Phoenix,
We had a very strong day in Murray yesterday. It was great that the temperatures were a bit lower, and honestly I was super pleased with all of your effort. More than just yesterday, the vast majority of you have been working really hard over the past few weeks, and that has paid off, and will continue to do so, greatly. If you find yourself on the side of "less-consistent" take a moment to re-evaluate what you've been doing and commit to improve. It takes all of us to reach our team's potential, 1-113 (we have 120 kids on the team).
I encourage each of you to take another moment to consider how you can be a better teammate in the coming days. We have so many good teammates who are so supportive, my purpose in this encouragement is to continue to take this aspect to the next level, as we attempt to take our running to the next level. I've said this before, but I love looking through strava and seeing all the comments of support you have for each other. We have a great group of kids.
Recap
There were a lot of highlights from the meet, again; too many to be able to address without getting carpal tunnel. I particularly loved the increase in pack running. There were 5 or 6 groups of 3 or more kids at different sections of each race, and that really is such an important aspect of cross country racing. May we continue to run as a pack. From what I can tell so, we also did a much better job of "not being a hero" in the first mile, and running much more consistently throughout the race, which helps the overall time be faster.
On that note, will you take 60s to fill out this form with your mile splits from Friday's race so that I can graph them and look for trends?
Alexis made her season debut and ran very wisely, moving from about 60th at the 1 mile mark, to finishing in 2nd place. (What does this tell you? People were trying to be heroes and then paid the price for it while she ran with savvy and moved up the field - the same concept applies whether you finished 2nd or 402nd, going out too fast can be costly.) Speaking of the JV girls race, here's a fun fact for you: I have only just begun updating the so-called "nerd report" and Tatum, Kate, Julia, and Elizabeth all ran faster mile paces for 3 miles on Friday than they did for 2 miles at pre-region. That is phenomenal! They ran an additional mile and the pace was faster! File that under "things you love to see." I couldn't help but notice Kate passed a girl with about 800m to go, and when she did Kate gave her a few words of encouragement. I love it. we had 31 JV girls race and I can honestly say they were all giving it 100%.
In the Boys JV race Shane pretty much took a page out of Alexis's book, and came through the mile not even close to contending for the win. In classic Shane fashion he gave me a full head nod when I said it was time to start moving up, and like a Phoenix rising from the ashes (I had to, I'm sorry) he took off and started running by kids like they were standing still. He ended up winning by 7 seconds, going from like 60th place to first. Josh was right there with him when the race started taking shape and the two of them controlled the race from the front. Much like the girls mentioned previously, Tyler Hall and Cyrus ran faster paces than pre-region! We had 43 boys race in JV and it was great to see the effort out on that course.
The Varsity girls ran their best team race of the year, and finished 4 points out of 3rd, and significantly closer to Weber than at pre-region. Ayla and Tai were like a dynamic duo just moving up the field together. More than once I saw them running shoulder to shoulder, then separate to pass someone on both sides, and then rejoin up. It was pretty synchronized. Skye and Ella both found an extra gear and cruised to top 25 finishes. We're on the right track, we just gotta keep it rolling to give ourselves a shot at region.
The Varsity boys came away with a 1st place finish, narrowly edging out Weber 63 to 65. That is extremely close. The difference seems to be Bodie, our 3rd runner, finishing ahead of Weber's 3rd runner, with a few other kids between them. If we remove all the other teams at the meet, Weber actually beats us by 1 point (however, races aren't done 1 v 1 so this is just to illustrate how close it was). I point this out for a few reasons. First, we managed to come away with a win in a very competitive race against a very strong Weber team, that's a great accomplishment. Second, we have a lot of work to do if we are going to defend our region title. It's a blessing to have a team like Weber so close to us, because we will help each other become our best.
Upcoming week
This week we will be racing at Border Wars on Saturday morning. We will no longer be going to the pre-state meet. Instead, we will have some quality workouts which will help us in the long term. Here is the meet information if you'd like to look it over. https://www.borderwarsxc.com/
If you cannot go to Border Wars please let me know. I've included the entries below, please look through them and let me know if I'm missing anything. We are only allowed 7 varsity runners, so there were some tough decisions. We went with those who had the best times on Friday, but we also consider the work of the entire year. These 7 runners can change week to week.
We will be doing our harder workouts on Monday and Wednesday this week so that we can have the whole team together after school. We will practice at 3:15 on non-class days still. On days that we meet at the Park you can go directly there, you do not necessarily need to warm up to the park.
Monday: 3:15 - Farmington Regional Park
Tuesday: class or right after school - FHS
Wednesday: 3:15 - FHS
Thursday : class or right after school - Farmington Regional Park
Friday: 3:15 - FHS
Team dinner 9/16
Team Dinner Friday night at 5:30 PM at the Thornton Home, 619 Cottonwood Dr. Kaysville - They will be serving Hawaiian Haystacks!
Thank you all for your hard work and support of your teammates. Being new to FHS, I've been asked a lot how I'm liking it, and usually I respond with something like, "It is the best" or "I have the best job" and I really mean it. Thank you for your part in that.
Coach Jacobson
Border Wars Entries
