Saturday's Race

Cross Country Parents:

Here is the information regarding this Saturday’s SWC Preview Meet at Lorain County Community College:

· Athletes need to be at Learwood at 5:50 a.m. Buses will be departing at 6 a.m.

· All boys run at 8:30 a.m.

· All girls run at 9 a.m.

· We should return at approximately 11 a.m. We will encourage athletes to call home to make sure parents do not have to wait for the buses to arrive at Learwood

Some things to remember about the first meet:

· Bring uniform, any extra apparel you may want to wear, two pairs of socks, your practice running shoes (if you have spikes you still should bring your practice shoes to warm-up/cool-down in), your spikes (if you have them), sandals (to wear after the meet on the way home…your feet will be wet), something healthy to drink, a snack to eat both before and after the race, sweats to wear before and after the race, and a cell phone to contact home on the way home

· Parents, if you are taking your child home from the meet please make sure to sign out with Coach Walters at the finish line. Only parents can sign out athletes from the meet!

· After the race, results will be posted online at www.baumspage.com. On that webpage, click on Cross Country. Then scroll down to Southwestern Conference Preview (8/28/10). Click there to find out results. Please note: results may not be updated until later in the day that Saturday or perhaps even into the day on Sunday.

· We will email a course map either tomorrow or Friday. We will do our best to mark it for parents so they know where to cheer on the athletes. We will also pass out course maps to athletes at Friday’s team meeting.

· The goal of the first meet is really simple: every runner must finish the race without walking!

· As for the uniforms, we will do our best to accommodate every runner before race day, but we currently do not have enough as our numbers have increased substantially over the past two weeks. We ordered more uniforms two weeks ago but they are very busy outfitting teams this time of year. I met with the distributor today and we may have our uniforms by Friday but that is not a guarantee. We may have to ask some runners to run in their gym uniforms for this first meet. I have spoken to the meet manager and it doesn’t sound like it will be a problem for runners for this first meet.

Some other areas of note:

· We had a team meeting today to discuss positive team behavior and the importance of supporting one another during practice and at meets. Parents, please reinforce this concept with the athletes as we have a very large team this year and only two coaches. Team captains and experienced runners have been taught to support the new runners and to include everyone in team workouts and upcoming meets. This is the most important aspect of our season and we will not tolerate any inappropriate behavior at practice or at meets. We have had a tradition of excellent behavior from our athletes and we will continue to model such behavior this season.

· Please encourage your athletes to exercise good judgment when road running. We talked about this at our parent meeting, but runners should exercise caution when crossing intersections, should only run on the sidewalk, and should NEVER run on the road.

· At this point in the season there should be no walking during our road running. We have witnessed multiple athletes walking during workouts. This is our 4^th week of running and if a runner continues walking during a workout we will have to set up a meeting with the Avon Lake High School athletic trainer so athletes can be evaluated by a professional. If athletes are not diagnosed as injured by the trainer, then they are expected to run if they attend practice.

Thanks for all your support! We appreciate all the help with the Friday Night Dinners and we look forward to seeing everyone this Saturday!

Coach Rocco

Coach Walters

Avon Lake Cross Country