Happy Valentine's Day!

This past weekend the team competed at three different meets.  Madeline Schultz competed in a Pentathlon at Akron.  She P.R.'ed in two events, en route to scoring an excellent 2984 points ... only 16 points away from provisionally qualifying for Nationals!  Nicky Ouellett and Joanna Johnson ran at Boston University with fantastic results.  Nicky ran 5:01.19. in the mile.  Joanna ran 17:24.84 in the 5k.  Both school records.  Both provisional marks for the National meet.     

We also had 17 athletes qualify for the All-Ohio Championships.  Kudos to Ryan King (mile) and Seth Wimberly (400) for placing in the top 3 in their events - thereby earning "All-Ohio" honors.  Ryan also broke his own school record in the mile by two seconds.  By no means were Ryan and Seth the only athletes with outstanding results.  The rest of the team ran very well.  Our men's 4x2 broke its own school record from earlier in the year, and we had a slew of athletes place in the top 8 in their events.  You can see results from all three meets at www.goyeo.com  

Several years ago, we only had a couple of athletes qualify for the All-Ohio meet.  To come so far in such a short time is a testament to a lot of great things about our student-athletes and their dedication.  It's been especially great to see so many freshmen and sophomores run well.  They've taken a cue from our Captains and really embraced the hard work and competitive spirit necessary to run well in college.  It's never a great idea to "Count Your Chickens", but our early season results are extremely encouraging.  It's difficult to be anything other than optimistic when we look ahead to the rest of indoor, and then our outdoor season.    

  

     

Welcome Back!

The last weekend in January marks the end of winter term; where we welcome student/athletes back from projects and trips.  And we finally have the entire team back together.  It's also the same weekend that our conference hosts its relay carnival.  While it's a little different than the traditional meet lineup, the relay format puts a big emphasis on the idea of a track "TEAM".  And it's a great way for everyone to shake the rust off in preparation for a big indoor season.  Based on our early results, we're confident that this could be the best men's team in the history of Oberlin track.  On the women's side, we lost a fantastic group of seniors to graduation last year, but the women's team is still extremely talented.  In fact, they have the potential to score more points than they ever have at the conference championship.  

Highlights of the meet included three school records for our men's team.  Connor Doss set his second school record in as many weeks.  Fresh off an 8:51 in the 3k at Baldwin-Wallace, Connor finished 5th in the 5k in 15:19.20.  Our men's 4x200 team of Edwin Takahashi, Solomon Turner, Shawn Chrapczynski and Seth Wimberly also set a new school record, running 1:32.95. Finally, our men's DMR team of Ryan King, Thomas Shaw, Albert Davila and Stephen Williams broke our school record and took third overall.  

Our women's team fared extremely well too, with victories by Ali Gemma in the long jump, the DMR team of Nicky Ouellet, Anna Frackman, Kathleen Cann and Joanna Johnson, and the 4x800 team of Nicky Ouellet, Hillary Tipton, Kathleen Cann and Marissa Kennedy. 

We're especially excited for our seniors: Edwin, Connor, Ryan, Nicky and Ali.  Over the past several years, it's really been a joy to watch them advance their fitness and learn how to compete at the collegiate level.  They came in as 12-second 100m runner, a 4:42 miler, a 4:30 miler, a 5:25 miler/19:36 5k'er and 14-second 100m runner, respectively.  Their development into some of the best runners in the conference (and potentially national-qualifiers, in several cases) is a testament to a lot of great things about them and their team.  By  no means are they done yet!  They've got a lot of fast times, and hopefully some more victories ahead of them.  

We can't get too comfortable though, as we're back in action this Friday.  Our second home meet, The Crimson & Gold Invitational, will bring some great competition to campus.  It'll be a chance to show off all the hard work we've been doing.  Check back early next week for results.  We will also have some recaps of how Oberlin Runners spent winter term in the very near future.    

Welcome to the official Oberlin College Track & Field and Cross-Country blog!  We hope you'll visit often for updates on the team and how our season is going.  

Thanks for visiting!    

Winter Term Recap

Conde Nastie

By Liv Combe

I have quite a passion for fashion.  So when I found out about the unique opportunity that is Winter Term, my thoughts immediately flew to some sort of internship at a fashion magazine in New York.  It was a bold aspiration to aim so high, especially as a first-year, but I got lucky and ws hired by the Accessories department at W, one of the foremost fashion magazines in the world.  It was decided that I would spend the month of January in the big city, handling shoes and bags and jewelry that undoubtedly cost thousands of dollars and that, under normal circumstances, I would never get my hands on.  When my flight took off from Columbus, I was just sure - OMG! - that this would be the coolest experience ever.

Did you ever see "The Devil Wears Prada"?  Remember the bitchy boss, the eating disordered coworkers, the ridiculously long hours, and the kind of  unhealthy, life-controlling, obsessive hold that the job takes on people?  Unfortunately, this film was not too far-fetched.  But at least Anne Hathaway got to go places and get free clothes.

I would wake up before the sun, ride 45 minutes on the subway, work for up to 13 hours without any time or space to myself, go back home, have fitful dreams about sorting endless piles of Christian Louboutin shoes, then do it all over again the next day.  For the majority of my time in New York all I got to see was the A and 7 subway lines and the couple of blocks between the Grand Central stop and the Conde Nast building on Third Avenue.

I'm definitely focusing on the negative aspects of my internship at W.  Although I definitely hated it with a burning passion at some points, it was still a good experience.  Like I said, I got not only to see but handle/try on/toss around more designer merchandise than a girl could ever dream of.  All the other interns were great, and it could be a lot of fun just hanging out with them, checking in items and bitching incessantly about the Accessories editors.  I also got to drink Starbucks every day.

I definitely still love fashion.  But now I realize that I love writing and travel even more.  I thought that it would be a dream job to work at a magazine like W, but it turns out that it's not for me.  I'm too sarcastic to take people seriously when they flip out about jewelry trays not being stacked straight.  This winter term helped me realize that, and for this reason I am so glad that I was able to temporarily assume the revered title of "Conde Nastie".  One month, I found, was quite sufficient.  And now I can move on with my life.

Winter Term Recaps

Joanna Johnson

When I heard that watching "animal porn" was one of the necessary responsibilities of working in Professor Cruz's lab, I thought twice about my choice of winter term projects.  I was relieved to learn that this task simply consisted of tracking the matings of our lab opossums, so that we could date the age of the embryos we were studying to the minute of their conception.  My winter term project was conducting research in the developmental biology lab on campus, and learning basic laboratory techniques, including dissection, dehydration and preparation, and staining of slides for microscopic analysis.  I also learned about several current research topics in the field of developmental biology.

My research pertained to progesterone receptors in opossum uteri.  Female opossums do not have a progesterone peak during the second phase, known as the luteal phase, of the estrus cycle.  This may be due to more progesterone receptors in the uterine tissue, creating the same response that a peak in progesterone would initiate.  Alternatively, there may be a different hormone that fulfills the role of progesterone.  It is possible that this hormone is early pregnancy factor (EPF).

EPF is interesting because it is an immuno-suppressant.  Logically, a mother's antigens would attack the foreign tissue of the embryo that is in her body.  However, EPF prevents the immune system from attacking the embryo, allowing for her pregnancy.  The same situation arises in certain autoimmune diseases, such as MS, in which an individual's immune system attacks self-cells.  Expression of EPF in this situation could inhibit attack and prevent degeneration of the tissue.  

I will continue my research this semester, and hope to come to a conclusion by the end of the school year.  However, this will not be the end of my research experience.  My professor has helped me to network with Oberlin Alumni and I have been offered an internship at a professional proteomics lab in Spain this summer.  I would never have imagined that my winter term research would provide me such a great opportunity!