Sept. 1 - 6 (Week 14)

We are entering a super busy time of our schedule - 4 races in just 2 weeks for some of you! So make sure you are on top of everything you need to be. Thanks for all the help at the car wash. It went very well, and we hope each of you raised some money for your XC expenses. 

If you haven't got the Binderly App (parents and athletes) PLEASE DO. (You can get rid of your track and XC Remind). Create your account (parents and athletes) and connect to Pine View HS and join Cross Country.

Purpose of the Week's Workouts: Click here for a link to this week's workouts (Week 14). Workouts will be kind of all over for the next two weeks as various teammates are getting ready for different races. So, make sure you note where you are at on the workout schedule and get everything in you're supposed to. As we get ready to head on our team overnighter next week, we will really be focusing on our standard of being at practice. We will also be looking for grades to be solid - we will have a grade check this week; each athlete needs to bring a printed copy of your current grades to Coach Decker by Friday (or you won't be eligible to travel next week). Update your minutes from Week 13 here: Weekly Minutes. 

This Week's Schedule:

Monday: AM - 8:00a at Sunrise Valley Park (Everyone) 

Tuesday: AM - 6:15a at PVHS short run and weights (White, Black, Silver expected; Maroon optional) / afternoon - RACE - DIXIE ALL-COMERS: Bloomington Hills North Park (St. George); 6:00p; info below.

Wednesday: AM - 6:15a at PVHS short run and yoga (White, Black, expected; Silver optional; Maroon can join for yoga at 6:45a) / afternoon - 3:00p at PVHS (Everyone)

Thursday: AM - 6:15a at PVHS short run and weights (White, Black, Silver expected; Maroon optional) / afternoon - 3:00p at PVHS (Everyone)

Friday: AM - 6:00a at PVHS (Everyone - our main practice on Fridays will usually be in the am, and everyone should be there) / afternoon - 12:25p at PVHS (White expected; Black and Silver optional - no sophs/fresh; no Maroon)

Saturday: RACE - LAS VEGAS INVITE: Sunset Park (Las Vegas); 10:00a; bus leaving PVHS at 5:00a; info below. We will need to know by Wednesday if you are able to race or not.

Upcoming Events:

• RACE - Dixie All-Comers: Tuesday, September 2nd at Bloomington Hills North Park; Youngsters 5:30p, Girls 6:00p, Boys 6:40'ish. No Bus; be at the park by 5:00p for warm ups. Everyone who didn't race at Timp will race here.
• RACE - Las Vegas Invite: Saturday, September 6th at Sunset Park (Las Vegas); schedule (race times are Pacific Time): Var A Boys 7:00a, Var A Girls 7:30a, Fresh/Soph Boys 8:00a, Fresh/Soph Girls 8:35a, Var B Boys 9:10a, Var B Girls 9:45a. Bus will leave PVHS at 5:00a (be there on time). TOP JV BOYS WILL RACE IN VAR A RACE. (Varsity will not be racing)
• RACE - Hurricane All-Comers: Wednesday, September 10th at Washington County Legacy Park; Youngsters 5:00p, Girls 5:45p, Boys 6:30'ish. No Bus; be at the park by 4:45p for warm ups. JV will race here.
• RACE - Border Wars: Saturday, September 13th at Valley Regional Park (Taylorsville); Sr Girls 9:00a, Sr Boys 9:20a, Jr Girls 9:40a, Jr Boys 10:00a, Var Girls 10:20a, Var Boys 10:40a, Championship Girls 11:00a, Championship Boys 11:20a, Soph Girls 11:40a, Soph Boys 12:00p, Fresh Girls 12:40p, Fresh Girls 1:00p. We will be leaving on Friday- Itinerary (updated soon). We will be taking about 48 athletes (that will be between 16-20 girls and 28-32 boys), you will have to be here for all your expected practices to be in consideration for traveling with the team.
• get the full schedule here

Uniform Info & Spirit Pack - Go back to last week's post (spirit pack orders are still open)

Youngsters - ***We are encouraging our Youngsters to join the Velocity Kids running club***. Both this week's Dixie All-Comers and next week's Hurrican All-Comers have youth races. We'd love to see some future Panthers out there. 

Race Report - 

Timpanogos Invite: This was our first big challenge of the year for our Varsity teams and things went okay. And, honestly, okay is better than usual. The Varsity girls took 10th without Avery, so we were pretty pleased to see that result. Emmalee was 21st overall and the 5th 4A girl. Tev had a strong 2nd half to move up to 42nd. Sariah continues to be brave and push herself up the rankings; it was great to have Elin back from injury and running with the team again; and Andi and Sydney continue to make steady and important improvements to help the team. The Varsity boys took 12th. Maybe a little lower than we expected, but we still saw some good things. Trevor finish with a top 20 finish (4th 4A). Bender and Jake went 40th and 45th. Benji hanged in on a tough day and Nate is working back from his injuries, and they took 96th and 99th. And Liam was just back in 102nd. The JV guys took 3rd and were led by a strong race from Mason who took 2nd. Then Kyle (11th), Elliot (16th), Brennan (26th), and Tyler (27th) rounded out our scoring. Results. News.

Alumni Report - 

Trey and Bridger both ran this past weekend's UVU Invite in Orem. Trey is looking very strong for a Varsity spot for the Wolverines this year as he took 4th for the team. Bridger had a great first collegiate race and says he's loving running in college and that it is tough!

PVXC Thought of the Week: "All you can do is stay focused and stay on your game."

-Brad Stulberg

So maybe a little longer discussion here because we won't have team meeting on Monday (so stay with my train of thought and stay focused). This info is taken from a Stulberg post about an event that took place at the US Open (tennis) the other day. So apparently, in a tough match, Taylor Townshend (who was a big underdog) won a pretty lucky point that hit the net and then dropped in against Jelena Ostapenko. Ostapenko thought Townshend should have acknowledged the lucky shot and apologized (tennis etiquette, I guess). But Townshend didn't. Townshend went on to win the match, and after Ostapenko confronted her about the lucky point thing and was pretty upset. The teachable moment for us comes from Townshend's response which included her focusing on what she could control - her game and composure - and not getting caught up in all the distractions, name calling, and extra stuff that was happening around the incident. In fact, Townshend went on to beat her next heavily favored opponent as well! The lesson (from Stulberg's post)... "RESPOND NOT REACT. When things don't go to plan... You can react and lose your cool, as Ostapenko did. Or you can respond and stay locked in, as Townshend did. Reacting is rash. You go on tilt. Responding is deliberate. You stay focused." This is so huge in running (practices, workouts, races) because rarely will everything go right. Ask Jake about getting spiked last week. Ask Mason about having to run JV races while you're a top Varsity guy. Ask our crew that is working through injuries right now. Ask those who get a cold, have a bad day at school, have an unexpected tragedy, forgot their uniform, had the weather go crazy hot, or whatever... No matter the case, when you react, you've let something out of your control take over. When you respond, you stay in control, you refocus, and you do what you're able to do. And usually, things end up being pretty okay (or even better than okay).

So here's the challenge part - go back to the last time you reacted to something and think about how you could have responded instead. Even go to the next step and run through some visualization of bad things happening (maybe in a race or something) and plan out how you are going to respond and keep things under control rather than react and lose the control.