After New Year's Run

2016's First Ascent of Rock River Road

Zach and Anthony finish a long climb up the hill.

In what has become an annual event for the Hughson distance crew,  Coach Kwietkauski and I will be taking anybody who is interested out to Rock River Road on Saturday, January 2.  If you want to go, meet at the school at 9:00 AM.

Make sure to eat a good breakfast before you come.  Bring a water bottle and $5.  I will buy food and we can have a picnic on top of the hill.

Rock River Road begins at Warnerville Road about half way between Roberts Ferry and Knights Ferry.  The run is 8.5 miles of either flat or uphill.   The total elevation gain on the run will be around 900 feet.

2010 cross country team after the first ever Rock River
hill run.

 The first team to run Rock River was 2010's cross country team. That year, we did not go all the way to the top of the hill, but stopped about 5.5 miles in after the majority of the climbing is done.  I can pick some of you up there if you don't think you can make the whole run.

Last year, Tristan made it to the top in 63 minutes (for 8.5 miles).  Can anybody beat that time?  If we get a boy under 60, or a girl under 68:30, I may have to make for him or her the first ever "Rock River Renegade" ultra, mega, awesome t-shirt to signify the accomplishment.

Pre-Season Training

Pre-Season Training (Begins Jan 5)
I've always said that if you want to get somewhere, you need to know how you are going to get there.  Random driving around almost never gets you where you want to go.  Random, unfocused running is better than no running, but nowhere near as good as training with a plan.

Tristan put in huge miles over the winter
and finished his senior year by qualifying
for divisionals.

You are hopefully enjoying your time off from school and getting some good runs in.  I hope that you are following the training guidelines I posted last week.  I'd like to share with you what our running will look like when we return from break. Bear in mind, we will be starting during P.E. class and you are under no obligation to stay after school.  Having put that out there, I also want you to know that the 45 minutes of P.E. class are likely not enough time for you to develop the pre-seaosn fitness that you need.

The next phase of our training, after the re-introduction phase you are currently in, is going to be what I call pre season.  This phase starts the day we return from break and continues until the first day of spring sport practice (Feb 8th).  Areas of emphasis for pre season (in order of importance):

1. Aerobic Endurance
2. General Fitness
3. Speed Power
4. Aerobic Power
5. Anaerobic Power

Aerobic Endurance - For both distance and mid-distance groups, this will be by far the most important part of your pre-season training.  During this phase, we will try for a 3 week block of training where your mileage is 5 miles per week higher than your highest achieved 3 week block leading up to cross country.  For instance.  Garrett had a block during the summer where he averaged 54 miles for a 3 week stretch.  During track pre season period, he will want to try and average 59 mpw.  The distance runs you are doing should be comfortable, but they should not be slow jogs.  If you feel good at the end of a run, feel free to pick up the pace to steady state effort.  The only guideline is that the pace should remain comfortable.  For our top boys, this might be in the low 6 minute range, for our top girls, steady state pace might be in the low 7 minute range.

Some of you may want to run doubles during this period.

Zach built up to 80mpw before opening his senior season with a
track record at Turlock's Joe Delby Stadium

General Fitness
General fitness will still make up only a small portion of your overall training volume, but it will become more important.  General fitness includes things such as: weights, fitness x, core laps, Mando style core, different types of games such as med ball, push ups, sit ups, etc.... You should try for a little bit of general fitness type of stuff after every run.

Speed Power - Speed Power refers to your ability to accelerate to top speed for short periods of time. To help develop Speed Power, you can do strides, ramps for form, ramps to top speed, or even full out 50m sprints on the grass. This type of training is not very specific to the demands of your events, so once we get into the actual season, we won't do a whole lot of this type of training.  During the pre season, you can do speed power stuff 1-3 times per week.

Aerobic Power

Back in the day, Alex
Guerrero ran consistant
50 mile weeks with at
least 1 aerobic power
session per week.
#8 3200 time in USA
Bronze Medal at USAJ 5k
Year 2000

No other factor will determine how well you race as will your aerobic power.  Aerobic Power simply refers to the ability to run at a very high intensity for a long period of time without becoming fatigued.  Because Aerobic  Power is so important to racing, we will start to do a little bit to develop it during our pre-season.  We will try to develop Aerobic Power with as little stressful training as possible.  Some low stress workouts for aerobic power might include:

• Hard surges of 2-5 minutes embedded into a distance run.
• 200m segments at race pace embedded into a steady state run
• Intervals of 600-100m at about 5k race pace with plenty of recovery

We will do no more than 1 Aerobic Power session per week during pre season

Anaerobic Power

Anaerobic Power refers to your ability to run VERY fast for a shorter period of time (up to 2 minutes).  This trait is more important for 400/800 runners, but all of us use Anaerobic Power in ANY track race.  Anaerobic Power does not take very much time to develop and therefore we will not need to work it very much during the pre-season.  The reasons for doing Anaerobic Power during the pre-season is that doing it in small amounts now will prepare us for the longer, tougher anaerobic power workouts later in the season.  Examples during the pre season:

• 5 x 200 at mile RP after a distance run
• 3 x 150 at 800m RP after a distance run

At this time of the year, Anaerobic Power work will only be done as a supplement to the rest of your training.  It should not be stressed pre season.

Conclusion

I decided to post this part of the training plan now, during break so that you can look ahead to what is coming.  If you see where you are going, you should be more motivated to do stuff NOW.  It is unrealistic that you will be able to build to a solid mileage peak in January if you have not run since November.  Remember, the phase we are in now, during break, is called re-introduction.  Make sure to re-introduce your bodies to solid mileage so that when we come back to school, you will be ready to roll.

Winter Training Guidelines

Hello Huskies! I feel guilty for never posting any write ups of the section or state meets. Coaches get tired too. Plus, StanCo. Distance was doing a pretty good job of covering the post season.

Anyway, I want to focus on rebuilding the fitness that you may have lost since the end of the season. Most of you have been back to training on a very basic level that emphasizes general fitness and now it is time to start ramping back up the running levels and getting ready for track season. Remember, we don't start official practice until February 8th and we don't race until the first weekend in March. We have almost as much time as the summer to put in a fantastic base of fitness before we set one foot into competition.

Whether you know it or not, our first phase of training for track has already begun....Coach K and I have termed this phase Reintroduction

Re-Introduction Phase 3 Weeks (December 14th to January 3rd)

Areas of Emphasis

1. Easy and Steady State Running
2. Relaxed Strides after runs
3. Core, general fitness type activities.

Easy and Steady Running

My only criteria for this portion of your fitness is that you attempt to build up to what your maximum mileage achieved during summer/fall was for the last week of break.  You should do most of this mileagae in easy runs.  Concentrate your efforts on doing runs of 1 hour.  For you experienced runners, you could be doing 4-6 one hour runs per week.  For the less experienced runners, it might only be 1 one hour run per week.  Don't worry about any tempo effort or formally scheduled hard running.  If you feel good, you might want to acclerate to steady state effort for the last 10 minutes of a run.  DO NOT force the pace on any of your runs.  Let the fast paces come naturally.  It is fine to run fast but relaxed during this phase.  Note: Those of you training more for 400/800 won't do as many 1 hour runs as the rest of the group and you probably want to do more runs where you finish fast.

Strides

Do strides once or twice a week after your runs.  Once again, the emphasis should be on running fast and relaxed on the strides.  Take plenty of time in between strides (I prefer a jog back to the start as a recovery)  you don't want to be winded prior to starting a stride out.  Distance of the stride outs should be from 60-100m.  Don't do more than 1000m worth of strides on any given day.  Those of you training for the 400/800 may want to place more emphasis on the strides.  Perhaps 3 days per week for you.

Core/General Fitness

We don't need to go crazy on the core right now.  The goal right now is to only maintain a base level of strength and general fitness as you ramp your running volume back up.  2 days of core per week is all that is required.  Please remember that CORE does not mean only ABS. Be sure to include exercises for your low back, glutes, hamstrings as well as stuff where you have to be stable laterally (such as side planks or reach unders). Feel free to do push ups, pull ups and lunges as well....just don't go crazy with them.

Record Your Activities

It is important for me to know that you are taking charge of your own success.  During this time, I am not going to be as strict about submitting mileage as I am during the summer.  I know that many of you will travel and be forced to miss a few days during this time.  I do, however, want you to write down your daily training.  Keep track of weekly mileage.  It is a huge confidence boost to see a calendar on the wall in your bedroom with big numbers written in for the days that you know most of your competitors are staying warm inside out of the rain.

Good luck this break.  See you all in 2016!!!!  

p.s. I'll be organizing a trip out to Rock River Road after New Years....probably on Saturday, 1/2/16.

TVL Finals - A great day for the Huskies

TVL Finals was by far the best single meet run by a Hughson cross country team in the past 17 years.  The JV boys and Varsity Girls went in as favorites to win league titles, which they did convincingly.  However, it was the performance of the JV girls and Varsity boys, who went in as heavy underdogs, that made the meet so special.

JV Girls Race
At the first 2 TVL meets, Ripon had won this division fairly handily and we had been second both times.  For TVL finals, we moved a number of girls up to Varsity, so it seemed that the chances of us winning a title would be slim to none.  This was not the case.  Diana Brown ran her best race as a Husky to take home the individual title.  The rest of the girls in the race for us ran strongly and courageously to tie Escalon 54-54 for the meet win with Ripon placing 3rd with 57 points.  With a 54-54 tie, the rarely scored 6th runner became the tie breaker.  Fortunately for the Huskies, Monica Yup ran her best race of the season and broke the tie in our favor.  If Ripon were to have placed 2nd, we would have to share the championship with them, but because Escalon squeaked past them by 3 points, we were able to claim the undisputed title!

Top 3 Teams
Hughson 54
Escalon 54
Ripon 57

JV Boys Race
Just as he has done all year, Austin Hoach won the JV boys division at a TVL meet.  Just as our JV boys have done all year, they finished first, despite the fact that we had moved a fast improving Christian Lee up to the varsity ranks.  Our boys scored, a lowest of the season 25 points to easily outdistance second place Ripon.  Derek Avila (3rd), Noah Martin (4th), Matthew Walton (6th) and Julian Cedano (11th) rounded out the Husky Scorers.

Top 3 Teams
Hughson 25
Escalon 49
Riverbank 67

Varsity Girls Race
According to Scott Durham of the Stanislaus County Distance website, we were favorites to win the meet by 5-7 points.  As it turned out, the meet was nowhere near that close as our girls easily outdistanced the multi-year defending champion Bruins of Riverbank.  Our strategy in this meet was to be less cautious than usual, run a little closer to the front early on and then chase down the leaders as hard as possible.  The strategy worked wonderfully, as all of our top 6 runners were able to place in front of Riverbank's #3 runner, Lydia Hodges (who only 2 of our girls had previously beaten) and our top 2 runners were able to overcome Bruin runner Stephanie Bernal, who none of us had ever beaten.

This team is clearly the best girls team that Hughson has fielded in the past 17 years, as we were able to place 6 girls into our all time top 12 for the Legion Park course.  This is a list that has been kept for the past 16 years and is topped by all state runner Becky Hobby.  This year's team put girls at #3 (Emily Fife), #4 (Abby Mitchell), #5 (Kinsey Langely), #8 (Esmeralda Campos), #11 (Heavyn Herroz) and #12 (Taylor Gray)

Top 3 Teams
Hughson 38
Riverbank 56
Ripon 77

Varsity Boys Race
Going into the meet, our boys had already suffered defeats of 30+ and 20+ points at the hands of an all senior Riverbank Bruin squad.  Despite the fact that we have been improving rapidly, the Stanislaus County Distance website still had us as underdogs by more than 10 points.  Our boys didn't buy into any of that ranking stuff and we designed a strategy to attack the Bruins mid race and make them hurt.  We hoped to be able to demoralize the opponent mid race, causing them to fall apart mentally.  Our boys executed their strategy perfectly and put the Bruins into serious distress, but the boys from Riverbank didn't give up and fought back to hold take a very narrow 34-36 victory and lengthen their streak of TVL titles top 4 years.

Up front, the race was actually dominated by the Huskies.  The hard mid race surge where Daniel Yanez, Carson Boice, and Jaymie Jackson broke away from the field ended up netting us a 1-2 finish as Yanez and Boice were the first runners across the line.  A strong late race rally by Riverbank's Ruben Paredez and Eric Wise pushed Jackson back to 5th and kept the Bruins close enough so that their 3,4,5 runners could seal the deal for them. The race was completely dominated by runners from Hughson and Riverbank, as the two teams placed 10 runners in the top 15 overall and even the combined score of the 2 teams would still have been good enough to hold off 3rd place Escalon.  Josue Esquivel and Garrett Hartman both joined the Husky top 3 in the top 15 overall, bringing home TVL medals for their collection.

Our boys will face Riverbank at least 2 more times this season at Subs and Sections (and maybe again at State).  We have gotten closer each time we've raced and will be looking to surpass the Bruins in our next meetings.

Top 3 Teams
Riverbank 34
Hughson 36
Escalon 82

Updated All Time HHS Top 10

Clovis Invitational

This past Saturday, our two varsity teams traveled to Woodward Park in Fresno for the 38th annual Asics Clovis Invitational.  The meet is one of the biggest and most prestigious in California and is considered a "State Meet Preview", as it is run on the same course as the state championship meet.  As a team, we had our best day ever, for the Clovis meet

Varsity Girls, 7:15 AM
The girls had to get to the park by 6:00 AM to start warming up for their early morning race.  I've never been to a meet where kids need flashlights to run their warm ups.  The park was a little bit magical with packs of light floating around in the dark as the different teams went about their pre race preparation.

In our race were Division 4 State #1 Mayfield (Pasadena) and #7 Piedmont (Oakland).  We were also joined by Perennial State Powers, McFarland of Disney movie fame, Paraclete of Orange County, and St. Mary's of Berkeley.  Also in the race were 5 teams that were ranked in the state's top 10 for Division 5.

A unique feature of such a large meet is that they can provide computerized, mid meet score updates so that coaches can know how their teams are faring at the 1 mile and 2 mile marks. Each athlete runs with a timing chip and when the athletes pass the mile and 2 mile points, the race computer automatically records their times and calculates a team score.

Our girls continued to run how they have run all year long....pacing themselves smartly and moving up aggressively late in the race.  This is the strategy we used to beat Riverbank at our last TVL meet and this was the strategy we followed on Saturday.

At the one mile mark, the announcer read out the top 10 teams, and we were not among them.  By the 2 mile mark, we had moved up to 8th.  By the finish, we had climbed all the way to 5th out of 29 teams competing.  For a frame of comparison, TVL Rivals Escalon, Ripon, and Hilmar were 22nd, 25th, and 28th in the very competitive field.  Mayfield High showed why they are the State #1 team by winning the race by 70 points over a very good Piedmont team.  McFarland and St. Marys, along with our girls, rounded out the top 5.

Our girls were led by Freshman Kinsey Langely, as they have been all season.  However, it was the fact that the rest of our girls are starting to catch up to her that allowed us to place so high.  Kinsey improved her best time for 5k by 20 seconds, a nice improvement, but Emily Fife and Esmeralda Campos improved by 55 seconds and Abby Mitchell improved by 50 seconds.  Taylor Gray improved her best time by 19 seconds and Heavyn Herroz improved her best time by 10 seconds. Priscilla Fernandez also competed for us, but has been battling a foot injury and was a little bit off from her best effort.

Varsity Boys, 7:45 AM
Our boys have had a difficult time this year.  TVL #2 had been a significant improvement for them, but they were looking for more improvement.....and we got it.  Daniel Yanez ran a very tough race to finish 19th overall in a time of 16:35 for the 3.1 mile course (an average of about 5:18 per mile).  This time ranks as #3 on our all time list of on the course.  The time also marks a 45 second improvement from his time at the invitational last year and 17 seconds faster than his time from last year's state championship meet.  He had a good race, to say the least.  Carson Boice and Josue Esquivel also had major improvements.  Josue has knocked a minute off of his best time in each of the last 2 races and is now able to start running with our top group of Yanez, Boice, and Jaymie Jackson.  Jaymie Jackson also managed a small improvement of 4 seconds from his previous personal best for 5k.

Also setting small improvements were Garrett Hartman (5 seconds faster than his previous best time) and Dalton Santiesteban (3 seconds faster than his previous best time).  Mark Borges ran another good race, but fell one second short of bettering his time for the 5k distance.

The boys ended up finishing 12th out of 29 teams competing.  TVL Rivals Escalon, Ripon, and Hilmar were 25th, 26th, and 29th respectively.  The race was won by current state D5 #1 team (and perhaps the best small school team in California History) Flintridge Prep of La Canada.  Sage Creek of San Diego (ranked 4th in state division 4 was second). McFarland was 3rd, University High of San Francicso (Ranked 4th in State Division 5) was 4th and Oaks Christian (perennially ranked high in the state, but not in the rankings yet this year) placed 5th.

Team Splits

Woodward Invitational, October 7

The two varsity squads sat this meet out in preparation for the upcoming Clovis Invitational.  This gave a chance for some of our younger kids to shine.  A few excellent performances were notched out on the barren expanses east of Woodward Reservoir.  Derek Avila continues to improve his racing skill and ability, this time placing 4th in the sophomores race, despite being only a freshman.  Daniela Rodriguez ran in her first ever cross country race and ended up finishing as our top girl in the Sophomore girls race.

Varsity Girls Race
Valeria Mendoza has been steadily improving this season and has flirted with our top 7 for a couple of weeks now.  Val had the opportunity to lead our team, which was normally our JV squad, in the varsity race.  Despite Valeria being the only one who has had any experience in our varsity top 7, our girls managed to place 5th out of 7 teams competing.  This shows the depth of the program that we have worked to accomplish.

The girls ran a very smart race, letting much of the field burn itself out early and then gradually moving up throughout the race. Following Val in the varsity race were, Jazmine, Teagan, Diana, and Silvana. Great job girls!

Varsity Boys Race
Once again, we placed what is normally our JV squad into the varsity race, this time placing 6th out of 9 teams competing.  Once again, the fact that we've developed a deep, hard working team allowed boys that have not yet been able to make our top 7 compete well with the true top 7 of all the other teams out there.

Timmy Jackson ran a strong race and continues to build confidence in the longer (than his 800m speciality) races.  He was our top finisher on the day and managed to earn a varsity medal for the first time ever.  Christian Lee, competing in his first varsity race ever, also managed to earn a medal over the difficult, hilly, dusty, gravelly 3.1 mile course.

Race Splits

Mileage Updated

Over 12,000 miles run by the team so far this year!!!!

Check out the Spreadsheet

Actually, this probably under-represents the mileage we've done.  Quite a few of you have been forgetting to sign out with your mileage after practice lately....get on it dudes and dudettes!

Supercross Job Sign Up

Please check the following link for a list of jobs that need filling at the supercross meet.

Job sign up list

Please note.  Key club will be sending volunteers to help with course marshalling.  I only need a couple of adults to help marshall in critical areas.

Homecomeing 2015

Fun time was had by all

Snack Bar Volunteers

A huge thanks to those of you who volunteered to help out in the snack bar at the game this friday.  Below is the list of parents and shifts volunteered to work.  If you have any questions or corrections, please let me know.

1st Shift (5:00-7:30)
Becca Merriam
Jonathan Merriam
Valerie Lee
Erik Lee
Bobby Boice
Kristen Boice
Luis Zuniga
Diana Walton
Kim Seagle
Shawn Kwietkauski
Joel Bernard
Michelle Kwietkauski
Wyatt Mitchell

2nd Shift (7:30 - Close)
Ian Brooks
Bobby Boice
Kristen Boice
Kathy Borges
Becca Merriam
Jonathan Merriam
Austin Zehr
Shawn Kwietkauski
Joel Bernard
Michelle Kwietkauski
Erin Fife
Mark Fife

As you can see, we are still a few volunteers short in the second shift (Boosters is asking for 11 per shift).  If you know of anybody who would like to help out a bit in the second shift, I would really appreciate if you pointed them in my direction.

Thank you again

Lowell Invitational Wrap Up

Pretty good day over in "The City". I haven't had a chance to type up splits yet, but they will be posted here when I have them.  The following is a link to Our race results, on the Record Timing website

Here is a quick run down.  Pleases bear in mind that the varsity course runs about 50 seconds faster for the boys and about a minute faster for the girls than a full 5k.

Freshman Boys, FS Girls, Sophomore Boys:
After a couple of solid performances from this group at Lodi and TVL opener, we kind of laid an egg.  Austin, Derek, and Andrew ran pretty hard in the frosh race, but none finished remarkably well.  Perhaps the younger group was a little intimidated by their first truly "big field".

JV Girls
This group ran extremely well.  Gabby Mays led the way for us with a 23:52.  This is a full 2:02 better than her time on the same course last year.  Also in the field with a big improvement was Valeria Mendoza who was able to knock her time down to by 1:02 to finish in 24:02. A number of other JV girls got their first taste of a longer race and passed with flying colors.  Teagan and Silvana both set 2 mile PR's en route to the 2.93 mile finish line.  Jazmine was right up with Gabby for the whole race right until the end and finished at 24:00.  This group finished 13th in a field of 23 complete teams, most of which were large school.

JV Boys
Also another very good race.  Timmy Jackson led the way for us with an 18:50 and Anthony Powers was not far behind in 18:59.  Both boys broke into the top 40 (out of 180) of what turned out to be the significantly faster of the two heats. Noah Martin put in a fine effort in his first attempt at a race longer than 2 miles (and only his 3rd cross country race ever) to finish as our 3rd man.  The boys finished 10th out of 19 teams in our heat.

Varsity Girls
This was THE RACE of the day for our team.  Kinsey was our top dog today, placing 22nd out of a field of 135 girls and the team finished 6th out of 18.  We were the first small school in our heat by a long way.  While Kinsey ran near the time that Maddy Mays set here last year, the big improvement came from positions 2-6.  All of our top 5 ran faster than our #2 girl last year (Taylor) and our #6 girl Priscilla ran faster than our #4 from last year.  We were missing Emily yesterday for a church retreat, but her presence in the pack would have only made us stronger. When looking at year over year improvements, Taylor improved by 1:26 (22:32 in 2014 and 21:06 this year) and Heavyn improved by 1:28 (22:34 in 2014 and 21:06 this year).  2 more newcomers really strengthened our pack.  Abby Mitchell and Esmeralda Campos Finished in 20:30 and 20:39 respectively.

Varsity Boys

This group has struggled out of the gate so far this year.  While talent abounds, this group has not figured out yet how to run as a team.  We took a step toward that end yesterday; not the giant step that we were hoping for, but a step nonetheless. Daniel continues to lead our pack.  He was a bit flat yesterday, perhaps the 6 mile run he did when arriving at the park had something to do with his flatness.  Still, he was only 13 seconds slower than his time on the course last year.  So far this year, Carson has been struggling to find his racing legs.  He found them in a big way yesterday, coming in as our second man in one of the faster times any Hughson boy has put up on the course over the past 3 years (16:42). Only Daniel, Ian Brooks, Zach Morrett and Anthony Arce have been faster than that time in the past 3 years.  Jaymie, who had been feeling a bit sick on Friday, struggled a bit yesterday complaining of a sore throat.  Garret continues to improve, knocking 50 seconds off of last year's time on the course.  Newcomer Josue Esquivel was looking to make a big improvement yesterday, but lost his shoe right at the start.  He lost time putting it back on, but caught up to our pack but then faded a bit in the last mile.  Still in all, yesterday's effort was his best so far.

Lowell Invitational, Pre Meet Stuff

Here is a Map of the Course drawn on Google Maps

Parking can be found off of JFK drive or Middle Drive, West.  The Middle Drive area is easier to park on, but there is a steep, narrow trail to walk down that would be difficult for elderly or impossible for those in a wheelchair.

The quickest way to GG park from the Bay Bridge

• Bay Bridge West
• Highway 101 Exit (Central Freeway)
• Freeway ends at Octavia
• Straight (North) on Octavia
• Left on Fell
• Follow Fell into Golden Gate Park, where it becomes JFK drive.
• Follow JFK drive to Hellman Hollow near the Polo Grounds

Spaghetti Fundraiser a Huge Success

Thank you to all the parents and athletes who came out to support the team at our Drive Thru Dinner.  We grossed almost $2100 and with a few donations that should be coming in to cover operating costs, we will be able to put all of that money directly toward the team!  Thank you Husky Parents!

1200 Meter Loop Updated

So....We've had a fence put across our cross country course as it winds through the arboretum.  We've been running a new loop back there, but it appears we've been running out of the arb and into private property.

So..... Here is the New and hopefully final edition of our 1200m training loop

I don't think I could have squeezed 1 more meter out of that place!

Lowell Invitational

OK, boys and girls!  This saturday will be a long, but fun and challenging day.  We need to meet the bus at 5:00 AM.  Bring pillow or whatever you need to help you sleep on the long bus ride.  Here is the day's schedule.  The entire meet packet can be found here but the most important part for you guys, the schedule, is posted below.

Arrive at HHS 5:00 AM
Bus Departs 5:15 AM
Arrive GG Park 7:45 AM
Frosh Boys 1 9:00 AM 2 Team Awards 12 Individual Awards
Frosh Boys 2 9:25 AM 2 Team Awards 12 Individual Awards
F/S Girls 1 9:50 AM 2 Team Awards 12 Individual Awards
F/S Girls 2 10:15 AM 2 Team Awards 12 Individual Awards
Soph Boys 1 10:40 AM 2 Team Awards 12 Individual Awards
Soph Boys 2 11:05 AM 2 Team Awards 12 Individual Awards
Non Var Boys 1 11:30 AM 2 Team Awards 9 Individual Awards
Non Var Boys 2 11:55 AM 2 Team Awards 9 Individual Awards
Non Var. Girls 12:30 PM 2 Team Awards 12 Individual Awards
Var. Girls 1 1:00 PM 3 Team Awards 20 Individual Awards
Var. Girls 2 1:30 PM 3 Team Awards 20 Individual Awards
Var. Boys 1 2:00 PM 3 Team Awards 20 Individual Awards
Var. Boys 2 2:30 PM 3 Team Awards 20 Individual Awards
3:15 Depart GG Park for Beach/Picnic
5:30 Leave Beach
8:00 Arrive @ HHS

Most divisions have 2 races.  I do not know which race we will be assigned to yet.

Lodi Flame Invitational

Our first meet of the year is coming up this Friday!  We will be heading up to Lodi for the Lodi Flame Invitational, 8/28/15.

The following link to the athletic.net website has all of the details of the meet, but here are some of the important ones.

Out of class at 12:15
Bus leaves at 12:30
First race (JV girls) 3:00
Last Race (Varsity Boys)  5:10
Arrive back in Hughson 7:30 ish.

Gettin' into summer with some good training videos and some info that needs to be repeated

Tempo Running

Other than regular, steady mileage, tempo training is perhaps the most important type of training in a distance runner's schedule.  The purpose of tempo training is to allow the athlete run fast without incurring fatigue.  The training sessions are fast but they should not be very hard.  The goal of the workout is to run as quickly as possible without the workout becomming very difficult.  This means that sometimes, in a tempo workout, you have to back off the pace.

One tempo run will not make you better overnight.  The way that tempo training will make you better is that every time you go out, your body adapts to the pace you are running.  The next time you go out, the pace that you ran on your previous tempo run will feel slightly easier.

To sum it up, run as fast as you can for the distance without allowing excessive tightness or tiredness build up.

Here are the University of Colorado teams doing an early season tempo run. Please note that most of these athletes could run this run much faster.  The top runners are probably 30-40 seconds slower per mile than their race paces for the same distance.

2013 Seniors at the Supercross

Long Runs

Long runs are another important aspect of training.  During the off season and the early season, these longer efforts prepare your body to endure the harder workouts that come later.  As a general guideline, Your long runs should be around 15%-25% of your weekly mileage depending on how many miles a week you are running and the distance of race for which you are training.

Here is the Air Force Academy team getting in a long run on a loop that was originally mapped out by 1500m world champion Jenny Simpson

General Body Fitness

Here is a good video from the Arizona Wildcats Womens' Team. Some of these exercises should already look familiar to those of you who have been coming to practice so far.  Coach Li, the man who is intereviewed first is also the coach of Bernard Lagat, a multiple world and olympic medalist.

The focus on this workout is on strengthening the muscles that create stability and balance.  The focus is not on trying to lift a lot of weight one time, nor is it on getting big, bulky muscles.  Bulky muscles are great if you are playing football or throwing the shot, but they don't help in cross.

Our focus is on getting stable, lean, and strong.

Nutrition

Please visit and read the Nutrition Page of this blog. It's not new, but I wanted to make sure you are all reading and digesting (pun intended) the material.

General Guidelines For Beginners or Injury Prone Athletes

The number one goal for this group is to build as much fitness and general athletic ability as possible.  If you have not seen the Girls Progression, please follow the link and check it out.

Right now, you should start to experiment with running, push ups, lunges, sit ups, and any other basic conditioning activity you feel you'd like to do.  We don't start practicing for another two weeks, so this is a good opportunity to gain a little bit of fitness prior to meeting with all of your teammates for the first time.

If you can do a 3 mile run comfortably, you should do some of those.  If you can run only 1 lap around the track comfortably, you should do that.  Do not feel the need to rush into any specific level of fitness.  You have the summer to build up and get stronger. However, DON'T WAIT to start.  If you wait, then you will feel like you are behind the rest of your teammates when we start practicing in a couple of weeks.  If you wait all summer, then you will be far behind and you might feel like it is impossible to catch back up.

If you wait all summer and don't run, you will be prone to injury once we start training.  Your body needs the summer to prepare for the hard training in the fall.

A week for a beginner might look like this early in the summer

• Monday (Practice): 1 lap warm up, extensive core and drills, bleacher runs, 1 lap easy, short sprints, 1 lap easy
• Tuesday: On your own: Push Ups, Sit Ups, Lunges, 1 mile easy around your neighborhood
• Wednesday (Practice): 1 Lap warm Up, Ramp Sprints, Game Day, Running drills, Core, 1 lap easy
• Thursday (Practice) 20 minutes of continuous running, go as far as you can without stopping.
• Friday: Take a day off or do some sort of other activity
• Saturday: You might go to the hills with your more advanced teammates, but focus on running uphill without stopping then walking back down.
• Sunday: Day off.

Totals 10 ish miles for the week.

Later in the summer, your weeks might be creeping up to 20-25 miles total.  Don't rush to get to bigger mileage totals.  Make sure your body can handle what you are doing before increasing.

General Summer Running Guidelines, Boys and Girls, Intermediate-Advanced (1 or more years of experience)

OK, Boys

Here we go. 2 days into summer.  Hopefully, you've had two good days of running so far.  I hope you've already perused the Boys Summer Progression.  I'd like to fill in a few more deatils about the progression.

1. Any athlete with aspirations of making the varsity team, or of being a good JV runner, should shoot for a 500 mile club shirt this summer.
2. We are meeting 3 days a week.  Each of those days will have a different focus: Tempo, Intervals, or Long Day.
3. Those meeting days ARE NOT the most important days of the week.  The most important day is EVERYDAY.  Your fitness will come from a steady, daily, diet of runs done at a comfortable pace.
4. The other days of the week, you should fill in with as much mileage as you can comfortably do.
5. The mileage should come in runs of 4-9 miles, depending on your ability, experience, point in the summer, and how you feel for the day.
6. I encourage you all to meet up on days that we don't have practice. I know that Alumnus and former captain, Wyatt Mitchell, is interested in doing some runs out in the hills this summer as he prepares to run in college. Go with him.

These guidelines should be able to accomodate all of our boys who have run at least one season at the high school

This is what a week for our top dogs might look like.

• Monday AM: (Practice) - 2 mile warm up, drills, 2 x 1 mile @ 8k pace, 1 mile cool down, core. Monday PM: 4 miles easy
• Tuesday: 7 miles easy + lunge matrix
• Wednesday: AM (Practice) 2 miles warm up, drills, 3.5 miles tempo, strides, Core, Stretch.  Wednesday: PM 4 miles easy
• Thursday AM (Practice): Long, 9 miles.  Stretch
• Friday: 5 miles very easy + lunge matrix
• Saturday: Meet with team for hill run, 8 miles hills
• Sunday: off or very easy 3-4 miles.

Total 48-52 miles depending on if the athlete ran on Sunday or took a day off.

This is what a week for a 2nd year runner might look like

• Monday: 2 mile warm up, drills, 2 x 1 miles @ 8k pace, 1 mile cool down, core
• Tuesday; 4 miles easy + lunge matrix
• Wednesday: 1 mile warm up, 2.8 miles tempo, strides, core, stretch
• Thursday: Long 6 miles
• Friday: off or easy 3-4 miles
• Saturday: Hills with teammates 5 miles
• Sunday: off or easy 3-4 miles

Total 24-32 miles depending on if the athlete took days off or not.

2015 Progression, Boys

OK.  First time I've updated the CC blog in a long time.  I'm putting this up here so you guys can peruse it prior to our end of the school year meeting.

Here is the deal.  We have a good top 2.  2 guys should be able to get in there and be frontrunners at the section meet.  Unfortunately, about 5 other teams also have at least 2 good frontrunning types.  Christian Brothers, Bret Harte, Calaveras, Sonora, and Riverbank all will have 2 guys who could be in the top 10 at the section meet.  So, our front runners are going to be a bit neutralized.

How do we win then?

We have what only one other team has: Depth.  I believe we have AT LEAST 14 guys who could make our top 7 squad at for the championship season. I also believe that we will have the best #7 man in the section and likely the best #5 man in the section.

If we are going to win, we will win because our #3, #4, #5, men are better than everyone elses' runners at the same position. and we will win because our #6, and #7 men jump ahead of some other teams #5 and act as displacers.

Don't get me wrong point #1, Our #1 and #2 are as good as anybody else's.  They could potentially go 1-2 at the section meet. Daniel is the #2 returner from last years meet and Logan is a total wild card who could be better than everybody....or he could be in Virgina by that point.

Don't get me wrong point #2 We are not the only team that has depth. Christian Brothers, right now, looks like they will be the strongest team in the section by far.  They have good front runners and they have 4 more guys who are not that far back from their front guys.  If we are going to beat them, we need to have a great summer and continue to progress.  We can beat them. We just have to work to do it.

2015 Progression

You'll have to forgive me, but Google Docs keeps sticking in a mystery #1 above Christian Brothers in my rankings.  I assure you, there are no better teams in our division at this time.

Rock River Run

In what I hope will become an off season tradition, 6 of our athletes tested themselves against Rock River Road this past Saturday.  Rock River Road starts in the middle of nowhere at the base of the foothills and after 8.5 miles of flat and uphill running, tops out in the middle of nowhere in the lower foothills.

I plan to begin keeping all time best lists for this run.  To get on the list, you need to be able to finish the run. To be able to finish the run, you need to be doing your off season mileage.

This year the 3 who finished the run on foot were:
Tristan Edwards
Jared Williams
Wyatt Mitchell

Two more athletes,

 Dalton Santiesteban and Jaymie Jackson,  made the climb on bikes, as they are nursing knee issues.

Garrett Hartman sacrificed his chance to get on our innagural all time ascent list.  He, along with me, had to first drive to the top of the road so that the team would have a way to get back down. Garrett instead ran to the top of Rushing Mountain then returned to the truck.