Uh oh. It's Almost August.

I've had cross country on my brain a lot this week. That's the tough thing about coaching a fall sport; even though you have the summer "off", it's really just the month of July because fall sports in Virginia start August 1st. Well, it's been awhile, but when I was in high school in Averill Park, New York, we did not start practice August 1st. We started the week before school, at the end of August, and we still managed two state championships during my three years of cross country. Don't get me started on that third year scandal... we should have been three for three but we had some administrative issues (ahem).

My cross country team is what you might call a "developing program". I spend the entire season basically tricking them into running longer and faster, while keeping it fun and adding in some cross training for kids whose primary sport is not running. I do scavenger hunts, relay races, and workouts where you pick a card from a pile and do whatever is on the card. We do more tradititonal training too, but I always do my best to make it fun, if not an opportunity to build some character. Having an entire month of practice in the heat of August is not my idea of a good time, and I know my team agrees. So we are starting pre-season conditioning the second week of August, and "try-outs" start August 15th. I wish I could start later, but we have to have a certain number of practice days before our first race.

I think part of the reason I've been thinking about cross country so much is that I am wondering how I'm going to fit in all my training with what I have scheduled for my team. This is going to require some really annoying planning. I'll just put that off for now.

Training has been great this week, but I do have some minor shin pain. It's on both sides, just regular old shin splints, so I'm doing some ice baths and ice cups after my runs. I should be taking ibuprofen too, but I keep forgetting. Tuesday was 10 miles than I ran with Pete. It was supposed to be split up into two runs but we had dinner plans last night so I just did it all in the morning. Today was 14 miles, which I did in 1:48 (7:45 per mile). Finally my Wednesday runs are feeling good.