Drink

Today, I'd like to remind you to stay hydrated. The best article that I've found so far on the importance of hydration is here. If you don't have time to read the entire article, please pay attention to some of the key points:
- Drink early and often (hit the drinking fountain between every block or carry a water bottle)
- Don't wait until you are thirsty (your brain is slow to catch on)
- Dehydrated runners fatigue more quickly (it can make the difference between the team winning and losing some meets)

You should also be sure to include minerals in your diet. Many of them, such as potassium, help your body retain fluids. Some good sources of potassium are bananas, orange juice, tomato products, baked potatoes and yogurt.

Sleep

OK, school starts tomorrow. That means that habits for many of you must change. Gone are the days of sleeping until noon (OK, no one actually sleeps that late, right?); however, as young student-athletes, your sleep needs are not decreasing, but actually increasing as we ratchet up the intensity of our training and you start back on heavy schoolwork. So, make sure that you continue to get plenty of sleep.

Tomorrow we will be at Black Creek Park. You'll all get to see the whole course during the warm-up and warm-down. You'll also get to experience the hill that we climb twice during the race, so that we will be ready for it next Tuesday. So, you will likely have no problem falling asleep tomorrow night.

Nice Workout

Well, if Friday's Blue / Gold times were a little disappointing overall, today's workout more than made up for it. Almost everyone ran their 2nd tempo mile faster than they ran the second mile in the race, even after having run a faster first mile in the workout.

There was certainly a lesson learned during the last of the 400s - and that was that you each have much more left in you than you realize. Remember that during our first meet on Saturday. When you start to feel uncomfortable, push through it. Don't save your kick for the last 100-200m, instead pick up the pace with 800m to go, or a little more. Going moderately faster for a longer time is 1) easier and B) certain to lead to a faster overall time, than a late all-out sprint (not that you won't do that, it just won't be at quite as quick a pace).

Blue Wins!

After losing in ultimate, Blue won the XC race and also took the kickball game, to win the 2008 Blue / Gold Championship!

Don't forget to run long (and easy) today, and I'll see you at practice tomorrow.

Blue / Gold Results

I need to figure out how to fix the formatting in these posts, so I can add splits in a legible fashion, but for now, here are the final times for the Blue / Gold Meet.

Kenny Miller 18:18
Nate Lyons 18:51
Alex Brett 19:22
Chris Mauro 20:57
AJ Nasello 21:00
Geoff Kelly 21:14
Eric Krawiec 21:18
Joe Makowski 21:20
Elliot Alexander 21:45
Trevor McKeown 21:46
John Wiseman 21:46
Steve Whittemore 22:58
Arik Rekers 24:02
Adrian Hamouda 24:35
Alex Meritt 24:36
Justin Mathew 24:56
Tristan Cannon 27:25
Arjun Patel 28:56

Khristyna Dilai 27:32
Hannah Schwabe 27:32

In the team battle, Blue took advantage of a missing Chris Mauro to add Joe to their team, and when Chris showed up to start just over 40 seconds late, they were able to cruise to a 26-31 victory. Following Gold's victory in ultimate on Thursday, that sets up today's showdown in kickball as the determining factor in this year's Blue / Gold competition.

Some big improvements over last year were turned in by:
John Wiseman 3:23
Arik Rekers 1:30
Kenny Miller 1:12
Geoff Kelly 1:11
Trevor McKeown 0:32

We need to improve our 1-5 and 1-7 gaps, which were 2:42 and 3:00, respectively, without Nico in attendance. We'll need those gaps to be about 1:00 and 1:30 at the end of the year.

Final Weekend

OK, one last weekend to get ready for XC practice on Monday. Some of the team will be participating in the 5K race at the Rochester Christian School (on Embury Road, right near the corner of Creek) on Saturday AM. The 5K starts at 9am and a 10K race follows at 9:30, and things wrap up with a chicken barbecue that is included in the entry fee.

Another way to get motivated for the start of the season, is to check out the Olympic Track & Field events. The full schedule and results listing is available here. All 3 American men seem to have advanced out of the first round of the 1500m this morning (Friday night, Chinese time).

15 Days To Go

It's just 15 days to the first practice of the season - make them count. I'm impressed by the core group of boys that has been making the captain's practices, the Tue/Thur workouts and the running camp. I think it gives the team great cause for optimism this fall. I hope that the girls have been doing some running on their own, since their turnout has been a little light at the scheduled events.

Here is an initial look at Monroe County this fall. I have taken results from all meets that results available last year, used the results to rank all of the runners, and removed all of the seniors that graduated. The remaining runners were scored, invitational style, like the Monroe County Championships, and here is what I found:

For the boys, Rush-Henrietta edges out Brighton, with Mendon 3rd. Our boys are 9th. I believe our off-season work has been better than the average team's, and I expect our boys to improve on that forecast. Here are the scores that this model predicts:

Rush Henrietta 78
Brighton 87
Mendon 108
Brockport 123
Thomas 151
Penfield 152
Irondequoit 194
Fairport 223
Schroeder 276
Arcadia 297
Athena 306
Odyssey 340
Spencerport 344
Sutherland 371
Hilton 379
Gates Chili 440
Olympia 497
East Irondequoit 552
Churchville Chili 570
Batavia inc
East Rochester inc

On the girls' side, Mendon should have no trouble repeating their County Championship, with Fairport looking good for 2nd ahead of Hilton. Our girls are predicted to be 18th, due to the large number of departing seniors. I feel confident that the returning girls will show significant improvement and our numerous newcomers will really help the team. Here are the predicted girls scores:

Mendon 64
Fairport 85
Hilton 122
Penfield 147
Rush Henrietta 151
Brighton 153
Thomas 175
Sutherland 213
Spencerport 228
Athena 275
Gates Chili 293
Odyssey 382
Irondequoit 396
Churchville Chili 427
Brockport 444
Batavia 450
East Irondequoit 484
Schroeder 491
Arcadia 517
Olympia 599
East Rochester inc

Also, Victor is joining the Monroe County league this year, and should field strong teams.