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Ok Hawks, the season is really heating up and we are starting to see some impressive growth in our runners. This is our second week of our 5-week Strength Session, so be prepared to work hard! Saturday we compete in the Del Oro Invitational, be sure to check out the Events page on the Team App for more information.
Monday - Intervals at Lock Hills (Meet at STONEGATE ELEMENTARY)
Tuesday - Rest & Stretch Wednesday - On your own
Thursday - Marshall Hills Fartlek Run (Meet at BRIDGEWAY LAKES BOATHOUSE)
Friday - Rest & Stretch Saturday - Race Day! Del Oro Invitational. Please see the Event Page Sunday - LONG Easy Run
REMEMBER: What you put into your training will dictate what you get out of your races. Train Hard, Win Easy! Coach Eric
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Friday afternoon was another fun XC meet for our flying Hawks!  Against dozens of other teams, our Hawks competed well, though we fell short of a third team championship. Our best finish was the 6th Grade and Under Boy's Team, finishing second overall with Elias (1st), Lou (8th), and Owen (17th) as our scoring runners, followed by Nate (52), Jack (85), Cal (92) and Allan (156).
Our Girl's 6th Grade and Under Team finished third overall (second club team) with Adeleine (6th), Natalie (16th), and Gabby (17th) as our scoring runners, followed by Sonia (20), Abigail (36), Josie (42), Harper Farris (63), Sophie (87), and Mackenna (128). Our Boy's 7th/8th Grade Team competed well with Matthew leading the way to an 11th place finish, followed by Charlie (45), Ryko (50), John (87), and Gage (95). Our Girl's 7th/8th Grade Team did not have enough members to garner a team score, but had great performances by Tahlia (16th) and Delaney in her first XC meet ever finishing 72nd. While all our Hawks pushed it and competed in the hot afternoon sun, a few athletes really demonstrated improvement. Because of the nature of cross country and the variation between courses, it is difficult to compare performances directly from week to week. However, we can compare average pace and, while most Hawks ended up running a bit slower on this course, four team members actually improved their average pace yesterday compared to our first meet (Lagoon Valley Invite). Ryko improved his pace from 6:44 to 6:42, Abigail improved her pace from 8:22 to 8:18, Lou improved from 6:33 to 6:28, and Nate had an astonishing 15 second improvement in his pace from 7:53 to 7:38! If we are doing our job correctly, everyone's average pace should be improving over the season. Next Saturday will bring our next chance at improvement as we compete in the Del Oro Invite. Great work yesterday - now everyone needs to get their long run in this weekend and be ready for another hard workout on Monday. Go Hawks! Hawks, remember we want to see you at the course by 3:30 on Friday. Please find information about this week's race below: Location: William B. Pond Park - 5700 Arden Way, Carmichael, CA 95608 Parking: $5 CASH for all cars that park inside the park. Let parents know to bring $5 cash and to arrive early as parking could fill up and will also take some time. If the parking area fills up, there is parking in the surrounding neighborhood, but cars will have to park a few blocks away from the park entrance to avoid parking restrictions. Race Times: 4:30pm- 6th grade and under Girls 4:50pm- 6th grade and under Boys 5:10pm- 7th and 8th grade Girls 5:30pm- 7th and 8th grade Boys Race Course: The course is a 2 loop course, on grass, which comes out to about 1.1 miles long. There will also be 2 sets of hay bales the kids will go over, which add some extra fun. There is a course map on this page. Team Tent Area: We provide an area near the start/finish for coaches to set up team tents, if you have one. Normally we keep this to a pretty confined area, but this year with COVID, you can spread out a bit farther, but just know that you may not be able to hear our announcer if you set-up too far away. So keep a close eye on the time if you can't hear his announcements. Results, Photos & Team Scoring Results and photos will be posted on our website after the race and we will post results near the finish line when they become available. Results will also be uploaded to athletic.net after the race. Team scores will be calculated based on the 3 fastest placers from a team for each of the races. Awards Ceremony: We will have an awards ceremony for the top 10 individual finishers in each of the four races and present them with a medal. The awards ceremony will take place immediately following the last race of the day at about 5:50pm. Please listen for announcements. We do not have team awards, but we will announce the top 3 placing teams at the awards ceremony as well. COVID Protocols: All staff and volunteers will be wearing masks. We encourage any adults, including coaches and parents, to wear masks when within 6 feet of others. In general, please do your best to keep people spaced out, but obviously once the kids line up and start running they will be closely bunched. The kids will not be required to wear masks while participating in the event. Please do your best to provide a safe environment for everyone. Let me know if you have any questions, see you there! Coach Eric We have our First SRA meet coming up this Friday. For those of you who are new, you are going to love this race! Be prepared as you will need to get out of school early. Please look at the event page for the race in our Calendar on the Team App.
Monday - Intervals at Lock Hills (Meet at Stonegate Elementary)
Tuesday - Rest & Stretch Wednesday - On your own.
Thursday - Lake Loop Tempo Run (Meet at Bridgeway Lakes Boathouse)
Friday - Race Day! SRA Meet #1. Please see the Event Page Saturday - LONG Easy Run.
Sunday -REST Run Tough, Coach Phil. What a great weekend! There were so many great races and strong efforts. Please check out the race recap that coach Eric posted for a great review. We have a break in races until next week which gives us a chance to work hard this week and make some large gains as a team.
One note about TEAM. For the uninformed, people believe that cross country is an individual sport. As we've seen in the past two weeks, it clearly is not. WE are a flock of Hawks. We train hard together, we race hard together, and we win together. We are a TEAM. Whether you are First place, 5th place, a displacer in 7th, or you are a teammate holding your team accountable at practice and inspiring your fellow athletes, WE ARE A TEAM. I cannot share enough about how proud I am of this team. Let's continue to build our team and run tough! Great work! Here's this week of workouts below. PLEASE complete all workouts and please update your Strava account. Monday - Marshall Hills (meet at Boathouse)
Tuesday - Rest & Stretch Wednesday - On your own.
Thursday - Locke Hills - (Meet at Stonegate Elementary)
Friday - Rest & Stretch Saturday - LONG Easy Run.
Sunday -REST Run Tough, Coach Phil.  Our boy's team came up with another big win today, this time at the Josh Ruff Memorial Invite. Led by Elias' 2nd place, Matthew's 4th place, and Luke's 6th place finish, The Hawks held off a very strong Buffalo Chips team to win 55 to 62. Charlie and Lou finished 19th and 33rd, strongly rounding out the team's scoring runners. Ryko finished in 46th place, and Owen was our seventh boy at 52nd place - a great effort for his first XC race.
On the girl's side, the Hawks once again placed fourth overall, which is incredibly impressive given that, in an "8th grade and under" field we fielded a team comprised of one 8th grader, one 6th grader, two 4th graders and a 2nd grader! Adeleine once again led our field with a 12th place finish, followed by Tahlia (26th), Sonia (29th), newcomer Gabriella Grefaldia (35th) and Josie (55th) to close out the scoring girls. Abigail was tight on Josie's heels at 56th place, and our seventh girl this week was another new teammate, Spencer Reber with a 68th place finish. It was a beautiful morning on a challenging course and we saw great effort from all our athletes today. We are incredibly proud of each and every Hawk! Of note, we had a few most improved performances that need to be highlighted. Some returning athletes ran in the 2019 Josh Ruff Invite, and every one of them improved their times, but two athletes in particular demonstrated incredible growth. In 2019, Charlie covered the same course in 12:47 and Sonia ran a time of 15:10. This year Charlie finished in 10:26, improving his time by 2:20, while Sonia ran 12:29 this year, dropping her time by 2 minutes and 41 seconds! These two Hawks are walking reminders of what the coaches tell you every practice - they show up, do the work, trust the system, and the results speak for themselves. Great work today, Hawks! Let's keep it up. Our next meet will be FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th, at WILLIAM B POND PARK in Carmichael. Please check out and RSVP under the Events tab of the Team App, and let the coaches know if you have any questions. Soar High Hawks! Coach Eric Our boys team WON the last race we were in, but do you know why? We are going to talk about this at practice but I found this great video that does a great job explaining the scoring. The highlights:
Ok, check out the short video below for more details. Run Tough, Coach Phil.  Welcome all the new Hawks to Week 3 and the beginning of increasing our intensity. The coaches are so excited for the season to come, and to see how strong and fast we can get our athletes. The last two weeks have been the ramp up - now we start the real work.
Our second meet of the season is this Saturday in Folsom at the Josh Ruff Memorial Invitational. We have registered all our athletes for the meet - if you don't think you can make it please let us know. Now that we have established our dominance in the region, boy's team will be in the crosshairs of all the other teams out there hoping to bring home the championship trophy. Our girl's team will look to improve with the addition of a number of new and returning Hawks. Should be very exciting! Following is the week's schedule: Monday - Marshall Hills
Tuesday - Rest & Stretch Wednesday - On your own.
Thursday - Marshall Hills Tempo Run
Friday - Rest & Stretch Saturday - Josh Ruff Memorial XC race.
Sunday - Easy Run
 What a first XC Meet of the Season! The Hawks competed today at the Lagoon Valley Classic, and it was a great baseline to build from for all our athletes. Also, we brought home some serious hardware – including our FIRST TEAM WIN! The boy’s team placed first overall in the Middle School race, upsetting returning champion Sutter Middle School with a score of 53 to 56 (lowest score wins in XC team scoring). Even more impressive, the Sutter scoring runners were all in 8th grade, while our team was comprised of three boys in 7th grade and two 6th graders! Elias led the way with a 3rd place finish, followed closely by Matthew in 5th place. Luke finished 14th, Charlie finished 23rd and newcomer Lou Knowles rounded out the scoring runners in 24th place (top 5 runners score for a team). We also had strong showings by Ryko (34th), John (47th), Nate (70th), Jack (81st), and Taylor (92nd). On the girl’s side, the Hawks finished 4th as a team, led by Adeleine’s 4th place finish, followed by Natalie and Tahlia Allen at 13th and 14th respectively. Josie was the team’s fourth runner, placing 37th, while Abigail contributed to our scoring runners in 44th place. With only five girls competing in this meet, we were super happy they all made it to the starting line and competed as hard as they did – what a team effort! We are very proud of all our kids today, and incredibly excited for our potential moving into the season. The fact that these kids woke up early on a Saturday and came out and gave 110 percent for their team is all we can hope for as coaches, and every single athlete today were heroes to us. Also, it will be great to see what the new additions to the team can accomplish in the months ahead. Finally, I want to specifically highlight a couple of phenomenal performances in our first meet: First, two runners really demonstrated what off-season training and growth can accomplish in today’s race. Charlie’s fastest mile pace last spring was 6:24, and he averaged 6:30 pace over today’s hilly 1.5 mile course, meaning his pace was only 6 seconds slower today than his best pace on the track! Similarly, Adeleine’s pace today was only 9 seconds slower than her best track pace from the spring. This is an amazing effort, and bodes well for their growth this season! Second, in a striking promise for future Hawks teams, we had a couple of impressive 2nd grade performances in a “middle school” race. Josie shocked the crowd with a medal-winning 37th place finish, the only girls ahead of her (other than our very own Natalie) were 6th grade and older. Meanwhile, Jack Mittleman, in his racing debut, out-sprinted a couple of 7th graders to finish 81st overall. With youth like this it seems like the Hawks will be able to carry success forward for years to come. The season really begins to roll next week, as our athletes fight off all challengers in another Middle School race at the Josh Ruff Memorial Invite on Saturday. Go Hawks!  |
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June 2024
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