Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Best Documentary Feature

Best Post of the Year
Highlights the best blog post or news article you’ve read over the year. It could be a serious, dramatic story or a funny, humorous piece. Again, you can choose for yourself what constitutes “Best”.

And the nominees are ....

When the blog hit the magical 500,000 view mark, the etrain writers decided to turn the tables on the blog’s founder, Jarrett “etrain11” Felix, and ask him the questions. He responded with some pretty cool stuff and, honestly, he seems like a really cool guy. And I’m not just saying that because I’m him.

For the third straight year, Etrain went bold with his predictions for 2016. His 2014 and 2015 predictions were fun as well, but Nostraindamus tried to turn it up another notch for 2016. Is there such a thing as too bold?

Alex, Dylan and Garrett dive into the absolutely loaded freshman class of the NCAA before it was cool. It was some pretty solid foreshadowing for what was to come, which included guys like Brazier, Fisher, Maton and more putting the collegiate world on notice.

Just a reminder that Dan Beck is a pretty cool dude. The Penntrack webmaster did us another favor and jumped on the 10th ever edition of TheRoundHouse, an Around the Horn style track YouTube show, to break down the upcoming state championships. We predict all the races exactly! Except no we don’t. Whoops.

You can catch all the episodes of the roundhouse by clicking the label: roundhouse. Or by going to our YouTube channel lxvplus. We want to change it to ETFN but haven’t figured out how yet. I’m technologically challenged.

Etrain has been doing this for a long time. Like 10 years long. So he shared his opinions on the top 101 XC runners of the decade with us in a multi-part series. The linked post has the top 10, but it also provides links to all the previous sections starting with 101-86. You can also use the filter alldecade to click around.

PA’s Greatest Hits (Side One and Two)
Remember that time etrain had been talking about running for a decade? In a two part series this time, etrian breaks down the greatest outdoor state races of the past 10 years. He decided to call it PA’s greatest hits like a music album because he thinks he’s cool. He’s not.

Although nobody probably reads these, etrain has written 14 chapters worth of Diaries (and currently has another 3-4 in production for the summer, because what says summer like a semi-fictional story about distance running?). The story covers four very different runners (Ben Havleck, Jimmy Springer, Mark Miller and Chris Cline) on their journey through their running careers, culminating in a trip to the 2016 XC State Championships.

There’s a lot of real life experience and real life names rolled into the story and the various runners represent various phases and team’s from the authors personal running … what’s that? You’re already bored and skipping to the next post description? Fair enough.

Remember that time Sean Collins owned etrain in a prediction contest? Well we have it documented for all eternity. He called the Alex Milligan upset and put the so called knowledgeable track blogger in his place. To be fair, he does go to Penn …

We did a lot of these during the year (and more during the summer). Some of them were rolled into the Etrain 11 series (shameless plug) but we also tracked down Jake Brophy, Kevin James and even NCAA champ Clayton Murphy. You can check out our interview work with the label interview or the Etrain 11 series with the label the11.

Prediction Contests
We like to have fun. Or, at least whatever etrain’s definition of fun is. Apparently that’s lots of prediction contests. We do them for NCAA and HS (and maybe will have some US options coming up) and try to keep creative ideas flowing. Like how about that NCAA fantasy draft? Or the most recent PA HSOutdoor predictions?

Our most popular writer according to recent polls, Garrett Zatlin, breaks down the NCAA on a regular basis under our NCAA label. But his signature move may be the Zatlin awards (Craig Lutz is a fan) where he creatively breaks down the season that was in the NCAA. I wonder if etrain stole his Oscar idea from Garrett …. Hmmm ….

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