Central Cabarrus Meet

Results from our Pre-Florence meet at Central Cabarrus High School last Thursday are posted below.  Hickory Ridge dominated the team scoring for both the girls and boys, but our boys managed their best team place this season, a 2^nd overall out of 5 teams.  Our girls were short-handed with only 5 competitors but  managed a respectable 3^rd place overall out of 5 schools. 

 

Coach Cameron and I spoke to our boys about trying to close our time gap for our 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th runners.  If we can move these runners closer to our 3^rd finisher, our team scoring will improve greatly.  Team scoring in cross country is all about trying to have a close time/place spread between our top 5 (comprise our team score).  Many fans don’t realize how unique our sport is in that XC combines an individual sport of distance running  into a team format with everyone’s contribution to the team score being equally important. 

 

We also spoke to both our girls and boys about becoming more aware of the finish line and trying to develop a more competitive effort at the end of races.  Of course, it’s easy for those of us on the sidelines to see where one can improve at the end, but oftentimes, it simply takes developing a mindset of totally committing to 100% effort at the end—regardless of the outcome.  Finishing fast is not the most important part of the 5K race, the hardest racing comes between miles 1-2.5, but developing a ‘leave it all on the course’ mentality of never giving up at the end can be developed.  Many runners are afraid if they really go hard at the finish, they will either totally run out of energy or get beaten at the finish line.  This fear of really going hard at the finish is mostly your mind slowing your body down.  Simply running to get finished and not racing at the end deprives athletes of one of the most satisfying aspects of cross country racing—winning a battle for 1^st or 40^th  by an eyelash.  

 

DDS Finishers:

2^nd          Mitchell                18:12

7^th           Ewan                     20:21

12^th         Aaron                    20:59

15^th         Jack                        21:59

26^th         Thomas                                23:19

30^th         Max                       23:43

49^th         Bobby                   29:37

52^nd        Jackson                33:27

 

5^th           Charlotte             23:36

10^th         Hannah                25:01

16^th         Sophie                  27:11

25^th         Emily                     29:58

27^th         Melanie               30:07