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