Good Morning, Celts,
Yesterday was wild. Bus delays. Meet delays. A motorcycle accident in downtown Salem. And that was all before we got to the course.
As wild as our morning was, I think the results of the meet were equally as wild. We entered the meet with an objective of researching the course. The Ash Creek course is where we will compete for the CVC Championship on October 30. Many members of the team were experimenting with a new race strategy, which essentially turned this race into a workout rather than a race-effort. Even still, we left the campus of Western Oregon with 21 of our 43 runners running times that were lifetime bests!
We were not focusing on time at all this week. We hardly ever focus on time when it comes to races. Cross country is a sport where championships are won by beating the runners in different color jerseys rather than a time that is on athletic.net from an invite during the season.
That said, I have designated the meet this weekend as the one meet on our schedule where athletes are encouraged to chase times. I understand that runners want to see a big PR on their athletic.net page and that a nice number on your “resume” can lead to increased attention from college coaches. We chose this meet in particular because it was one of the two fastest meets in the state of Oregon last year. The other was the Rose City Invite that we will be racing with a team emphasis in a few weeks.
Thank you
Thank you to all of the athletes and families for your flexibility with everything yesterday. I didn’t hear a single complaint from anybody on our team. They may have happened, but I didn’t hear about it.
We can only control what we can control. I believe that McNary teams from the last few years would not have reacted the same way to all of the changes. We had a comparable situation in 2022 where there was a delay, a cancellation, and then an un-cancellation after our bus had already left the course. We ended up racing, but, as a whole, we didn’t perform well that day.
This group is different. We rolled with the punches, had a dance party of sorts in the parking lot as the sun rose, showed up when it was time to race, and made things happen. I’m very proud of you all. Thank you.
Training Shift
I break up our season of training into 4 large training blocks beginning in June:
Foundational work, where the emphasis is on aerobic development (7 weeks)
Transitional phase, where we still emphasize aerobic development, but we also begin racing and add weekly workouts that include work at 5k pace (6 weeks; two 3-week blocks)
Specific Prep, where the workout emphasis moves towards 5k race pace and the workouts become a lot more dense. There are less workouts, but they are longer and more difficult. We’re still racing most weeks during this phase. (6 weeks; two 3-week blocks)
Championship season, where we take our foot off the gas in training, volume is reduced, speed is emphasized along with recovery and making sure we’re healthy and ready to be at our best in our championship races. (1-3 weeks, depending on the athlete)
The upcoming week is week 14 of training for those who have been with us this summer. We are beginning our specific prep phase. Athletes can generally expect two big efforts each week: 1 workout and 1 race. We’ll still meet each day during the week for training runs as well as other valuable work, but we won’t be stacking workouts on back to back days as we have been the last several weeks.
The Mook XC Invite - Saturday, September 21
I do not have all of the details yet for Saturday’s meet. We will not know which race divisions we are in until Thursday morning after the registration window closes. I will send my typical meet info sheet on Thursday once I have the information.
The entries that you see on athletic.net are not final. These are where coaches registered athletes and meet management will shuffle things around to balance races. I believe many teams will be bumped from the elite boys race and we are waiting to see if we are one of the teams who is bumped.
Here is the most important information for planning purposes:
Location: Alderbrook Golf Course, 7300 Alderbook Rd, Tillamook, OR
Bus Departure Time: 6:45am
Race Times: Our first race will be at 10:00am and our final race will either be at 2:15 or 3:15pm
Approximate return time: 5:30pm or 6:30pm (depending on which races we are in)
General meet info can be found HERE. This link includes the course map and and even has drone footage of the course so that you may begin visualizing your race now.
Girls Night - Thursday, September 19
This Thursday, Coach Abbie and Coach Kailey are hosting a girls night at Kailey’s house. This is an optional, but encouraged, activity for every member of the girls team.
Kailey’s address is 2036 Waltman Ct NE Keizer, OR 97303
Senior Night
Cross country is a funny sport for senior night. We don’t race on campus, we don’t really have league meets any longer, and we race outdoors where it’s hard to gather everyone for any sort of ceremony. This year we’re going to do something a little different.
On Thursday, October 17, we’ll be running a one-mile time trial on the track at McNary and then celebrating our seniors immediately afterwards. All parents and families are invited to attend. The celebration won’t be super long and formal, but it will be a great opportunity for seniors to share memories and for us to celebrate them.
I aim for the mile runs to begin close to 5:00 and for our celebration to begin by 5:30, with a goal of wrapping up by 6:00. I’m hopeful that giving this notice now will allow as many families to attend as possible.
Team Parent Update
McNary Cross Country Parents-
This past week’s race was so much fun to watch and we are loving the weather we are getting to enjoy this season so far.
This week we will have our team dinner on Friday the 20th at Brayden Kahler’s House. Details regarding the team dinner are below. We are still in need of volunteers to help feed the kids for future team dinners. Here is the link to the sign-up genius: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040848A4A92FAA8-mcnary
Remember team dinners are at McNary HS Cafeteria unless you are wanting to host. If you have any questions please feel free to email or text me (rcbowlby5@gmail.com or 503-332-2900).
Friday, September 20th Team Dinner Details:
This Friday, September 20th we will be hosting our team dinner @ Brayden Kahler’s house. Their address is 696 Farmland Ln. NE, Keizer, OR 97303. The team will be running there during practice but will need to be picked up by 6:30. Please plan on picking your child there or have a plan for them to get back to McNary HS.
Thank you to Marco & Katina Kahler for hosting and providing food and for Sherry Wolf-Howe for also helping this week with food items.
Have a great week!
Christine and Ryan Bowlby
503-332-2900
This Week
Monday: 4:00-5:30. Meet in Room 289.
Tuesday: 4:00-6:00. Meet at the track.
Wednesday: 4:00-5:30. Meet in Room 289
Thursday: 4:00-5:30. Meet in Room 289 GIRLS NIGHT: 6:30-8:00 at Coach Kailey’s house. See info and address above.
Friday: Meet at 4:00 in Room 289. Running to Brayden’s house for team dinner. Please pick up your athlete by 6:30 at the address listed above.
Saturday: The Mook XC Invite. 6:45am bus
Sunday: Rest or light training run on your own
Big week ahead. Be sure to eat a lot of food and sleep a lot of sleep.
Go Celts!
Josh