I kind of didn't want to do this.

 One of the beauties of being a distance runner is learning exactly what your body can and can't handle while at the same time applying the principles that we know will make you faster.  YOUR ability to figure this stuff on your own will make you not only a better runner, but a more responsible, foreward thinking human being in general.  I mean, if you have to sit down and map out a course of action to make yourself successful in running, you kind of have the idea of how to sit down and map out a course of action that will make you successful in school, jobs, etc....

That being said........many of you have NOT YET mapped out a course of action for this off season.  It's always a little puzzling to me that so many athletes who are all in for summer training when the weather is hot and gross, don't go all in for winter training where the weather is cool and conducive to going out and putting in big miles.  

Whatever the reason, if you want to have a good season, you need to get the miles in.  So, if you're having trouble deciding how much you need to run, you need to look no further than this template. I've mostly built this template with 2 principles

1. How much did you run during cross?
2. How much do you need to run in order to build to where I think you can ultimately end up.

What you'll see is that most of you hit 3-6 weeks of mileage that I think you should be able to hit 14 weeks of this summer.  So, if you're more cross country minded, think of this winter as the bridge to get you where you want to be next summer.

Oh, and by the way, you'll set huge PRs and help the team this spring as a result. 

Gettin' Back To It - The Right Way!

 Hey guys.  I was talking with Shane earlier in the week and he's off to a really good start in his build up for track.  Big shout out to him.  Remember the principals

1. Build to your previous peak mileage +5 per week (maybe plus 10 for some of you guys that were lower mileage during cross).
2. Sprint, full gas, once per week.  Keep them short.  No more than 8-10 seconds.  Full recovery.  Have a good warm up first
3. One "hard" run a week of whatever you feel like.  Could be tempo, could be fartlek, could be threshold intervals, could be progression.  Have fun with it.  
4. If you're feeling good, throw in a long run

State Meet Itenerary.

 OK team: It's finally here!

Our 27 week 2024 journey is about to come to an end.  Let's end it in style!

Please view the state meet itenerary attached here.

For parents and fans making the trip, we will set up our team area in or near to the Valley View Picnic Shelter. It is closer to where most of you will end up parking arriving for our races later in the day.  

Boys Race at 11:00

Sophie Races at 12:30. 

For those of you planning to make the trip, here is the meet website. Admission will be charged as you enter the park. 

Team Awards Night

 Hey Team!  6:00 PM, Wednesday, 11/20 in Reeder Hall

I'm typing this as I'm eating my breakfast getting ready for the section meet.  I know it seems soon, and that we'll likely have athletes still competing, but we're going to do our awards night next Wednesday in Reeder Hall because Thanksgiving break is the following week and after that, many of us will be going full speed in winter sports. 

Our tradition is to do a pot luck dinner along with our awards night AND to return uniforms, for athletes that have finished their seasons.  So, please come to the awards night with your cleaned, complete uniform and the following Food Item (Enough to feed 4-6 people)

Freshmen: Main Dish

Sophomores: Side Dish, Salad of some sort

Juniors: Desserts

Seniors: Drinks (a gallon or 2 two liters). 

Great season so far.....but we're not done yet!  Let's get on the bus and punch our tickets to STATE!

Supercross Sign Ups

It's that time of year again!

Our 18th Annual Hughson supercross is just over 2 weeks away.  Once again, the meet should be large, loud and fun.  We currently have 44 high schools, 4 middle schools, and 3 clubs signed up.  Putting on an event of this size takes a lot of help.

This is where I reach out to you one more time this year. 😇

I'm including a link to SIGN UP GENIUS  that I created for the meet.  If you have questions about what the different jobs entail, please reach out via the remind or email me at jbernard@hughsonschools.org.

To get you psyched, here's a video I had made a few years ago. 

It's The Little Things

When all of your competitors are training hard already and everyone is already eating the right food, what can you do to set yourself apart and gain an advantage?

Last week, on our trip to Woodbridge, our kids got a very good idea of what elite teams look like.  On the way home, the boys van had a discussion about what easy changes they can make in their daily lives in order to have the best chance of reaching their full potential this season.  I encouraged them to agree on 3 changes they could make that were: 1. pain free and 2. effective.  Here's what the boys came up with.

1. Get a minimum of 8-9 hours of sleep per night. Surprisingly, of all the ideas we talked about in the van, this is the one that got the most resistence, however, of all the ideas we talked about, this is the one that is most likely to allow us to jump to the next level.  Your body recovers and gets stronger when you're sleeping.  If you don't sleep enough, you don't recover enough.  If you don't recover enough, you can't train hard enough to actually be the best you can be.  Students think it's tough to sleep that much, but they don't realize how much time they waste, especially on games and social media.  My son was top 10 in a graduating class of over 500 students, he was the captain of the water polo team, he was the leading scorer in the CCAL his senior year, and he won multiple CCAL swim titles.  He had a girlfriend and a rich social life and he slept at least 9 hours a night.  If Sean could time manage well enough to do that, so can our kids.
2. Take a multivitamin every morning with breakfast.  Many of our kids already eat well, but not everyone does.  Nor does every kid have control over what foods get served at home.  Our athletes felt like it was a good idea to make sure that they were going to get enough vitamins and minerals, and taking a vitamin is a pretty easy way to do it.  It is important that these multi vitamins contain iron.  One nasty little fact about our sport is that runners tend to get iron deficient more than other athletes.  Our red blood cells tend to get crushed as they pass through the blood vessels of our feet as we pound out all of the miles we do.  Making sure we have enough iron to keep our Red Blood Cell level up is very important.....and easy to do. 
3. Rope Stretch and Foam Roll after every run.  This easy step will allow our kids to begin their recovery sooner and recover better.  

There's one last thing!

This week is going to be very hot.  It's disappointing!  I'm ready for our kids to have a break and be able to increase their training.  The heat this week is going to prevent that, to some extent.  So, For groups 1, 2, and 3, I'm suggesting short morning workouts on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  We'll talk more about this at practice, but in short, due to the heat, I'm keeping our afternoon workouts pretty limited this week.  The kids that need more mileage will need to get it in the mornings.  

Woodbridge - Depart Thursday

 Hey Team.  Quick Update and Ideas to Pack

We're going to run from school before loading the vans on Thursday.  I'll have breakfast type foods for you guys to eat before we get in the van.  If you need to shower, I can make the locker rooms available.  We'll meet at 7:00 AM, run, eat, pack, and GO.  You'll want some sort of healthy snack to eat on the way down.  

2018 Team on the way to Woodbridge

We WON'T be stopping for lunch at a restaurant on the way down.  We've got a ton of bread and sandwich meat left over from Friday in my freezer at home.  We'll pull off at a rest stop and make our own lunch and save some cash.  

Items that you should bring.

• Racing uniform - Duh
• Running shoes, racing shoes, socks.
• Hughson gear - t shirts and what not.  Gotta show off who we are, ya know.  
• A couple pairs of running shorts and shirts.  We'll be doing a couple of training runs while we're down there. 
• Cash for a big breakfast on race morning and for a meal stop on the way home (we'll feed you the rest of the time.
• Toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, etc....
• Bring a towel to be safe.  There might not be enough at the houses.  

The houses I rented have almost enough beds for everyone.  One or two of you may need to bring a sleeping bag (Freshmen and sophomores)

If you have any other questions, double check the inventory I sent out to your school emails last week.