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 We had another amazing performance by our Delta Hawks this weekend at the Flat Sac Invitational. Despite the fact that the course was a quarter of a mile longer than than SRA meets, nearly everyone ran faster paces on Saturday than they have all season! That is what we train for, what we work for every week - steady improvement by every athlete on the team.
A couple of great examples of improving over the season:
Speaking of schedules, we don't have a meet this coming weekend so we will be working hard this week in practice. In further news, we will not be meeting for practice on Monday, October 31st (for obvious reasons) but I will be posting a workout I expect everyone to find time to run on Monday or Tuesday in order to keep the momentum going. This week it will be getting dark early so we need to bring headlamps for practice. It is safer if each of us can see where we are running. Here's our schedule for the week: Monday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 5-8 x 600m intervals at Marshall Hills 5-6 long sprints in the grass 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 20-25 min fartlek at the Swamp Fast Swamp, Easy Finger 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday or Sunday: Long Run White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric  Another weekend, another big performance by our Delta Hawks! On Friday our Hawks ran in the third SRA Youth XC Meet called "PR-Palooza" because it follows by several weeks a race on the same course so everyone gets to compare times and really measure their progress over the season. And the Hawks did not let us down!
Almost every single Hawk ran a faster time on Friday than they had run previously, while seven athletes improved their previous time by more than 10 percent! Those impressive runners include:
Next Saturday, we have the Flat SAC Invitational at Gibson Ranch north of Sacramento in Elverta. It is a fun 1.5 mile course where the Hawks will compete in the boys and the girls middle school races. High school races follow, so there is a lot of cross country to be had if you want to hang out and watch bigger kids compete. Directions and parking information can be found here. Please plan to arrive early as it can take some time to park and we want all the kids ready to warm up by 8:15am. The practice schedule for this week is as follows: Monday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 5-8 x 800m intervals at Marshall Hills 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 30 min tempo run - Cut down 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday: Flat SAC Invitational Gibson Park Elverta, CA Please arrive by 8:15am, ready to warm up Sunday: Long Run White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric  Another fun weekend for the Hawks as we traveled up to Cottonwood to compete in the NorCal Striders Youth Cross Country Meet. The weather was beautiful, the course was HARD, and the competition was fierce, but our Hawks got a taste for USATF-distance races and ran like champs!
Of the 14 kids who made the trip, 7 of them earned hardware! Hadley, Harper, and Annie finished third in the 8-under, 9-10, and 13-14 girls' races respectively. Oliver finished fourth in the 13-14 boys race and Josie earned a fifth place medal in her 9-10 race. Finally, David and Natalie finished sixth in each of their races to claim ribbons. All of our runners pushed themselves across the hilly course and made the coaches proud! This Friday, we have our third and final SRA Youth XC Meet back at William B. Pond Park again. We will be able to measure our athletes' improvement against their times on the same course from a month ago - should be a good time for all! Please try to arrive by 3:30 again so we can get everyone warmed up and ready to go on time. Our practice schedule will begin to be faster and harder as we "sharpen the blade" and turn our Hawks into fierce flyers moving into the more competitive section of our season. We will be meeting at the Boathouse on Monday and Thursday, and the schedule will be as follows: Monday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 5-8 x 800m intervals at Lake Loop 5-6 long sprints in the grass 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 20-25 min fartlek at Marshall Hills 4 mins hard, 1 min jog 10 min cool down, strength Friday: SRA Youth XC Meet #3 William B. Pond Park Carmichael, CA Please arrive by 3:30, ready to warm up Saturday or Sunday: Long Run White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric  The Hawks turned out in force at the second SRA Youth XC Meet in Folsom on Friday! We had a number of impressive and gutsy performances, but I will highlight a few here.
First, a number of Hawks ran significantly FASTER this meet than they did at SRA #1, despite the harder course! The Millers both posted impressive improvements with Mackenna running 52 seconds faster and Mason improving 46 seconds. Stella also had a breakout performance, improving by 32 seconds, and Sonia ran 14 seconds faster than her previous race. Great job Hawks! Second, we had a number of debut races from strong new runners, including Paloma, Bagels, Isaac, and Xol. Jai also ran his first race of the season, and finished as the second boy age 8 and under! I can only hope the heat, dust, and hills didn't scare anyone away. This week we have a meet on Sunday in Cottonwood (outside of Redding). Everyone competing in the meet still need to get their long runs in on Saturday. Please see the events page on the Team App for more details on the meet, and RSVP yes or no either way. For practice this week, it is getting too dark to run at Lock Hills so we will meet at the Boathouse each day. Please see the schedule below: Monday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 4-6 x 1000m intervals at Marshall Hills 5 Hill Repeats 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 20-25 min tempo at the swamp Swamp Monster 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday: Long Run White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles Sunday: NorCal Striders Youth XC Meet West Valley High School Cottonwood, CA Please arrive by 9am As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric Quick blog post this week, we hope you are getting your long runs in this weekend!
This week, we have a meet on Friday up at Willow Hill Reservoir in Folsom. We are running at Lock Hills on Monday and back at Marshall Hills on Thursday. The schedule is as follows: Monday: 5:30pm at the Stonegate Elementary 10 min warm up, drills 4-6 x 800m intervals at LOCK HILLS 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 20 min tempo at Marshall Hills POKER RUN! 10 min cool down, strength Friday: SRA Youth XC Meet #2 Willow Hill Reservoir, Folsom Please arrive by 3:45 Saturday or Sunday: Long Run! White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric  We have so many Hawks running this year! What a great turn out for a fun meet on Friday - the first SRA Youth XC Meet of the season (of three). And we placed well as a team again, with the boy’s 7th/8th grade team placing 2nd overall and the girl’s 6th grade and under team placing 3rd!
We had a ton of fabulous individual performances, with three medal winners (Elias placing 1st, Matthew placing 5th, and Harper finishing in 8th place) not to mention Annie placing one spot out of the medals in 11th. First, I want to point out how much some of our returning runners have improved from this meet last year. Here’s a list of the best improvements: Last Year This Year Mackenna 16:38 11:52 Harper 11:18 8:54 Sophie 12:53 11:20 Josie 10:36 9:32 Charlie 8:17 7:48 Matthew 7:29 7:01 Second, comparing mile pace from last week’s race to this week’s, we can measure improvement this season. Of course, nearly everyone ran a faster pace this week on a shorter, easier course, most everyone improving 20-30 seconds/mile. However, we had some significant pace improvements, such as these: Josh Ruff Invite SRA Youth Meet #1 Reagan W. 8:42 7:30 Lou 7:14 6:31 Carlos 8:48 7:35 Veya 9:38 8:14 Sonia 8:27 7:48 Cal 9:26 8:48 Tyler 10:21 9:07 The best news about this meet, though, is that we will return to this same course in 4 weeks to run again - we can truly measure our progress over the season! Overall, an amazing meet for the Delta Hawks because every athlete started and finished and that’s the most important stat! This week, we don’t have a meet so we are going to really kick up the intensity at practice. Remember, we practice in the rain so be sure and attend regardless of weather! We are NOT running at Lock Hills this week, so please come to the Boathouse on Monday and Thursday. The schedule is as follows: Monday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 3-5 x 1000m intervals at the swamp 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 20 min tempo at Marshall Hills Ladder 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday or Sunday: Long Run! White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric  Despite the challenges of the past week, the heat and the smoke and the uncertainty of Saturday, the Delta Hawks showed up in force and ran super tough at the Josh Ruff Memorial Invite in Folsom! We are especially impressed with our newest Hawks - for some of these athletes this was their first race ever - way to go!
Our boys’ team placed 3rd overall, with Elias taking the overall win and Matthew running strong to finish 5th overall. New Hawk Oliver Charkiewicz finished 20th to earn himself a medal and place third on the team, while Charlie and Lou rounded out the scoring Hawks. Our girls’ team placed 5th even without Adeleine, who was out with an injury, led by newcomer Annie Villavicencio finishing 11th overall and Natalie’s 15th place finish. Both leaders earned themselves medals. Harper, Audrey, and Sonia rounded out the scoring for the girl Hawks. Everyone agreed that the Willow Hill course is a tough one for the team’s first meet – it is one of the most challenging courses we ever face – but the Hawks made us all proud by fighting up those hills and giving it their best! Mackenna deserves a huge shout out, as she epitomizes the heart of a Delta Hawk. At last year’s Josh Ruff Invite, Mackenna was new to running and still learning to push herself in workouts and races. She struggled to finish the difficult course and had to walk at times, but she didn’t give up. Mackenna has been a Hawk for over a year now, and runs with confidence even in the face of massive hills and huge fields of runners. Mackenna's perseverance was demonstrated yesterday by her six-minute PR over her time last year, and she’s only getting stronger! That type of growth is one of our key goals as a team, and she continues to make us all proud. This coming week we have some hard workouts, a super-fun meet, and then our team outing at Jenkinson Lake! We will cover details at practice this week; meanwhile, here is this week’s schedule: Monday: 5:30pm at Stonegate Elementary Jog to Lock Hills, drills 3-6 x 800m intervals, full rest 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 20 min tempo at Marshall Hills Rock/Paper/Scissors 10 min cool down, strength Friday: SRA Youth XC Meet #1 William B. Pond Park, Carmichael Please arrive no later than 3:30 Saturday: Team Hang Out at Jenkinson Lake! More details on the team app under “Events” Arrive before 10am to join us for a long run Sunday: If you don’t get your long run in on Saturday, do it Sunday morning! 3-6 miles, depending on fitness As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric Well Hawks, this is going to be a strange week. It is just too dang hot to meet in the evening for practice, so we are going to give everyone their workouts to do on their own – hopefully in the morning before it gets too hot outside, or on a treadmill in air conditioning.
On Monday (Labor Day), Coach Eric and the Thronson kids will be at Locks Hills at 8:30am to do Monday’s workout. Any Hawk who can is welcome to join! If you can’t be there, please be sure to get your workout in on your own. On Thursday, everyone will be on their own to do their tempo run. To explain tempo: if you imagine your running effort on a scale of 1-100 (with 1 being a shuffle and 100 being an all out sprint), then your tempo pace is roughly 75-80 on that scale. Please reference the schedule below and let me know if you have any questions. Josh Ruff Memorial Invitational Another casualty of this heat wave is meeting together before our first meet so we can discuss it for those who are new to cross country. I will do my best to relay important information here, and on the Team App as the date approaches. Also, see the meet webpage for additional information. We need to be at the team tent by the Willow Hill course, ready to warm up at 8am on Saturday. I will be leaving with the kids to warm up and go over the course, so please don’t be late. Parking at the school lots will cost $5/car. Do not park in the parking lot of the businesses located near Folsom High School on Iron Point Road. The boys run first at 9am, followed by the girl’s race scheduled for 9:20am. Both groups are running a 1.5 mile course, starting and finishing at the same general location. We will go over starts and hills and what to do in between. It’s going to be fun! Here’s the schedule for the week: Monday: 8:30am at Locks Hills or On Your Own 10 min warm up, drills 3-6 x 600m intervals, full rest Or 2 minutes hard/2 easy for 20 minutes 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Only if you've been running 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: On Your Own 10 min warm up, drills 20-25 min tempo, running around 80% of your hardest pace 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday: Josh Ruff Memorial Invite Willow Hill Reservoir Folsom High School Sunday: Long run - try to find someone to run with 3-6 miles, depending on fitness As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric Welcome to week two of our 2022 XC season, practices are beginning to get more serious. As we say over and over again, it is critical that our Hawks get their long runs in over the weekend in order to handle the increasingly challenging practices during the week.
We are also introducing a new location for practice – those of you who were with us in 2021 know what’s coming – its LOCKS HILLS!!!! On Monday, we will not be meeting at the Boathouse, we will be meeting at Stonegate Elementary (2500 La Jolla St, West Sacramento, CA 95691) at 5:30 and then jogging over to the sandy hills at the corner of Locks Dr and S River Rd to do drills and run some intervals. We will then jog back to Stonegate to stretch and do our strength routine. Parents who don’t want to jog with us may want to drive and park on Locks Dr. We will meet at the Boathouse as usual on Thursday. Later this week is going to be hot, and our athletes are going to be working hard, so please hydrate and bring water with them to practice. Let us know if you have any questions about proper preparation for running. This week's schedule is as follows: Monday: 5:30pm at Locks Hills MEET AT STONEGATE ELEMENTARY 10 min warm up, drills 4-8 x 500m intervals, good rest 10 min cool down, strength Tuesday: rest and stretch Wednesday: Only if you've been running 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 20-25 min fartlek, 2 min on/1 min easy 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday or Sunday: Long run - try to find someone to run with 3-6 miles, depending on fitness As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric |
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December 2022
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