Off the Track: A Perspective Series by Noah Jacobs

MADISON Wis.-- Redshirt junior Noah Jacobs shows us a first-hand point of view of life as a Badger track and cross country athlete in this year-long blog series. This week, Noah describes his pleasant Sunday, which included a long run, discussing fantasy football, and playing a creative pool-based game with his teammates.

Sunday, long run Sunday

Another week of training capped off by the longest single run done all week. The boys drive out to Glacial Drumlin Trailhead in Cottage Grove, and join together to make their run more joyful. Personally, I was on a bike going along with the guys. The trail is awesome, it is relatively straight, not overly hilly, and goes on basically forever.

The fellas get their work in, and now we return to being students, football fans, and relax a touch more for the rest of the day. I come back to cook breakfast with roommate Olin Hacker, talk fantasy football strategy, and enjoy the eggs and toast provided. After finishing all of my class work for the week, I check to see what some of the others are doing.

This puts me at another house, enjoying a coffee with Conor Perreault in the early afternoon, having a few laughs and trying to plan a dinner. Quickly we invite Bob Liking and Abdullahi Hassan over to play some pool and hang out. Shuaib Aljabaly and Jack Meijer are quickly roped in after I display my powerful pool strike and beat Conor head to head. We continue playing pool in different orders as the two youngsters show up, and it is obvious, we are all terrible!

Shuaib comes up with the idea for a different game we have all heard of before. As I watch my fantasy football team fail me, we do some research to this game and find its name: CRUD.

Essentially CRUD is a way to use a pool table, have a bunch of people play at once, and not actually need to be good at pool (great for us). There is a cue ball and one other ball. The goal of the game is to never let the ball stop moving, or to knock it in the hole otherwise you get a strike. If you get three strikes, you're out, and you play this way until only one remains.

We begin playing and quickly make up some "house rules", we get a little better, and trade wins left and right. Kav Fitzpatrick joins in and Rowen Ellenberg comes in later on. The games are electric, filled with taunting, rolling a cue ball at another ball aggressively, and even some light sweat with enough guys moving around in a room.

After we have our fill of CRUD, we go grocery shopping, both to make dinner, and to replenish our stock of food for the week to come. When we return, we turn the Bears vs Packers game on the TV and get to work on some tacos. Kav takes control, and we get to enjoy some lovely food, company, and a Packers blowout win over the Bears.

Within all of this fun day, Kav and I manage to plan a massive road trip to Los Angeles to both vacation, and hopefully support Shuaib, Jack, and Jackson Sharp in racing. That's a tale for another time though!

Happy training, and ON, WISCONSIN!
Noah Jacobs