PLEASE DISREGUARD THE BIRTH YEAR ON THE PREVIOUS EMAIL, THEY WERE INCORECT!

The first League meet was incredible and all of you did such a great job getting your athletes there on time. As you see the League meets are a lot bigger. We will also have some "pay to run" teams visit many of our meets. The Warriors, Calabasas, United, and Simi are visiting teams and do not count in our standings, so when your child gets their ribbons from the meet their placing will have those teams removed. We will have ribbons for each athletes every week and need parents help pass them out at the end of practice on Monday or Tuesday. 

This week will be even a different schedule as this is a Southern California USATF Sanctioned Invitational Meet. The flyer is on the cross country schedule page, all athletes are invited! We will be giving medals to the top 8 finishers and special event ribbons to the next 42 finishers. We will also be scoring the teams and giving a team award to the top 3 teams. Sub Gremlin girls and boys will have their own race for this meet and will run together. The 15- 18 young Men and women will also have a separate race and will run together, this race is also open to coaches and parents! Please see the schedule below. We also will be working the finish line so we need 2 parents to work it. Please sign up at practice to work a shift. for reach race, or send me an email. We take pride in having the best Home Meets!! 

Here is what we need:

Tent and Start line set up - set up 7:00 am -4 people

Tag table 7:30 - help hand out athletes tags - 2 parents  

Finish Line - Timing and finish line chute help -2 parents 

Races - Rabbits to lead the races( bike ok) Turtles parents to follow the last runners in each race ( parents will not be allowed to run on the course during the races with their children)

Clean up - 6 people, help clean up and load tents and finish line

Race Results and Schedule  

You can see all results and upcoming meets on our website, just click on the cross country link! Results can also be found there and on vyc-xc.org Please check out and like our Facebook page, Storm Cross Country for some great picture from Anthony Calderon. He will have a link to download them soon!! 

This week we will be posting results during the meet at livetrackresults.com 

JELLY BEANS- We have enough for now Please bring any you have already picked up and if you have a scoop from us please return that. too. 

The scoops we use are from baby formula so if you have any of those we would appreciate you giving us your left overs. 

Practice Week of Sept 11th -Sept 16th  

Monday - West Creek Park 6:00 -7:15 

Tuesday - Central Park at 6:00 -7:15 pm -  

Thursday Central Park 6:00 - 7:15 pm -

Saturday - 7:30 am - Central Park Invitational Meet- all athletes invited 

Race Schedule - All times are approximate, with a rolling start - races will over-lap

TIME: first race will begin at 08:30 a.m. Races will start approximately every 15-25 minutes and will overlap. There will be a Sub Gremlin 5/6 2K race and a 15-18 Young men and women / adults 4K race.

Schedule

7:45- 8:30 -self guided course preview(we do not need to do this) 

8:00 Coaches meeting near the start line 

8:30 SUB-GREMLIN Girls & Boys – 5/6 2000m (1.2 miles)

8:45 GREMLIN GIRLS – 7/8 ( 2000m (1.2 miles)

9:00 GREMLIN BOYS – 7/8 2000m (1.2 miles)

9:15 BANTAM GIRLS - 9/10 3000m (1.8 miles)

9:30 BANTAM BOYS – 9/10 3000m (1.8 miles)

9:45 JUNIOR GIRLS – 11/12 3000m (1.8 miles)

10:00 JUNIOR BOYS – 11/12 3000m (1.8 miles)

10:15 YOUTH GIRLS – 13/14 (2.4 miles)

10:40 YOUTH BOYS – 13/14 ( (2.4 miles)

11:00 - 15-18 Women & 15-18 Men 4000m (2.4 miles) and Coaches and Parents, must register and pay at the registration table

This is a rolling schedule and can change at the meet. 

Coach Jeremy's Notes to the Team 

Athletes, Parents, and Coaches,

What a great kickoff to the official racing season! I’m sure you saw; we have some competition out there which is great! Every race was huge and there was a ton of excitement as there were close to 1000 athletes! I want to reiterate as well: most of the top 5 in every race are national All-Americans. We are fortunate to race with the elite in the Nation every single week. This should keep us all working hard for more improvement!

That is the name of the game which poses the question, how do we keep improving? There’s a simple answer: workout by workout, race by race, and season by season! Newbies, keep working and realize with determination you can reach the top levels. Seasoned pro’s keep working and don’t become complacent… those newbies want it bad, don’t give up your spot! I heard some of the athletes quoting Karate Kid at the meet: No Retreat, No Surrender!!! Boom!

I have 2 topics for this week to focus on your improvement:

1.   Be ready to race

2.   When I think of being ready to race it starts with preparing with a good breakfast. Oatmeal, apple, banana, PB&J, protein shake… I’d stay away from Milk unless you’ve tested that out.

3.   Then you show up and you have to remove any doubt in yourself. You are going to race as hard as your mind tells you to race! If you point out the challenges (it’s hot, I’m tired, I don’t like this course, I’m scared..), you are letting your mind tell your body it isn’t going to give your all. Don’t do that!!!

4.   Quit letting yourself tell yourself YOU CAN’T!!! Only you can pull out the best in yourself every day. Coaches will encourage, parents will encourage, but… you gotta make the decision to push and give it your all!

5.   So… BE EXCELLENT AND DON’T BRING ANYTHING LESS THAN YOUR BEST TO EACH PRACTICE AND THE RACES!!

6.   Give it your all… ALL the way to the finish line

7.   The best feeling after a race is the satisfaction you gave it your all. Whether you lose or win or PR or don’t PR, you gave every ounce of mental and physical energy. 

8.   Remember this feeling when you are in the middle of the race, towards the end, and especially when you see the finish line!

                                                              i.     Don’t EVER think you can rest during the race if you want to be EXCELLENT!! You rest 8-10 hours a night to recover from your AMAZING practices and races!

Ok, so what’s in store for this week:

1.   We are preparing for the Invitational at Central Park this Saturday. Boom, HOME COURSE!!! It’ll be warm and sunny this week so bring lots of fluid including an electrolyte drink. Eat a solid breakfast. And remember, everyone races the same conditions, but everyone doesn’t prepare the same way. So be prepared!

2.   The invitational is a fun meet because there will be team trophies to earn! And… amazing competition! It’ll be larger than last week, we could exceed 2000 runners! To put that into perspective, nationals is only about 3500-4000 runners!!

3.   We will continue pushing the workouts and developing speed and strength as we are just beginning this racing season. Tonight, the older kids will get to run the power lines that are just down the path from fountain of youth. Tuesday night we ALL get to run on the top of the mountain to the Water Tower! Thursday night we’ll run the course at race pace, broken up into 2 or 3 segments.

4.   We will also be adding some strides at the end of the long run. This will help with the kicking speed at the end of the race. 

5.   Talking about the kick. While some certainly have more raw speed than others, remember, the kick in cross-country is normally a battle of will! Who wants to give more. The key word is battle, so prepare at the end of the race to BATTLE!!

That’s it for now, let’s get after it tonight and this week!

Have fun,

Coach Jeremy