We had a great meet at Mt. SAC! Congrats to all of you that conquered one of the most famous and challenging courses of all time!! Congrats also to our 3 Coaches that ran the open race, Coaches, Jimmy, Jonah and Jaime rocked the 5K!!

The VYC Championship race is at Central Park this Saturday. We will be scoring the teams and awarding the top 3 teams after each race. Please plan to stay a little longer. All athletes will also receive a medal, and the top 3 athletes will get a trophy. The top 8 individuals and top 3 teams will be called up to the awards podium about 20 minutes after each race. When Coach Jeremy talks about having fun, this is it!! Please take sure you stay and cheer all the team on and be ready to take lots of pictures on the podium.

Speaking of that I am looking for a parent with a truck to help me pick up the podium on Friday afternoon and put it together at the park. Coach Jaime will have a truck full of start line stuff. We will meet at our storage and then take it and assemble at the park. Please let me know if you can help.

Storm Last Day of Practice Event 

We will have a fun last regular season practice on Thursday October 17th. We hope you all can help make it fun! We will be having a "Glow Run" We will be providing some glow sticks for each athlete and many like to bring their own special glow jewelry! This will be a special practice for Coach Jeremy!!

Please add to your calendar our end of season award Banquet for Sunday Oct 27th at 6:00 pm

Post Season- Valley United Striders

As we go into our final meet, many are thinking about the Post Season with Valley United Striders. If you look on the cross country page at the bottom of the page is a "Ranking File" If your athletes has been coming in the top 20-25 they may want to considerer the all star team. We take the top athletes from all the VYC teams and form A,B and some times C teams to compete in the USATF Junior Olympic competition that could end up at the Jr. Olympics in Shelbyville Indiana. Teams must qualify through a series of races.

You can visit the valleyunitedstriders.com for more information.

If you are interested in more information I will have a quick meeting this Tuesday before practice to answer your questions

Meet Volunteer needs this week :

Friday- one truck to bring the podium over to Central Park and assemble

Tent and Finish line set up 7:00 - set up team tents -6 people

Finish line during the meet 4- people

Clean up - 2 people, help clean up and load tents

Action Photo Opportunity

Race Times Saturday All times are Approximate and will be on a rolling start, races will not over lap

Arrive at 7:30

7:45 - Coaches Meeting  

8:15 am - SUB-GREMLIN - BOYS AND GIRLS

8:30 am - GREMLIN GIRLS

8:45 am - GREMLIN BOYS  

9:05 am - BANTAM GIRLS  

9:25 am -BANTAM BOYS   

9:45 am -JUNIOR GIRLS

10:05 am - JUNIOR BOYS

10:25 am -YOUTH GIRLS

10:50- YOUTH BOYS

THIS SCHEDULE IS APROXIMATE ONLY

Cross Country Schedule -Oct.14-19

Monday -October 14 -6:00 pm - Central Park

Tuesday -October 15 -6:00 Pm - Central Park -Parent meeting for End of Season Info and Valley United info meeting

Thursday -October 17- 5:30 pm - Central Park- Special Glow Run Practice -Wear yellow if you can

Saturday October 19 - 7:15 am -League Championship Meet Central Park

Sunday - Oct 27 - T6:00 pm team diner and Award Banquet - Canyon Country Community Center - NEW LOCATION

Coach Jeremy's Notes to the Team 

Well Team, we made it to the final week of the regular season!

Wow, that was the fastest one in my 18 years…. What a fun ride it has been. But… we aren’t finished yet so let’s keep pushing!

As I reflect on last Sunday at Mt.SAC Everyone of you showed up to perform and as always there are lessons learned.

I want to start with the guiding principle of running: you gotta have fun and enjoy it. From warmup to training to drills to racing, all the fun, all the pain, all the challenges, all the glory! Did I touch on every part of it? This is a tough sport. As we led up to this race, and coming off Peirce, I mentioned several times about going into the Gladiator Arena. You know me well enough by now that I like to use analogies to get a point across, to paint a picture, and to prepare you for what is coming.

For some of you, that mental picture of Gladiator Arena might give you more stress while others relish in the challenge. That is why I started with the guiding principle: HAVE FUN!

Some of you are gladiators, while some of you aren’t. That is OK! The fact is although you might not be going to battle mentally with your competition, you are always going to battle with yourself, aren’t you? The questioning and internal comments look like this: I’m tired, do I really want to do this?, is it going to be hot, will my parents be proud of me, can I really beat that person, will my mouth be dry, am I willing to give it my all, how fast can I run, am I fast enough, what if I don’t run fast today….

Ultimately, this questioning has 2 outcomes: the best outcome is that you squash these comments, put them out of your head, and go race to your best ability. You want to train yourself to not allow these comments to penetrate and rest in your mind. What I said right there was your mind has the power to either give in to negative thoughts OR squash them and overcome them with greatness!

To review Sundays meet, many of you took it to heart to show up as Gladiators.

So where does that leave us today…. It leaves us kicking off the final week of the regular season!

I love the fact that we get to race Central at the beginning and the end of the season so we can see how much you improved! We have to change the course a little, but this doesn’t change the meat of the course so you will be able to compare times. 

So let’s get down to it. This week is tapering again. We’ll run less time tonight, we’ll run through some tempo/fartleks on Tuesday, and then have our Glow run on Thursday night after some final speed intervals around soccer loop. This is a week to have fun as we ramp down the distance and get ready for Saturday.

Now is the time again to stay healthy so PLEASE pay attention to this:

1. Be alert to sick friends and family members. Don’t think just because a family member is sick that you have to get sick also. 
2. Stay away, wash your hands, and…
3. Load up on emergen C. It’s easy, go buy a box and drink a packet of it in the morning and at dinner… every day!
4. Stay off those skateboards and anything else that has a high chance of causing a season ending injury.
5. Junior highers, get a note to not run the laps at school this week, offer to write a paper on how amazing you train all the time! ?
6. One final point: if you didn’t accomplish what you wanted at MT SAC, there is one more race to do it! No pressure, get back to having fun, and race with a smile on your face to finish the season on a high note!

Let’s take these simple 6 steps and make it to Saturday healthy and ready to give it your best!

I’m excited to see how each of you come to the battle. Until then, I look forward to seeing you this week and finishing up a fantastic season!

Have fun!

Coach Jeremy