Photo courtesy of halhigdon.com

GAMES by Jarush Garinger The last two meets, instead of running a lot before the meet, the kids want to play "duck duck goose" or better yet, have changed it to our mascot panthers. "Panther, Panther, Pirate" - not sure where the pirate came in at though...didn't ask. :-) This allows the runners to continue warming up after going through the course once before the race. It also entertains them. Our meets are on Wed. so it is hard to vary the practices. Usually Mon/Fri are our harder days. The other two days we "lightly" jog as the kids put it. A few weeks ago we had a ton of rain, and the kids were wanting to run the high school course (we are on the same campus). Although it was very muddy the kids ran the course all three days in the rain. For fun the kids "fell" in to the creek, a few times. The HS course is very interesting...you go through two tunnels "lange's tunnel" then into the open field near the football practice field, into "Panther Island" a little jaunt into the woods (you cross a man-made bridge into the woods) and of course cross back out..up the "Dam Hill" around the pond, and down the "Other Dam Hill" up through "Sunflower Lane" and out to the finish shoot. The course is interesting...needless to say the kids were muddy everyday at practice...I have still managed to keep all 19 runners that started with me, with the exception of some "grades"... XC by Hal Higdon The start of the race: The thunder of moving feet against the ground. Running through the woods. Is ever so beautiful. RESOURCES Training for Young Distance Runners by Larry Greene and Russ Pate, will help coaches understand when kids should begin to run and what the current trends are in distances run. $18.95 from Human Kinetics 1-800-747-4457 (US) 1-800-465-7301 (Canada) See humankinetics.com LINKS Starting a Cross-Country Club by Coach Eileen XC for Kids from England, Roy Saxby Improving X-C Speed by Coach Eileen, Runner's World The Shag by Hal Higdon, Article on a special high school XC Invitational Off-Season Training XC by Coach Ed, Jaquars

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