MHS Cross Country Menomonie Relays Girls Comment Sheet

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1 MHS Cross Country Menomonie Relays Girls Comment Sheet A well run race is a work of art Amazing effort. I was truly impressed with how well you ladies ran. Top to bottom, we had some great races. It s silly to look at times at a race like this; it was 82 degrees at race time and there was no breeze and no shade. The hardest part of this course, the part that requires the most concentration, was by the fields. That s also the part of the course that is easily the hottest. If you went out fast, you died. Big time. Some of our opponents took the first K fast (I think all of Hudson s girls were sub 3:48). We took it easy. First K in the varsity race was led by Mackenzie (who had a break-out race, by the way) at 4:08. The plan was 3:58. In the heat the 4:08 was perfect, though (and apparently the 1k was about 20m long, so take away four or five seconds and we re more like 4:03). The JV ladies were supposed to go out in 4:19, and they were 4:29. Perfect. It was a well run race for our groups, and an amazing effort. PACKS! Look at the pictures below. Left to right, clockwise, we have the Panthers, Coyotes and Tigress, Wolf Pack and the Snow Leopards. Three of these pictures are taken right around 1200m. One is taken at about 2200m. The only two girls not visible in these pictures are The Cub and Bob Cat. Bob Cat (Izzy) was on her own race plan, and she got stuck in space. The Cub is about 10 feet behind Emily and the Wolf Pack, and if the camera lenses were a little wider she would be visible as well. So 12 of our 14 girls are visible in these four pictures, and another is almost right there. Pack running. That s why we did so well.

2 In the varsity race, the Wolf Pack was through the mile, through the 2000m, then Tyra took-off. Kaylynn went with, and had Tyra in sight until the end. Grace, Mackenzie and Emily were working together. We had PACKS. We had a team. We had geese, not ants. In the JV race, groups broke apart past the road. Before that, we had PACKS. Even after the road, though, we saw the Abbey / Caitlin grouping, and Jordan was right there as well. Working together, going out a little slower that was the only way we were going to be able to beat the heat and run well. And we did it. And it was awesome. Generally we don t race well in the heat. Grace hates the heat. Kaylynn and Emily struggle in the heat. Tyra can tolerate it. Mackenzie doesn t seem to be bothered by it much. Madee s breathing doesn t work well in the heat, but it s never really been her thing. Holly is miserable in the heat. Keeping all of this in mind, Grace certainly had a heat PR. She s never run this fast in temps above 80 degrees. Kaylynn was our #2 and was only 25 seconds slower than her time last year, when we ran this race in 60 degree weather. To top it all off, Tyra was sick with a pretty bad sore throat yet she placed higher in this meet than she s ever had in the past Last year Tyra was 8 th. This year she was 7 th. Last year Kylynn was 17 th. This year she was 14 th. Last year there were 66 girls ahead of Mackenzie Flug (60 girls ran faster times in the varsity race and six were ahead of her in the JV race). This year, Mackenzie was 19 th overall and she easily had the best race of her career. Only 18 girls were ahead of her. Grace and Emily, meanwhile, were bothered by the heat. Grace was 13 th last year, but was 17 th this year. In the heat, this is a pretty darn good performance. Remember Grace, running her sophomore year in that heat? Emily was 18 th last year. This year she was 20 th, despite being bothered by the temperature and looking rough. So it was a pretty darn good day! Remember the meet last year at St. Croix Central? It was a similarly hot day on a similarly difficult course. On that day, in the heat, on a similar course, Grace ran 21:52. Emily ran 21:52. Mackenzie ran 22:55. I d say you ran in very comparable conditions, and you crushed those times. So we re right on track for an amazing taper and a huge finish to the season. Oh, and one more quick word on pack running. What impressed me most was that, for the first time this year, you ladies were working as a team. In the varsity race, all five of you were together, communicating, moving up, working as a pack. It was a thing of beauty. I watched one of our opponent teams running all strung out not working together very geesy. I very nearly couldn t take it. You ladies were ants. The varsity girls were, maybe, in 50 th place at the K. Then they rolled-up on their opponents, and we put five girls in the top 20. We ve only done that once before last year, when we had all MHS Girls at Rice Lake Invite seven in the top 18, and that was amazing, The table to the left shows MHS Girls performances at the Rice Lake Invite going all the way back to You can see that we ve often done quite well at this meet. With these nine years of data, we have 4 firsts, a second and two thirds. That s not too bad! But I want you to look at one key statistic the finish of our #5 runner. As you all know, we don t compete very well without a good pack we just don t have that dominant front runner (yet). Our #5 is crucial to YEAR PLACES POINTS FINISH , 7, 9, 14, 24, 37, st of , 18, 43, 63, 67, 76, th of , 16, 36, 78, 87, 90, th of , 17, 37, 44, 67, 77, rd of , 27, 30, 33, 42, rd of , 9, 10, 15, 20, 28, st of , 12, 22, 26, 27, 44, st of , 7, 12, 15, 16, 17, st of , 14, 16, 18, 19, nd of 24

3 that pack s success. Looking back, we ve only had a #5 runner finish higher than our 2017 #5 one time. That was last year, and we made it to state. In 2014, the year we also made it to state, our #5 runner was 20 th. This year our #5 finished 19 th. Having a number 5 that can score 19 points in a race with 167 girls that s pretty impressive. We don t win with our front-runners (we don t have a Roberts or Ball or Ferris) we do win with our pack. But I think we ll have a front runner that can finish in the top four at the BRC meet. If our front runner can do that, she should be able to bring a few teammates along for top 7 finishes, too. And maybe, just maybe, we can get our #5 to finish in the top 14 at the BRC meet. If we can do that, we ll be awfully tough to beat. Who was this #5 of ours, by the way? It wasn t Mackenzie Flug; she was our #4. It was Emily, who struggled in the heat. Look at the picture to the right. This is just by the finish, and she s hurting. She looks like she is going to pass-out. She finished, though. It was, perhaps, the hardest race she s ever run in her life. It was, perhaps, the best effort she s ever given. The time wasn t great, but the effort was outstanding. In the varsity race, Tyra, despite a sore throat, had an amazing day. Kaylynn, who was disappointed, had an amazing day. Both moved-up off the top of that lone hill. Both moved extremely well through the fields. Mackenzie Flug sat back after the 1600m, then she caught back up after the 3k (or so). I wonder where she would have finished if she had gone with Tyra and Kaylynn at the road? Grace and Emily were running buddies (they seem to run together quite often). Grace managed the heat better than she has in the past while Emily was hurting. By the way, I included the picture of Grace to the right because you can see her completely jacked leg muscles. In the end we scored 74 points, about 40 points behind Hudson. We had a very narrow differential between our #1 and our #5 (less than a minute, which is great). At Husky we were only able to put one runner in front of Hudson s #6 runner. At MHS Relays we put two runners in front of their #6 runner. At Rice Lake we put our entire top 5 in front of their #6 runner. We re gaining ground on this incredibly talented group of girls. And for the first time our top five were separated by less than a minute (about 47 seconds, actually). Less than a minute between 1 and 5 is going to be crucial going forward. If we can shrink that to less than 30 seconds, and we can get our frontrunners under 19:30, then we are going to be just fine. So, great job varsity ladies! Extremely well run race. As for Izzy, she was overcome by the heat. We ll just leave it at that and move on. When you have a bad race you just have to let it go. She bounced back with a great Banana Relays on Thrusday, though.

4 In the JV race, Madee was very controlled. She was with Annie and Clara at the K and made a move. At the road she was in 3 rd, battling with a Hudson girl. Madee finished 4 th overall in the JV race, not too far out of 3 rd. The time was not what Madee would have wanted, but it was hot. Heat hurts the breathing a bit, and that s been Madee s issue. Still, Madee has spent most of her high school career in the 21 s, with some amazing races at the end of each season to get those times down into the 20 s. I have faith that she ll do the same this year. It s easy to think of a person as a PR. The PR, though, is one race. What happened to get to that PR? When Madee was a sophomore, and she ran below 20:20 at the end of the season, she really struggled at Husky and New Richmond. She had three races above 22:00 and one above 24:00. Then she broke-out and ran that 20:19. As a frosh she struggled at New Richmond, too, before running 21:10 to finish the season. It s a process, and getting the races in, even when the weather is difficult and it s hard, is a big part of tapering at the end of the season. Annie ran an extremely smart race as well, finishing 23 rd in the JV race (last year she was 25 th ). Clara and Annie worked together very well, running through some serious pain. Together at the 1600m, through the 2k, they started to break-up in the fields. Clara finished in the top 20, Annie was just back. Split differential wasn t great 7:04 first mile with an average right around 8:00 for both Clara and Annie but they passed about 40 people each. I wonder what those ladies had for a split differential! Some girls were out in 6:00 for the mile yet they didn t break 26 minutes. Ouch. I think our races were far more even than most of our competitors, even if the splits were off. For our 2 nd pack of JV girls, I thought the effort was amazing. Caitlin is getting better and better every meet. Abbey, who has looked outstanding in practice, seemed to be taken by the heat a bit. They did stay together through the 3k, though, and that group did the best pack running of the entire team. Jordan went out slow with that group, then made a big move, then they caught her again. She s struggling with her hip. It s time for some rest for Jordan. As for the Caitlin/Abbey connection, let s keep that going for a while. You two are running extremely well together! Our final pack was Jess and Holly. Times were slow, but it s OK. We just needed a good effort. I think both gave a good effort, both ran well together through to the road and both struggled a bit on the fields. It s OK. It was hot. It was a rough couple of weeks of practice. I m proud of the effort, and the fast times will come when the weather improves. Well, that s all for this week. Banana relays were awesome, but I get the feeling everyone is a bit tired (Tyra ed) after starting school. A weekday meet always takes a toll, and a late-night meet, like this one, can really set you back. Make sure you are hydrating, getting plenty of sleep, keeping yourself balanced and getting some good food. The hard stuff begins next week, and then it s championship season!

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