Coach Soles -
Yes, the GPS girls all did that in the same race. They also happened to go 1,2,4 at their state meet. 3rd place was none other than Erin Finn, the freshman phenom. Also of note: Hannah double back to win the 800m in 2:06 and Ersula Farrow (the 4:51 girl) was 2nd in 2:07. Quite a group that they had last year. I believe that they had 2 more under 5:00 at one point or another.
162430 wrote:
Coach Soles -
Yes, the GPS girls all did that in the same race. They also happened to go 1,2,4 at their state meet. 3rd place was none other than Erin Finn, the freshman phenom. Also of note: Hannah double back to win the 800m in 2:06 and Ersula Farrow (the 4:51 girl) was 2nd in 2:07. Quite a group that they had last year. I believe that they had 2 more under 5:00 at one point or another.
Link:
http://www.mhsaa.com/Portals/0/documents/BTR/2013Finals/GirlsLPD1Final.txtCoach Soles,
I have no doubt that your kids are legally clean, however, how many of your top girls have asthma inhalers, iron pills, or ADD medicine? With all my respect your kids are great, but I'm just curious as the top girl in my state does inhaler and ADD medicine.
Coach Soles, after you finish dealing with the dinghead who can't get his finger off the n key, I think a lot of us would appreciate hearing more about your program. Ok, you have good weather and big numbers going for you. But to achieve that kind of broad based success, there has to be a lot more to it than that.
How big is your school and how do you get 300 kids out?
What do you do over the summer?
What is the training progression like through the seasons/year?
You mentioned next year's 8th graders. How organized is the sport in your area for middle schoolers?
Would love to hear more. Thanks.
Great Oak averaging 4:49 for 1600 is far more impressive than Lawton putting three under 11:00 in the 3200 in the same race.
Ever heard of Saugus? Great Oak? Mira Costa? Redondo Union?
All California teams.
Saugus girls top 7 in 2009
Kaylin Mahoney 10 10:27.70
Stephanie Bulder 10 10:30.70
Annie Randall 12 10:39.30
Karis Frankian 9 10:41.82
Amber Murakami 11 10:47.41
Brianna Jauregui 12 10:52.35
Courtney Wilson 12 11:03.25
Imagine only being the seventh best at 11:03. I don't think anyone is duplicating those marks for a long while.
Coach Soles wrote:
Yesterday my top 3 girls ran 1-2-4 at CIF Finals for D1. Destiny Collins - 4:48.02, Haley Dorris - 4:48.88, and Ashley Helbig - 4:51.40 in the 1600. Has any other school in the US historically run faster in a single race of the 1600 with 3 girls from the same school? I believe this is the fastest from CA, but I'm curious to how it stacks up against the best all-time in the country.
Thank you to any of you old historians out there that have some insight. :)
Coach Soles
Great Oak XC/Track
Wow! - That is impressive
Off the top of my head I can think of several schools that had 2 equally fast twins as your first 2 girls and maybe a 5 flat 3rd runner, but having a 4:51 third girl is what takes the cake. Obviously you know where I am going with this...find a 4th girl capable of around 5:10 and people will be discussing your school forever.
Oh darn no response as I thought :)
Hi Everyone,
Busy day with our awards banquet yesterday...
Another CA Guy - I think that Saugus 3200 race is THE standard for excellence in CA, hands down.
162430 - Thank you for the link to that race. That was an amazing group GPS had, and it definitely sets the bar high! :)
Runnnnnnnnnnnnn14577 - The only medication my athlete's take is what a doctor prescribes for them. We have a couple athletes that use inhalers as needed. I don't believe anyone in my top 7 had an inhaler last year. The majority of our kids take iron regularly to keep their Ferritin levels up. I think this is the norm for most programs at this point, isn't it? Are there still parts of the country that haven't caught up on that? ADD medicine? Not sure any of my kids are on that. Do kids run faster on it? I haven't read anything on that. At the end of the day there really is no better solution than eating healthy, running consistently, and being part of something you enjoy. I have never been to a high school XC meet and looked at a kid and thought "he must be on drugs." I don't think it is very prevalent in the sport at that age, but maybe I'm wrong.
va coach - Great Oak is about 3500 kids, and most of them are involved in something. We are a community that feeds people to jobs in San Diego, Orange County, Riverside, and Camp Pendleton for the military. I spend a lot of time talking to the parents and athletes of incoming 9th graders each year, trying hard to get those kids to try out. It is a war and you have to be willing to fight hard to win. The girls I mentioned in this post all came from other sports. Destiny Collins was a basketball player, Ashley Helbig was a club swimmer, and Haley Dorris was an Irish dancer. None of them planned on running in high school. My job is to identify the talent (usually through the middle school mile times) and try to get those kids out. I'm pretty good at that part which is part of the reason we have a lot of kids out. We actually make cuts to 300 from usually around 450 kids trying out.
Our summer training looks pretty similar to most programs I would assume. Our incoming 9th graders have 2-3 miles a day. Our soph's have a training schedule and our varsity has a training schedule. We do not have a lot of true JV athletes, so most Jr. and Sr. athletes run the varsity schedule. Our varsity athletes run 35 miles a week to start after a bit of a break after track and build up about 10 percent a week from there until about 75 miles at the end of summer. Truthfully, our mileage has come down a bit as our talent has gone up.
Our athletes run year round and our focus is on aerobic development. We use Garmin's and focus on mileage over minutes. Each age range has different mileage totals they run based on the season (XC, Winter Track, Spring Track) and we focus on developing kids aerobic strength for college.
We do not have official middle school sports, but fortunately we have some guys at the middle school level that have been developing xc as a sport there and running the kids in a few races. When good people get kids involved in a positive way, it definitely makes my job easier. We have 2 middle school's that feed into our school and I contact all the kids that show promise in PE.
I guess the best way to describe our program is that we are consistent at doing what we think is right year round. It seems to be working pretty well, but we are always making changes to try to improve this or that. At the end of the day we have great kids and that makes all the difference in the world.
Thanks (I did not proofread anything I just wrote, so be kind),
Coach Soles
How many of your athletes have gone on to become NCAA DI All Americans?
So far I believe zero of our kids have gone on to be NCAA D1 All Americans. A couple things to think about on that though:
-Great Oak has existed for a total of 10 years. We probably shouldn't have too many kids fit that criteria yet.
-None of our kids have been high school All Americans.
-I do not coach the kids past high school. What their college coaches do to motivate, train, and improve them is up to them.
The majority of our athletes that have moved on to the next level run for 3-4 years and seem to enjoy it a lot. 3 of our athletes have come back to GO to coach in the last couple of years, which is very rewarding for us as coaches to see.
Coach Soles
Now that you have posed the question, does anyone have an idea of the three fastest boys from one school in one race at the 1600/mile distance?
I give huge Kudos to GO and the entire program both Track and XCountry. I have a DD that competes with them on a regular basis and I have heard through the grapevine that Coach Soles is a complete A#&... I would like to report I have had 3 or 4 occasions the opportunity to chat with him. At both X and Track and I am happy to report he is actually a great guy. My only criticism about that team is the attitude of the girls that run on it. The girls are just plan rude before and after races, they walk around with an attitude of superiority and being an ex professional athlete myself all I have to say is good luck with that... I never want to see a kid fail but when they do... and they have and will I am the guy with a smirk on his face on the sidelines... Karma has a long memory...
They come to race. are focused on what they what to accomplish. Get over the bitterness!
NW FAN wrote:
Now that you have posed the question, does anyone have an idea of the three fastest boys from one school in one race at the 1600/mile distance?
Not in one race, but Jesuit, Carmichael had 4:05 (M. Mastilir) 4:05 (E. Mastilir) and 4:09 (P. Thomas) in '86 for the first 2 and '87 for third. Not sure how fast the third ran in '86. Jesuit also had another 4:05 (Stember), a 4:06, and another 4:09. Not too shabby.
You must be one of the parents nice to meet you....As they say Fish rots from the Head Down...
trackcoach wrote:
Wow! - That is impressive
Off the top of my head I can think of several schools that had 2 equally fast twins as your first 2 girls and maybe a 5 flat 3rd runner, but having a 4:51 third girl is what takes the cake. Obviously you know where I am going with this...find a 4th girl capable of around 5:10 and people will be discussing your school forever.
As mentioned earlier on this thread - the GPS girls were very impressive last year, especially on the track. While they did not all do it in the same race the top 3 did), their top 5 from 2013 had the following PRs (all 17:XX are for 5k XC):
Hannah Meier: 2:06/4:39/17:16
Haley Meier: 2:11/4:42/17:54
Ersula Farrow: 2:07/4:51/17:39
Kelsie Schwartz: 4:59/10:37/17:37
Christina Firl: 5:12/10:56/17:39
From what I can gather the fifth girl Christina Firl went 5:06 indoors last year and outdoor (I think at a dual meet?) which puts GPS's top five all 5:06 or faster.
i remember at least one year (see link below) where corona del mar had 4 sub-5 girls, but don't think they did it in one race (3 may have, and i seem to recall a pretty fast 4x1600 relay). not quite as fast as your girls' impressive average. i think the year before this '07 article they had annie st. geme, but don't know how many others broke 5 that year.
also, hollander's sr. year, marina may have had 3 girl under 5 in the same race, but can't be sure, and i'm too lazy to do the research for you doug.
good luck to your athletes friday,
cush
The Donger wrote:
Coach, you are doing an amazing job there with the two mile crew. Milers too. But I am curious why the over events are not up to that level. The focus of your team is clearly distance over all other events. Do you try to get every kid in distance for xc?
I mean good for you, it's usually the sprint coaches telling kids to not do distance because it kills their speed. But while you are awesome at the distances my only criticism is you are distance heavy and don't have a well rounded track team.
But who cares right?
Boys 4 x 100 just ran the fastest time in the state...