Sensational Sectional Effort

While enjoying pizza at Monicals with the team, we discussed the results of today's Sectional and could never discount the tremendous effort put forth by everyone on the team.  I am pretty sure EVERY runner on our team posted a course PR.  That is awesome, and we should be proud of that fact.

The girls were so enthusiastic and ran extremely well.  Their complete approach was excellent and I couldn't ask for much more.  And WOW, Unity has to be state champ next week.  If not, there is something totally wrong!

To our girls team, I can't say enough about how we improved throughout the season.  Those who stayed the course continued to improve leaps and bounds.  My gosh, we're so young with this group, with only one 8th grade leader left on the squad.  Next year looks very bright for this group.  We need to convince more young ladies to give Cross Country a look.  After all, running may be work, but it is also a lot of fun on our team.

The boys did a very good job in race preparation as well.  Everything seemed to be right.  Even as we crossed the finish line I thought our team was third.  It's amazing that we had all 7 of our guys in before Edison's number 4........   That really leaves an unsettling feeling, knowing that fact.  But, scoring as it goes, didn't come out in our favor since their top three were in the top 10, while we had only one.  With Monticello, we have 5 in before they have 4, but they had high finishers too.  Unity ran lights out as a team, no doubt.  Hats off to them.

I know the guys were disappointed, as were Coach T and I.  I know looking back we know where a couple of tactical errors were made that might have been the difference, but like we said all along this week, it was going to be a 5 team horse race and we had to have a flawless effort in order to in the top 3.  OH SO CLOSE.

To our boys team, especially the 8th grade group.  You have grown so much in the last 3 years and represented PBL with Panther Pride.  I want you to accept the challenge of continued improvement at the high school level and let today's hollow feeling serve as motivation for self improvement.

With a really young squad returning, our future could be very good.  However, I will caution we WILL have to be willing to work to improve and not take anything for granted.

We'll celebrate today's effort and look forward to cheering Kody and Evie on at next week's state finals.

I am proud of my Panthers!!!

Chance Favors the Well Prepared

The hay is in the barn.  We've done just about everything within our power to be well prepared for this weekend's Sectional.  After all, THE MAIN THING is all about focus, doing what is right, being well prepared, feeling confident, and taking care of business.  That being the case, we also have "chance" and "luck" moving our way, since Chance does favor those who have prepared well.

I gave the team a detailed sheet of the next couple of days and what the expectations are.  Even with a day off from school, we still have to focus on what is important.  It just wouldn't make much sense to lose focus now, with our opportunity for success being on the horizon.

We know that history and tradition do favor PBL, yet we still have to go out on Saturday and perform well.  The field in the sectional is more balanced than I've seen in years.  This means that we have to be totally ready to put everything on the line and use our ability and talent to take ourselves to the next level. Is it possible?  Absolutely!  I've seen it happen many times.  The team has heard our stories of success and failure, and knows the "cause and effect" of each.  Let's just hope each team member chooses wisely and comes Saturday to my office at 8:30 feeling like a "world beater".  After all, a sectional as balanced as this needs a team or two to "rise to the occasion".  I firmly believe we can do this.

So, we hit the hill tonight doing 8 x 200 reps in 14: 40.  What's funny, we're not even winded when it was done, everyone grabs a dumdum out of the box and proceeds to do the cool down, no questions asked.

So, a brief shakedown tomorrow at 3:30, rehearsing our warm up for Saturday morning, doing pullouts from Box 10, and calling it a day.  It's important to keep the body in it's cycle of exercise, and laying around most of the day and doing nothing is the worst thing we can do.

Easy Squeezy

It's time for some pretty light work to be as ready as possible for THE MAIN THING this Saturday.

The team met in my office and we discussed how important it is to take care of every piece of business we can in order to be well prepared:

1. Do all homework and home chores, thus eliminating any undo stress.  Just keep in mind that doing what is the RIGHT thing will pretty much keep our stress levels low.
2. EAT RIGHT, DRINK RIGHT - No "itos" family foods (Fritos, Cheetos, Tostidos, etc.), candy, candy bars, energy drinks, pop.  Lots of fruits and veggies, red meat, pasta, water, milk, juice.
3. Sleep well.  Don't take a stupid cell phone to bed and text.  Get a solid 9 hours of rest of more. Thursday night is the most important sleep night.
4. IF you go to the football game Friday, dress for the weather and get home at a reasonable time (9:30)
5. We'll talk about BREAKFAST on Saturday.  I'm still concerned after last Saturday.

I went over the team grid and AGAIN explained why I use it.  It all makes perfect sense and eliminates guess work, playing favorites, and gives the team something very tangible to deal with.  The whole grid thing started back when I was coaching my son.  I know what it's like dealing with that Coach-Son thing, so I put it right out there from the start that this was the way it was going to work.  No favorites, promotes team competition (a very good thing), keeps everyone honest.  

We had a nice, light workout.  Regular warm up routine, then a 20 minute light run followed by some strides and a cool down.  Coach T and I became garbage men afterwards and emptied the trash cans in preparation for the Sectional.  We also put up one short segment of rope on the course at one turn.

Tomorrow we'll do some nice up tempo work.  Just enough to put some pop in the legs.

FRIDAY, being a no school day will have us practice at 3:30.

Running on empty

I'm not talking about the team, here, I'm referring to me.

Big meet on Saturday and more PBL meet prep, parents 60th wedding anniversary on Sunday, continued PBL Invitational meet prep Monday, and then the big meet today.  I'm wiped.  And the best thing, I get to do it all over again since we host the Sectional on Saturday.  Of course, I did have my regular "job" to do, too.

The best part of today was ALL of the EXCELLENT help we had by our parents and alums.  WOW, was it great.  They made the meet the success it was, and I know it was after all of the compliments we received.

Given the fact this was our Invitational, I thought we did as I thought we would.  We really don't hype this thing, especially for the team who performs at the Sectional.  I do prep those who won't be Sectional runners, and I saw some really great times, especially for our course.  What a great way to end the season!!!  Although we backed off some yesterday, I wasn't expecting our kids to be "fresh as daisy's" today, especially that group of 10 I had do the 400's on the hill.   Again, all by design, since THE MAIN THING is Saturday.  I"m sticking with the plan that has worked well for years.  No sense in fixing something that up to this point is time is not broken.

These next 3 days of practice will be snappy and easy.  We'll elevate heart rates and put some pop into the legs and be ready for a "lights out" performance on Saturday.

Monticello Madness

You'd think as a coach I would be happy with our team's performance today.  Unfortunately, I'm deeply disturbed.  First, those who came prepared did a very fine job (you know who you are, your heart always tells the truth), those who didn't better learn from this experience rapidly (same principle of the heart applies here, too.)  After the race, I wanted to be sympathetic, but after I learned a few things discussed in the next paragraph, I was not too thrilled.  Hence, my lack of enthusiasm with the trophy finish.  I believe our EXTREMELY YOUNG AND INEXPERIENCED girls team did just about as well as it could today.  I know they are going to learn a lot from this season and this race and be ready for great races next week and a promising 2014 season.

And now my angst.

You'd think that after talking nutrition A WHOLE LOT and even begging the team to eat a good breakfast (yesterday at practice I talked about this emphatically) that our team would take my very solid and sound advice.  Funny thing, I even bring nutritious items to eat on the bus, but some decide it's just not for them.  I see some of our top guys falter BADLY in the last half of the race.  Come to find out, they eat little or nothing for breakfast...........  No wonder we had some near "epic fails".  If you have a little gas in the tank, the car runs then sputters until the gas is gone.  If you don't have nutritious food in the belly, you might run, but run (sputter) POORLY.  And trust me, this team has to do everything RIGHT to run the kind of races we'll have to run next Saturday.  The line for success and failure is a very thin one this year.

I hope today's top 7 look carefully at the results. Two of our JV guys would have been top 7 today.  That's what DESIRE did for them, wanting be make the top 7.  We better have our game faces and desire next Saturday.......

Yes, I'm on a rant right now.  IF you look closely at the team scores, by running as we should have, we secure 2nd place.  Not today.  In fact, look real close and you'll see several of our sectional foes just a few points behind us.  UNITY, ST. JOSEPH, EDISON, MONTICELLO, CLINTON, FRANKLIN, and EDISON are all in our Sectional.  Including us, that's 8 of the 12 sectional teams.  They've got to be licking their chops right now, especially Monticello and Unity, a mere 10 points or so away today.

Enough, what is done is done and we have to learn from this experience.  I see a Saturday morning TEAM BREAKFAST coming on.  I know the team parents are all in on this, so it might very well be in the plan.

All practices next week will be very short and sweet.  We should be done by 4:30 each day.  With no school Friday, we will practice at 3:30 and be done by 4:30.

After Tuesday's PBL Invitational, the sectional team along with the alternates will practice on Wed, Thur, and Friday.  I'll discuss this further with the team on Monday.

Meanwhile, let's look at what THE MAIN THING is.........  A season's worth of work can be rewarded if we are willing to do everything as it should be.

You Gotta Wanna

Effort was defined as "trying" by our team.  The amount of effort is called "desire".  

So, if I put a $100 bill out on the other end of the field, line the team up about 150 meters away, I wonder just how fast the team would run to retrieve it?  Point is, if there is proper motivation (desire), you might do just about anything  (effort) to be the first there to snag that cash.

Us old coaches know and understand this concept.  Now, trying to convince our team of that notion is an entirely different issue.  But, I think the point was well made and the kids seem to be understanding, at least a little more, what we're trying to get at.

In this case, THE MAIN THING is upon us and I was just wondering just how badly our teams want to succeed next week.  Planting those seeds early and cultivating them often helps created the desire our team has, the PRIDE that we need to have, and the WILL to make it happen.  It's been a trademark of PBL for years, and I am convinced we have the right people to continue the tradition of excellence that is characterized by this program.  

This was our last really hard workout for the season.  We have 3 meets in the next 6 days, tomorrow's meet with Mahomet, an easy DQ run on Friday, the Monticello Invitational Saturday, one full day of rest Sunday, a quality versus quantity workout on Monday, then the PBL Invitational on Tuesday.

We were really pleased with today's workout, seeing some really good work by everyone.  Way to go team.

I reviewed where the top 10 individuals stand on the grid for the top 8 runners who will dress for the Sectional.  It's a very fair way to see exactly who is ranked from our best to least runner, all based on team placing in the meets, starting with the Kickapoo meet last Tuesday.  The first 5 or 6 runners are normally pretty consistent, and it's easy to generally see who those folks are, but too many times it's the number 6, 7, and 8 spot that may not be quite so obvious.  So, many years ago I devised a simple scheme to make it work out as fair as possible, and the kids know well in advance how it works.  It eliminates most of the guess work in the "selection" process, if there really is such a thing in this sport.  

The Rigors of Rossville

The course at Rossville offers the challenge of very narrow paths to run, ruts and holes to navigate, and someone who likes to burn a bunch of stuff.  YUCK.  With all of the hazards listed, we still really like running there because of the beauty of running along a river, in a near forest like setting, and lots of little murky lakes, not to mention a ton of Poison Ivy.

Today's instructions were very clear since we have 3 races this week.  To pack run to the best of our abilities, especially for the first mile, then "every man for himself" the second mile.  I knew if we ran in this fashion, no one would be "going to the well" for energy we will need later in the week.  Generally speaking, things went pretty well.  I told the team this meet is always a challenge, yet fun, but our real focus for the week is Saturday, with our sights and training all set on THE MAIN THING on October 19.

We came out of the race finishing just as I thought, with the guys winning the meet and girls finishing second.  What please me the most was seeing our girls give Oakwood a much better race than we did earlier in the season.  Our girls are responding to their new identity quite nicely.  On the other hand, the guys were soundly beaten the day after Labor Day in what had to be a VERY POOR showing by the guys team.  With that in mind, we left no doubt today where we stand by putting 7 guys through the chute before the other teams' 4th men, which more than sealed the deal.  Pack running does have its advantages and our guys and gals both learned a little today.

Our LAST taxing workout of the year is tomorrow, on THE HILL, before taking on Mahomet on Thursday followed by the much anticipated DQ run on Friday.  The team will be getting their blue warmup sweats Friday after the DQ Run.