Monday, August 31, 2009

Week One In The Bag

Athletes-

Well, we've worked all summer for the season, and here we are two meets in already. We've had a very good first week as we've hosted the Pre-Region meet and traveled to American Fork for the Grass Relays. As a coaching staff, we are excited about what we've seen so far, and are encouraged by where we see our potential by the end of the season.

Pre-Region
We had the opportunity to host the Pre-region meet on Tuesday for the first meet of our season. As defending Region VIII Champions, we showed well considering this was your first race ever for many of you. On the guys side, the Skyhawks finished 3rd with 49 points behind Springville (43) and Maple Mountain (46). Great job to everyone who ran, especially to Tyler Gebert who finished 2nd overall and ran a course PR by one minute. Gebert was followed by Alex Minson, Taylor Thorpe, Jordan Daniels and Blake Adams in our top 5.

In the girls' race, Cosette Stone finished first overall by about a minute. Great Job! Cosette was followed by Kaetlin Bracken, Becca Jones, Diana Moreva and Mickenna Belliston as scoring runners. Great job to you five and all the rest as well. This was a great starting point to head into the rest of the season.

Complete Results can be found HERE.

Grass Relays
On Saturday we traveled to the American Fork Grass Relays, one of the more unique cross country races we participate in. As coaches we love this meet--despite how much running we have to do back and forth to cheer you all on (I think we ran more than YOU GUYS did...)

Anyway, Saturday was a beautiful day for the relays, and we had some great performances from most everyone on the team. Great job to each of you! I have yet to hear a tally on how many of you tasted hay during the race, but I know of at least one of you...mmmm!

Our varsity teams did very well as usual, as our girls took 7th place out of 27 teams at the meet, and our guys finished 16th out of 31 teams. Great job especially to Cosette Stone who was recognized for finishing in the top 15 overall for Varsity Girls.

On paper we are definitely making some great strides toward accomplishing our season and individual goals. Keep up the hard work as we head into week 2 of the season. This week we have another home meet on Tuesday afternoon and then we're off to BYU on Saturday for their Autumn Classic.

Grass Relays Results can be found RIGHT HERE.

Remember, "You have to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable." Lou Pinella

Friday, August 14, 2009

Summer's Over! :)

I know none of us are ready for the summer to be over and school to be starting, but ready or not, here we are...
We will be starting our official afternoon practices this next week on Monday. From here on, we expect attendance every day at practices, so be sure you have made yourself available every afternoon throughout the season! Here's what we've got planned for this first week:
Monday, August 17th---Practice at the SHHS track at 2:30 pm.
Tuesday, August 18th--PRACTICE AT SHHS TRACK AT 1:30 PM. WE WILL BE DOING AN END OF SUMMER WORKOUT/POOL PARTY/BBQ, SO BE SURE TO BE THERE!!! Be ready for a run, but also bring your swimsuit and $1.00 for swimming. Everything else will be covered by us. We will probably be gone till 7:30 or so Tuesday evening. PLEASE BE SURE TO BE THERE!!!!
Starting Wednesday, August 19th--Practice at the SHHS track each day at 3:00 pm.

Here's some pictures from our 1st Annual Amazing HawkRace. It was a great success that took us over 9 miles of roads and through six tasks to finish at Spanish Fork Pool for swimming and a BBQ. Thanks to all that came!
Task #1: The team had to perform a song of their choosing on the Stage at Knoll Park. Is this "I'm a Little Teapot"?
Task #2: Don't Ask!!! For this task, the teams had to fill a cylinder with water using only their mouths. Great technique Diana!!
Task #3: Teams were asked to build a tower 12 inches tall using toothpicks and marshmallows... turns out it's a lot harder than it looks! At least they got to rest in the shade for a few minutes!
Task #4: Pretzels anyone? The team had to untangle themselves from their human pretzel. We waited till we were a good 6+ miles into the run to do this so they were all nice and sweaty and "ripe." Hehe!

Task #5: Hungry? Thirsty? Why not take care of both at the same time? The teams couldn't move on until their entire watermelon was consumed. Oh, and they were seeded.

Then came the reward!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Ready or Not, Here Comes The Season!

We can hardly believe how quickly this summer has flown by!  We'll be back to school next week, and our first meet is just around the corner from there...  Hopefully you've all been working hard throughout the summer getting ready for the summer.  We've seen a lot of you throughout the summer at our morning and evening workouts, and we as coaches are anxious to see how we come together as a team.

I haven't been very good at posting pictures on the website this summer, so I thought I'd throw a bunch of them on here!  Enjoy!

Ragnar Relay 2009
The Team before the race start in Logan
One of our support vehicles--nice graffiti girls!
Just three girls being weird--as usual...
The finish line!!!  24 hours, 6 minutes later!  Great job guys!

Mapleton Canyon

Getting ready in the parking lot

Alex and Taylor flying through the trees

Maple Lake and the Grotto
Running the trail around Maple Lake
The Grotto (before)
The Grotto (after)
Stewart Falls
Looking down on the team from above...
In front of Stewart Falls
Under Stewart Falls!
James taking his annual shower...


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Highlight of the Summer

Athletes-

Don't miss this Thursday's run!!!! We will be leaving the high school at 6:30 (be there by 6:20, ready to go). We'll be heading up Provo Canyon to run up to Stewart Falls, one of the prettiest waterfalls around! It's a beautiful run as a team, and we want EVERYONE there!!!

Also, this Saturday is the Salem Days 5K here at the Salem Pond. You can register online at www.runnercard.com or at the Salem City offices. Everyone needs to run in this race if you are in town. We as coaches use this race to assess where everyone is going into the school year. The race starts at 7:00, so we'll see you then!