Great Saturday Run and Mileage Update

The Saturday Morning Dawn Patrol was at it again today.  Cool temps allowed the Hughson runners to push the distance and pace of their long run into a new zone entirely.  For instance, Jacob Aldava ran our 11 mile loop 14 minutes faster than he did last week. 

Stud improvement of the day goes to Tony Cardinale, who could barely make 4 miles 2 weeks ago but ran 7 pretty smoothly today.

Week 12 Miles for the Summer Program are up on the Team Mileage Page
It has been a while since I was able to update mileage totals.  My summer runners were pretty bad about getting their miles in to me after camp.  Big mental let down after returning from the mountains.  I have rounded up those totals and added in the totals from the first 2 weeks of practice.  Week 12 is posted one whole day before the end of Week 13!  Yay!

The mileage totals look pretty good, much better than in previous years.  We will be giving out a fair number of mileage club shirts this year.  However, if we are to reach our potential as a team, we will need 7-10 runners hitting the 500 mile club level instead of the 3 that will make it this year and we will need another 10-12 hitting the 300 mile mark.

Our program is building in the right direction and we have done more than usual to make this a good season.  Let's go out and start racing hard now.

Scrimmage vs. Oakdale and Escalon

Hot temperatures strong winds, and a tough course awaited the Husky Harriers for today's opening scrimmage @ Woodward Reservoir.  Temperatures at start time were in the high 90s for the first race.  Although a wind came up later to cool things off, the result was that the last 1000m were run straight into a 10-15 mph breeze.  Even with the wind, the temps never dropped below 90.

The course was a combination of dirt roads and gravel roads over rolling hills alongside Woodward Reservoir.  There was zero shade.

Needless to say, times were slow.  Full results are posted on the results page.  I will give a quick summary of each race.

Boys and Girls JV Combined
Many of the athletes in this race were competing in cross country for the first time ever.  Our boys "dominated" this un-scored race (if the race would have been scored, we would have posted 20 points, for a comfortable win).  Freshman Oscar Madrigal took the lead early and never looked back, running a way to a 34 second victory.  Zach Morrett, in his first few weeks as a competitive runner, moved up steadily through the pack to finish second.  Although it was most of our boys' first race ever, they showed good patience and took control of the second half of the race.  2nd year runners Caleb Sawyer, Mason Deal, and Brandon Herroz helped the youngsters keep their pace under control early on.

Girls Varsity
Becky Hobby ran away from the field, starting from the first step and extending her lead all the way through the finish.  Her time of 19:50 under very difficult conditions bodes well for the future.  The time would have placed her 3rd in the Varsity Boys' race.  Kaitlynn Daugherty and Aubrey Fisher showed a little rust in this first effort.  They finished in 5th and 6th palce overall, but were over 4 minutes back from Becky.  Newcomer Savannah "the savage" Perez ran a nice steady effort and moved up well in the last mile to finish as our #4 runner, while another newcomer, Carli Young misjudged the length of the course and faded badly over the last mile.  I am very encouraged by the performance of Savannah, Carli, and Tasha Spears.  All 3 girls competed hard and although their results didn't see them near the front of the pack today, I am confident that there is a ton of improvement in store for all of them.

Boys Varsity
Lucas Fisher took the lead at around the 1/2 mile mark of the race today, but a side stitch foiled his dreams of early season glory.  Max Ortiz snatched the lead from Lucas, an Oakdale runner, and Escalon runner just before the mile mark and never gave it back.  Max struggled mightily during the last 1000m, giving up almost all of a sizeable lead that he had built by mid race, but held on to be the 3rd Husky of the day to finish first.  Lucas was hurting and appeared to "pack it in" mentally.  For the race today, we moved 3 frosh soph runners (Ian Brooks, Leo Vasquez, and Adam Lundell) into the varsity division.  The meet was unscored, but I still wanted to run a complete team.  I was very encouraged to see the three underclassmen running together for almost the entire race, moving up from mid pack early to the top 7 overall places by the end.  Keaton Crowder and Jacob Aldava, 2 of our normal top 4 runners, sat out today.  Keaton has been slowed by growing pains in his knees and Jacob was battling some sort of bug today.  The addition of those two boys back into the line up will make the VB squad a force to be reckoned with in Stanislaus County.

Thanks to All the Parents who Attended the Team Meeting This Evening.

It was good to meet many new members of the Hughson Cross Country family tonight.  Our season is off to a great start.  Let's keep it rolling.

Time Trial Postponed

Due to excessive heat (106) and poor air quality (160 AQI), the coaching staff decided to postpone the team's second time trial to Monday, 8/31.  The time trial is an important tool for us to guage our upcoming season and set goals.  I would much rather get a realistic view of where we are at by running the TT on a cooler day.  Forcast high for Monday is 83 degrees, which is coincidentally the same temperature we had for our first Time Trial of the season.

Scrimmage vs. Escalon and Oakdale Tomorrow.
We are released from class at 1:30 tomorrow. 
FS boys and girls race together at 3:30
VG race at 4:05
VB race at 4:35

The heat wave is supposed to break, but it will still be in the upper 90s according to Weather.com.  Bring plenty of water and or sports drinks.  I will fill the water jug, but bring your own also.

Parents Meeting Wednesday Night

This Wednesday, after time trial #2.  We will have an informational parents meeting.  We will be discussing team rules and fundraising opportunities.  Meet in Reeder Hall at 5:30

Also, a very important update on our schedule.

The Scrimmage vs. Escalon and Oakdale at Woodward Reservoir has been rescheduled to Thursday. We will be getting out of class at 1:30 (that is during 6th period) and should return to the school by 6:30-7:00

Finally, temperatures are supposed to hit the triple digits this week.  You all need to stay hydrated.  Drink water throughout the day.

Sweating it out in the August Heat

The Husky harriers were faced with their first hard workout of the season today.  Unfortunately, the workout coincided with a return to true summer time conditions.  Temperatures reached 95 degrees today as we headed over to the Hughson Arboretum for a tempo interval session.  The kids were game for the challenge, but unfortunately, most of them melted in the hot August sun.

The top boys and Becky were assigned 5-6 x 1200 on a 6 minute cycle.  This means that once every 6 minutes the group should have been starting an interval.  Under normal circumstances, this would have given everyone in the group between 60 and 90 seconds of recovery between intervals.  Today with the heat, times were slow, and the recoveries were short.  I ended up having to modify the workout by adding time to the recovery.  In the end, very few athletes at the upper levels ended up finishing the workout.

At the lower levels,we had a shorter workout with more rest planned and we had a bit more success.  Zach Morrett looked impressive among the first year freshmen boys.  For the girls, Juliette Guiliacci ran a strong workout before having to dart off to soccer practice.

Team, we are going to have a lot more hot days before fall sets in.  You all need to remember to drink water steadily during the day.  Don't think that hitting a drinking fountain as you leave the locker room is enough.

Let's keep up the good efforts.

Hughson Saturday Morning Dawn Patrol

We had our first Saturday practice today.  Many of us chose to practice on Friday, but those who came today instead were treated to nice cool weather.  The individual training groups all did very well.  Our beginners, Mason and Tony, were able to run 4 miles without stopping, while veterans like Keaton and Jacob got in a solid 10 miler.

Perhaps one of the most impressive runs of the day was Leo, who finished the last 1.3 miles of his 8 miler at around  6:00 pace.