Team Talk Series

Our team read this article from Lauren Fleshman on her experience growing up in the sport. We had a team discussion about how it applies to our program and our teammates. This led to very productive conversations about where we are headed and how we can support each other.

Parents we strongly encourage you to read this and have conversations with your daughters. Here is a list of resources from the district that may be helpful. If you need any resources to facilitate these discussions or seek additional help, please reach out to our coaching staff. We all want to see successful, happy, and healthy students, athletes, and humans!

Cake Baking Bonanza

The Cookie Monster made it to Plymouth, and the Blue Team took the W in the annual cake bake competition. Each team did a great job making and decorating their cakes together this year. We had wonderful judges: including two members of Team Beach and the middle school color teams. See their fabulous cakes below!

Here are the results:

1. Blue

2. Green

3. Pink

4. Purple

5. Black

6. Yellow

7. Red

8. Orange

Team Retreat Recap

The 2022 team retreat was a wonderful success! Memories were made, names were learned, and miles were run. This is valuable time for our team to connect with each other through fun and running. We also shared important team norms and training concepts. Some of the highlights were the glow run turned dance party, senior-led team culture conversation, coaches defeat the in ski walk, victory circle under the stars, and a tricky senior scavenger hunt. We could not have done it without amazing parent volunteers and senior leaders.

Wonderful Week One!

We are excited to have week one in the books! We capped the week off with a two mile alumni race with over 100 finishers. See race results here. It was nice to see the familiar faces of current and former teammates. It is clear that the culture of Wayzata Cross Country is strong with two alums who returned as coaches, and brought their teammates out to race. Highlights of the race included a 42 second drop from last year’s winning time, a 5 year old racer, and a strong group of 90s alums crushing the course. We are already looking forward to next year, and alumni recruitment starts NOW. See all of Kraig’s photos of the race here. Our next race is Orono Twilight on Wednesday, August 31st. Next week is double the trouble because the rest of the team will race the following morning at St. Olaf. See here for the race schedule for the entire season. This is a strong start to the season, and we cannot wait to see where it takes us!

A race of past and future champions

More miles, more smiles

Alumni domination

Team Beach!

Our youngest racer @ 5 years old!

Summer hills paid off!

Mother daughter duo

Alumni v. Hill

Alumni: 1 Hill:0

Game face

Mother daughter duo pt. 2

90s Crew

Getting ready for Cross Country 2022!

We are so excited to get back into cross country this summer and fall. In the meantime, track information can be found here.

Summer registration for cross country camp can be found here.

Keep building those miles and smiles!

Fun in the Final Weeks

Last week was full of fast and fun times. All athletes raced at the Lefty Wright Grade Level Meet on Monday or the Section 6AAA meet on Wednesday. Our seniors had a great last race with two runners in the top 5! It was a perfect evening with ideal cross country weather and a beautiful sunset. We are so proud of our team!

On Wednesday the varsity team was dominant as the section 6AAA champions in both the girls’ and boys’ races. There was a fantastic showing of fans and teammates on a classic rainy race day. We will take on other Lake Conference teams Hopkins and Edina in the state meet on Saturday, November 6th. The race will begin at 10:30AM at St. Olaf. We look forward to more fast times and with great athletes and fans!

We capped off the week with a costume run before the annual pumpkin carving contest returned. Check out the creativity! Some highlights include the Wayzata team cheer, Coach Kalsey on Vacation, and a bribe to the judges.

The season is officially over for the JV team unless they chose to continue on to the NXR meet in Sioux Falls. The coaches are so proud of this team and grateful for a wonderful season. Athletes check your email for details on our banquet celebration!

Color Team Fun!

We have had a blast in the last couple weeks with TWO color team challenges! The seniors led the Amazing Race with the Black Team coming in at first place. There was a lot of fun, a lot of running, and a little bit of a mess.

Our next color team competition was the Great Cake Bake Off! Teams safely gathered to create the most wonderful, extravagant, and delicious desserts they could. For this challenge it was the Red Team that scored the win with their Lightening McQueen cake setup. Very on brand for the Red Team! It was fun and delicious for all. Special thanks to our celebrity judges including: grandmas, athletic directors, coaches family, teachers and team moms!

Baker (& WMS & WHS) Retreat

We welcomed back our team building retreat in a modified and wonderful way for 2021. We were so lucky to have our middle school runners join us on Wednesday night for a glow run through Wayzata and dance party at West Middle School. We continued the fun at Baker Outdoor Learning Center on Thursday with a great 10K run (or more!), team talks, fun and games, a hilarious senior skit, and coaches domination of the ski walk! We finished up our retreat experience at Wayzata High School due to the rain, and this allowed us to have an ultra-competitive game of color team big base.

We are so grateful for this time together as a team, and we look forward to more running and fun this season. Thank you to the parents, seniors, and all members of the team who made this a wonderful experience! We are so happy to be back for 2021.