It’s week twelve, we hosted our own meet, and the homeschool state meet is in five days! Time to “taper” our training… rest and recover and prepare to race at peak performance! Today we’ll cover:
The state meet is this Friday! I’ve written about the Ivey Redmon course twice this year (both meets cancelled!). TL:DR… it’s the primary state XC course, it’s purpose built, accurately measured and fast, it’s a great spectating course, and we should be prepared for fast racing! We’ve put the work in this year and are looking GREAT as a team - I expect us to fight for every point and set piles of PRs. All our teams have a shot of top three finishes…. Maybe even a trophy if we have a spectacular days (eyes on you, middle school boys!). Don’t discount it - every point matters, fight for your team to the line!
Time: 3:30pm MS girls,
4:00 MS boys,
4:30pm HS boys,
5:15 HS girls.
Please arrive at least 45min early for your race and plan to stay for this whole meet to cheer on the team. Awards are at 6, I hope and expect that we’ll win some!
Post Race dinner: I suggest Mario's Pizza, 4215 W Wendover Ave A # A, Greensboro, NC 27407 - never been there, but the photos look like it’ll seat us and it’s on the way home and casual. But we are open to suggestions!
More info: https://nc.milesplit.com/meets/629123-nc-home-educators-cross-country-championships-2024
Last year’s results: https://nc.milesplit.com/meets/561110-nc-home-educators-cross-country-championships-2023/results
I hope you all had a good time at our first home meet at Blackwood Farm Park! We had beautiful weather and the park was gorgeous. Thank you parents for all the volunteer help, and a big hand to Tim who organized almost everything! It is a good place to have a race, and I don’t see why we wouldn’t expand on it next season! It was a small race with just Chatham Thunder and Clayton Homeschoolers, But the course was challenging and accurately measured, and the weather was warm - considering all that, I can tell we are running fast!
Top Finishers
MS Girls: Maggie Curry (1st), Lauris Bradney (3rd), Caroline Cratty (6th), Maeve Smith, (7th), Louisa Cratty (8th), Alexandra Eriksen (10th)
MS Boys: (A Perfect sweep!) Noah Pettigrew (1st), Will Martz (2nd), Matthew Campbell (3rd), Owen West (4rd), Henry Milsom (5th), Levi Mattern (8th), Walker Stone (9th), Hap Perry (10th)
HS Girls: Ellie Parks (1st), Ella McCall (2nd), Gabby Burnell (3rd), Jerusha Curtis (6th), Lara Cratty (7th)
HS Boys: Caden McDaniel (2nd), Max Stone (3rd), Adrien Shevi (5th)
Full results here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yvSAt5FuUOJNGg9EzHz-RErD0pceG2z_/view?usp=sharing
More important than the places were the times - This was a very tough course and it was still pretty warm for racing. This Friday should have GREAT weather (Dewpoint of 53F is forecast) and is at a much faster course, plus everyone should be a bit more rested. Don’t be surprised to see drops of one or two minutes in the 3200m, and 2-5min in the 5k!
In other Cheetah race news, Ella and Nora McCall ran at the Great American XC held at the WakeMed course in Raleigh. It was a huge meet with thousands of athletes from twenty-two states, featuring eight heats of high schoolers. Maybe we can race there as a team next year! Nora placed 12th in the middle school 3200m in 12:36, and Ella was invited into the “Race of Champions” where she placed 46th in the HS 5k, running 18:55.
See the training spreadsheet for training plan details, terminology, and resources
The hay is in the barn and we are full on tapering for the state race this week. We’ll decrease both total volume and overall load while keeping some intensity and we’ll encourage our bodies to fully recover, strengthen, and be ready to perform at their peak come race day. If you taper well off a major training block, most people see 2-4% increase in performance. Here’s that paper I linked last week about tapering in case you want to read more: https://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000509
It’s important to NOT overdue it with running or other sports (and keep eating and sleeping well, of course).
Our last high intensity workout.
1 lap WU, Dynamics, 4x strides to 90%
HS: 800m 5k pace, get out fast and then settle. 800m 5k pace, steady. 400m 1mi pace. 200m Build to fast. (2200m faster)
MS: 600m 2m pace, get out fast and then settle. 600m 2mi pace, steady. 400m 1mi pace. 200m Build to fast. (1800m faster)
CD
If you typically run this day, continue to do so, but cut down your running time by about 1/3. Keep it easy, and run some strides at the end.
Pre-race sharpening.
WU, Dynamics, 4x Strides
V: 4x400m
JV:4x300m
As:
Hard/Settle
Race pace
Race pace
Race Pace / hard
CD
Do a pre-race shakeout on your own. Run 15-25minutes and do 4-5x 20s strides to 95% at the end.
Race!
Relax
This is an bonus meet for just MS - This is the defacto state champs for NC Middleschool XC, held at Ivey Redmon on Saturday morning. It’s a chance to see great running and challenge ourselves against the best. All you need to do is mark your child as attending in the app, and I’ll get you registered. If you have more than one child, I’ll register them all - email Paul if that isn’t correct. The race is free for runners, $5 to spectate.
More info here: https://nc.milesplit.com/meets/580210-ncrunners-middle-school-xc-festival-2024
When: 6pm
Where: Faith Alliance Church 1309 Umstead Rd, Durham, NC 27712
Who: The whole family is invited. Please just RSVP directly to Tim with how many you are bringing
What: Pizza & salad, a few words, kids running around the field, etc.
Thanks again to Greg Milsom for https://chapelhillcheetahsxc.org. Please upload race photo here! I need more photos!
Let us know if you don’t want your child in publicly displayed photos.
The season is almost done and this is the time of the year when we get many questions about how to continue training! Over the next few weeks I’ll try and give you as much info on this as possible - because I want you to train so our team can be even stronger next year!
The XC season continues after our season ends - it enters championship season. My fall XC race list:
11/2: HXN (Homeschool) National Championships. Hermitage, TN
11/3: NC MS and Age Group Championships. Hagan Stone, Greensboro, NC
11/16: Charger 2mi tune up (Track), Cary, NC
11/23: Nike Cross Southeast Regionals (NXC), WakeMed, Raleigh, NC
11/30: Foot Locker South, McAlpine, Charlotte, NC
12/7: AAU XC National Championships, McAlpine, Charlotte, NC
As far as I know, you can race all these races unattached for both HS and MS.
January starts the Indoor track season, and March the Outdoor track season.
Next week we’ll talk about other running opportunities available to continue your training.
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