Week #1 - Aug 12-17

August 12 - 17, 2024

Welcome to Summit High School Cross Country's 2024 Season! We are very excited to get things rolling! Our Week #1 Schedule is below but first, some super important points of emphasis:

WHY RUN CROSS COUNTRY?

Please share this link with anyone who may be convinced, but hesitates, to run Cross Country.

NEWS

Parent Meeting - Tuesday, 27 August at 5:30pm after practice. Location at SHS tbd, likely the library. Please review the Parent Meeting Notes and Cross Country Handbook prior, and come with your questions. I will discuss the competition schedule, expectations, post-season competition, the new "PTO" policy and more.

Battle Mountain – as announced in the last email, is canceled. It hasn't been a favorite. Instead, that will be a hard training week. We have our scrimmage and seven meets before Regionals. That is plenty.

Air Academy – I added the Air Academy meet (which promises to be highly competitive) to the schedule on 12 October because otherwise it is too long of a stretch to the Regional Championship and I worry about getting "rusty." After the Air Academy meet, we will go to the State course to familiarize our new runners. It will be a long day. The Air Academy coach mentioned to me the possibility that their families might host our athletes that night, to make a weekend out of it.

PTO Policy – In the last email I shared that I am instituting a "PTO" absence policy this season. The reason is to encourage strong attendance while providing some flexibility (and removing guilt) for necessary absences.

Everyone will have five (5) "paid time off" days to use as you wish.

I thought of an important tweak to the explanations and caveats:

If you miss a day at practice (say, for a family trip), but show, via a GPS file on Strava, Training Peaks, etc. that you did an equivalent workout on your own, you will get half a day "credit" back.

Why not a full credit? While doing a workout on your own shows great discipline, a big purpose of being at practice is in addition to making yourself better, your presence can make your teammates better. At practice you can encourage and support each other. Not when training on your own. So while training on your own is certainly better than not training, it isn't as helpful to the team as being at practice.

• Preferably, PTO days are used sparingly and you come to as many practices as you possibly can. Consistency is key to fast running and running fast is fun.

• PTO days include absences for such things as work, medical appointments, hair cuts, family vacations, needing to catch up on homework, just being tired, etc.

• Even though you can use these days when you wish, you must communicate to us prior to practice (at least by noon!) that you will use a PTO day. Otherwise it will be considered an unexcused absence.

• Exceed five PTO days and lose varsity status for at least one meet.

• An unexcused (I.e. not prior communicated) absence will also mean loss of varsity status for a meet.

• Presence at all practices and meets is expected, including Saturdays. You can miss a Saturday (if prior communicated), but it will count as a PTO day.

• We will have practices on school holidays (e.g. Labor Day Monday.) These will NOT count as PTOs if missed, but attendance is strongly encouraged. Again, Consistency Is Key!

• Exceptions to using PTO days are illness, injuries and college visits. Cross training for injuries must be discussed with coaches. There may be other exceptions if communicated with coaches.

Roy Griak – is 20 September. We went last year and had a great time. We hoped to go as complete teams this year, but regrettably the race filled back in June! We (Eva) pleaded with the race director and he has granted us three spots each for girls and boys. We discussed this at the Summer Camp and the kids were in agreement that selection for Roy Griak will be the first three boys and girls at Liberty Bell that want to go - and are in good standing. This is a self-funded trip, but if low airfares are available, should be relatively low cost. I am hoping that we can again stay at my sister's house.

NXR – is 23 November. Last year we had our most ever participants, and our best ever finishes. I hope this year will be even more and better. Shannon Fallon and Myrth McDonald are looking into AirBnBs. Let them know if you would like to stay with the team. (I recommend it. It was fun last year and a great team time.) If you prefer, here are the NXR recommended hotels.

NXR is a self-funded trip. (If our fundraising efforts are successful, I hope we can subsidize some costs.) Arrange your own travel and car pooling. I recommend traveling there Thursday evening, to avoid possible travel delay stress. Friday morning is a reasonable alternative. Depart Saturday evening or Sunday. Last year some families stayed longer - touring the Grand Canyon, etc. - but be aware that Monday through Wednesday are not Thanksgiving school holidays this year.

Please enter your NXR intentions here, and update with your travel plans later.

Website - I updated the website with currently available information on our meets. Each meet has its own page, with results and photos from previous years. There is a lot of other information. Please visit the training tips, records, FAQs, Parent Info and other tabs. Please let me know if you encounter errors.

Meet Schedule - The meet schedule is also on the website and directly here. Go to the second page for locations and heat times.

Parental Support – really adds an important element to the team. There are opportunities to support the team by providing Chocolate Milk, hosting a Pasta Party, bringing snacks to meets and helping at the Summit Stinger.

PRACTICE LOCATIONS THIS WEEK

We will stick with morning practices until school starts. Here is the practice schedule for this week, all starting at 8:00 a.m.:

• Monday - SHS Track

• Tuesday - SHS Track

• Wednesday - Frisco Peninsula Baseball Field

• Thursday - SHS Track

• Friday - Frisco Peninsula Baseball Field

• Saturday - Frisco Peninsula Baseball Field - Team Time Trial

Motivation from Noah Lyles

Noah Lyles won gold and bronze medals at the Paris Olympics. Last week, he withdrew from the remainder of the games when he required medical attention after winning a bronze medal in the 200 meters. Noah later revealed that he had tested positive for COVID 2 days prior to winning the bronze medal, which came after his gold medal winning performance in the 100 meters. 

Whether or not you watched Noah run, here are 3 ways to use him as inspiration:

The past can be a powerful motivator: At the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Noah won a bronze medal in the 200 meters. As the gold medal favorite, Noah was disappointed by the outcome so he kept the bronze medal and brought it with him to Paris to serve as a reminder that he came up short in Tokyo. Similar to Noah, we can all use our past as motivation to help us perform at our best.

A thousandth of a second matters: Noah’s 100 meter time (9.784 seconds) edged out second place finisher Kishane Johnson’s time (9.789 seconds) by 0.005 seconds. Noah and Kishane both trained intensely, competed to win and it came down to a fraction of a second - serving as a good reminder that details matter.

There is always room for improvement: Noah leaves the Olympics with 1 gold and 1 bronze medal. While an impressive accomplishment, Noah was not able to accomplish his ambitious goal of winning 4 gold medals. 

Additionally, his winning time of 9.79 seconds in the 100 meters is more than 2 tenths of a second slower than Usain’s world record of 9.58 seconds in 2009. Similar to Noah, we can all benefit from realizing there is still still room for improvement, even when we win.

Thank you Noah for inspiring us. Let’s have a great week!