by Jarrett Felix
It’s
been an amazing 2016 for us here at the blog. And we’ve made a ton of posts. As
the founder of this blog and the guy with my name across the top (sort of), I
thought it might make sense for me to review all of the wonderful posts and
ideas that we’ve tried out here in 2016. After careful re-reading and clicking
around, I picked out my favorite posts from the 2016 Calendar Year on the blog
and I’ve shared them with you below. These aren’t necessarily the most viewed
posts of the year (that would be these three: Carlisle-Hershey Double Preview, District One Live Results, XC States Week is Here),
but instead are the posts that I feel best represent what we do here as a site
and how we approached the 2016 year.
One of
the things we enjoy doing here is making lists. During the XC season, we have
top 50 lists for high and collegiate individuals. It’s probably the #1
identifying feature of the etrain brand (often imitated never duplicated as
they say). So when the 2015 XC season officially wound down, I decided to go
full on list with a look back at the decade long coverage from 2006 through
2015 and determine who I felt were the top 101 PA XC runners during that span.
Let me know what you think.
You can see more top 50 lists by clicking on the label the50 on the side of the blog.
Our
main man in the collegiate section, Garrett Zatlin, is not just a great writer,
he’s also a great thinker. His bearish/bullish twist on rankings and analysis is
one of the cool combinations of each of those talents. And here is one those
posts that was particularly well done in 2016.
We love
running. That much is probably obvious. But we also love getting all our
writers involved in fun group posts. Alex Fox, Caleb Gatchell and Sean Collins
were the brains behind this February post that combined those two loves.
More
lists! More history! If you are reading this site, you probably either 1) Like
that etrain mixes in a variety of historical context, stats and the occasional
race video or 2) don’t care about any of that crap and just want to know what’s
going on right now in the PA track world. If you are #1, you will really enjoy
this post above. If you are #2, you can probably just stop reading now and
refresh until the Burdette Recap comes out.
Sometimes,
I don’t talk about running. In this post, I talked about music. I know. It was
bold. And that’s probably the reason I haven’t done it since.
Ok,
this was kind of cool. This was the first ever episode of “TheRoundHouse”, a
video roundtable show where the etrain writers would debate some of the running
related topics of the day. We have had a bunch of episodes since, covering a
variety of topics and getting a shout out from our buddies in the Ivy League
(huge shout out to them). We are trying to work out some technical difficulties,
but hope to be back on camera soon. Shout out to Season One’s individual
champion, Caleb Gatchell, who was the best Roundhouser.
To see all the episodes just use the label roundhouse
We make
a lot of predictions here. It’s another thing we do that people seem to enjoy
(including us). I made predictions for all three seasons (and we had a bunch
for NCAA as well, including a set that got featured on LetsRun), but I picked
these because they ended up being really wrong when the upsets finished their
laps. And those results are always more fun than being correct.
We did
a special edition of TheRoundHouse specifically about PA High School States. It
was also an episode that featured a surprise guest from penntrack webmaster Dan
Beck. Huge shout out to Dan for being involved in our prediction contests,
fantasy football league (I lost to him last week even though he hasn’t set his
line up since Week One) and of course this episode of TheRoundHouse. We
appreciate what you’ve done to support us in 2016 my friend.
There
ended up being two more that have extra links about O'Hara and Henry Sappey of DT West
The Etrain
11 started in 2015, but I figured it was worth a mention in 2016. These posts
are meant to recognize some of the stellar performances during the track season
(and recently during the XC season as well)
in a more article style post rather than the traditional blogger, recap,
analysis stuff. I try to be more professional and not say words like stuff. You
see all of these type of posts using the label “the11”.
I
wanted to also specifically recognized the WPIAL vs. post which combined
TheRoundHouse and The Etrain 11 into one major post on the site. Big shout out
to both our writer Evan Hatton and the WPIAL 3200 foursome of Wolk, Migliozzi,
Susalla and Gunzenhauser for jumping on to talk with us.
We
dipped into the professional ranks in 2016 through TheRoundHouse, The Fox and
the Profound (a spin off show) and a couple well done posts like these from
Alex Fox and Caleb Gatchell. I had goals for publishing previews on every single olympic event (on LXV+) but I couldn't quite bang them all out. Here's the 800 preview. Feel free to click around on that site for the others that were published.
When
NCAA and PA High School meet you get posts like this from our own GZ. This is a
cool look at how high school talents could potentially translate to the next
level.
The
first ever Etrain Oscars Blog award show happened this year. It’s still a work
in progress, but I think it gave everyone a chance to honor their fellow
runners with votes, nominations and sometimes even acceptance speeches. Thanks
to those who dealt with the lame puns and watched live!
One of
my two pet projects that I do in the shadows of the blog. This is a fiction
story about 4 PA runners journey to the state championships. It went from
Chapter 11 through Chapter 25 in 2016. I think most people’s favorite character
is Ben Havleck (although I haven’t talked to many people about it) so here’s a
Ben Havleck centered chapter to check out. You can see all the chapters using the label TRD.
This is
what happens in August. I get excited about Cross Country and I come up with
weird ways to talk about it.
We like
numbers and statistics here at the old blog. Here’s a post that uses a bunch of
numbers and tables to breakdown the NCAA team title picture in early September.
One of
the coolest things that happened in 2016 was the addition of a new writer.
Blake Behney of Camp Hill/Shippensbury joined the contributors of our site and
had an awesome rookie season. I think this may have been my personal favorite
post of his on his District’s stand out performers this past fall. Huge shout
out to Blake for joining the team. You can see all Blake's post using the lable bbehney. Each writer's first initial and last name is the label for their posts so check out everyone's best stuff!
I like
the Sixers. I like Philly sports. The Sixers suck. Philly sports kinda suck. But
it doesn’t mean I will ever stop loving them. So when I see even the tiniest
glimmer of hope I pounce. Can’t wait for Nets-Sixers in Brooklyn to kick off my
2017!
Another
cool alumni related post that I liked and wanted to link. Garrett wrote this
one, but Caleb was our big time report for alumni news throughout the season
and did a fantastic job.
This is
about Steph Curry. There are more of these kinda posts in 2015, but none of
those have as great of a title as this one. This is on here basically only
because I love the title.
My
other pet project is All My Friends are Runners. It’s a history
novel/autobiography that talks about the PA High School scene and my journey to
become a blogger/runner. There were a bunch of these kinda chapters in 2016 but
I think the 3 part Weller-Springer match up may be the most intriguing so far. These posts have the label AMFAR.
A
tradition unlike any other. The 2014 edition was my first post that got any
sort of real traction/comments. Now we move forward to 2017 with high hopes to
continue this amazing ride.
I'm a sucker for the historical stuff, so I gotta give the nod to the lists and all-decade type posts. Of course everything else is great too. Keep it up.
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