I hope you all had an amazing 4th of July and accompanying moratorium. We missed having organized practices but it was good to see so many of you getting together and running.
This is the time of year where many people start to lose a bit of motivation. The heat increases, habits have changed due to moratorium, and you start to get comfortable thinking you have all the time in the world to get in shape. DON'T FALL FOR IT.
For us to gain an edge on our competition, to set ourselves up for great region, state, and national performances, July HAS TO BE OUR TIME. July is our month. We have to be great this month. Let's dominate this month, and hammer out the miles, in the heat, on the grass, trails, and roads, and let's just get this done.
This week we are racing the Farmington Festival Days races (if you want to, they have a french toast breakfast after, and it's the greatest post race breakfast this side of the Mississippi). It's not mandatory, but is recommended. If you don't want to pay to race (although this is the cheapest race ever), you should do a solo time trial so that we can see where you are this point in the summer.
The following week is our last normal week, then its August, with the official start of the season, then school starts. The time is far spent! So my point is, use it wisely, do not squander July - it may be the most important month for your XC performance. JULY IS OUR TIME!!! We have to dominate it. Day after day, week after week. Be dominant this month.
One of the ways that we are going to dominate July and the rest of the year, is to form running-accountability groups/pairs. Each group will be accountable to each other, and report that to the captains, who then report to the coaches. It's something that was recommended by our captains after learning about it at the BYU XC camp, and I think it is brilliant. Those groups should help motivate each other to dominate this month and beyond. We hope to roll those out this week.
This week
Please note that there are hyperlinks with the park locations on the chart below. For Saturday I've linked the race registration. That is OPTIONAL, but we'd love to see you there and hang out together after the races, get a bunch of age group and overall awards, enjoy the breakfast, then be on our way. You can take your cool down back on the 10k course to cheer on those competitors, and hopefully see my hammies holding up enough to not be crawling into the finish.
As far as which column you should be in, for new runners I'd say 30ish column. For those in it a year or so it'd be 40ish. I don't encourage any 9th grader, boy or girl, to be above 40 at any point this year, and 30-35 most likely. Those in xc a couple years, anywhere from 45-60. 60 should typically be reserved for our senior boys, senior girls would cap at about 45-50, and the rest on down from there. Talk to your coaches about where you should be on this chart.
Speaking of this week, if you will miss any practices this week, please let us know here.
