Fourth Of July Evening 2019 on Arch Cape Beach
MVXC had an exceptional Fourth of July; the team hosted an Independence Day morning run and pot luck breakfast! This event was entirely athlete-conceived and athlete-executed; no coaches were involved in the run or breakfast! And the breakfast spread looks pretty fantastic…the coaches are a little jealous that we were not there for this breakfast. More than that, we are incredibly impressed by the athlete-leaders who organized the Independence Day breakfast and run, and impressed by all the athletes that thought this was a good idea and came, and so happy that you all are having so much fun preparing for the 2019 season!
I believe it’s a myth that distance running training has to always be a grind. Getting up in the morning, greeting your teammates with smiles, heading off for a training run and chatting with your friends, and then following that up with breakfast seems like a fun way to start the day. By 10am, you have run six miles or more, stretched and done some core exercises, had breakfast, seen a couple dozen friends, got showered and you are ready for the day. Most students are still in bed, while you have accomplished more than they will the entire the day. If you were part of that group on July 4th morning, well done!–and if not, we hope to see you at the next practice!
In five weeks, on August 12, MVXC will meet for our first official practice of the season. I have a feeling that we will have an extremely well prepared group of athletes. Well done and keep up the good work!
Running Journals
Keeping a running journal can be an excellent, motivational training aid. A running journal is where you can track your runs, races, injuries, diet and anything else training-related you want to remember. A journal will help you track your progress during a season and over multiple seasons, allowing you to look back over your running history.
Running journals can be excellent tools for diagnosing injuries and preventing injuries in the future. By keeping track of aches and pains, if you do have a problem, you can talk to your coach, the trainer or your doctor and help figure out what happened–and maybe avoid that problem in the future. Every injury comes with warning signs. Overuse running injuries do not happen overnight. If you have a written record, rather than trying to rely on memory, you can have a much better conversation with people who can help you if something happens.
For me, my running journal is very motivational. I find my journal helps me keep the running commitments I made to myself. On a day I don’t feel great, maybe I still get out for a 30 minute run simply so I don’t have a zero in my journal. When I have a rough day, I might look back and see that I did the same run two years before at about the same speed and now I don’t feel so badly. And I can look back and see how many miles I have run every single year in the last decade!–looking back over a period of years helps me keep a long term perspective. Running is a long term commitment, and sometimes it’s hard to remember that every mile matters. Looking back at the end of the year and seeing that I’ve been consistently adding miles helps me keep a long term perspective, and helps me remember that while each mile might not seem like much every run helps me build to a big total.
A running journal might be as simple as a spiral notebook or a paper calendar. I have been using an Excel file for a long time; I set up the file so I have weekly mileage totals and a rolling four-week weekly average and I get annual total mileage. There are fancier paper running journals you can buy, and there are on-line running journal tools also. How detailed you make your journal is a choice. What I enter in my journal every day is the number of miles I ran; where I ran (‘Los Gatos streets’ or ‘Matadors’ or ‘MV track’); a note about pace (easy, tempo, fast and maybe a note like ‘mostly around 8 minutes a mile once we got going’); if I ran intervals or a workout, I record those times (“12×400; 95-95-93-92-92-89-94-89-91-90-88-86” or “4 mile tempo 27:56/6:59 pace”). I usually record a bit about any cross training I might have done (45 minutes spin session; 1 hour aqua-running; 30 minutes core training with Chris; etc). I might add some qualitative notes about how I was feeling (‘felt like I was dragging, maybe the last couple weeks have been getting to me’, ‘felt great! got a good night’s sleep last night’). I put in notes about my injuries. Some people note when they get a new pair of shoes so they can track how many miles they have on their current pair of shoes. There are lots of things you can do.
If you have been thinking about starting a running journal maybe now is a good time; you can start your journal now, get the last month of summer running and all of MVXC 2019 and you will be off and ‘running’!
July Training
I have posted suggested runs and training for the next two weeks. We are into a good part of our summer running! We should be feeling like we are in a groove after four weeks of steady running and cross training. We have five solid weeks before our first practice; there is also plenty of time for new freshman to join so he can get some good solid weeks of training in before the season starts, or some time for a friend who has been playing soccer to decide to join cross country and be more fit than she has ever been!
This is also a nice time to plan some outing for a group. I have heard of several times that groups have gone to running stores on shoe buying expeditions to Running Revolution or A Runner’s Mind; that is always a good activity! Maybe you can organize a breakfast run. A group activity does not have to revolve around running; you could get a group together to bicycle to Los Altos for lunch, or host a water running session in your pool followed by dinner and a movie night, or you could get a group together to go see the Spider Man movie. Or anything. Be creative and have fun–it’s summer and you are a bunch of runners!
2019 Schedule
There is a preliminary 2019 schedule posted, and a preliminary paper schedule that you can download and print. Freshmen, you might have questions–ask the athletes that have been running the past few years! Take a look at the days we have races and see if you have any conflicts that you can resolve. We do not conflict with the PSAT this year, and you should have alternatives for all the other test dates too.
Keep up the good work! Do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
Remember…every one of you can help make a difference to the team, and that makes a difference to the world!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
–Margaret Mead