This Saturday will be our firsts official V.Y.C. League meet! It will be much bigger than last week. the girls and boys will run separately. I have added an approximate time schedule below. Please remember it may change some. It takes a time to walk up to the course so please get there early! We will all set up together near the purple team tents.

This is a great course but the parking is bad. Please arrive early, if the lot is full you can park in the neighborhood. Please obey all parking rules and do not block neighbor's drive ways. They will tow or ticket your car. Please allow for extra time to walk up the 1/4 mile hill to the start line location!

We are the only organization that gets to use this park and we have worked very hard to keep it. The trails are not closed to hikers so we have to remember that they do not have to move off of them during the races. We need to be courteous at all time and have no altercations with the public. If you have any problems, please see me. The Pacers will host this meet. 

Reminder all Tuesday Practices will be at Central Park for the rest of the season!

All Results for the races can be seen on our website on the cross country page or at livetrackresults.com every week

Meet Volunteer needs this week :

Tent set up -7:00 - set up team tents -2 people

Tag table- 7:30 - help hand out athletes tags - 2 people 

Finish Line / Timers - Finish of each meet 2 people

Races - Rabbits to lead the races( bike ok) Turtles parents to follow the last runners in each race ( parents will not be allowed to run on the course during the races with their children)

Clean up - 2 people, help clean up and load tents

Please sign up at practice or email the job you are able to do!

Week of September - Sept. 4th - 9th

Monday - Optional Practice- West Creek Park, 6:00-7:15 pm 

Tuesday- Central Park Field 7 at 6:00 -7:15 pm - Location change

Thursday -Central Park Field 7 at 6:00 - 7:15

Saturday - O'Melveny Park 7:30 am - 11:30 - League Meet 1

Race Schedule - All times are approximate, with a rolling start -  races may over-lap

7:30 - arrive and pick up tags - Self Guided Course walk

7:45 - coaches meeting  

8:00 - all athletes meet Coach Jeremy at the Storm Flag 

8:10 - Sub Gremlin and Gremlin Girls, 2K warm up 

8:30 - Sub and Gremlin Girls 2K race, Sub and Gremlin Boys warm up 

8:45- Sub Gremlin Boys 2K start, Bantam Girls 3K warm up  

9:00 - Bantams Girls 3K start, Bantam boys 3K warm up

9:20 - Bantam Boys 3K start Junior Girls 3K warm up

9:40 - Junior Girls 3K start, Junior boys 3K warm up

10:00 -Junior Boys 3K start, Youth and Young 4K warm up 

10:20 - Youth and Young girls 4K start (may be combined) 

10:45 - Youth and Young boys (may be combined TBD at the Coaches meeting ) 

This is a rolling schedule and can change at the meet. 

Notes From Coach Jeremy

Happy Tuesday Team!

My apologies for the day late email. Long weekend, first race, stuff to do… Maybe just a little tired 😊

But… better late than never.

So let’s start with the pre-season race. I gotta be honest, I’d rather race at Central Park any day so that was a great change. And then whoever ordered the weather, great job! We couldn’t ask for anything better for this time of year. And the weather helped give our team an amazing start to the racing season! From the seasoned pro’s to the first timers, I saw some amazing efforts all the way to the finish line. 

I don’t like to dwell too much on post-race review, but it is always beneficial to think about the good and bad after every race.  If you watched any of the World Track and Field Championships a couple weeks ago, you might have caught the women’s high jump. One of the best jumpers in the world, Nicola Olyslagers from Australia, literally makes a note in her journal after ever jump. Now that is immediate feedback!

The fact is, feedback is important for success and if channeled correctly will help every athlete improve. I thought I’d share a few tips as we kick off the racing season to guide you in this process. 

1. Post-race review should be a POSITIVE experience. This isn’t the time to point out all the things that went wrong, although there is always something to improve on.
2. Break the race down in the following sections with some questions to ask:
3. Pre-Race: how was my: nutrition, sleep, morning of, and warmup
4. Race Start: did you go out fast enough, or too slow, were you ready for battle mentally?
5. Mid-Race: did I give up, did I work harder, did I drop my competition?
6. Finish: did I give my all, am I proud of myself, WAS IT FUN?
7. As parents we can often harshly critique and want to review too much.
8. I am a parent of 4 so I’ve unfortunately made this mistake. 
9. Choose just a couple questions, from different sections, mix it up. 
10. Then let your athlete share. Believe me, they’ll be hard on themselves if they could have done better.
11. Sometimes, you don’t need to bring up anything other than: Great Job, I’m proud of you!
12. Our primary job as parents in this case is to encourage.
13. I’ll reiterate: WAS IT FUN?
14. Battle is fun
15. Racing is fun
16. But both are exhausting mentally and emotionally, as well as physically.
17. Keep it all in a healthy perspective.

With that said, hopefully that helps you, I still want to win! I want to kick my competitions butt’s! But most important for our athletes is the process, what you learned during the process, and to be a great teammate and competitor.

For this week:

1. Hopefully you enjoyed Monday and whether you were at practice or not, you got your long run in.
2. We will be adding something special this week, the stairs at Central Park! Santa Clarita moms have laid claim to them but we’re going to sneak ourselves in and see how it goes.
3. No more COC for this season. Bummer for sure, but we’ll mix it up at CP.
4. First official race is coming Saturday, O'Melvany. Super fun course/park so be ready!

Ok, that’s it for now.

Enjoy the rest of your day and we’ll see you out at practice!