Year 3 - Cautiously excited

N-City called me back last week. There are 11 students who are interested in running. A good sign. Seven boys and four girls. Two of the Seniors were on the team in Year 1 and are very good runners. One junior has been with me both years and is very dedicated. If a couple of the other new male runners step up, the boys team could show something this year. The girls on the team are all new and probably will have an average year. The AD at N-City is trying to get 2 or 3 dual meets with other private schools in the northern NJ area.

That's the exciting part. It has to be cautious because none of the runners ran during the summer and all are out of shape. N-City has an even later dismissal time for the students this year which translates into a shorter practice session each day. And the Seniors will be taking special SAT Prep classes after school and missing more practices than the others on the team.

We had our first practice today and the runners who showed up (not a work day) were all enthusiastic and worked hard.

Stay tuned.

Summer's Over

Today was the last day of the summer vacation, i.e. the last day I could get up early and run in the morning. Tomorrow, classes start at school and running will be taking place in the afternoon or early evening.

Final numbers for the summer:

218.8 total miles

80.5 % of the days were running

Had a streak of 30 consecutive days running at one point during the summer

Current streak - 14 days and 26 out of the last 27

Still no word from N-City on whether or not they will be having a X-C team this fall.

My second race of the year was on Labor Day. I had run Verona before in the early 90s. The course had changed a little bit but there was still a modest hill in the first mile. Nonetheless, I was able to knock about 50 seconds off of the July 4th time, if you concede that the courses are the same (same distance, different contour).