Last night, I spent my last official moments in 2008 as Coach Pete. Though, I suspect that, to most of my kids, I'll always be "Coach Pete". Last night was the end-of-season banquet and we celbrated with all of the assistant coaches and all but two of my runners. The event started at 6:30 and I arrived at 6pm. I was under the impression that it started at 6 o'clock for some reason. The bright side of that is that I also told #3 that it started at 6, so she was able to get Bubbles there on time. And, to her credit, she actually got them there by 6pm instead of coming late as is the norm.

The season started with much less fanfare. I became the defacto head coach on the first day of practice when Adele said, "So, you're the head coach, now?" or something like that. Coach TD coached the Junior team (7th and 8th graders). They're fast. They're faster than him and he had his hands full trying to coach them. He did have a gaggle of assistants - both official and unofficial - to help him out, though. I had some fantastic assistants, too. Kim and Nelson and Adele were amazing and I couldn't have done it without them. Nelson, a guy who grew up in the same neighborhood as me, was my fast-guy. He was the only one able to keep up with my fastest runners. He was also the go-to guy when it came to stretching. Kim, Nelson's wife, was the boy-wrangler. With so many 4th grade boys on the team, I probably could have used more than one Kim, but she seemed to do alright on her own. I don't know how she does it. Fear, maybe? Adele was my administrator taking care of all of the paperwork for the team and making sure that everyone turned in their forms and fees. She and Kim were also my starting line and finish line workers for the girls. Nelson took care of the starting line for the boys. That freed me up to be a cheer leader for both teams and to mark the times as the kids crossed the finish line. CYO only records the finish order. If we wanted finish times, that's was up to us.

One of my biggest fears when the season started was names. I'm horrible with names. Or, at least I thought I was. Turns out I'm capable of learning 32 names and rattling them off when needed. Sure, there were times when I drew a blank, but I was usually able to dig deep and remember the missing name. In the first week, I demonsrtated my inability to remember names by calling kids by made-up names. One of those names stuck and Sarah O shall forever be my favorite "Fred". We had fun with that all season long. The only kids I got mixed up by the end of the season were easy enough to tell apart when they were nearby one another.

Practices were fun for the duration and I can only think of one of them were I really felt like I didn't want to be there. Early in the season, I worked really hard at coming up with games that would keep them running. Then, I realized that Capture The Flag and Red-Rover were their favorites and they run plenty when playing those games.

The girls managed to place at one of the 5 XC meets. The remainder of the season they were a solid fourth. The boys typically finished 11th to 13th. For the boy's team, it's difficult to get 5th and 6th grade runners because at 5th grade, other sports are avialable to them, including football. The quick and well conditioned boys go out for those teams. The shame of it all is that the football coaches have them convinced that they're not allowed to play 2 sports. XC runners are only required to practice with the team one day per week so you would think that they'd have one day away from football where they could join us at Swan Creek. Unfortunately, football practices every day but Friday and they really can't afford to miss a practice because football plays have to be drilled into these kids over and over and over in order for them to execute on game day. Maybe next year we can convince the football coaches to make Thursday the off-day so that the kids can come run with us and compete on Saturday morning, too. Coach TD was able to convince at least 2 football players/coaches/parents to let their kids do two sports, but by 7th/8th grade, I suspect that the kids can afford to miss one football practice.

My one take-away from this season that I think will make a difference next year is that I want to teach the kids better running technique. I think that next year, I will spend the first 2 weeks doing anything BUT running. We'll drill on good running form and building the muscles that they'll need to perform at meets. Or, at least that's my plan today. It is always hard to get 30+ kids to do things the way that you want them to. You can say, "This is not about speed. I'd rather see you doing it right than doing it fast." until you're blue in the face and the 4th grade boys will always try to out-do one another to go the fastest or the highest or the most exaggerated in some other way. It's just in their nature. Next year, I will also do my best to drag Taz or someone else along to take pictures since I really can't do that and coach at the same time. We'll see.

Now, my season starts. I've picked up a new training technique and I'm going to do this like I do everything else. I'm going to do it until I get it right. It's called Pose Running and it involves running on the balls of one's feet rather than the typical heel-first running. My current style, thanks to Coach TD, is pretty close to the Pose style. I currently let my foot hit in a ball-heel-ball pattern. Coach TD had us doing most of the drills involved in Pose Running. But, I never understood how to apply them. Now, I do. I want to pass that on to my runners in the fall (or summer if we continue with Summer Fun Runs.) I'm logging my drills and my runs on runningahead.com so from time to time I may post my progress here. The plan is to run the 5K on November 15th in Wallbridge.