What We Want Weekly – Go Hard* or Go Home Edition

Every school in the state can enter a team at the regional meet.  That includes the Hibriten girls, who to my knowledge have not fielded enough runners to score at any time in the last three years.  You can line up anyone on your eligibility list, including people who have not appeared in a meet all season.  There are no heats, sections, or seeded starting positions – essentially, you have been running for nothing but pride all season.

All that changes completely on Saturday.  If you are one of the top four teams, or one of the first five individual finishers not on one of those teams, you go to the state meet.  Otherwise, your season is over.  We definitely plan to be in the first category, as the girls have done all but once since Watauga created the team and the boys have done every year but two since 1990.

Since we have a reasonable expectation of surviving to race another week, we are training with that in mind.  Last year we ran very well at the state meet, probably because we did a good job of continuing our fitness improvements all the way through the end of the season.  So we may back off slightly on volume later in the week, but don’t expect things to be easy.

Everyone is still encouraged to come to practice.  We will do 400 time trial for non-regional people Tuesday, and a 3k time trial on Thursday.  Be a part of it – you’ll be amazed how much you’ve improved since the beginning of the year.  Also, any boys who are in the 18:00-20:00 range – we’d love to have you helping to pace the varsity girls in workout.

*You do not actually have to go hard.  You have to go fast enough to beat the other people, which may or may not involve going hard.

• Monday – long speed on the track.  800 fast; 3-4 x 1000 at around 5k start pace; another 800 fast.  3-4 minutes recovery.  We reserve the right to adjust it.
• Tuesday – 45-50 minutes, strides, circuits
• Wednesday – tempo – 5 x 4-5 minutes, 1 minute recovery
• Thursday – 20-30 minutes, 8 x 200 meters fast, circuits
• Friday – 20-30 minutes easy
• Saturday – regional at McAlpine in Charlotte
• Sunday – easy run