The State Championships last week did not quite turn out how we wanted, with our Boys placing 14th and our Girls placing 12th out of 18 teams. However, we hope we can learn from the good and the bad and push forward to improve and do better. We still had some of our team run well, and whether you ran well or it was a rough day, hopefully the experience was a positive one in being able to compete. It is alright to fail, as long as you get back up from that failure and work to be better. We also had a lot of young athletes compete at State, some first timers, and what a cool experience that is to compete at the State Championships! Hopefully the young athletes take that experience, whether they ran well or not, and make it a s positive for the future and have a desire to work even harder for next year. Hopefully our seniors who competed can do the same, and move forward and be better in any future running and other endeavors.
The JV State Race seemed to go pretty well for those who competed, with the majority of our 13 boys and 9 girls who raced running good races and even getting PRs. We hope to get all of our JV athletes to stick around in the future at the end of the season and continue to compete. We did have 22 athletes compete this year compared to 8 last season, so that was a big improvement in numbers.
We would like to thank all of the parents and families who put on our team dinner on Tuesday and all those who came to State and JV State races to cheer and support the team.
Our Halloween Run on Thursday was fun and we had some great costumes, especially group costumes: Wizard of Oz, Snow White and the 5 Dwarfs, Bananas, Caterpillars, Wanna Be Gangsters, etc.
We will have our End of the Season Banquet on Saturday November 22 at 6:00pm in the Tech Atrium. More Info to follow.
We would like to see athletes continue to train through the offseason, offseason training is so important if you want to be a good athlete. This XC season we saw less kids at practice everyday and less mileage run all summer that any other team we have had. That summer training and mileage is crucial and without it we can't compete with other teams that are doing it, so we need to fix that in the future. No matter how hard you train in the season you will never catch up to those who consistently training during both offseason and season, and we need all athletes and their parents to realize that. For example, a boy who runs 20 miles a week in the summer can't compete with a boy doing 60 miles, plus whatever extra things that other athlete is doing out of running, it just doesn't work. If you want to be good you have to be willing to put in the time and work or it is never going to happen.
We are giving everyone a week off to reset and recover, but then you should get back at it. If you are not competing in a Winter Sport you should still be training. If you are not competing in another Spring Sport you should plan on doing Track and Field. We have heard that some athletes think they want to skip Track and come back out for XC. That is a poor decision if you want to improve! We have never seen an athlete not do Track and come back to XC and be better, they always fall behind. If you want to get faster you need to run Track and compete. We have a good group of young athletes and we want to keep improving our team, and hope that most of you are willing to work toward that.
Here are some things that you can do to improve as an athlete, whether you are already working on these things or need to start doing them:
- Don't settle for being mediocre, always try to be the very best version of yourself that you can be
-Train consistently in the offseason months, the offseason will often times make or break your season
-Learn to verbally communicate with coaches (physically going and having conversations)
-Talking to coaches before and after races: every athlete should talk to a coach before they race and go over a race plan, and go talk to the coach afterward to evaluate the race
-Be coachable, trust the coaches and the process and actually do what they ask you to do
-Learn to take feedback whether perceived as negative or positive, and know that if a coach is giving feedback that it is positive in intention of the outcome whether it seems positive or not. If a coach didn't care they wouldn't give any feedback at all, so them giving feedback means they care.
-Be responsible, you shouldn't always have to be asked to do what you already know you should be doing
-Always be respectful of coaches, teammates, and yourself
-Be consistent in your training, consistency is the key to any kind of improvement
-Stretch everyday after working out
-Hit the weight room, whether in practice, a weights class (recommended), or on your own -every athlete should always be working on getting stronger
-Eat healthier and more balanced nutrition daily
-Do the extra exercises that coaches give you to do after practice, everyday
- Set and work towards weekly goals every week (individual and team)
- Be completive, a race is a race, and shouldn't be a painful run in a park, the purpose is to compete
-Focus on the Team needs and not just on yourself, selfish athletes usually don't accomplish much on their own and and teams don't accomplish anything with selfish athletes
-Always be working on a positive attitude, your mind controls your body and if you are always negative you will struggle with improving and finding joy in what you do, somedays days are rough and you have to grind it out and then reset for next time
- Be tough and have some grit, you don't get strong by doing the easy things, and all of you can do hard things in life
-Make practices a priority in the season and offseason, this includes being present and giving a 100% each day
-Be a student of your sport, always be looking for ways to be better. Know who you are competing against and they they are going to do so you can be prepared to compete. Know who the best athletes are at each level, high school-professional (locally, nationally, and on the world stage), and what they do to be the best.
We would love to have athletes, and parents if needed, talk to the Coaching Staff about these things if needed, so that we can improve and get our team back to where we want to be, competing for Championships and having fun doing it!
