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.