Welcome to Farmington High Cross Country
For those interested in doing cross country this year we will be starting up practices in the summer time Starting Wednesday June 5th. We will first meet at the school, check the blog weekly for weekly practice schedules with times and locations. If you are interested in signing up for summer training, please fill this form out: 2024 Farmington Cross Country Summer Training Registration
Parents can receive updates about the season by joining the following groupme (announcements only). I will post links to our website with the updated information. If you do not want to be in the groupme you can check our website, but it's a bit harder to know when the information will be posted.
At the conclusion of summer training our official season will begin on August 5th. Training will fluctuate between mornings and afternoons until school begins, at which point practices will be held during 1st period and after school. More on that below.
Team Goals
We want to have a team that is capable of competing for and winning region and state championships each year. We also want our teams to be able to qualify for nationals each year. To get there we need to have individuals who support and cheer for their teammates success. We want our team to be positive and optimistic, both with themselves and with the team as a whole. If we can care about our teammates, bring positivity and optimism each day, then we will be an excellent team, not just on the course, but off it as well. And ultimately that is the most rewarding aspect of this sport: the relationships you build through all the shared miles.
Summer Practice Starts:
Wednesday, June 5th, 7 AM @ FHS (Between the school and the stadium - note that this is a different spot than past years)
Summer Training
Summer practices will be held most Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday beginning at 7 AM. The purpose of summer is to build a base and strengthen the team. We will steadily build up weekly mileage in preparation for the fall racing season. Mileage will be determined namely by a "percentage" of a maximum volume which will be individualized depending on the athletes' experience and current fitness level. Many of our returning boys will work up to 50ish miles per week, and the returning girls will work towards 40ish miles per week. Newer runners will be somewhere between 20-40, but again, will be built up beginning from about 50% of their max mileage. Daily mileage will be given based on the weekly total one is shooting for.
The goal is to build a base, not over-work the athletes, so the majority of the mileage will be easy/moderate without hard/intense miles. Closer to August we will start to incorporate more "race-specific" workouts to get them prepared for races and being at their best for region, state, and beyond.
Generally, on Mondays and Fridays we will meet at various parks and begin our runs from there. On Wednesdays we plan to meet at "Vita" (the Bonneville shoreline trail beginning near the animal shelter in Kaysville).
Saturdays will be captain led practices. Saturdays are designed as long runs. It is probably the most important day of the week, each week. To help our athletes have the Saturday morning motivation we would like to have team breakfasts after each Saturday run, so we are asking parents to volunteer for 1 of the 8 Saturdays this summer to host the team for a breakfast after their run, either at your home or a park of your choosing. Please sign up as soon as you can so we can send out the location for the run.
Farmington XC: Summer Breakfasts and Dinners (signupgenius.com)
Summer Cost:
Summer Cross Country Cost = $50
-Includes participation in summer training and a BSN technical t-shirt
*Anyone 8th-12th grade is welcome to come train with us during the summer whether you are doing the fall season with us or not. 8th graders are only able to train in the summer. Once the season starts, 8th graders cannot continue to train with the team.
Cross Country Camp (optional):
TBD
Cross Country Camp (optional):
TBD
If we are able to pull this off, it will likely be the week of July 22nd
Tentative Summer Schedule: - Subject to change
June 5th - Summer XC Starts
Tentative Summer Schedule: - Subject to change
June 5th - Summer XC Starts
June 8th - team breakfast
June 15th - team breakfast
June 19th - no practice
June 22nd - team breakfast
June 29th - team breakfast, no coaches
June 28- July 4 - Moratorium - No Practice
June 28- July 4 - Moratorium - No Practice
July 6th - team breakfast
July 13th - team breakfast
July 20th - team breakfast
August 3rd - team breakfast
August 5th - Start of regular season
August 10th - First meet at Cottonwood Complex
XC Official Season
XC Official Season
Eligibility
Before you can compete you need to make sure that you are eligible through academics, completing the registration. View the link below for details on that.
Cross country class
This year, for the first time ever we will be holding our cross country class during 1st period. The reason for this change is so that we can incorporate morning runs as a feature of our training rather than just a supplement. This will allow some of our higher mileage kids to get there with greater ease, thus enhancing their progress, and it will allow some of our lower mileage runners to incorporate cross training (meaning biking or other aerobically focused exercise) more faithfully into their training.
Cross training is a staple of the BYU women's cross country team, and of multiple time NCAA champ Parker Valby - she cross trains relentlessly. Cross training is something that can help take you to the next level without the same wear and tear that can happen from running.
On that note, I'm encouraging everyone to make sure they have a functional bicycle that you can use. We can even leave/store those bikes in the shed during the fall.
The class is not technically mandatory, but I could not encourage it more strongly. It really will be a way for our team to level up.
My vision for the class is to begin class at 7:20 AM. We will have about 30 minutes of easy running or cross training, followed by team breakfasts at 8 AM that parents will sign up for, then allow for kids to get cleaned up and ready for their next period.
9th graders may be in the class as well. It might affect the JH schedule slightly, but depending on when 2nd period begins there, you may even arrive early.
After school practices will still be held each day, with some exceptions depending on when races land and if they are needed. As of now, we are planning to hold after school practices at 2:40 PM.
Races - Varsity/JV
For those of you who are new to the sport, XC scoring is done by adding the places of the first 5 runners of each team. The place you get is the score you contribute to your team's total. A team finishing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 would score 15 points. The lowest score wins.
Varsity races are generally done with 7 runners, but sometimes we are allowed more, like 10-14 runners. When you have more, the additional runners beyond the first 7 no longer contribute to the overall places of other teams' runners - meaning if the 8th runner on our team finishes ahead of a 1-5 runner on an opponent's team, the scoring will be done as if our 8th runner was not in the race. JV races are scored the same, and because there are generally way more than 7 runners per team, runners after 7 are likewise not scored nor contribute to the opponents' scores.
Determining who the 7 runners are for varsity races can be a difficult process with a team such as ours. We have a lot of athletes who switch places from week to week because they are so close together in current ability. It's my job to give our team the best chance to win.
To determine those 7 we look at a variety of things, namely the latest race results, past race results, best paces, and consistency. We also consider practice attendance and overall consistency. Ultimately Coach Jacobson will have the final say in who is entered into the varsity races. Having run in a varsity race multiple times does not guarantee future participation in a varsity race.
Every race we go to, except for two, is open to everyone, Varsity and JV. Divisionals and State are the only two that are varsity only races (7 runners per gender).
With all this talk about varsity it's easy to think that is the most important element of the team, but the fact is that the greatest indicator of a good team is how good the JV team is. The varsity group is just the tip of the iceberg. The JV group challenging and vying for varsity spots is what raises the level of our team. Any success the varsity group has at a meet is a credit to the entire team, not just the varsity 7.
Meet Schedule - tbd
