The Coach’s View Schedule of races: are aprox.) By Rev. Jim(times Kirby 4:00p Middle School Girls Looking back at last season, I couldn’t have been more proud in the way our team 4:15p Middle School Boys competed. We were besought by injury and illness throughout the season. Hanging 4:30p Freshmen/Sophomore Girls over our heads was the pressure of winning our sixthBoys straight state championship. 4:50p Freshmen/Sophomore That is a lot of pressure, yet even 5:10p as everything JV Girls that could have possibly gone wrong unfolded at last year’s state meet, still, our girls demonstrated their 5:30p JV boys 5:50p Varsity Girls like Vanessa Miller’s heroic, courageous championship pedigree. Things 6:10p Varsity Boysmore than the times that were heartbreaking last 150 yards displayed so much
posted for our team. More than a couple coaches have told me since then, that just like the way our kids go about their business. While disappointed in the state meet results, compliments like that demonstrate the level of integrity our team has. It wasn’t all disappointing Karissa Schweizer finished third overall with a huge PR that day, along with great runs by Jenny Luksan, Hannah Thomas, Erin Boggess and Nichol Svendsen. We lost a great senior class last year and we will miss Grace Gibbons’ smile and talent as she has moved and is now running for Gilbert High School. Despite those losses, we are very excited about this year’s seniors. Back and ready for a championship run is Karissa Schweizer who is coming off of a great track season and a great summer of training. Also returning are healthy and hungry seniors Jenny Luksan and Nicole Svendsen. Our junior class will add spice to our team with Ellen “Sully” Sullivan and Hannah Thomas. Also hoping to contribute is Sophomores Erin Cahalan and Caroline Warmuth who have steadily improved since last year. Our freshmen class will be lead by middle school state champion C. Vivian Broderick (The “C” stands for “Champion”). Vivian has had a great summer and is looking forward to getting after it. It is always interesting to see who steps up for us this year. There are always surprises and I can’t wait to see what happens.
Dowling Catholic “”The Dowling Project”
Time Trial August 24, 2013
The Girls: Today is our time trial and “what” you might ask, is the point of a time trial. The point of today is first and foremost is to “let the horses run.” We have spent 10 weeks training and working out, today we just get to race. Today is also about getting our athletes use to the race day routine, warm-up, starts and pace. Expecting our kids to run their best, I am also able to glean good accurate times for each kid, which can be used to adjust paces for practice and workouts. Finally, we will get a good look at who our top runners are and where we are as a team at this point in the season. Generally, the runners with the top seven times of of the previous week make up the varsity for the following week. I always reserve the right to make changes as I see fit. It is not always as linier as people think it is. Some may be wondering why we have our time trial at Raccoon River Park and not at Grey’s Lake with the boys. I moved our time trial out of Grey’s Lake several years ago first because we were not welcome there by the officials of the park. Second, it is way too crowded with other people and others using the park do not appreciate our presence there. Third, Fleur Drive is too busy and dangerous for our kids to drive at that hour. Fourth, there is very little parking. Fourth, it is an asphalt path (hard on kids), and it is less than two miles, which does little for me as far as gaging our kid’s conditioning at this point of the season. Some may wonder why we are doing this Friday instead of Saturday. Basically having this on Saturday ruins our practice plan, as our kids would miss their long run, the most important run of the week.
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The guiding principles for our team and season are… • What is best for our athletes • What is best for our program • What is best for the progression for our season • Keep the most important thing, keeping the most important thing; the most important thing. “"Find though she but little, she is fierce”
William Shakespeare