Phoenix,
The Festival Days races were such a vibe! (as kids have been known to say) It was a blast to get out and race together and enjoy the GOATed pre race breakfast!
I knew the athletes would clean up on the awards, taking 11 of the 12 spots for the 12-15 and 16-19 age groups! It was a lot of fun seeing so many parents join us this year, and it was great to hear their names being announced as age group placers as well! It just warms my heart to see this race as a family affair.
I ran this race for the first time in 2021 and I knew one person there - the friend that came with me. Yesterday I felt like I knew everyone, because we had such a great turnout from our team, alumni, and parents! Here's hoping we can relive that tradition each year as long as each of you are able.
Whether you surprised yourself with your time, like Miles who ran like 6 minutes faster than he estimated, or Lilla, who ran like two minutes faster, or you surprised others, like Jon (who I want to say for the record didn't surprise me that much, because he's been dominating training for quite a while now), or if you were somewhat disappointed with your time, feeling like you could have done better, or didn't run to your potential, it won't matter much in the long run.
The race was just to see where you are as of Saturday, and because it was just one race, it will be taken with a grain of salt, because anyone can have a bad day, (although you can't just have "a good day", one can't race better than their fitness). You know where you are, more or less, and now we're hoping to see great improvements before our first XC race next month. In the meantime, we have to DOMINATE the rest of July!
Do what you have to do so you can dominate each day. I posted a meme on the Instagram story (and shortly after I literally saw a meme of a coach sharing memes with their team, smh), that said something to the effect of, "Cheating by training harder than my competition so I can beat them". I thought it was amusing and true. As a team, we can out train our competition - although that's not my favorite focus. Rather, we need to out train our past selves, and level our team up, and train so hard and well that on race day no one could beat us but ourselves. Dominate each day, so you can dominate the race.
This week
