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Cross Country
vs Gans Creek Classic
Coach Kepler's Weekly Recap - Week 1
9/5/2006 12:00 AM | Cross Country
Sept. 5, 2006
The first race of the year always generates a unique sense of anticipation, excitement, and anxiety for everyone. As a coach my main focus is not to overwhelm the team with too many bits of information. They just need to focus on competing hard, giving their absolute best effort that day, and trying to stay relaxed and have some fun. When you train through the summer and fall and only have 6-7 competitions, those are supposed to be the fun days!!!
Overall, I feel like we accomplished a lot at the Reno race. It was a fun format for everyone involved. Like my team, I thought I did a pretty good job of preparing for the race with one exception. With the chase race format you have to designate what number each athlete is running for the team prior to the race. One of our freshmen, Alyssa Abbott, had only been running for about six weeks prior to this race due to injury so I put her in the number five spot. She ended up getting a fast start and led much of the race early on. She ended up fifth overall in the race, but all that leading (by as much as 30 meters) really took its toll on her physically over the last mile of the 4K race. She still ran a solid race, but had I ran her in the four spot, she would have started 20 seconds later and not been in the lead by herself for such a long period of time. As good coaches do, I'll pass part of that blame on to my student assistant and former Ute runner, Ashlee Warnick (just kidding Ash). After finishing up her eligibility last year I can't tell you how excited I am that Ashlee was willing to help us this year while she finishes her degree. She will provide this young team with a lot of insight to running, school, and life. So like the athletes, us coaches are always trying to learn and use our new knowledge for upcoming practices and races.
The trip was long from SLC to Reno, but we stopped in Elko, NV (home of Chelsea DiGrazia) for dinner hosted by Chelsea's parents. That was a lot of fun and the food was amazing! After a restful night in a local hotel we were back on the road again. Four and a half hours later we were in Reno. We checked into the campus hotel and then we went out to the course for our pre-meet. After a quick shower it was off to the Abbott's for dinner. (Yeah, the coach planned this trip well!!!). Another great evening with one of our athlete's families. Again, the food was outstanding. Back to the hotel for a good night sleep and then it was race time. No one can ever say Utah XC doesn't travel well....(ok, maybe not quite in the crazy droves as our FB fans) as we had multiple sets of parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, and other friends of our runners at the meet. I kept thinking to myself "I thought our home meet was still a month away". Of course, with it being Alyssa's home town and her leading a good portion of the race the call of her name every 50 feet was fun to hear as well. We ran a solid race and went a perfect 3-0 in the multiple dual meet scoring so it was a very good day for the Utes. We will look to build on that momentum and positive outcome next week at a much more challenging meet hosted by BYU. Other than coach's horrible singing (some things the athletes just have to live with) in the van, the trip home wasn't overly eventful as athletes rested and studied most of the way home. That's it for this week. Have a great week and I'll be back with some insight after our meet next week.
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