This Past Week
Well, our formal season has come to an end.  It is always a bittersweet day.  
 
The Varsity 7 ran a great race at States today, placing 6th in Group 3.  We were the top South Jersey team, beating Kingsway, Ocean City and Shawnee who all beat us last week.  The Bumble Bee uniforms seemed to clump together today - with only a 34 second gap between our 1st and 5th men today.  Our Seniors anchored the team - Ringwood, Matteson, Wolff and Friedman in our first 4 spots, and Wilson having a good run as our 6th man today.  Greenwood ran his best race of the year just when we needed it to be a very close 5th man.  Wientraub came down with a virus or something and did imitations of Ringwood's Big Mac Attack in the middle of the race...
 
Memories of the Seniors flow back especially since this is their last XC race in high school.  I hope they all took the time to look around at the beautiful Holmdel Park setting with the top runners in the state earning the right to run this far into November.  They have put in literally thousands of miles over the years to get to this point - hard work in the spirit of having fun with their team.  Ringwood gave a big smile at the bottom of the Bowl thinking this was his last time up that big hill.
 
I put together a blog on Friday as I got inspired thinking about this class of Seniors moving on.  You can view it at http://runbic.blogspot.com/2008/11/seniors.html. 
THis past week we also started the planning process ofr next year meeting with the underclassmen on the Championship and Farm Teams.  We presented the results for the season snad talked about what was possible next year.  We also started the process of deciding how hard we really want to work and whether we want to try to move into a more elite level of competition.  To do so, we discussed the Varisty level runners moving to a 60 mile per week range, and how teams like Haddonfield and Cherokee regulary do 60-80 miles per week year round.
 
In one other shout-out from this weekend, Eric Holaday was Amherst's first man this past weekend at Regional's, leading his team to a Nationals Qualification next week.  http://wso.williams.edu/orgs/xc/.  Eric was a Captian from the 2005 team.
 
This Coming Week
 
We are coming down to the final activities of the season.  Our Banquet is something everyone should be at - we recognize all of the runners, and I know Kira and Nancy are planning a great evening!  If you have not returned your RSVP, please do so right now!
 
Also, we will be doing Exit Interviews with all of the runners starting on Thursday.  We will be sending a separate email with schedules for this where the Coaches sit down with each runner and discuss what we learned this past season and plans for the future.

The School Board is also recognizing the efforts of our sponsors and team in building the Cross Country Trail on Tuesday evening at 7:30.
 
Banquet - November 19, 6PM at the Middle School Cafeteria.  Kira Fauvell 273-5899 and Nancy Balch 914-9988 are coordinating this.  If you can help, please contact them at kkfauvell@comcast.net and balchslugz@comcast.net.  All runners and parents should plan on attending, and other family members are welcome.  We get good food, so we will collect probably $10 per person.
 
Turkey Trot - Thanksgiving Morning.  We will start advertising this week for the Turkey Trot.  We need lots of volunteers to help with food and course watching and starting line and finish line.  If you can help, please contact Judy Greenwood at judygreenwoodcb@msn.com or 235-3890. 

 

MXC Magnets - We now have a new batch avaiulable for $5.  We will have them at the Banquet, and the store also has them (all money goes to the team).