Off Season Mileage Posted

For the first time in my coaching career, I plan on tracking winter mileage like I track summer mileage. 

Your first 3 weeks can be found on 2018 Winter Mileage Totals

Remember, the winter base period is just as long and just as important as summer base.  If you are serious about having a good season, you need to try and stick to the guidelines I posted earlier.  Here they are again, in case you forgot

Distance Crew Mileage Goals

Remember, if you are able to hit your training goals, it is much more likely that you will reach your racing goals. 

Mileage Progression Goals

OK, team.  Here is a general outline for the team as to how you should try and progress your mileage totals heading forward

2017-2018 Mileage Goals

A couple of things to bear in mind.

1. These goals represent your highest 3 week total for the season.  Some of you did not come close to maintaining those totals for the whole season.  You should strive to be consistently near your mileage goals, not hit them once and then fall off. 
2. You do not need to hit mileage totals exactly.  For example, lets say you are aiming for a 3 week total of 135 for an average of 45 mpw.  Your totals for weekly totals for the 3 weeks might look like this: 42, 47, 45.  
3. You should strive to hit this mileage peak a few times during the off season with easy weeks in between peaks.  Each time you reach the mileage peak, you should be able to run a little bit faster on all of your workouts.  You might be running an average of 8:00 per mile the first time you hit the mileage peak, but by the 3rd time you hit it, maybe your average pace would be down to 7:40.  

Stay focused this off season.  Run with a teammate, make a commitment.  Be excellent!

And Then There Were Two

This season has been a roller coaster.  We've had some great highs and some really low lows.  Injuries, illnesses, accidents, and other bad luck plagued us throughout the season, but we still had some great performances throughout. The 2017 Sac-Joaquin Section meet was a condensed version of the entire season with some really good performances and some really heartbreaking finishes.

Varsity Girls Race
Despite all of the obstacles this team faced during the season, I was still confident going in that even an 85% effort from some of our gimpy girls would still result in a top 2 finish and 3rd straight berth in the state championships.  This was not to be.

Jessie and Kinsey 1/2 mile in

Jessie had been nursing a hip flexor strain the entire season (unbeknownst to me until after TVL
finals).  The pain had been gradually been getting worse since her tremendous performance at the Lowell Invitational in September.  After league, Jessie had a week of almost complete rest to try and get the hip flexor ready to run on Saturday.  The muscle held up for the first mile then started hurting, then started hurting worse, then started causing the muscles around it to spasm.  Jessie gamely pressed on, but ended up finishing over 3 minutes behind where she would have finished uninjured. 

While Jessie was struggling, Kinsey was showing emerging fitness after missing much of October with pneumonia.  Kinsey went out easy at the section meet and gradually worked her way through the field to finish a very respectable 19th.  It was that performance that kept us in the hunt points wise.  Despite the time being slowish by Kinsey's standards, it was a great race for her, considering that less than 3 weeks ago she was just getting back to running for the first time since early October.

Esme's Knee Showing Evidence Of Her Fall

Kinsey's good race was offset a bit by the fact that Esme fell just after the recall point at the start of the race.  With blood coming from elbow and both knees, she had to get back up and sprint through the entire 150 runner field to try and catch back up to her teammates.  She did catch them, but the effort took out a little more energy than she should have spent early in the race.  She and her teammates ran together in the top 15 for the first mile, but when Ellie and Emily accelerated to chase the top 10, Esme was already too tired to follow.  She ran strong to hold onto 15th place and keep us in the hunt for the 2nd berth to state.

Emily and Ellie With A Mile To Go

Up front for us in the race, Emily and Ellizette were having very good races.  Emily was our early season team leader, but posterior tibial tendinitis slowed her down for the last 2 weeks of October.  The injury actually prevented her from running at TVL finals and kept her on the bike and elliptical for over 2 weeks.  Her race the week before at subs was the first hard running effort she had done since supercross on October 14th. Elizette is the only one of our top 5 who has had no illness or injury issues this year.  Her ability to stay healthy is the main reason she moved into the role of our #1 runner at TVL finals and has stayed there ever since.  Both girls ran tough determined races to finish in the top 10 and earn individual berth's to the state meet.  Both have an opportunity to finish their seasons with PR efforts in Fresno 2 weeks from now. 

Camille with 400 to go!

Jasmine 1/2 mile in

With our normal top 5 at well less than 100%, the question was, "can one of our rookies pick up the slack".  About half way into the race, Jasmine began having asthma issues that have been bothering her for about a year now.  Camille on the other hand ran a tremendous last mile, picking up over 20 places and keeping hopes alive that we could get into the chute with fewer points than El Dorado.  In the end, it just wasn't quite enough.  El Dorado's 74 points narrowly beat our 81.  

Congrats to the Cougars on a great race as well as to the Placer Hillmen.  Go down to state and get a berth back for our section!  That way 2 of you guys can go with us to state next year!

Section Championship Competitors

OK, I've done some re-shuffling of our squads for the upcoming section meet.  Please see below for which race you will be running in.

Varsity Girls
Kinsey
Jessie
Emily
Esme
Elizette
Camille

Junior Varsity Girls (top girl from this race will join varsity for state meet, if we make it).
Diana
Emely
Jasmine
Berenice
Monica
Hannah H
Daniela

Frosh Soph Girls
Kylee
Blanca
Briana
Maria
Katelyn
Anastasia
Emily O.

Off Season Training

Many of you are now done with cross for the season.  Enjoy a little time off before we ramp up for track.  Your off season should go kind of like this

1. Take 2 weeks off from running
2. When you start running again, just run easily for a week or two.
3. Once you are ready for real training again, follow this template Off season training

Great season, guys.  Enjoy some time off!

TVL Finals 2017

Photo Album

The 2017 edition of the Trans Valley League Finals produced some tough racing, 2 more league team titles and one more individual title for the Huskies of HHS.  More importantly though, we had a number of younger runners step up and have really good races.  Put together with the current varsity runners, the newbies stepping up and running well paints a picture of continued success in the TVL.

JV Girls Race

Sullivan with about 600m to go

Kylee Sullivan led the Huskies to their second straight JV girls league title.  Kylee has been slowed by nagging calf issues on and off this season, but her 3rd place finish in a season best time led a parade of Huskies that saw all but one runner record either a season best time or personal record time for 2 miles.  The average improvement per girl was well over 30 seconds from the TVL mid season meet only 4 weeks prior.  This shows that our girls were able to really step up their performance and race hard.  

We had, in fact, moved 3 girls from the JV division into the varsity race to back fill for injured or ill varsity runners.  Our depth at the JV level, which is a direct result of the fact that we have a lot of girls out who are all working really hard, allowed us to easily out distance the 2nd place Ripon team.  

Briana Campos: 14:34 (PR)

Blanca Madrigal 15:00 (PR)

Sonia Juarez 15:30 (PR)

Anastasia Earnest 15:31 (PR)

Katelyn Gonzales 15:31 (PR)

Maria Yup 15:31 (PR)

JV pack heading for home.

Brussow and Cerillos

JV Boys Race

This group was led by Silvano Mora, as they have been all season.  At TVL finals, however the JV athletes were able to significantly close the gap to our #1 man.  Mora placed 6th in a time of 11:58 (a one second improvement over his time from TVL 2). He was followed by Jose Cerillos in 12:44 (45 second improvement), Colton Calbreath in 12:54 (30 second improvement), David Brussow in 12:59 (23 second improvement), and Zack Centeno in 13:05.  

This group had been finishing last in the TVL competitions leading up to the championships, but their improvement vaulted them up into 3rd place, only a few points out of second.  This is called stepping up at the right time of the season.  I'm proud of these boys for running with heart and courage!

Varsity Girls Race

Jasmine Barrita, Berenice Arguello, Diana Brown, Camille Haupt, Elizette Ysias, Jessie Lawrence, Esme Campos
Trans Valley League Champions!

I don't know if winning a 3rd straight league championship can ever be a bit of a let down, but this day felt very flat for the VG squad.  We were missing team leaders Emily Fife and Kinsey Langely (injury and illness) and knew we'd have to run hard to beat a solid Ripon team.  As it turns out, Ripon was mentally beaten before even taking the starting line after their #1 girl had to pull out of the meet as well.  Up front, the race seemed to be nothing more than a tempo run, with girls slowly dropping out of the lead pack.  3 of our normal top 5 (Elizette Ysias, Esmeralda Campos, and Jessie Lawrence were able to place 1st, 4th, and 6th overall to bring in enough single digit placings to put us on track for the crown.  It was up to Rookie Camille Haupt and veteran Diana Brown to close out the scoring for us.  Haupt was 11th and Brown 14th in a solid PR time of 23:27.  These two newbies to the varsity squad provided the scoring advantage over Ripon.  When the scores were added up, we had a comfortable 36-49 margin. 

Varsity Boys Race

Hoach and Ramos, early on.

This race provided the most exciting battle for an individual title that I've ever seen in the TVL!  Athletes from 5 of the 6 teams in league all had a shot at the individual win and there were 11 guys in contention for the win with 600 still to go.  Austin Hoach and Miguel Ramos took full advantage of the fitness they've been building all season to each battle for the individual win.  Both made strong moves during the second mile to try and break away from the field.  On this day, nobody was strong enough to break away until the very end of the race, where Ramon Rosas of Riverbank eeked out a narrow win in 17:38 for the longer than 5k legion park course.  Miguel was 3rd, only 2 seconds back and Austin placed 5th, only 4 seconds behind the winner. 

Unfortunately for us, the rest of our squad did not bring their best efforts and any hopes we had of pulling off a massive upset in the team battle died in the first mile.  

Courage and the Long Distance Runner, By John Parker

IN DISTANCE RUNNING, COURAGE ISN'T MERELY A HELPFUL TRAIT OR A HARBINGER FOR SUCCESS; IT IS THE PRICE OF ADMISSION.

So, I've spoken many times about how it doesn't matter if you come into this sport as a kid who is already fast or a little chubby kid who can barely run a lap.  What is important is that you work hard and always strive for progress.  

I think some of us have heard the "It doesn't matter if you start out as a fast kid or slow kid" and ignored the "What is important is that you always strive for progress" part.  We have had some really great efforts this season, but we've also had kids who are content to be bad at this sport.  That contentment showed in some of your racing on Saturday.

Because of this, I am assigning homework for the first time ever in my history of coaching cross country at HHS.  If you ran in the frosh soph boys race on saturday, you need to read this essay

Courage and the Long Distance Runner

then submit a brief one page summary to the google classroom.

Failure to do so will result in the loss of one letter grade in your Sports P.E. grade. 

Less than a week until supercross

Hulk Maddy!

OK folks.....Supercross is 5 days away.  I'm still a little short on helpers.  I have a few crucial positions that still need to be filled.  If you can help, please contact me via the remind app.

Here is the list of jobs with the people who have already volunteered and an estimate of how many people we need for each post.

Supercross Jobs List

Upcoming week will be a little different.

OK, team, we'll be splitting the squad this week.  Most of the team will go to the Escalon Invitational at Woodward Reservior.  We will aim for a bus departure of around 2:00 for the meet.  Here is the schedule

3:30 Freshman Girls
3:50 Freshman Boys
4:10 Sophomore Girls
4:30 Sophomore Boys
4:50 Varsity Girls
5:20 Varsity Boys
5:50 JV boys and JV girls combined.

We will likely be back to school at around 7:30.  The plan on the girls side is to take our top JV/Frosh soph runners and make a Varsity Team.  Let's see if we can medal still!!!! I think we can.

The Varsity Girls team will race at the prestigious Clovis Invitational. There they will face some of the top small school teams in the state in what is widely accepted as the State Meet Preview.  A number of top 10 ranked teams are in the race with us as well as a number of teams that are looking to bust into the top 10 rankings.  Varsity girls will depart school on Friday at around 2:30.  Here is a brief itinerary.

The 2015 team before a surprise 5th place finish.
This was the start of our Girls' run of excellence.

Friday Morning - Drop off bags at my classroom.
2:30 - Depart for Clovis
4:00 - Arrive at Woodward Park.
4:15 - Jog course, drills, strides, stretch.
5:15 - Check out vendors
6:00 - Check into Hotel and shower
6:45 - Dinner
8:00 - Return to Hotel, relax, homework, etc...
9:30 - Lights out

Saturday
5:30 - Rise and Shine, very light breakfast
6:15 - Depart for Course
6:30 - Arrive, Woodward Park, Team Area near Valley View picnic area.
7:40 - Small School girls race.
9:00 - Depart Woodward Park.
9:15 - Breakfast
11:30 - Arrive HHS front parking lot.

Frogtown Invitational

With the Varsity Girls team getting the weekend off, it was time for some of our newer runners to shine at the Frogtown Invitational at Angels Camp California.

2 very notable results happened on this day.

1. The frosh-soph girls team, despite resting a number of runners, placed 2nd, earning medals at this meet with dozens of other schools.
2. The varsity boys team, made almost entirely of first or second year runners, placed 8th in a field of 23.

Frosh Soph Girls Race

L-R Jasmine Barrita, Briana Campos, Emely Herrera, Blanca Madrigal, Gaby Lopez run as a pack early in the race

One thing that we always try to teach at Hughson is the power of pack running.  Knowing you've got a teammate at your side that can help push you when things get tough is a huge help.  Knowing that teammate next to you is counting on you to keep going as fast as you can is crucial.  Team running is one of the keys to our success at HHS.

Second Place Medalists!

Our FS girls started to figure this concept out on Saturday.   Because the frogtown course is full of potholes and steep downhills where kids are always getting injured (Emily F fractured her fibula here last year), we decided to sit out a number of girls from the FS squad.  Despite the fact that we were not at full strength, Emely Herrera led teammates Jasmine Barrita, Blanca Madrigal, Brianna Campos, and Gaby Lopez to a second place finish overall.

Varsity Boys Race

Austin Hoach and Miguel Ramos both medaled

In our league opener, our Varsity Boys team placed 5th out of 6 teams.  No HHS team has finished that far back in a league race since 1999. We knew we were better than this result and we knew that steady, hard work would pay off.  On Saturday, our boys started to see a little bit of the results that we know will come by the end of the season.

After being beaten fairly handily on September 6th by league rivals Escalon, Ripon and Hilmar, our boys were ready to take another crack at these foes.  4 TVL teams were among the 23 small school teams competing on this day.

Our boys were again led by juniors Austin Hoach and Miguel Ramos. Hoach and Ramos ran a controlled race that 23rd and 24th in a field of 191 athletes to earn medals.  Hoach and Ramos have been our top dogs all season.  The difference for us this time was that new runners David Magallanes, Trace Huber and Murphy Phillips began to close the gap and run closer to Hoach and Ramos.  This improvement from runners 3,4, and 5 allowed us to get a little revenge on Hilmar and Ripon.  On this day, we beat those two TVL opponents.  Escalon placed 5th in the race and is looking like the strongest boys team in the TVL this year, but we have a few cards yet to play that should allow us to compete well with them by the end of the year..... Stay Tuned!

Frogtown Photos

Lowell Invitational

Sorry for the long delay in updates on the team.  We've had a very busy couple of weeks with 5 meets, a pasta feed, and homecoming in a span of 15 days.  Time to catch up a bit.

The Lowell Invitational is always a high point on our early season racing schedule.  The team loves getting to go to beautiful Golden Gate Park and run in cool overcast weather, after baking all summer in 100+ degree temperatures.  They usually respond with some of their fastest racing of the season.  This was no different.

This year, we were able to showcase our varsity girls squad in front of a meet that included over 70 schools from all over the state of California.  The Lowell meet is a little unsusual in that teams are not split into small school and large school divisions.  We get assigned to races pretty much by a random draw.  As it happened this year, we were put into a pretty tough race.  The field included:

• Henry M. Gunn High School, a large school from Palo Alto that placed 2nd in last year's Central Coast Section Division 2 finals.  Gunn is coached by former 2 time Olympic Team member, Patti Sue Plummer
• Mountain View High, who placed 3rd in last year's Central Coast Section Division 2 race
• Los Alamitos High, a school of 3500 who last year qualified for the Southern Section Cross Country Championship and is likely a top 50 team in the state, when accounting for all divisions.
• Las Lomas High, a perennial power from the North Coast Section.  They were 3rd in last year's division 3 race.
• Sierra from Manteca, who is usually in the top 3-4 of the Sac Joaquin Section division 3 field.
• Christian Brothers of Sacramento, who we have battled many times in the Sac Joaquin Section Division 4 field
• Hughson, the defending Sac Joaquin Section Division 4 champions.

Varsity Girls Squad after very impressive 3rd place finish among large and small schools from all over the state.

As the gun sounded, Alize Hartzke of Oakmont HS bolted to the front with Megan Oblin of Sierra and Amanda Munoz of Los Alamitos.  Our girls took a conservative approach, this being their 3rd race in 8 days.  As the teams approached the mile mark, Hartzke and Oblin continued to lead, running the first mile in about 5:35.  Our girls came through the mile mark in a controlled time of 6:10, sitting back in the low -mid 30s place wise.  Our plant was to move up during the 2nd and 3rd mile of the race.  We accomplished the plan

During the later portion of the race, Hughson athletes were continually moving forward, led by Esmeralda Campos, Elizette Ysias, and Emily Fife. By the end of the race, Fife, Ysias, and Campos had moved to 17th, 18th, and 22nd respectively in the tough field of 171 athletes.  They were followed across the line by Kinsey Langley and Jessie Lawrence in 39th and 40th to round out our scoring 5.  The only question was, where did we place.  The field was so evenly matched, that no clear winner could be picked until the scores had been counted.

As it turns out, we ended up 3rd..... a very respectable placing.  The final scores were

1. Los Alamitos - 89
2. Mountain View - 106
3. Hughson - 110
4. Las Lomas - 112
5. Gunn - 160...

Section rivals Sierra and Christian Brothers finished 9th and 12th in the very competitive field.

The second best part of the day was what has become our traditional post race beach trip.  The kids enjoyed a picnic and games on the beach before boarding the bus to head back home.

Photo Album I will be adding to this over time as I round up pictures from the meet

Hughson Results and Splits

TVL Opener

A very good day on the Girls' side and mixed signals on the Boys' side.  Sorry for the late post, but it's been an extremely busy week.

Varsity and JV Girls

Fife and Ysias with 1k to go.

Emily Fife and Elizette Ysias led a 1-2 Hughson finish in the Varsity Girls race that saw us finish with 24 points.  Large improvements from Esmeralda Campos, Kinsey Langley, and Jessie Lawrence helped our team run a team time 3:05 faster than at this same meet last year.  That equals 37 seconds faster per runner.  Granted the weather was a little better this year and there was less smoke in the air, but it is realistic to say that we are maybe 20 seconds better per girl in our top 5 this year than we were last year.  If we can carry that difference through the end of the season, we will be very competitive in November.

In the JV race, Camille Haupt easily broke away from her competitor from Ripon with about 1200m to go to win by a large margin.  This year's group put 6 girls ahead of where our #1 girl was last year at this point. Jasmine Barrita, Berenice Arguello, Sonia Juarez, Angela Villasana, and Emely Herrera were all faster than the 15:59 put up in the 2016 season opener by Jasmine.  This group is working well together in practice and will provide firpower for the Huskies for years to come.

Joseph Powers on his way to winning the JV race.

JV and Varsity Boys
While the boys races saw good individual results up front for the Huskies (JP handily won the JV race and Miguel was 3rd in the Varsity race), good performances by the other teams in the league exposed our lack of depth.

We have a number of inexperienced boys who do not yet know how to get the most out of their bodies over a 2 mile or 5k race.  This is something we will work constantly to address over the coming months.

Our boys have some ability, but they need to gel and come together as a TEAM in order to truly get the best out of themselves.

Photo Album
Hughson Results and Splits

Lowell / San Francisco Invitational

Hi Team:

Many apologies for getting this information out kind of late.  There have been a number of questions about our trip to San Francisco this Saturday.  This meet is one of the highlights of the year for our kids.  It's always great to get out of the hot, dusty valley and run in the cool foggy city.  Here is a brief itinerary for the day.

• 5:00 AM Arrive HHS back parking lot.
• 5:15 AM Depart HHS
• 7:45 ish Arrive Golden Gate Park, Hellman Hollow (we will set up on the south side of the meadow).  It is very easy to park along Overlook Drive, if you are planning to attend the meet.
• 9:00 First Race Complete Meet Schedule
• 3:15 ish Depart GGP
• 3:30 Arrive at Ocean Beach
• 3:30 - 4:30 ish Picnic and Frisbee at Ocean Beach
• 4:45 ish Depart Ocean Beach
• 7:15 ish Arrive HHS back parking lot.

Varsity Boys bolting from the 2015 starting line.

This is a long day.  The kids should prepare for any weather.  Extra socks are a must after a day of walking around on dewey grass. Tarps are great to lay down on the wet grass, blankets that can get dirty are also a plus.

Currently, we have one of the better small school girls programs in the state, it will be fun to see how we match up to the bigger schools from the bay area.  

On the boys side, Bellarmine High of San Jose will be in attendance.  It will be good for our kids to see what a program that annually ranks in the state or national rankings looks like.

We will be feeding the kids at the meet and at the beach.  This is one of the benefits of having large, successful fundraisers.

Reno Twilight Invitational

The 2017 racing season is underway.  A select group of varsity athletes traveled over the Sierras to Reno to open their seasons at the Reno Twilight Invitational.  The goal of the trip was to run a hard effort, have some fun, and bond as a team.  Mission Accomplisehd.

Girls Race

They're Off!

At 7:53 PM, the gun sounded to start the Small School Varsity Girls' race.  This meet is usually pretty small for the small schools, so we felt we could just run a hard tempo effort for the meet.  South Tahoe kind of upset our plans by bolting to the front and pushing the pace.  At the 1k marker, there weren't many Huskies to be seen near the front of the race.

By the second Kilometer, we had begun to come to the front.  Kinsey Langley made a strong move on the second loop of the course to catch early race leader Carissa Buchholz of South Tahoe.  Kinsey had been in a car accident 13 days previously and had missed 9 days of training as a result.  For her to be pushing the pace and moving to the lead after her last 2 weeks was a bold move and reminded me of the old Kinsey that just went out and ran fearlessly.  

The Award Podium

During the second half of the race, Emily Fife moved to the front to join Kinsey and Bucholz.  By the 3rd K marker, Kinsey had begun to struggle a bit, but Emily was running shoulder to shoulder with her altitude trained competitor.  Over the last 400m, Bucholz put in a little surge to open a gap on Emily that Emily in turn began to close on the final straightaway.  In the end, it was Bucholz of South Tahoe who took the race win with Emily placing second in 16:28.  That time is significant for Emily because it was 8 seconds faster than Abbi Mitchell (now running for St. Mary's College) ran to win this race last year. Abbi went on to run 19:11 by state last year, so for Emily to be ahead of her pace at this point is a good sign for us.

The rest of the Huskies ran solidly.  Elizette Ysias, Kinsey Langly, and Esmeralda Campos placed 4th 5th and 6th respectively.  Camille Haupt, running in her first race ever, placed 17th to round out our scoring 5 and seal the win over South Tahoe 31-39.  Running in their first varsity races ever, Monica Yup and Jasmine Barrita placed 22nd and  23rd respectively.

Boys Race

The Boys Relaxing Before the Race

We only took 2 boys to Reno this year.  Our boys are in a rebuilding mode right now and I didn't feel that we had a full team that was ready to travel.  Fortunately, we have a team dominated by juniors and underclassmen, so we should see big time growth from these kids during the rest of this season and into the future.

Austin Hoach and Miguel Ramos were the two Huskies to toe the line in Reno.  Both boys followed a conservative race plan, just like the girls.  After 1 kilometer, the boys were barely inside the top 20.  However, by the second K mark, they had moved into 11th and 12th.  When I saw them again at 3k, they had moved into 8th and 9th, positions they would hold until the finish.  

Austin's time of 14:59 would have put him as the #2 man from last year's TVL championship squad and Miguel's time of 15:12 would have put him as our 3rd man in the same race.  These two boys will form the nucleus and base of success for whatever we are able to do for the rest of the season.  The chalenge for our boys will be for some of our newer, inexperienced athletes to be able to close the gap on our two frontrunners.  I believe we have some candidates to be able to get that done and that we are looking for some solid results by the end of October.

The trip ended with a 7.1 mile training run around Donner Lake in Truckee the following morning. All in all, we had a very productive trip

Photo Album

Times and Splits

Reno Trip Checklist/Packing List

Hi Team.  Trip is one day away.  Be sure to be at my classroom by 7:45 to load up.

Team Trip to Tahoe, Summer 2017

I had some questions about what to pack.

For the meet

• Warm Up / Cool Down Clothes.  Should be team t-shirt and shorts
• Race Gear - All of the uniform stuff I issued, although I doubt you'll need the sweats
• Any kind of foam roller or massager stick you might have.
• Running shoes and racing flats.  
• Workout gear for Saturday Morning.

For the rest of the trip

• Money for lunches on the way up and way back
• Breakfast is complimentary at the hotel
• We may eat dinner at the course (just buy groceries to make sandwiches, etc with) or may go out to dinner after meet.  We'll discuss that today 
• Swimsuit
• Clothes to walk around town and travel home in.

Reno Twilight Invitational

Hi team.  We're getting ready to take some of our top dogs to Reno for the Natures Bakery Reno Twilight Invitational.  This is a great opportunity for athletes who have already proven a degree of fitness to go and show it off against schools from another state.  Here is a brief itinerary.

Fri, 9/1

• 7:45 - meet at school and load vans
• 8:00 - Depart HHS (staff parking lot)
• 12:00 - Lunch in Reno
• 12:45 - Walk course at Shadow Mountain Park
• 3:00 - Check in to Quality Inn and Suites
• 3:00-5:30 - Rest and do homework.
• 5:45 - Depart for Course
• 7:48 PM Girls Varsity Race
• 8:15 PM Boys Varsity Race
• 9:00 Awards (hopefully)
• 9:15 Dinner in Sparks, NV
• 10:00 Return to Hotel.  Swim or go to Carnival Midway at Circus Circus.
• 12:00 Bed Time

Sat, 9/2

• 7:30 AM Wake Up
• 8:00 AM 30 - 60 minute run on Truckee River Trail
• 9:00 Post run breakfast.
• 9:45 Shower, pack
• 10:30 Depart Reno
• 12:00 Lunch in Sacramento
• 2:30 Arrive HHS Staff Parking Lot.

Team Gear Sign UP

OK.  I'm going to try something new here.  I'm posting this Online Sign Up Sheet.  Please use this to sign up for team spirit wear orders.

This is the cool custom design for the back of the shirt

Indicate the size of the items you would like.  Spirit pack orders are on page 1.  If you would like an individual t-shirt, those orders are on page 2.

If you are ordering multiple items for a family:

1. Find your athlete's name
2. Put the number items you would like in the column for the appropriate size. 
3. Example: Bernard: Large 1, Medium 1, Small 2

Hughson Girls All Over StanCo Pre-Season All County List

Well, the cross country season is almost upon us.  Screamin' Scott has recognized 4 of our girls as selections to the Pre-Season All County Team.  Whil this recognition is nice.....it's based off of what we've done in the past.  Girls, we have a choice.  We can live up to the rankings, we can fall short of the rankings, or we can smash through the rankings!  Who wants to be the best team in Stanislaus County when we can be one of the best in California?  Let's GO!

Boys....We've got some work to do.  This is the first season in a long time when we have no runners on the Pre-Season Boys All County Team. Based on how Chistian and Austin ran last year, this may seem a little unfair, however pre-season rankings are based almost as much on how athletes competed in track as they are based on athletes performance the previous season.

End of Summer Beach Trip

All right, Team!  We've had a great summer of training and now its time for one last hurrah before we take a little break going into school.

Friday, July 28th.

We will meet at school at the normal 7:00am practice time, but we will load up in vehicles and head over to the forest of Nisene Marks state park in Aptos for an awesome run in the redwoods.

Most of us will be running on either the Aptos Creek Fire Road or the Loma Prieta Grade trail

After the run, we'll head to Seacliff State Park Beach for a BBQ and swim.  The plan is to leave to come home at around 2:00 PM and be home by 4:30ish.



If you want to go, you need to do the following.

1. Let me know, ASAP
2. Come to the practice on Monday and pick up a field trip permission slip, fill it out and return it on Friday.
3. Bring me $5 to cover the cost of food and park entry fees for the vehicles)
4. Come dressed in your running clothes.  Bring swimming stuff (or swim in your running stuff) and a change of clothes for the ride home.

We have space for at least 13 right now.  We may get a few more parent volunteer drivers.  If you want to go, let me know ASAP.  If you are a parent and would like to volunteer to drive, also let me know ASAP

Happy Running

CoachB

Congrats to Hannah Anderson and other summer stuff

Last year at this time, Hannah could barely run a lap around the track.  Earlier this week, she did the 4.1 mile run shown above.  This is great progress and Hannah should be proud of herself.  Keep up the great work.

We are into the meat and potatoes part of our summer.  July is a really important month.  When school starts in August, the training will actually get a little easier for a while while our bodies get used to running in the heat. So, these last 2 weeks of July really require us to focus on doing the little things right.

Speaking of doing things right....My son had some friends over last night and they asked me to stay up to play Risk with them.  I figured I wouldn't be able to sleep with them shouting and making noise, so I stayed up until 1:00 in order to beat every last one of them.

My point isn't that I beat my son's friends in a board game, my point is that I ended up sleeping much later than I otherwise would have and felt crappy when I finally got out of bed.  As a result, by the time it was time to work out, I had to drop my run in favor of an easy bike ride when the temperature was already up to 95 degrees.  So, as a result of my staying up too late last night, I missed a good day of running today

This is the hottest summer I can remember in a while.  Make sure you make getting to bed a priority, so that you can get up and do your running before the temperatures get ridiculous.

Camp 2017

The team after a 60 minute run at Echo Lakes

Camp was pretty great this year.  As you can see from the photos, it was pretty girl heavy for 2017.  We have some work to do to get our boys team back to the level it has been for so long.  We have the talent for that, we just need to get that talent all working together.

For the ladies that were there, it was a great opportunity to come together and figure out who they are as a team.  Who they are is a team that is going to be pretty darn good.

Here is the link to a Shared Photo Album I believe I have the settings so that you guys can add your own photos from camp to make the album even better.  You will need to use your google accounts to add photos.

Watch out for yourselves and your teammates

Allright team. It's always a good idea to run with a teammate for training purposes, but this text gives even more reason to run with someone else.

The vehicle was a blue mini-van

Camp Travel Roster

It is never an easy decision to leave people off of rosters for meets or camps.  If I could, I'd take everyone to camp who wants to go.  However, there are only 14 seats in the vans.  We may be able to take a few more, if Dalton is able to drive up at the beginning of camp, but that is not a certainty.

Before I post the list, a quick note.  I was hiking for the last 11 days.  During the time I had cell reception, I went through the texts of people that said they wanted to go, and made up the initial list.  I had it on a piece of paper, which during the many packings and unpackings as we traveled, seems to have disappeared.  I went  back through the text messages and put the list back together, but I may have left some people off entirely who want and deserve to go.

As it stands, 18 people want to fill the 14 slots at camp.  The 4 who are on the alternates list are there because either:

1. Lack of running so far this summer, therefore camp would be an injury risk
2. Wisdom teeth coming out 3 days prior
3. Lack of getting back to me when I asked follow up questions.

If you texted me initially that you wanted to go, but don't see your name on the list, please get back to me ASAP so that I can make the appropriate changes.

Here is the List

How to WIN races

California State Track Championships were last night.  It was a fantastic meet, as always.  The 2 3200m races were won in entirely different fashions, but each strategy worked for the kid who employed it.

Strategy #1 - Hang around until late in the race then kick like hell Boys 3200 winner, Callum Bolger of San Luis Obispo  8:53 with a last lap of 55 seconds!

Strategy #2 - Go from the gun and run the legs off of the rest of the field.  When you have two runners that are almost equal in superior talent and training and both trying the same strategy, the result could be a National 2 Mile Record

Both strategies require you to be fit and confident in your abilities.  I don't care how fast you are, sprint wise, you won't close in 55 in a fast race if you aren't super fit.

I don't care how fit you are, but you won't run away from a quality field unless you are confident.

Fitness and confidence come from thousands and thousands of training miles, tempo runs, intervals, and core.  Let's get fit and do great this year.

California State Track and Field Championships

Most of you also compete in the sport of Track and Field.  Take this opportunity to watch the California State Championships online tonight and tomorrow night.

The best high school track meet in the United States

Trials start today
Finals are tomorrow.

Happy running, everyone!

Camp

Camp is really early this year.  Please go to our Camp Page to read up on the week.

I need names of athletes who want to attend camp.  Ideally, we will take our top 7 boys and top 7 girls.  However it never works out that way due to family travel and tons of other things that life throws at us.  Please send me a text if you want to go to camp.

Over the next few days, I will be posting a list of the order that I will select people for camp.  Here are the criteria.

1. Returning varsity runner
2. Returning runner who could contribute at the varsity level
3. Returning runner
4. New runner who could contribute at the varsity level
5. New runner
6. Dedication displayed (by showing up at practice and running/submitting mileage)*
7. Maturity*
8. Physical and LOH paperwork**

* #6 and #7 can cause someone who has high priority to be dropped down the list and someone who has low priority to be moved up the list.  For instance, a returning varsity runner who is not showing up to summer practices and not submitting mileage will get bumped down the list in favor of previous JV or Frosh Soph runners who are doing what it takes during the summer to be good in the fall.  Lack of maturity is not a huge problem for our team, but there are sometimes incidents where athletes demonstrate that I should doubt their honesty, integrity, ability to make good decisions, or ability to stay academically elligible. 

**I will not take anyone who has not turned in a sports physical or LOH code of conduct agreement.

Sports physicals can be had at Bruce Lutes Chriopractic in Ceres. 538 4500.

Heading Into Summer

OK, Team.  It's time to get the blog up and running again.  The purpose of this blog is to help get information out to Hughson Cross Country athletes during the summer, no matter where in the world you are traveling.  The first post for the summer will cover the general theme of what we are trying to accomplish.

Fitness
We are trying to get fit.  Fitness for cross country is different than fitness for any other sport at the California high school level.  No other sport requires you to put out your highest effort level for a period of around 20 minutes without any breaks, so, our training will need to look different than any other sport's.

Training Types
There are a number of different workout types that we do throughout the summer and the season to prepare you to run the most important races in October and November.  I'm going to give you a oversimplified breakdown.

1. Endurance - the ability to work without getting tired.  We accomplish this mostly through longer, easy runs.  These runs can be up to 90 minutes or 14 miles in length for our most experienced athletes.
2. Lactate Threshold - the ability to work at a high rate without getting tired.  This might be the most important type of training we do.  It breaks down like this.  If you can run at 6:00 per mile without becoming fatigued and your opponent can run at only 6:15 per mile without becoming fatigued, when you both take off at 5:30 pace for the first 2 miles, who will have more gas left for the last mile? You will.  You increase lactate threshold by running at a pace that feels fast but is still comfortable. We call this pace "Steady State"
3. Biomechanical Efficiency - The ability to go fast while only using a little energy. We address this through various drills, strengthening exercises and short fast repetitions.
4. General Athleticism. The ability to have strength and move in multiple directions.  This is important on difficult courses or when you are getting bumped around at the start.  We will play different games and do a number of different types of strength training exercises to address this factor.

Training Intensity

During the summer, intensity should be fairly low.  You should never finish a workout feeling completely exhausted.  There will be plenty of time for that in the fall.  Most of your running should be done at a pace where you can carry on a conversation with a teammate or running partner.

Training Volume

Volume should be fairly high.  During the summer, you are trying to build a large base of low intensity fitness that you can later add more intensity to. 

1. New runners should aim to run at least 4 days per week
2. Veteran runners should run at least 6 days per week but can do up to 11 training sessions per week. This means that veteran runners can run doubles up to 4 times in a week.  DO NOT double on days we do long runs.