As a member of the Warrior Cross Country program you have chosen to challenge yourself and your teammates to use your God-given talent and passion to bring glory to God! You have agreed to push yourself and always strive for excellence. Most importantly you have accepted the challenge to be an upstanding student-athlete in the sports community and be Christ-like in all you do.
As painful as running can be there is a great social aspect to it. Some of the friendships made on this team will likely last a lifetime. We always try to focus on the positive and work hard to improve every race. We understand that God has blessed each of us with different amounts of talent and each has a role on the team. The only thing I ever ask of our athletes is to have fun and to run their best, whether that is first or last. The unique thing about running is that whether you win or finish dead last, if you ran your best you get to experience the same joy.
Endurance training is perhaps the most important aspect to a distance program. Most days we will be traveling to local parks to run on trails. While the hills provide the strength we need to be successful in our races, the soft surfaces reduce the risk of injury. We will also occasionally run off campus for endurance runs. On all runs safety is our utmost concern. Whether we are on campus or running the trails runners must always have a running partner and are to NEVER run alone. While we take every precaution to assure your safety, we can never eliminate the possibility of an accident. Coach Lee and I often run with the team and welcome parent volunteers who would like to join us. If you have any questions or concerns please let me know.
There are several risks when running. The most common is dehydration, allergies, sore muscles and fatigue. Common injuries range from shin splints, strained muscles to a twisted ankle. Injury prevention is of the utmost importance and we try to run on soft surfaces as much as possible. We will train 5-6 days a week and for the qualifying runners we will attend invitational races on the weekends. When we do not race on the weekend we will generally have practice on that Saturday. These are required practices for Varsity athletes. I recommend all athletes train at least 1-2 times on their own Saturday & Sunday. Even if it is just jogging a few miles at the local school or park, running on a constant basis will build the muscle and cardiovascular fitness that is needed to be successful and prevent injury. The more consistent an athlete is with their training, the better they will be and the less likely they are to become injured.
We practice Monday through Friday from 3:15 to 5:30 pm. If you know ahead of time that your child will not be able to make practice to please e-mail both coaches at jsmall@vcs.net and jleeruns@yahoo.com to let us know. While we welcome all athletes, attendance is mandatory. Athletes who have an unexcused absence (this includes when students forget their clothes, have excessive homework, etc.) will not be able to participate in the next meet. Also, to earn an athletic letter and PE credit you must be in attend 90% of our practices and race in all three WCAL meets.
We will be sending out additional information regarding our parent meeting next week. At this meeting we will discuss our team policies and trips.
Lastly, you can follow our team on our cross country page on www.vcrunning.com. This will have our performance lists, newsletters, race recaps, pictures and more! Thank you for all your love, prayers and support. We are all looking forward to another successful season of Valley Christian Cross Country (VCXC!)
Go Warriors!
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