Entries Tagged 'Meet Preview' ↓

Our 2010 team will race for the first time on Saturday, July 31 at Legg Lake/Whittier Narrows Park in South El Monte.  We hope to be joined for by graduates of our program, along with the family and friends of our current team.  The race is open to all ages and fitness levels.  Here are the details…

• Race Time:  8:00 am (Alumni/ae and Friends/Family should be registered by 7:30)
• The Course:  A flat 3389 meters over dirt/decomposed granite paths
• Format:  We will divide into three teams – Returning Tartans, Alumni/ae, and Team Newcomers/Family/Friends – and score the race in typical XC format.  We anticipate having a top-quality timing system that will provide quick results.  We’re hand timing the meet, so results will take a few minutes.
• Registration: Current team members are already entered.  All others: there is no cost, but please send an email to info@glendoraxc.net with your name, sex, and age – or if you’re an alum – your graduation year.  You may register on the day, but it will greatly help the timing and scoring process if you register in advance.
• Grub?: Yes!  We will have a light breakfast following the race.

The men’s race should be a battle between our alumni, which will feature Div I athletes from Loyola Marymount, UCSB & Yale along with Div II XC power Adams State against our defending CIF champions boys team.   The women’s race will have interesting matchup between our returning athletes and our strong group of newcomers.

This should be a great day – please make plans to take part.

This Saturday should be exciting – this is the first time we’ve advanced boys and girls to the finals in the same year, and the first time our boys team has ever advanced to the Finals.  In recent years, our girls team, led by CIF champ Christy Adamyk (’07), advanced to Finals in 2005, while Joey Divizia (’08) and Thomas Finnigan (’08) advanced as individuals in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

This year, our boys team will go to the line with the best qualifying time in Div. II by nearly a minute, and with strong expectations of not only a top 7 finish to send them on to the State meet, but of winning!

Junior Lauren Justus easily advanced with the 11th best time overall and second best among individuals at last week’s Prelims.  Lauren needs to finish among the top five individuals (from teams not advancing) and in the top 20 overall to move on to Fresno – and a good performance should do it for her.

Lauren and the Div. 2 girls race at 7:45 and the guys race at 8:25, once again on the tough and famous Mt.Sac course  As with Prelims, admission is only through the Stadium gate, and is $8 for adults and $5 for students with ID’s and kids.  The award ceremony for each division is about 55 minutes after the start of the event on the upper field near the finish line.

Let’s take the next step.

Our league champs, the boys Varsity team and Lauren Justus have qualified for the CIF Southern Section Prelim meet, held this Saturday, November 14th at Mt. Sac.  The Southern Section and California are so huge that simply advancing to this meet is the equivalent of advancing to the State meet in most States.

We compete in Division 2, the second largest, and this meet is the first of three stages of California’s post season.  In our division, the first four teams and any individuals finishing in the top 6 whose teams do not advance will move on to the next weekend’s CIF Finals, also at Mt. Sac.  The Finals Championship also serve as the qualifier for the California State Championships, held on November 28 at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Admission is $7 (students & kids $5), only through the gate on the north side of the stadium.  Parking is only in the large lot across Temple Ave from the stadium and course.

The guys, currently ranked 3rd in the SS Div 2, are the top seed in our heat, and Lauren is well positioned in her heat to take one of the six qualifying spots.  The guys will race in 3rd Div. 2 heat at 2:34 pm, while Lauren also races in the 3rd D2 heat at 3:38.  You can view all of the heat sheets here.  Update: results will be posted shortly after the races here.

We’ve trained long and hard to get to this point, now all we have to do is go do it.  Let’s take the next step.

This was be our last Sierra League Finals as we move to the Baseline League next year.  Our boys are defending champs, and are girls are looking to move up.

Our bus will leave school at 12:45, and every athlete must ride to the meet on the bus, and must be in uniform to get on the bus.

Race times are: 2:19 JV boys;  2:47 JV girls; 3:15 F/S boys;  3:43 Var girls;  4:18 Var boys.

All athletes are expected to stay at the meet until the conclusion of the awards ceremony following the final race.

More to follow

The entires for the Mt. Sac Invite were posted tonight and for the first time ever, our boys team will be taking part in the prestigious Team Sweepstakes Race.  We are one of only 19 schools, gathered from all over the state (and one from Arizona) to run in this featured race.  Because the CIF and State championships are run in divisions, this may be the strongest race in the State this year.  This is a tremendous vote of confidence in our guys – now all we have to do is live up to it!

Our race times are: Boys JV: 8:54am, Boys Var: 10:00, Boys Frosh: 1:45, Girls Frosh 2:09, Boys Soph: 2:48, Girls Soph: 3:04, Girls Var: 4:19.

Check the 2009 Annotated Schedule on the right for more info on the meet, including course maps and videos on how to best run the course.

Update:  This meet receives national attention, so spend some time with the coverage at Flotrack and Runnerspace.  Both will have live coverage and extensive video and photos after the race.  Also, local fav’s Dyestatcal will have extensive coverage here.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, will be our second Sierra League Cluster meet at Bonelli Park in San Dimas.  The meet will begin with the Boys F/S race at 4:15.

In the first Sierra League Meet, our boys Varsity team had a big win, setting a new course record as well.  The guys will be looking to repeat that performance.  Our girls will be looking to move up against the strong Sierra competition.

Important Note: Rain is expected for the meet, and we will run unless the rain makes the dirt hill so slippery that it becomes dangerous (which is very unlikely).  The rain makes it critical that every athlete comes prepared to handle the conditions.  Bring: extra shoes, extra socks, another shirt, towells, an umbrella, and anything else you can think of that you’ll need to get dry and warm after your race.

We want to give our athletes chances to compete and we want them to compete well.  This led us to make some major changes in our schedule, and one of the happy results is that we will be competing in the Brea Invite for the first time.

This a mid-sized (40 schools), and well-regarded meet run over a course that many people really like.  This meet also has a unique feature in how it’s run.  Rather than merely having one varsity and one frosh/soph race, each division is divided into two of three groups.  So in the varsity divisions, our numbers one and two runners (this week, Anthony C & Austin G. and Allison M. & Maggie Su), will run in one race, our numbers 3-4-5 runners will run in another, and numbers 6&7, plus any JV runners will run in the third race.

This may seem confusing, so we made up a sheet listing what race everyone is running, along with race times and arrival times.  You can download it here: ghs_at_brea.pdf

Please plan on arriving early, the park will be very crowded and will probably struggle to accomodate all of the athletes and their families.  You can find directions and other info by reading the 2009 Annotated Schedule on the right of this page.

And…

Our pre-meet spaghetti dinner will be on Friday immediately after practice, hosted by Austin’s parents Steve and Theresa Goodheart.  They live at 172 Grand Oaks Dr. in Glendora.

Tomorrow, we begin our league competition as we race against Ayala, Chino, Chino Hills, Diamond Bar and Damien/St. Lucy’s in the first Sierra League Cluster meet at Bonelli Park in San Dimas.

We compete in one of the stronger XC leagues in Southern California.  The Ayala girls are ranks 9th in the CIF-Southern Section Division II and St. Lucy’s are ranked 4th in Div. III.  The Ayala boys were ranked in the top ten until this week, and our guys are just outside the top ten.

In this meet last year, our boys team, led by seniors Corey Bullock (16:09) and Chris Ramsey (16:16), won the meet – the first step to our League Championship.  The girls were led by Lauren Justus with a strong 19:07 second place effort.  Corey’s effort was 3rd GHS All-Time at Bonelli.  Chris was 4th and Lauren was 3rd best AT GHS.

This year, Lauren is the individual favorite and our girls team will be looking to move up to the top half of the league.  Our guys will be challenging Ayala for the team title, while Anthony Castro and Austin Goodheart will be looking to finish at the front of the race.  Ayala is a strong group with no standouts (so far).  Diamond Bar and Chino Hills are both developing teams with younger runners looking to break into the leaders.

Races begin with JV Boys at 4:15, JV Girls at 4:20, F/S Boys at 4:50, Varsity Girls at 5:20 and the Boys at 5:30.  Athletes will be released from class at 2:00pm and must be on the bus by 2:30.  Athletes may not drive themselves to the meet.  They may return home with their parents, but only after the conclusion of the meet, and only if they provide the coaches with a note requesting permission to do so.

This week will see our athletes compete in two long established but new to us meets.  Most will compete in Rosemead Invitational at Rosemead High.  This has been described as a fun meet, run over a mostly flat 3-mile course and with the first race starting at 5:30, it’s run mostly under the lights.  Even with part of our team in San Diego, we should still be one of the better teams of the 31 entered in the meet, so we should bring home quite a few medals.  Update:  You can read the meet preview here.

A select group of our athletes will travel to San Diego to compete in the Mt. Carmel Invitational over the famous Morley Field XC course in Balboa Park, site of the Footlocker National Championship Meet.  This meet features San Diego’s strongest teams, a very strong group from the Southern Section, along with teams from Northern California and Arizona.  It will have a championship feel.

As our XC teams began to travel to overnight meets over the past several years, we’ve used a variety of criteria in deciding who would go.  This year, we wanted to use the travel meet to give our athletes with potential to reach the State Championship Meet the experience of traveling over night and competing in a big-time meet.  So this year, that means Lauren Justus among the girls and the nine runners who have shown the highest potential to be park of our boys Varsity Seven.

You can get complete logistical information for both meets, including meet websites, schedules, medaling information, and arrive and departure times by following the link 2009 Annotated Schedule on the right of this page.

Here we go, our first official meet of the year.  We will opening our season along side seventeen other schools.  Here are the details:

Saturday, September 12 – Bronco Invitational – at Prado Regional Park in Chino.

The Course:  5 kilometers and rolling, mostly over grass and trails.  Course map: prado-course-map-pdf

Participants: Entire team – we compete by Varsity, JV, and Frosh/Soph for boys, Varsity and JV for girls.  We will post the team lineups by Thursday of race week. (Internet problems solved!) Download team lineups here: bronco-9-12-pdf

Prizes: Medals to Top 50 in each race, team trophy to the winner of each CIF division – we’re division II.

Race Times: Varsity: Boys – 8:00am; Girls – 8:30am  F/S: Boys 9:00am.  JV: Girls – 9:30am; Boys – 10:00am

Arrival Times and Departure Procedures: Varsity athletes should arrive, at our team tent, by 7:00am.  F/S by 7:30, Girls JV by 8:00 and boys by 8:30.  Everyone will stay until the conclusion of the awards ceremony following the final race of the day.

Race Notes: There is a charge of $10 per car (in cash) for entrance into Park.  This is our first time attending this meet, so there will be a lot for us to discover about food and rest rooms and the best places to set up.  Athletes and their families should look for the large, red Glendora EZ Up tent which is where we’ll meet.  This meet is being run after a two-year hiatus by new people, so we’re not sure what to expect.  Newcomers should ready for big crowds and a somewhat chaotic feeling around the starting line.