Cross Country is a fall sport that starts during the summer. While kids can come out on the first day of practice without previous xperience, they won't be ready as our meets begin during the second week of school. Runners new to the sport must concentrate on base and strength training for a few weeks before they'll be comfortable with our race-specific routines. Many kids come into high chool programs with insufficient athletic backgrounds. Cross Country runners should do SAM training every day. They need mobility at the hip joint, strengthen the posterior chain (low back, glutes, hamstrings), and be flexible. We do core training nearly every day.

Training
Like any other sport, we expect that your kids come to practice every day. If they're in a club sport, I expect that Cross Country will take precedence. It's like any other in-season high school program. Our training is based on the general adaptation syndrome. A stress is applied, such as a series of 1000-meter repeats. That specific type of stress won't be repeated for a few days, or until the body is in a supercompensation state. However, other energy systems or active recovery will be targeted in the days in between.
We understand that missing a day from time to time may be unavoidable. These days really can't be "made-up" as some kids like to think. If they plan to participate in another CHS fall sport, they must choose between Cross Country and the other sport. Training is between 3:45 and around 5:30 every school day except on Wednesday when we meet at 3:00. We meet at the school but seldom practice here. Generally, we'll do a warmup run to one of the Coronado Parks. This run can range between 3/4 mile to around 2.5 miles depending on the plan for that day. Just the warmup will be more than they can handle for some new kids with no summer training nder their belt.

Cross Country Meets
The early part of the season consists of several Invitational meets for kids ready to compete. The league competition won't start until October 1st. In both cases, transportation to the meets is via private vehicle. Parents either drive their kids or carpool. There are three types of league clusters. Clusters One (on 1 Oct) and Three (on 15 Oct) will be scoring clusters where each school will compete against some of the other schools using dual meet scoring. These two meets will have both JV and Varsity races. We score only the varsity races. Clusters Two (on 8 Oct) and Four (on 29 Oct) will be non-scoring races. There will be one race for the girls and one for boys. The league finals on November 5th will be like clusters 1 and 3, but we'll use Invite Scoring. League ranking combines the dual meet wins, and the number of schools beat at the finals. Unlike some of the Invites early in the season, Everyone is expected to participate in the league clusters and league finals. For a description of dual meet vs. invite Scoring, visit our website at IslanderTrack.com and click on the "How to Score a cross Country Meet" link. You'll find a schedule, training info, and much more there.

The CIF finals on 14 Nov is a divisional race that pits all schools in each of the five CIF divisions against all other teams in heir division. Coronado is in Division 4, so we'll be in a race with all the other CIF 4 schools in San Diego. To advance to the state meet in Fresno on 26 Nov, we would have to place among the top three schools at the finals. Because a scoring cross country team consists of seven runners, only seven boys and seven girls will be allowed in the CIF finals. In all other races, we'll be able to enter everyone.

Donations and Fund-Raising
The Islander Sports Foundation will take $60 out of our booster account for each team member. Invites cost 15 - 30 dollars per athlete, and we have uniform and banquet expenses. Over the years,
we've found that asking for a donation is the best way to cover our costs. If a kid attends four Invites it's going to cost us at least $150 for him. That does not include banquet and uniform costs.