Our plan for this past week was to not have any really hard workouts and continue to work on building mileage and base.  On Tuesday we did a nice hill workout.  The lower mileage guys did Stokes hill and the higher mileage guys did the hill behind OLGC on South Washington.  On Thursday we did 1000 meter thresholds on the grass.  Both of these workouts were meant to build the cardiovascular systems without going at a maximum level and risking injury.

 

We are really impressed with the way the Saturday long run is going.  We had a very large group do 8 miles today in this hot and humid weather, probably worth a bit more. 

 

On the negative side, there were a number of missing runners from practice Saturday.  And some runners cut it short.  This is not acceptable behavior.  We are a team, and the whole team practices together and runs together and helps each other.

 

This is our last week without racing.  We are targetting a very hard workout for Tuesday - repeat miles, with each one targetted to be faster than the last.  This will give us a good indication of the progress we have made since the start of the season as well as give everyone a sense of target pace for the first races coming up the following week.

 

Thursday we will do a Tempo Run.  This is a longer run - 2-4 miles - at a pace between an easy run and all out.  This is again meant to build the cardio system, and we think is a good way to get used to running harder for longer periods of time.

 

You can always check out our plan on our website at

http://www.moorestownxc.org/2008Team/2008Team_index.htm. 

 

All parents and runners should plan on being at school at 6PM (note the new time!) on Sept. 11.  There will be an all sport meeting in the main auditorium and then we will break out to a separate room to discuss the season, our plans and fun stuff like the new XC course!

 

We have started work on the new XC trail.  Leonberg Nurseries (Ben Leonberg was a former runner and his parents are still very supportive of the program) is helping to coordinate the building of the bridges, the delivery of the material and the scheduling of the Bobcat loader.  They are also providing all of the mulch for free (so when ordering mulch next spring, think of them first!).  It looks like the costs for both trail segments will be in the range of $15,000, and we only have $5,900 raised so far.  So we need to make an appeal to parents on both the girls and boys teams to help raise the funds - this is more than a garage sale can deliver, we'll need some folks to step up with significant contributions and we'll need everyone to give what they can.  More information coming by the Parent & Runner Meeting.

 

Next weekend, Coach Betten will tie the knot.  Congratulations!