The Hawks had a great chance this weekend to run against some good competition in their age group races, and rose to the challenge!
At the Rancho Cordova meet, all of our athletes participated in age group races instead of as a group, with nearly every Hawk on the team competing. While many of our runners performed well, a few Hawks really brought the heat. Presley Strickland posted a monster improvement, running her 3k race in 7:42 pace - her previous best was 9:09 pace at the first SRA meet! Both Jack and Callan had major improvements in their per mile paces, and Hanah ran a significantly faster pace in her 3k debut as well! This coming weekend is the Clarksburg Country Run, good luck to all of you who are participating! If you are not running in the 5k, please be sure and get your long run in. This is the last few weeks of the season, let's finish strong. Here is the schedule for the coming week: Monday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 6-12 x 400m intervals, Marshall Loop 10 min cool down 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 Deck of Cards Fartlek, Marshall Loop 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday or Sunday: Long Run White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles Sunday: OPTIONAL - Clarksburg Country Run Click here for more information As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric
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Championship season is nearly here! With all the great work our athletes have put in so far this season, I wanted to highlight a few "little things" that can really affect how a race goes.
What to eat before a race? The night before, try to stick with carb heavy foods that are easy on the stomach. There are lots of things that work well--pasta or rice with a protein are classics--but it's probably not the best time to try something new (or those super spicy hot wings your friend dared you to eat). On race day, it is best not to eat a bunch of food right before the race. Your food needs time to digest or you might feel sick or get a stomach ache when you run. But it is important to eat! For a morning race, if you have three hours or more until the race, a full, normal breakfast is fine. Things like bagels or toast with nut butter or oatmeal or cereal with milk or yogurt are great. If you only have 1-2 hours until race time, something a little bit smaller is better (granola bar or crackers/toast with peanut butter or oatmeal are again great). If your athlete says they're too nervous to eat race morning, try to get them to nibble on some snacks that are tolerable and drink some sports drink with calories (like Gatorade or the equivalent). For afternoon races, it is similar--a normal (but preferably easy on the stomach) lunch 3+ hours out from the race is good. Just don't eat too much right before the race. Also, we want to make sure to stay well hydrated. It's getting colder, what to wear? Dress in layers! That way, your athlete can warm up in sweats and then take them off right before the race so they don't get too cold waiting for the race to start. If it is especially cold, a warm hat and gloves are a must. How to manage race-day nervousness? First off, race-day jitters are totally normal. That sense of pre-race excitement, nervousness, and butterflies in the stomach. These feelings should be embraced--they mean the athlete is excited to race and amped up and the athlete should welcome the added adrenaline and then race with confidence! But for some athletes, they can feel scared, anxious, or sick to their stomach before a race. This is tough and can sabotage performance. And it varies hugely athlete to athlete. An athlete might be too focused on outcome, on what others might think, or on a fear of failure. Or it could be something else entirely. It is important to talk to your athlete to try and unpack what might be causing this sort of anxiety or worry. Feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions on this topic! Go Hawks! --Coach Galen It is hard to believe, but the end of the season is already rapidly approaching! Our athletes have been working hard and are primed to finish strong.
This coming Sunday the 6th, we have our last regular season cross country race in Rancho Cordova. It is a USATF-sanctioned meet which means the athletes will run in their age groups (as opposed to other races that combined 8th grade and under). The Rancho Meet is in a flat grassy park and will be a great opportunity for our Hawks to run some PRs. The following weekend, many of the Hawks will be participating in the Clarksburg Country Run 5K (Sunday Nov 13th). More information and registration is available here. The USATF Pacific Association Youth XC Championship Meet in on Sunday, November 20th, at the Willow Hill Reservoir course in Folsom. This meet is the qualifier meet for regionals the weekend following and is critical for all our Hawks to attend. Especially those in the age groups trying to qualify a team for Nationals. (For more information about Nationals, be sure to check out our page here.) While the Association Championships may be the last race for some of our Hawks, those who qualify will compete at Regionals and Nationals in the following weeks. We will include more details on those in coming blog posts, but if you have any questions please stop a coach and let us know. For this week, we WILL NOT be meeting for practice on Monday (it is Halloween). There is, however, a mandatory workout all Hawks will need to do on their own either Monday or Tuesday. The schedule is as follows: Monday or Tuesday: On Your Own 10 min warm up, drills 20 minute tempo run 10 min cool down Wednesday: Gray and Black Group 3-4 mile easy run on your own Thursday: 5:30pm at the Boathouse 10 min warm up, drills 6-10 x 500m intervals, Marshall Loop 10 min cool down, strength Friday: rest and stretch Saturday: Long Run White/Yellow 3-5 miles Gray/Black 5-7 miles Sunday: RCTC Youth XC Meet Dave Roberts Park, Rancho Cordova Kids 10 and Under arrive by 9am All other kids arrive by 10:30am As always, if you have any questions, please let us know! Coach Eric
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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 |
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April 2024
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