Friday, August 24, 2012

SWC Preview Information

Yes!  It is finally here... our first meet and the information regarding the meet. 

Cross Country Parents:

Here is information regarding tomorrow’s SWC Preview Meet at Lorain County Community College:

       ·         We will be meeting at LEARWOOD (not Troy) from now on, per the Athletic Department

·         Athletes need to be at LEARWOOD at 6:15 a.m.

·         Buses will depart at 6:30 a.m.

·         We should return between 10:30 – 11 a.m.

·         We will encourage athletes to call home to make sure parents do not have to wait for the bus to arrive


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 parents 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 (8/25/12). 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.

·         Parents, we will include a course map on the blog site. It’s best to view athletes running at the start line, at the mile mark (by the tennis courts), and then at the finish. These locations are fairly close to each other so you should be able to walk to each location without difficulty!

·         The goal of the first meet is really simple: every runner must finish the race without walking! After this meet we will refine our individual/team goals.


Some other areas of note:


·          So far our athletes have been doing very, very well! They are exhibiting great team behavior, their workouts these last couple of weeks have been unbelievable, and they are working well together!

·         We are going to have 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 another very large team this year and only two coaches. 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. To this end, we really need adult supervision to help meet these ends. Coach Walters will be at the finish line, I will be at the start & finish, and will be at various points of the race. Parents, if we can have some help at the campsite, that would be great. Athletes will need to be reminded to stretch after their race and to go cheer on their teammates when they are not running.

·         If your athlete is complaining of injury, let me know so we can set up a meeting with the ALHS athletic trainer at the high school. If athletes are not diagnosed with an injury, they are expected to run at practice! Most of the time everyone is fine, but some days—particularly harder workout days—we are getting a lot of complaints of injury. It’s sometimes difficult on our end to diagnose a high volume of ‘injured’ runners when the complaints are so numerous on hard days, then nonexistent on easy days. Overall, the team seems to be very healthy but this is an option if we do run into injuries this season!

·         We may need to re-outfit some of the athletes as their uniforms might not fit. We will do this after practice today! Let us know if there is an issue. We have a limited number of uniforms, but we’ll do our best to make sure athletes feel as comfortable as possible with what we have.

·         Last year, parents took pictures of athletes at meets and then organized them for our end-of-season awards night. In the past we’ve either put the season’s picture slideshow on CDs and passed them out on Awards Night, but last year a parent created a website where our team could access pictures. If anyone is interested in taking pictures and/or coordinating organization of pictures, let us know! I think everyone would rather watch a slideshow presentation of our season at our awards banquet, as opposed to listening to me speak!

·          

Thanks for all your support! We appreciate all the help with the Friday Night Dinners and we look forward to seeing everyone this Saturday! This is a great sport because athletes, parents, and coaches all work together to make this a great experience for everyone! It’s been a great start to the season and we are excited for our official start tomorrow!

 

Coach Rocco

Coach Walters

Avon Lake Cross Country

 

Here are directions to LCCC posted on the Team's blog:

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