Season Over

The attendance during the final week of the season surprised me. This week there were 4 runners on Monday, 3 on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, and 3 today for the season finale. It was a cold and windy day in the park today, but the three runners all wanted to close out the season with a 3.1 run on the park's X-C course. Most of them had finally gotten up to running 3 miles during practice so they had a chance to beat their personal bests. And they did. All of them. It was a fitting end to an abbreviated five week season at N-City.

Tomorrow is the Sectional Meets for the states public schools. The North Jersey Section 2 meet will take place in W-Park. That will then be followed by the CTC's (the non-public school state championships). This was the race me and the one runner from N-City went to last year. It's a full day of racing and for a X-C junkie, it's heaven.

So this ends another season of X-C blogging. I'll occasionally enter a personal note about my own running, and hopefully a good coaching position will open up somewhere next summer.

Four Down and One to go

Today finished the fourth week of N-City X-C with no one showing up. No one showed up on Wednesday either. This is worse than last year. I feel like I'm stealing their money. Oh, well.

Week 1 - 2.67 runners showed up for each practice.

Week 2 - The highlight of the season - 3.67

Week 3 - 1.75 getting worse

Week 4 - .625

Week 5 - will I be alone next week?

Exposure

Over the past year, the NJSIAA has realigned most of the high school athletic conferences in northern New Jersey. One of the new conferences is the Super Essex Conference which is comprised entirely of schools in the county. Gone are the gamesmeets against schools far away and new rivalries are now in place. The new alignment was met with some criticism as well as with praise. Anyway, the new SEC (Super Essex Conference) has been holding their dual meets at B-B-Park on Tuesdays and Wednesday. Last week, during the first week of training for N-City, the team got to see some races and today was the conference championships. They saw all of the teams in the conference as well as some of the top runners in the state.

Today we had 6 runners show up, 5 boys and 1 girl. Four of the boys showed some decent talent. A couple of them were impressed with the races and the quality of runners that they saw. They wished that we were a lot closer to entering a race. It was a good sign from this team.

The best case scenario would be that for the next 3 1/2 weeks, we get a few more runners and are able to take a nice group of runners to the CTC Championships on November 7.

Week One

This past week was the first week of training for the N-City runners in Year 2. Because of some cancellations, the team met only three times. The original sign-up sheet that was outside of the AD's office produced 50+ names. Nineteen runners of both genders have gone out of their way to get physicals, fill out forms, and turn them into the AD. Of the three days of practice, 4, 0, and 4 runners showed up. Nothing has changed at N-City!!

Of the runners who have shown up, two are veterans from last year. One ran at the CTC Championships in November '08. He is looking forward to going back. Whether we do or not depends on how much practice we get in during the next four weeks.

One Week Later

It has been one week since I was at N-City meeting with 25+ runners and the Athletic Director was handing out physical forms. At that time I told him to call me as soon as he had four runners who had completed and turned in their physicals. So far, no call.

In the meantime while I wait, I have continued to have fall practices with members of the E-City Softball team. More new sophomores have shown up and a couple of them show some minor talent. There are now 21 names on our "40-man roster" and 12 of them are sophomores.

I mentioned that during the summer there were a few X-C jobs posted on the Internet. There was one school, an all-girls one over in nearby C-City, which I presumed had a team but I never saw them entered in the Catholic Schools Championships in November. This same school hosts a softball tournament which we (E-City) have been invited to for the past two years. I took a chance and sent an e-mail to the AD that was listed on their website offering my services if they needed any help with their X-C team. I never heard back from her one way or the other.

Now one of the teachers at E-City asked me to tutor her daughter (in Math) for the upcoming SATs in October. Today was our first session. When we were finished I asked her and her mother what the status was at her school regarding X-C. I found out that the AD has been out for a while due to a pregnancy which is probably why I never heard back. I then asked this student to find out what she could about the team's status and who the current AD is. Once I find that out, I'll send another letter offering my services for next year. It's a good school and I think it would be a nice place to coach X-C.

And finally, I'm still running slow 2 mile workouts (today was 6 days in a row) with an occasional hard run. The pains are still there but they are milder.

Here We Go Again

For those who are tuning in for the first time, this is the fourth name this blog has had. The first was "E-City Runners" when I tried to start a team at the school where I teach. Then I changed it to "N-City Runners" when the E-City team quit and I took a coaching job over at an N-City school. The third version was "No City Runners or Just Me" when I was fired by the N-City school and I was expecting this blog to then be about my personal running only. But now I am back at N-City and thus the new title (with apologies to the late John Updike).

This past week I stopped in at N-City. The AD had a sign-up sheet of 50+ names. And about 20-25 kids of both genders showed up at a brief meeting after school in the gym (why can't E-City kids be this enthusiastic?). There was only one runner from last year that I recognized. The AD handed out physical forms and told the attendees to get them back to him as soon as possible. The meeting broke and I told the AD to call me as soon as he had four runners with returned physicals. With four I could start practicing. If these kids are as bad as the kids in my school in getting physicals filled out, it will be another week before practices start at N-City. My previous prediction of 9/24 as the first day of practice could very well come and go. We'll see.

I also found out that the school day now ends at 3:35 PM (2:50 last year), so practices won't be starting til about 4:15 PM. That will allow me ample time to drive up there after teaching at E-City. It will also make for a shorter practice session.

In the meantime, while I wait for N-City to be ready, I've been working out my E-City softball team. Some of the regular freshmen from last year seem to be hitting the ball hard this autumn. A good sign. A few new sophomores have also come out for the practices. The highlight though is a transfer senior from Virginia. A large girl who will have to play first base, but she has a good bat. She has been playing ball since about the age of 7. But enough about my other team.

On the personal front, I've started running again. About 3 times a week, usually a very slow 2 miles. The aches and pains are still around but diminished. The hammy is still there too but I am able to run with it. In fact, I'm not so sure it is a legitimate hamstring pull. You would think that a hammy would heal after 4 weeks of non-running rest. I wonder (this is probably how "doctors" thought during the Dark Ages) if it could be a hybrid hammy pull. Maybe it's a mixture of a hammy pull and a touch of bursitis. Maybe the bursitis is the more dominant of the two and that's why it doesn't go away.

I could probably get some kind of answer if I asked the AD (who is also an athletic trainer and a Health class teacher). But if I did I would be subjected to a 40 minute talk about himself and his injuries. And then there wouldn't be an guarantee that I'd get an answer after listening to him for that long of a time. So I won't mention it to him.

You're Hired?!?!?

I wonder if I jinxed myself again in my previous post, because when I got back to my school (E-City) after summer vacation, there was a message from the Dean of Students at the N-City school. To refresh your memory and to save you from going back thru previous posts, he was the contact in that school that informed me that the new AD had chosen another coach for the X-C program.

He wanted to know if I would be interested in coaching there again. It turns out that the new AD and his new coach had left the school after only a few months and I didn't ask for details. A new AD was in place and they were looking for a new coach. I told my contact that I would like to come in and discuss it. And that is what I did today.

When the new AD came into the room, I said to him, "I know you!!" So let's rewind back to the 2008 N-City X-C season. We practiced in the park near the school, and there was always a guy, who lived near the park, walking his dog nearby. He got to talking to me while the team was running the loop. It turned out that he was a former athletic trainer at I-City (that will be an easy one to figure out) school who was involved in some injury related lawsuit or something. Anyway, he is a scruffy old guy who likes to grab your ear and talk incessantly about himself and his life. I'm sure you all have met some guys like that before. It got so bad at times that I was asking some of my runners to come over and "save" me if I couldn't get away from him. While he was out of work he had asked me if N-City was doing any hiring, especially athletic trainers which was his specialty. I was never able to help him but it now appeared that he had gotten a job there.

It was supposed to be an interview for me and the X-C job, but he spent most of the time talking about himself and his situation at N-City. He was athletic trainer, was teaching Health classes, and was the new Athletic Director. He told me point blank that he wasn't too happy about the last one but he more or less had to do it as part of his hiring.

So long story short, he is also going to interview a friend of his, but I know that my contact, as well as the principal, like me for the job. So I told him that I would be interested in the job again if 1) he can get runners signed up (the program is inactive right now so we don't know how much interest there will be), 2) they get their required physicals (that was the hardest part for the AD last year--these kids took forever to get the physicals), and 3) my fee would be the same as last year.

Now I'm about 90% sure I'll be coaching there this fall but when will be the question. Based on this guy not thrilled about being the AD, I can envision him taking forever to get kids signed up and physicals turned in. So I'm predicting that our first practice will be September 24. And then once that happens I will be totally shocked if he goes out and gets us a meet. The time before we start practice will come in handy for having softball practices at E-City.

So why am I doing this? Two reasons: 1) the coaching stipend will offset my expenses incurred during the summer (see my personal blog), and it will give me a good place and time to get my own running in. Last year I was always able to beat the team in the 2 mile loop except for one male runner (that gives you an idea of what we had last year).

As for personal running, I am into week 4 resting my hammy and it feels almost 100%. So tomorrow I will be testing it after school.

The Jinx is Up

Just like Sports Illustrated cover stories, my previous blog became a jinx for my running. Just two days after my cross country run in W-Park, my legs were besieged by the old aches and pains that I have come to know too well. This time they were accompanied by a sore hamstring. The aches and pains took a little longer to go away this time but the hammy lingered. Today, after being on the shelf for three weeks, I tested the leg out, and while it wasn't painful, the sore hammy was noticeable. So I'll rest it for a few more days and test it again.

On the coaching front, a third job appeared on the net. It was a charter school in N-City. I didn't want to go down that road again (lack of training location, not an NJSIAA member, questionable commitment from the runners, etc.) so I didn't bother looking into it. Unless a major surprise happens in the next week or so, I'll be devoting the autumn to helping my softball team (those who are interested) improve their hitting and fielding.

And I am also going to commit to making any blog postings in the future less verbose.

I'm Back, Baby !!

Yes, George Costanza had it right. Since my last post the stamina in the old legs has not gone away, so I decided to enter a competitive race. The arch rival school of my E-City school holds Cross Country races (3.1 miles) in W-Park during the summer (five in all) to benefit their X-C team. Tonight was the 4th in the series. Most of the runners are high school kids who are getting ready for the upcoming season, but a few old guys run too. The first few races of the series attracted about 50 per race. So it would be small compared to other road races. And it is run on the official X-C course with the exception of the last 4/10 of a mile or so to avoid crossing a road.

So I decided to give it a try and see what I had at my current age. It was a beautiful night: mid 70s, windy, a little humid, and a threat of a thunderstorm. At 6:45 PM I toed the line and waited for the start. I will admit I was a bit nervous having no idea what to expect. It had been 14 years since my last race and only two days since a colonoscopy. But I'm not getting any younger so I said "what the heck".

I came to the race with a goal of an 8:30 pace but I never factored in the condition of the course which is mostly run on grass, uneven and high at times. I definitely started out too fast. Assuming that the mile markers were positioned correctly, I did the first mile in 8:13. Even though I started out what I thought was too fast a pace, a lot of runners passed me in that first mile. At the half-mile I got my breathing leveled out and then just tried to keep a nice even pace.

At the 2, I was at 16:42 (8:21). For the last mile of the race I passed two younger runners and no one passed me which gave me some satisfaction. But even though I felt like I was running at a decent pace (at least faster than my normal runs everyday), I finished at 27:06. That's a pace of 8:44 which was higher than my goal. And the last 1.1 mile was run in 10:24 or a 9:45 pace which I find hard to believe.

But all in all I was very happy with the results of the night.

And as for the coaching, a second position appeared on the web but like the previous one, the location is a bit too far. So it still looks like softball practice this fall rather than X-C.

YOU'RE FIRED !!!

July turned out to be an interesting month. In my last post, I mentioned that some E-City girls were interested in having a X-C team in the fall (please read that post for all of the details). It turns out that one of the seven girls isn't coming back in the fall so we would have only been six. And it would have been interesting to see if they would have come to any summer practices. I'm currently having a hard time getting some of my softball team to come to hitting and fielding practices.

And now for the N-City team. The title of this post refers to that team. I found out this past month that the AD decided to go with another coach that would handle not only the X-C team but the Winter and Spring Track teams as well. So that is why he never answered my e-mail. I only found out from talking to the other teacher that I know there; I wonder if they were ever going to tell me.

So as of right now there will be no X-C experience in the fall. The web classifieds have only had one position so far and location was the problem with that one. I'm not sure how August will be in terms of classifieds. By now I would think that any open position has been filled or else it would have been advertised. And new openings seem unlikely unless someone were to leave their school with so little time left before September. So the fall may be spent with optional practices for the softball team (Lord knows they need it).

In regards to my personal running (which may be the sole reason for this blog in the immediate future) there were two developments, one good, one bad. First the bad--sometime in the middle of the month, after a hard and trying run, every ache and pain that I suffered earlier in the year came back. Totally out of nowhere. I could barely walk the following two days. So I shut it down for a week and the pains eventually went away. The good has to do with the stamina and strength of my legs. In past postings I expressed concern of whether I would ever get the stamina back in my legs that made a long run both easy and enjoyable. I had felt that my ## year old legs were shot and those enjoyable runs of years gone by were over. But twice during the end of the month of July, I experienced that stamina once more. Maybe with these old legs it takes longer to get them back into running shape after such a looooong layoff. I hope for now that the stamina has returned even if it only comes a couple times a week (the resurgence may also be due to a slight posture problem that I corrected but it's hard to say).

So with this good news my goal for the rest of the summer up until Labor Day is to increase mileage and maybe enter at least one Road Race.

Thank you Reader for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of your summer.

A Long Overdue Update

Three months have gone by since my last entry. As I prepare this new update, I realize that ten months ago I started this blog to document the happenings of coaching a cross country team. It has been anything but. It has been more of a tale of the frustration in trying to get just one good program to last a whole season. Maybe I should have done a softball blog because this past season on the diamond was more satisfying than the entire past 10 months of X-C.

My E-City plan (as mentioned in the previous entry) was to keep flyers for Cross Country up on the walls for two full months, March and April. With only three positive responses, I pulled them down about 2/3 of the way thru April. At that point I figured it wasn’t going to happen. With the amount of freshman girls who tried out for both the basketball and softball teams, I had hopes that there would be a sizable interest in a Cross Country team.

So with that being said, I decided that I would return to the N-City program and coach there for another year. The money was good even though the commitment of the runners wasn’t. I figured it would be a good-paying baby-sitting job that would help pay off my mortgage. One of the E-City girls who had wanted to run kept after me about it. I asked her if she would be interested in running for N-City since students can play sports for another high school if theirs does not offer that sport. She said she would and I sent off an e-mail to the AD in N-City. It was also an e-mail to touch base with him for the upcoming season since I hadn’t heard from him in a while.

Now I’m not sure of the date of that e-mail (because my Comcast e-mail service only saves sent notes for so many days) but it must have been sometime in early April. For a couple of weeks I heard nothing from him. I then sent an e-mail to the Dean of Students there who used to be a teacher at E-City asking him about the AD who was not answering my e-mail. It turns out that the AD’s son is a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants and was hit by a pitch in early April. He had a concussion and was put on the disabled list. Apparently the AD had gone out to California to be with his son. My teacher friend said the AD would be answering my e-mail when he got back.

Well, it is now early June and I still haven’t heard from him. Did he send an e-mail and did I accidentally delete it? Is the recession affecting the N-City school and are they cutting back on some of the sports programs? I don’t know. And I didn’t follow up on it because for most of April and May my time was totally devoted to the E-City softball team. We still didn’t get a win (although we did get an official forfeit) but we did have a productive offensive season. We scored 53 runs which was more than the two previous seasons combined. But the poor defense is what kept us from getting a win.

And now it is early June. And that one girl is still asking about whether she can run at N-City. I told her again how unfortunate it is that we couldn’t have a team at E-City. Well, she decided to do something about it. An eleventh hour attempt for a fall team was begun. She came up with eight girls—7 freshmen and 1 sophomore. Maybe only 2 are from the “athletic” group that I had hoped would produce a team back in March.

But I wanted more than just names. I didn't want the debacle of last year repeating itself. I typed a whole list of things that they would have to do, what to expect, and other pieces of info to make them aware of what they were getting into. Well, the reality of what X-C is and what I would expect from them during the summer and the fall must have scared them off. Because I never heard back from them this week.

And now school is over at E-City. I'll hold off on contacting N-City in the hope that a position at another school will show up on the NJSIAA website. And if nothing does show up in the next two months, then I'll see what's going on at N-City. Worst case scenario is that in the fall I'll be a spectator over at W-Park watching X-C races.

On a personal note, my individual running has been making progress. I am now running anywhere from 2 to 3 miles everytime I go out. I have missed only two days this month and have a current streak of 7 days in a row. And all the aches and pains have subsided. Maybe they were just kinks that had to be worked out for an old man who was trying to do young things with his body.

Anyway, it will be nice to start the summer vacation with an established base of miles rather than having to start up from scratch like I have had to do the past two years. The only other problem is that the stamina and endurance in my legs hasn't come around yet. I wonder if it is taking longer because of my advanced age or maybe this is as good as I will get at this age. I wonder.

Or maybe it has to do with the extra baggage I am carrying. Maybe if I slim down I could build up the endurance. So on the way home, I stopped at the market and bought two boxes of cereal (kinds that I would never have bought before) and three vegetables and one fruit (another first for me). I also was able to walk past the ice cream that was on sale!!

Into Week 3

Today was the second day of our four day tryout session for the school's softball team. The talent level trying out for the 14 spots on the team is a bit higher than last year. I have moderate (not high) hopes for the upcoming season. But this is a X-C blog, not a softball one.

We are into week three since I put up the Girls X-C flyers and the roster still contains the two girls. One girl who picked up the softball forms packet back in January is the co-captain of the basketball team and very athletic. She didn't show up at the first tryout yesterday so I saw her at lunch and asked her why. She said she was planning on running spring track at a neighboring school (NJSIAA rules allows a student to compete at a different school if their school does not sponsor that given sport). I then asked her if she had given any thought to running Cross Country. She said yes she was going to go out for the team. I then told her there was no team unless students came to me expressing interest. My plan is still not to do any recruiting--I only want students who WANT to run, not ones who are a bit coaxed.

So I now have three runners. I also have been reminded how the E-City student is regarding announcements and posted messages. They either don't read them or they read them but interpret them differently than their original purpose. So tomorrow morning, I'll be adding an addendum flyer clarifying that a team roster has to be in place by late April for the team to exist in September.

After One Week

In a previous blog entry, I mentioned that there were about 22 freshman girls who were either on the basketball team or who signed up for my softball team tryouts. I added a few others who "looked" like they could be runners. I figured some of them would reply to my Girls X-C flyers this week. Well, so far, two have expressed interest in joining a team. And those two were NOT on my list of potential runners. Not only that, they are both cheerleaders (in another entry, I mentioned that I would prefer the real female athletes and not the tennis players nor the cheerleaders).

Well, one of the girls is in my freshman math class. She sounded very interested and I told her to try and get some of her classmates to join. The other cheerleader said she always enjoyed track and wanted to join. I too told her to try and get others to join.

So as of right now, I have two girls on the "future" team. I had hoped to have had a few more stop by my classroom and I wonder if any more will come in the next few weeks. Softball tryouts start next Monday. I am going to set a deadline date for myself of April 30--to decide whether I have enough girls to coach at E-City and resign from N-City, or to give up on E-City and go back to N-City.

As for the payment from N-City, it finally arrived today. At my interview in September, the AD quoted me the amount I would get for coaching the school's X-C team. The number was quite large (more than my E-City softball and X-C payment amounts combined), so I figured he was blowing smoke or I was mishearing him. Well, today when I opened the envelope and looked at the check, sure enough it was all there. That amount of money for baby-sitting a group of kids who have no commitment nor are in any kind of shape may make going back to N-City in September a lot easier than I expected.

Stay tuned.

And Now I Wait

I posted the Cross Country flyers today after school so most of the school's female population will see it on Monday. I will then just sit back and see if any of the many female students come forward expressing interest in joining a new Girls Cross Country Team. Between today and March 9th (the first day of tryouts for the Softball Team), I hope to have an idea if there is enough interest.

In other news, it has been a month and five days since I was last at N-City to finalize all papers so that I could receive my payment for coaching last fall. It has been five days since I mailed a letter to Sister Treasurer to find out when I'll be getting my check.

And on a personal note--despite the cold weather, the snow, and my busy school schedule, I have been able to go out for runs at least twice a week. Each run is 2 miles and as the weather warms I hope to increase the frequency. The slight bruising pain (bursitis?) in my left hip has been joined by another pain in my right buttock. Fortunately neither one ever flares up enough during or between runs to cause me to stop.

Mid-January Update

I drove over to N-City School today in my never ending effort to get paid for the Cross Country duties performed last fall. This would hopefully be the final step before receiving the money. I had to supply them with SSN and Birth Certificate proof. All went well and I should be receiving my stipend soon.

As I cut thru the gym to get to the front entrance of the school I recognized one of last year's runners and she recognized me. I couldn't remember her name so I just said hi and she said "hi coach" back to me. I couldn't remember her name because she only came to about two or three practices at the beginning of the season. Then she had to drop out because there seemed to be a problem with her lung or heart, I can't remember which. And she wasn't one of the top runners on the squad either. But she always seemed to be positive, always smiling, and always giving her best at the few practices she attended. During the season if I ever ran into her before the start of practice, she would say that she was hoping to be healthy and back running next season.

Well, today she said that her "ailment" turned out to be absolutely nothing. She then said that she was ready for next year and would be training during the summer. If I had 10 runners with her positive attitude never mind the lack of speed, the decision of whether or not to go back to N-City would be even tougher than it is now. So I then said good-bye to her, told her to have a good winter, and then went home to find out her name. Of all the runners from last year's team to run into today, it had to be the one who probably cared the most about the team.

As for the E-City team, my plan is still to put the recruitment flyer up, but a week earlier than last mentioned. I hope to put it up on Monday February 23rd, after the girls basketball season ends. I've been attending the girls' games, both home and away, to show them that I'm a big supporter and hopefully to convert that into some interested runners. Not that I normally don't go and support the team, I do. But I am making more road games this year.

I've finally got an accurate count on the girls basketball team. They number 15, 10 of whom are freshman. As for my softball team, 12 freshman girls have expressed interest in trying out for the team. Of those, there are 3 who are in both groups.

This is exam week which means proctoring exams. And as I scan the room for cheaters, I am also getting to know who the freshman girls are and gauging as to whether they look like running material. There are about four more girls who aren't in either of the above two sports groups who may make decent runners. So all told there are about 23 female freshman candidates who could be X-C runners. Again, I try to contain my excitement and will only hope that a handful come forward in late February and early March to sign up.

And maybe I can also hope that the N-City girl will transfer to E-City!!