The nice momentum we established in week #1 has carried over to week #2! Following are some highlights:
* Roster: we now have a roster of 80! Here are some interesting facts
- For the first time ever, we have more girls than boys (41 v 39!!) A typical ratio in the past was 2/3 boys to 1/3 girls.
- We have 50 underclassmen (9th and 10th graders) - of those, 27 are freshman! Way to go!
- Most common boys names: Colin (2), Ryan (2), Jake/Jacob (2), Anthony/Antoine (2)
- Most common girls names Sophia (2), Kelly (2), Allie/Allison (2), Clare/Claire/Clara (4)
- Mixed category: Jackson/Jack/Jackie, Sam/Samantha, Eva/Evan
* New Runners - new members are doing a good job of jumping in. We are adjusting workouts for most "newbies" for the first 3 to 4 weeks of the season. It is most critical for novice runners to be able to comfortably run without stopping for at least 30 minutes before advancing to some of the other workout elements. While our experienced athletes are doing intervals or tempo runs, we may have newcomers do continuous long runs. On other days, everyone joins together on long runs or in cross training.
* Fitness Standards: we do not cut athletes from the team, but we require athletes to meet a fitness standard prior to allowing them to wear the MCHS jersey in competition.
- The standard is 14:00 for two miles for Boys and 16:30 for Girls. We will issue competition jerseys once athletes are able to meet this requirement.
- Reasoning: competition poses an additional set of physical and psychological hurdles for young athletes. While we believe there is certainly benefit to adapting to these challenges, we would prefer not to introduce these until the athlete has achieved a sufficient foundation of fitness.
- We believe everyone on our roster will be able to meet this requirement (if not immediately, then soon) if they maintain consistency in their training.
- We will provide periodic opportunities to meet the fitness standard as we go along. For the first few weeks, this will typically happen on Fridays. We have about 22 athletes that have just recently joined that are seeking to meet the standard this Friday.
* Parent Meeting - thanks to all who turned out for the parent's meeting on August 22 - a very healthy participation! The parents/families are really the backbone of the team - none of this could happen without your support! For those who could not attend, it was a chance to meet the coaches, to hear about our team philosopy and a few rules, talked about team apparel, to see our (many) NBL, NCS, and State pennants, and to enlist our parents help with transportation to the park, pasta feeds, and fundraisers. See the agenda here. If you have any questions, reply to the email version of this post, or get in touch with one of the coaches directly.
*Varsity Letters: At the parents meeting Greg explained that only the top seven runners are allowed to participate as Varsity in some meets like Stanford Invitational, Rough Rider, NBL, NCS, and State. However, recognizing that we have many more athletes on our team that are functioning at a varsity level (ie, would be varsity at almost all other high schools in Sonoma County), we will award Varsity blocks to all boys that run 16:59 or faster at the Spring Lake 3 mile course this year, and all girls that run 20:59 or faster.
* Pre-season Rankings: CrossCountryExpress.com has picked both our girls and boys teams as their pre-season favorites to win the North Coast Section Division 2 titles. Our take: that's nice that we should be in the mix, but there are still 12 weeks between now and NCS, and we need to make the most of each day between now and then to be ready to be at our best. You can see where we've finished in previous years by clicking here.
* Pre-season Rankings: CrossCountryExpress.com has picked both our girls and boys teams as their pre-season favorites to win the North Coast Section Division 2 titles. Our take: that's nice that we should be in the mix, but there are still 12 weeks between now and NCS, and we need to make the most of each day between now and then to be ready to be at our best. You can see where we've finished in previous years by clicking here.
