We have had an amazing start to the season & can’t wait to roll into the school year with the training and team base we have established! Some highlights from the first three weeks of the season include a gritty & rainy alumni race, a wonderful Baker retreat, some crazy weather, and our first official races of the season at Elm Creek and St. Olaf. This is just the start of what is bound to be a great season.
Congratulations to our JV team for winning the freshman and sophomore race as well as the junior and senior race at the Lefty Wright Grade Level Championship on Monday! They toughed it out on a gritty course to cap off a successful season and we are so proud of their hard work and dedication. It was an especially great celebration for our seniors to show off the hard work of their entire careers.
With a successful introduction to the week from their teammates, our varsity crew also took home the win at the 6AAA Section meet! They already conquered Gale Woods at the conference meet, but they were back with a vengeance after crushing an MEA workout. You can check out the CCX Media story on the race here.
Great job this season! Let’s cap off the fall with a celebration.
The rivalry is intense, the competition fierce and teams are fighting together to finish in first. No, I'm not talking about our races... I'm talking about our color team competition!
Being a new coach this year, I'm seeing for the first time all the things that make this team so special and color teams is one of them. Led by our amazing seniors, color teams are a way for the runners to bond and compete together on some more light-hearted challenges. Throughout the season, teams have had the opportunity to showcase their best accents, model funky socks, search for flags around campus, complete obstacles Amazing Race-style and bake the most impressively decorated and delicious cakes!
Racing can be a high anxiety sport and color teams are just one of the ways our team helps combat that. Or when energy is low after a long day of school, color team challenges can turn that right around. For example, yesterday we were all feeling Tuesday blah and a fun one-legged pirate race (complete with a "talk like a pirate" tie-breaker) had the team cheering, laughing and ready to work out by the end. In summary, I love color teams!
At this point in the season, it is any team's race. We have the Green Team currently leading the pack with 25 pts, but Black and Red are right there, tied with 23 points. Don't count out Blue or Pink who are also tied with 20 points and I feel like Yellow and Orange are going to have strong finishes, they are currently at 18 and 16 points respectively.
We had the pleasure of listening to nutritionist and dietician, Michaela Brands. Fueling our bodies is crucial to maximizing our running potential, and there were several important takeaways from her presentation.
Meals should consist of the three macronutrients - carbohydrates, fat and protein. Carbs make up about 60% of our daily energy needs, whereas fat is 20-25% and protein is 15-20%.
Carbs are the body’s preferred source of energy. It’s broken down as glucose in the body and stored as glycogen to be used as fuel during exercise. When our bodies have low glycogen, we “hit the wall” during workouts and incur more injuries.
Protein has several important functions, including building and repairing our muscle tissue during workouts.
Fat is used with carbs to fuel training sessions. It is also essential to protect our organs, muscles and bones. Without fat, our bodies cannot absorb vitamins A, D, E or K.
Being hydrated is essential to reaching our running potential. Fluids are also needed for the storage of glycogen in muscles. As a general rule, aim for 72-90 oz fluides/day. Runners should also be drinking fluids every 15-20 min of exercise to avoid dehydration.
It is important to fuel properly before a workout. If a runner is a few hours away from a workout, all three macronutrients should be consumed. If a runner is closer to a workout, fuel should consist of mostly carbohydrates.
It is also important to fuel properly after a workout. Eating within 15-30 minutes of finishing a run will increase recovery time and replace glycogen stores. Carbs are the most needed after running, but fats and protein should soon follow.
It is important to eat ENOUGH during the day! Eat a variety of foods, and remember all foods can provide nourishment for the body. You should NOT go to bed hungry.
Focus on what your body can do for you instead of what it looks like. Runners come in all shapes and sizes!
We had a wonderful time at our team retreat with some hot temps, great training, and amazing memories! We were off to a hot start on Wednesday with a blue team victory in the ski walk followed by the glow run and the first-ever dance jam at Baker led by Becca Rigg! There was back-to-back training magic with most of the team completing the 10K loop the next morning before a fun beach workout and some time to hang out. We also got to work with the Baker staff on survival skills including building structures and starting fires. Some of our teammates would survive in the wild, and others might need a little more preparation. An important takeaway from this experience was the constant need for PMA: Positive Mental Attitude. We will be applying this throughout the season, even if we aren’t building shelters in the wild. We also talked about goal setting, visualized the rest of our season by creating vision boards, had a push-up competition, learned about our teammates, ate s’mores and so much more! We went star-gazing and heard from Coach Kalsey about how we can all contribute to a Total Team Effort. The retreat experience concluded with some epic funky socks, exceptionally clean cabins, and orange team drinking pickle juice in a color team defeat which the black team narrowly avoided.
We are so grateful for this time together as a strong building block for the season, and it would not have been possible without the tremendous support of our parent volunteers. Thank you for making this such a great success! We would also like to thank the captains for all of their hard work preparing for their color teams. Now onto the rest of the season!
We had an amazing first week of the 2023 cross country season. We are very thankful for the fall-like temps in the morning allowing us to get a nice start on the initial mileage build of the season. We had our first color team challenge where athletes had to run around and try to find flags hidden around campus for some sneaky mileage. Green team found the most flags, but the other teams were not too far behind. We ended the week with our Alumni race. We had some new faces win the watermelon awards this year and commemorated Coach Hallen’s years dedicated to building this program we know and love today. We wish her all the best as she embarks on her new journey coaching her kids next door in the Orono district!
The coaches are thrilled with the success of week one and are excited for our first race, our team retreat, and the rest of the season in general. We can already tell this team is special and ready to make some long lasting memories and friendships. We are especially excited to build our new coaching staff!
You can read the press release here. Congratulations Abbey, a well-deserved honor!
Our very own Abbey Nechanicky headed to Virginia to compete with the best runners from around the country. She had a stellar race with a 4th place finish and a 6K time of 20:06.6. What a stud! You can see all of the results from the race here.
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