)...

Freshmen WOMEN: Alli Stapleton (11:22.7)...ran the 4th fastest freshman time in meet history behind Richmond's Jill Prentice (10:57.30 meet record and freshman record in 2010)...Richmond's Roxanne Henningson (11:19.3 in 2010) and Richmond's Alli Mannon (11:19.6 in 2010).

Over-all MEN: Jason Skipper (14:53.4) and Chris York (14:54.7) placed 2nd and 3rd as the top 3 men today broke the previous Spider Alumni Open Meet record of 15:03.2 set in 2008 by Richmond's Andrew Benford...

Freshmen MEN: Tim Becker (15:49.0)...ran the 3rd fastest freshman time in Spider Alumni Open meet history behind Richmond's Ryan Lee (15:30.9 in 2010) and Richmond's Levi Grandt (15:38.9 in 2008)...

Richmond Cross Country Competes in Spider Alumni Open

Courtesy:Richmond Athletics
Release:09/03/2011

RELATED LINKS

Women's Results

Men's Results

Video: Men's XC Highlights & Interviews

Video Women's XC Highlights & Interviews

RICHMOND, Va. - The Richmond cross country squads opened their 2011 campaigns against William and Mary and Old Dominion in the Spider Alumni Open on Saturday morning at the Collegiate School cross country course in Richmond.

The Spider men were edged by W&M by a narrow 25-30 margin, but defeated the Monarchs 15-50. On the women's side, the Spiders topped the Tribe by a 19-44 margin.

"It was a good day and we had a lot of good things come out of the race," said head men's coach Steve Taylor. "After graduating some strong upperclassmen this past year, we needed several of our men to step in as leaders and they did that. Jason (Skipper), Conor (Phelan) and Chris (York) really stepped up for us today. It was a great effort and while we've got some work to do, I'm pleased with the outcome."

READ MORE HERE

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Practice at Roslyn

Roslyn Episcopal Retreat Center is a little over a mile from campus and one of the locations we do our workouts...Their property offers lots of hills and lies next to the James River which serves as a perfect backdrop for a hard effort.

Stephanie Paradis and Clare Moretz climb "Jacobs Ladder" at Roslyn just before the sun comes up...Jacobs Ladder is a very steep hill on the property that is well known to runners who grew up in the Richmond area...

Jacobs Ladder at Roslyn.

Stephanie Paradis and Clare Moretz run along the canal (Note: The canal was built in 1790 as the first commercial canal in the United States, stretching from Richmond to Westham and paralleling the James for 7 miles)...

...then climb by repeating Jacobs Ladder...

Billy Fayette and Ryan Lee on Jacobs Ladder...

Shadow runner as the sun comes up...

Ryan Lee, Billy Fayette, Stephanie Paradis and Clare Moretz getting work in between the climbs...

Jason Skipper and Chris York work together...

Liz Schinski

Adam Owens and Conor Phelan...

The women's team on their recovery...

Matthew Groff, Paul Myer (green shorts), Patrick Love (red shorts) and Tim Becker...

Jill Prentice

Roxanne Henningson, Allie Stapleton and Coach Lori Taylor...

(R-L) Chris York, Conor Phelan and Adam Owens...

Paul Myer and Matthew Groff...

The women's team finishing hills...

Chris York, Conor Phelan and Adam Owens doing the same...

(R-L) Ryan Lee and Billy Fayette speak with assistant coaches Andrew Benford and Jon Molz following their workout.

Coach Lori Taylor speaks with the women's team following the workout...

Andrew Benford lifting in the Bugg weight room in the Robins Center...

Monday, August 22, 2011

Spider XC Squads Conclude Preseason Camp - RichmondSpiders.com - The Official Athletic Website of the University of Richmond

(L-R) Row 1- Stephanie Paradis, Allie Stapleton, Jill Prentice, Clare Moretz, Roxanne Henningson, Taylor Clevinger, Lydia Morton...Row 2-Amanda Lineberry, Dana Guglielmo, Beth Kelly, Liz Schinski, Jason Skipper, Billy Fayette, Tim Becker, Paul Myer, Matthew Groff...Row 3- Patrick Love, Andrew Valenski, Ryan Lee, Conor Phelan, Chris York, Kyle Ragan, Adam Owens.

Spider XC Squads Conclude Preseason Camp - RichmondSpiders.com - The Official Athletic Website of the University of Richmond

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Spiders 2011 Preseason Cross Country Camp (DAYS 5 & 6-Whetstone Trail/Pocahontas State Park)

On the Blue Ridge Parkway our team ran the Whetstone Ridge Trail which is part of the National Park Service and George Washington National Park...

Stretching before we run..."Active Isolated Stretching" was introduced to us by Jim and Phil Wharton nearly 20 years ago and has replaced the old static stretches we did in the '70's and early '80's...

Whetstone Ridge Trail sign...

The trail is single track...

POCAHONTAS STATE PARK

Beaver Dam Lake in Pocahontas State Park has great trails around it...

(L-R) Conor Phelan, Chris York and Adam Owens during their long run at Pocahontas State Park.

Pocahontas State Park is 8,000 acres and holds miles and miles of trails.

Taylor Clevinger and Clare Moretz finish their long run...

Stephanie Paradis and Allie Stapleton...

Allie Stapleton and Stephanie Paradis...

Jason Skipper and Ryan Lee drop off the freshmen near the end of their long run....No one got lost and turned their long run into an "extra long" run....which was good.