8/27 update

Braves,

I hope you are excited to be back in school and to be in season for XC. We had a couple good days of racing at the Weber fairgrounds and the Westlake relays. Photos of the races, as well as results can be found on our website. We learned some things about our team and can see that we are improving. We will race the course from Wednesday at our region meet in October, and our goal as coaches is that each one of you improves on your time. That goal is very attainable; the real question is by how much can we each improve. We hope you all over achieve and do better than you thought you could. For the remainder of the season overachieving really has to be our motto if we want to give ourselves a shot at region. If we can be overachieve in each practice and race for the rest of the season, our girls will have a chance to do something at region never before done in our school's history, and our boys can finish higher than they have since 2011. 

This week has a slight change to the schedule. We will not be going to Roy to race, but will instead have practice as usual. We will be going to Utah state on Friday. That course is where the NCAA west regional championships will be held in November, meaning it is a fast and competitive course. We are looking forward to a fun race there.

Also on Wednesday night, all Bountiful High athletes and their parents are encouraged to attend a meeting put on by an organization called Especially for Athletes. This organization aims to raise social responsibility in high schools by encouraging athletes to be aware of others. Honestly it is an admirable cause and something that I am excited about. It aims to increase inclusion and community and to decrease depression, bullying, and suicide, among other things. This meeting will be at 7:30 PM in the auditorium. Each of you are invited and encouraged to attend. This organization has done some amazing things in other local high schools so when our admin heard about it they were quick to join. To learn more please visit https://especiallyforathletes.org

Lastly, we were approached by another school and invited to join them (in order to reduce cost) in going to the footlocker cross country championships in California. This race takes place the first weekend in December. We would spend time at the beach and Disneyland before returning. Official dates and costs will be rolled out asap, but will most likely be Thursday through Sunday, the first week of December. If this is something you might be interested in doing, please respond so we can get an idea if this trip is worth planning. Space is limited but we will discuss that another time. 

Let us know if you have any questions. Let's have a great week.

Coach Jacobson 

8/20 update

Braves,

Our first meet is in the books with 9 more remaining before the region meet on October 6^th. There were some awesome races on Thursday, but unfortunately I cannot highlight all of them. Nearly everyone who raced here last year saw their times get faster this year, many by more than a minute. That is a testament to the hard work that they have been putting in. On the boys side, Justin pointed out that the top JV runner on our team last season ran around a 20:40, but this year we had 4 JV boys go faster than that. Our team effort so far this season has been awesome, and that stat shows that. Justin was one of those that was two minutes faster than last season. With a few of our top runners out of town some of our young runners really stepped up. Our freshman and sophomore groups really impressed us and made up 2 of the top 3 finishers on both the boys and girls teams. On the girls side, every single runner from last year was faster than the year before, like Belle and Anna Sophia, who were nearly two minutes faster than last year when they eventually qualified for state as individuals. Ultimately our goal was to get better as individuals and as a team by the end of the day Thursday, and I can confidently say that is what we did. Based on the effort and results we felt better about both teams on Thursday night than we did on Thursday morning. If we can continue to build on Thursday’s results then we will be on our way to achieving our team goals.

To see the pictures from the meet, and to add any that you took, check out the “2017 Pictures” link on the right side of the page on our website www.bravesxc.blogspot.com

This week is pre-region, which means we race the entire region on the same course that we will race at region. That meet is on Wednesday, and you will be excused early from your final period. I will let you know at practice what time that is. As with every meet, you are expected to be at practice on both Monday and Tuesday in order to be entered into the meet on Wednesday. I know many of you are out of town for the final days of summer and/or for the solar eclipse. If you are out of town, and you’ve made that known to us before tomorrow, we will still allow you to race on Wednesday. This race is extremely important as a team, not in where we place (because each team approaches the race differently) but in that we gain racing experience and experience on the course, and once again take a step forward as individuals and as a team. Furthermore, by racing on this course twice it gives you the chance to see how much you improve by the end of the season.  

On Saturday morning we will be at the Westlake relays. That race is a bit unique in that it is a relay race and there are obstacles, namely hay bales that you have to hurdle. We have never gone to this race, but the coaches and athletes that I have talked to about it say their teams have loved the race, and they wouldn’t miss it. We wanted to mix up the races a bit this year and are hopeful we can have a positive experience at this meet. We won’t have a bus going down, and will only enter those who let me know that they want to go. Please respond to this email if you are wanting to go to that meet.

As a reminder, you won’t be racing until you have completed register my athlete at www.registermyathlete.com

Looking forward to getting back to practice Monday at 2:30. We have to make good things happen if we are going to reach our team goals, so use each day as an opportunity to get a better, stronger, and faster.

Coach Jacobson

8/13 update

Braves,

We had an awesome time at camp this past week, and I was sad to see it come to an end. It was a blast. I woke up this morning and wished that we had had more days. Thank you for all your help in making it go smoothly, and for your hard work over those three days. I hope you had as much fun as we did. We really got better over those three days. We ended camp with 800m repeats and it was possibly the best workout that we have had all summer long – even after a few days of tough running. There were a lot of great performances making us extremely excited for the upcoming season. Both the girls and boys teams showed us that no matter the obstacles that we have and will face throughout the season, if we keep working like that we will give ourselves a shot to reach our team goals – and that is all we can ask for: giving our best day in and day out.

To see pictures of the camp and summer conditioning please visit our website at http://bravesxc.blogspot.com/p/2017-pictures.html I will post pictures after each race on a new link, and you are welcome to add pictures to the album as well. The pictures from past years will also be on the website for when you want to go down memory lane in ten years.

Moving forward, the regular season is upon us with our first race on Thursday. I will enter everyone who is at each practice starting Monday and has completed register my athlete. If you have yet to finish it, please see www.registermyathlete.com Starting Monday, we will be practice every day at 2:30. We have a great core on our team who is committed to getting themselves and their teammates better, and we have seen the improvement over the course of the summer. We are lucky to have such a fun team, who help each other get better, and have fun with the sport, and at practice. As we see our team culture improving, thanks to you as athletes, teammates, your work ethic, and commitment, we will be doing somethings slightly different than in years passed. Individuals who miss practice or leave practice early, for whatever reason, will be ineligible to compete that week. In past years we had too many people missing practices or leaving early for one reason or another. Doing this weakens not only the individual, but the team as a whole. Cross country is not fun if you are only partially committed; championship teams are not somewhat committed. For you to have a positive experience you have to commit yourself long term to the sport. You have to jump in with both feet to be successful and to have fun (successful meaning becoming a better athlete, teammate, and person). For our team both to be successful and reach our goals we have to be committed as a team.

There are a number of you still on this email list that we haven’t seen for a while. In the event you have chosen not to continue with XC, please let me know so I can remove you from the email list and the roster. If a part of you still is interested in XC, we would love for you to join us on Monday at practice. It is not too late to join the team.

If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with our schedule on the team website (linked above). If you have any questions about anything concerning the upcoming season, don’t hesitate to contact me. We appreciate all you do and are anxious for the season to begin. Thursday is going to be a great day.

Coach Jacobson

8/6 update

Braves,

Our summer conditioning as an entire team will conclude on Monday, after that we are in to our regular season. As you know, we are going to Huntsville from Wednesday through Friday for our XC camp. We still have room at the camp if you would like to come. We want to give each of you every opportunity to join us. We leave Wednesday morning, so as long as you let me know by Tuesday evening that won’t be a problem.

For perspective, we race in less than two weeks. We have this coming week with camp, then we race the next Thursday. Region is only two months away, and the time is going to fly by once school begins. Once again, in order to be eligible to race, you will need to come to each practice starting the Monday following camp (8/14) and have completed registermyathlete, including the physical. www.registermyathlete.com Many of you have begun and finished that process, and I thank you for doing that – it makes my life easier.

If you haven’t yet, now would be a good time to look at our race schedule at www.bravesxc.blogspot.com If you didn’t realize it yet, pre-region is the first day of school, meaning you will be excused slightly before the end of the school day. Your teachers will be aware of that and allow you to go. As student-athletes it is your challenge and responsibility to balance your life to be successful in xc and the classroom. Your teachers will help you do this so long as you communicate with them before or after class, or via email. I tell my students to email me what days they will miss, and most of them look at me like, “email? How old are you?” like they would prefer to “snap a chat” (is that how you say it?) saying what days they would miss. For athletics, all absences are “school-excused absences,” meaning you are excused from class for a school activity, in this case, XC. When you miss class for a school excused absence teachers are required to allow you to fully, and without penalty, make up any work that you missed that day, so long as you have talked to them about it. If you don’t talk to your teachers, however, they won’t know to get you any make up work. Frankly, missing some time at school for athletics can be challenging, but you can still get the grades you want with planning ahead, communicating with your teachers, and managing your time wisely. We will talk more about this as the season goes on.

With the summer coming to a close we are getting excited to begin racing and see what you can do. We are proud of the group that consistently came all summer, and we have seen some great improvements. Even if you missed most of summer, for whatever reason, we hope to have you join with us again during the regular season. We have some big things ahead. Let’s take advantage of it.

Coach Jacobson