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Run Wild, Run Free

Run Wild, Run FreeRun Wild, Run FreeRun Wild, Run Free

Week 8

 

It’s week eight, and we are squarely mid race season! A bunch of things happen this week, we’ll cover:

  1. Race results
  2. Our race at Discovery Charter tomorrow
  3. Morning practice at Chapel Hill Bible on Wednesday & a note from Kelly
  4. Our training for the week
  5. Some local NC racing Runspiration


 

Race Highlights

On Wednesday we raced at Durham Academy with Trinity, and Cary Christian. What a great meet - super local, nice course, we represented ourselves very well, and it was a great seeing all the connections we to those schools. We finished a close second to DA in both events - I really thought we had won the MS boys, and it was painful to see we had tied and lost by tie breaker! But that will just make us hungrier for next year. :)


Top 16 finishers:

MS Girls: Nora McCall (1st), Maggie Curry (11th), Lauris Bradney (12th), Brynn Perry (13th), Hannah Coonley (16th)


MS Boys: Noah Pettigrew (5th), William Martz (6th), Henry Milsom (7th), Owen West (9th), Matthew Campbell (15th)


On Thursday the high schoolers drove to the Lighthouse Invitational in Wendell. It was a very small meet, but the weather was gorgeous (unlike the mid 90s we had last year!), and they changed the 5k course so while not particularly fast, it was a nice two loop route. Our girls won, and our guys ran well didn’t have enough runners to score. A special congrats to Lara Cratty on her first 5k and first race, I believe!


Top 16 finishers:

HS Girls: Ella McCall (1st), Gabby Burnell (3rd), Jerusha Curtis (11th), Ava Matthews (12th, after going way off course!)

HS Boys: Owen Curtis (7th), Caden McDaniel (8th)

Full results: https://nc.milesplit.com/meets/628205-lighthouse-homeschool-meet-2024/results


Monday’s Race at Discovery Charter

Location: 501 Orange Factory Rd, Bahama NC 27503

Time: 4:30pm walk-through - everyone should be there for it, please arrive before 4:15 if you are MS girl so you have time to warmup and then walk-through.

See Tim’s email for details and map

*We will have a team pizza dinner at Tim’s church after the race - please RSVP and find more details in Tim’s other email*


Practice at Chapel Hill Bible Church

We will begin morning practices on Wednesday at Chapel Hill Bible Church before Deerstream from 7:45-9am and continue that on M/W for the rest of the season.


Kelly Kirk passed along this note about the season and logistics, please read:

Congratulations on a great start to the season!  Your runners have been working hard, braving summer heat and rain; I hope they are having fun meeting new teammates and feeling stronger and faster!

As practice shifts to the Bible Church this week, I wanted to check in with you about a few logistics:

  • Can I ask you a big favor?  Our Deerstream teachers arrive between 7:45 and 8:15 AM, and they are often lugging bags full of teaching materials.  If you are willing to park a little farther up the sidewalk and save some close spots for teachers, that will really help them!
  • Parents are welcome to supervise younger children on the playground during practice.  There are water fountains and bathrooms just inside the playground doors.  Please note that Deerstream teachers will be getting ready for the day, so children should only be inside for quick bathroom/water needs.
  • Our faculty kids, supervised by a teen, will be on the playground as well.
  • We ask that everyone abide by the Deerstream playground rules:  no climbing on the fences, walls, trees, or tops of playground equipment; play is inclusive, kind, and not rough;  no heavy balls (like soccer or volleyballs) to keep the windows in one piece! 
  • At the end of practice, runners who are attending Deerstream classes are permitted to come inside to change clothes and then should return to the picnic area or the playground lobby until 9:05 when the doors officially open for the day.

We're so glad to welcome you to Deerstream on Wednesday morning!  We love our Cheetahs.


A few more Reminders

  1. Please update your child’s meet availability in the Stack App to help us better plan for each meet. Instructions for installing the app are at the bottom of this email.
  2. Thanks again to Greg Milsom for https://chapelhillcheetahsxc.org. Please upload race photo here! Let us / know if you don’t want your child in publicly displayed photos as was mentioned last week.  Thank you!

Training

See the training spreadsheet for training plan details, terminology, and resources


Monday (Race @Discovery Charter)


Tuesday

Post race shakeout (easy recovery run):
JV: 15-25min
V: 20-35min


Wednesday (7:45-9am at Chapel Hill Bible)

800M WU
Dynamics
Easy run w/ 40m sprints every few minutes
plyos in field


Thursday (4:30-6pm at Old Northern HS Track)

Bring mats if you can for strength work at the end.
1mi WU, wickets, dynamics.
8x400m at roughly mile effort, 70-90s rest. Even split.
JV can do 6 or 7, if they are done well and are feeling exhausted by that point.
Rest and 400-800m easy jog.
4x100m fast/faster/fastest.
Strength work.


Friday

(OPTIONAL)

20-40min easy 4x 15s strides to 90% at the end


Saturday

Long run - 45-60min  

New type: Progressive LR.

Chop the run into thirds. Do the first third at even easier than your normal easy pace - very conversational. Second third do run at the faster end of your easy pace range, and then do last third a bit harder closing in on tempo - it should feel like a strong but controlled effort. This kind of workout will do a lot of things including helping ingrain progressively increasing your effort in races.


Sunday

Rest


Calendar

September 9th (Monday): @Discovery Charter School

September 19th (Thursday): Chatham Homeschool meet @Haw River Christian Academy

Note: We are NOT going to Adidas XC Challenge as a team on the 21st. Sad, maybe next year.

September 24th (Thursday): Forsyth Invite @Ivey Redmon

October 1st (Tuesday): Home Meet @Blackwood Farm Park!  We need your help to run it!

October 11th (Friday): Homeschool State Meet @Ivey Redmon

October 19th (Saturday): NC Runner Middleschool State Meet @Ivey Redmon


Runspiration

This weekend was the first really big weekend of XC racing in the Southeast region. Friday Night Lights at Ivey Redmon kicked things off with over 4000 athletes competing across a bunch of races after dark, finishing things off with a fireworks show. I was there spectating, and the start of the races was amazing - a herd of 500 athletes sprinting by, shaking the ground and pushing a wave of wind through the crowd. 110 “elite” performances were recorded. More here: https://nc.milesplit.com/articles/350525/kasey-dingman-runs-second-fastest-fnl-time-ever-in-1746 and https://nc.milesplit.com/articles/350526/kavi-gibson-wins-friday-night-lights-in-1519


At the coast they held the Wilmington Beach Blast which saw six sub 19’s on the girls side and two mid 15’s on the guys side on the fast course, including Owen Munn from Greensboro Homeschool in 15:38 - the top sophomore time in NC.


Up in VA at Knight’s Crossing, they had 88 “elite” performances and Cardinal Gibbons (Raleigh) finished 1st for girls and 3rd for boys, with fastest NC returner on the girls side, Hannah Rae Shaffer, winning in 17:50 just ahead of freshman phenom teammate Kaityn Estep in 17:56: https://va.milesplit.com/meets/577528-knights-crossing-xc-invitational-2024/elites


Finally, down in SC they held the Eye Opener, with 82 “elite” performances and Broughton (Raleigh) took home the boys win and Wells Farfour of Broughton winning in 15:28. https://sc.milesplit.com/meets/591409-eye-opener-2024/elites


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