BG - Carter Park

We made it to meet #1 for the Pee Wee, Minor, and Cadet groups! Your children are ready to race! Our uniform order is in, and they will be available for pick up at the meet on Saturday if you did not already pick them up at practice. We do have a need for a few volunteers for each meet to bring snacks and drinks for the runners when they finish their race. Please follow this link to sign up for helping this weekend: SignUp Genius 

Location:

Please find instructions below regarding this meet being held at Carter Park.

• Address: 401 Campbell Hill Rd, Bowling Green, OH 43402 (Carter Park - Google Map)

Turn left into the park by the water tower. Follow the road around and park in the back parking lot by the baseball fields. Do not park on the street or near the water tower. Our meeting point will be at our team tent. It's a large blue tent which says "St. Joseph Cross Country & Track" in big white letters on the top. See the Tent map below - it will be located in the general area of the big red circle - not sure of where yet, this is a new course configuration as of this year..

Arrival / Race Times

Please report to one of your coaches upon arrival according to the following times:

Preparation for Race:  

Please be there to encourage your child and provide positive reinforcement! Please do not put any pre-race pressure on your child. If the children can remain relaxed, they will perform better than if they are too uptight. A little nervousness is to be expected as this means they want to do well. The coaches will talk about race strategy before the race with the team - please let the coaches do their job!

A good pre-race dinner is a pasta and protein combo with some vegetables and/or fruit.  Encourage your runner to drink water the night before and morning of the race. Eat a light breakfast such as cereal (without milk), a bagel or toast with peanut butter, and/or some fruit.  It is usually good to avoid any dairy products, eggs, and citrus fruit before a race. Recommend being done eating about two hours before your scheduled race. Having some water after that is OK, but it is not a good idea to drink large amounts of fluid right before a race.

Proper Clothing Considerations: 

The Juniors will wear their blue race uniforms.  All other runners need to wear their cool mint race jersey and black or blue shorts. Sweatshirt and sweatpants should be worn over the jersey and shorts if it is cold. Every child will run in short sleeves and shorts during the race.   We will warm up with all clothes on, and then shortly before the race, we will have a parent/coach collect the sweatshirts and sweatpants and take them back to the tent.  Please remember to pick up any extra clothes before leaving the meet. If there is rain in the forecast, it is best to come to the meet with your race shoes and a change of socks in a plastic bag.  Then, shortly before the race, we will change into the dry ones.

Pre-Race Procedure:  Before arriving at the race site, be sure to have your athlete use the restroom as the lines can be long on race day.  Please check to make sure their shoes are tied. Once you arrive at the tent please have your runner check in with your age group Coach. The coach will mark the runner down for attendance and will give the runner a Dave's Running Chipped Bib to track their time during the race. Depending on the age of the runner - they may need some extra help getting the Bib fastened to their shirt. At an appropriate time before the expected race start - the coaches will gather their age group to stretch and do a warm up jog before the race (we do not walk the course).

Race Time: While children are racing, cheer for everyone on the course, including our competitors. You are NOT allowed to run next to your child (this is called pacing).  The athlete will be disqualified from the race, and the team could be disqualified as well.  

Finish Line:

As the children finish the race, their time and place will be automatically recorded thanks to the chipped bibs. These results will be available online for all to view.  The runner will gather near the finish line with their team to cheer on their teammates. Once the runners are all in, the team will be escorted back to the team tent. Parents are encouraged to be there to congratulate their child and walk them to the tent for a celebratory snack and drink!!

TAKE PICTURES!

Don’t forget to take lots of pictures throughout the day! We are using Google Photos this year in order to make sharing of photos easier, and to make it easier to put together the end of season slideshow. It does help if you have the Google Photos App on your phone - use this link to add pics to out shared album: Pictures

NOTE: If you are having issue with getting the link/app to work - just send me a quick note, it is behaving a little different from last year, and I would like to get to the bottom of it.

PARENT RACE DAY VOLUNTEERING

The Race Day Snack Volunteer assignments can be found by checking the SignUpGenius site: SignUpGenius Please clearly label drinks and snacks with the age group and gender so kids do not mistakenly take another groups' items. If there are issues with the assignments, please arrange for a replacement.

CYO MEET Rules:  Please refer to this rule book if you have specific questions on the rules of the meet: CYO 2021 XC Rules

As a reminder, Park only in designated parking areas, CYO prohibits bringing dogs, tobacco and alcohol to their family friendly events like cross country. Additionally, the carry-in carry-out trash policy is in effect for all meets. Please feel free to stick around and help pick-up at the end of the meet.  We can always use extra help taking down the tent!

If you are new to cross country, the team tent area and meet will be overwhelming at first, but it is truly organized chaos. Experiencing a meet is both wonderful and amazing. The next five weeks will go by very quickly - Enjoy!

See you out there and GO JAGUARS!!