At the end of the school day athletes go to their school lockers to get their track bags, stop at a water fountain to fill their water bottles, and head to a locker room to get dressed for practice. Boys and girls varsity locker rooms are available for t&f athletes to use.
Girls need to be at the south end of the visitor-side bleachers by 2:45pm. Boys need to be in the Track Barn south of the track by 2:49pm. When practice plans need to be adjusted due to the weather, the girls will start in the mat room and the boys begin in the competition gym. On such days the routines will stay the same, but the locations and activities will be adjusted. Regardless of what the weather looks like at 7am, we live in Michigan. Athletes should bring clothes for any and every possibility. Also, everyone needs a towel and a water bottle. When choosing shoes, all athletes should have trainers, AKA traditional "running" shoes. Event-specific shoes like spikes and throwing shoes are also recommended. Spikes especially. Click HERE for a good website you can surf to see what we're talking about. On a normal day we'll start with check-ins and announcements, we'll take attendance, and be on the track at 3pm. Each team has their own start-of practice routines that may include build-ups, leg swings, and jumping jacks. Each team does a sort of cheer to bring some focus to the day's training. After that the teams break into event groups. Starting from the time we leave our team meetings we often play music, and maybe even hold a dance-off, to set a light but focused mood. At Western High School we have two teams (girls, boys) but one program. With some event groups the boys and girls train alongside one another during this part of practice. Also, some event groups work together depending on that day's training theme. For instance. throwers train with the sprinters on maximum velocity days, but they'll either go to the weight room or work on shot put and discus technique on sprint capacity days. Practice end times vary, but will never be later than 4:30pm. Still, coaches are around until 5pm for athletes who want or need more technique work or instruction. Important: at the end of each practice day, each athlete needs to "check out" with their team's head coach. This gives the coach a chance to get a feel for what progress was made that day and to give any end-of-day reminders. It also gives the athlete a chance to ask questions.
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Some Additional News Last week Thomas Daly's time in the 10m fly placed him in the 22 MPH Club. The M.I.T.S. state finals were held this past weekend. Sophomore Josh Veneziano cleared a PR 6'-2" in the high jump and brought home the 6th place medal. In the middle school division of the 1600m Ryan Good ran a speedy 5:11.94. Well done gentlemen! Last week's update: Western Track and Field At the bottom of this note you'll find some dates and times. And an attachment with the season calendar. Today's update has a lot of words, but you might consider this part of our T&F Manifesto: Fast • Intense • Fun This fits both how we train and how much time it takes for each day's practice. Let me try to say this well. We ask athletes for their full and complete focus during workouts. Highest intensity possible. Go hard. All out. Full tilt boogie. Leave it all on the track (or the field). Then we rest. Go home. Take a nap. Do your homework. Eat healthy. Get 8-9 hours of sleep. Come back refreshed and ready to go again. And we say things like, "Never let today's workout ruin tomorrow's." and "We work hard, and we laugh hard." Distance guys learn about running and pacing and endurance. But also, "You don't get fast by going slow." "Cats don't jog." Sprinters don't really run much, either. They sprint. Every event in this sport is about rhythm, coordination, and power. Power can be explosive like the shot put or aerobic like the 3200m. And competition? Fugetaboutit. "Compete like your existence depends on it, but don't take yourself too seriously." "Work hard, laugh hard." Compete as often as possible, in as many ways as possible. Against ourselves. Against our teammates. Nearly every day. And then we compete against opponents from other schools. Watch out now! We rise to become the best versions of ourselves. Stronger. Faster. Competitive. Tougher. We have learned toughness comes from resilience, confidence, commitment, control, and the ability to comfortably confront challenges. That's a lot of C-words. But it's how we work to be tough, WESTERN TOUGH. WHS Track & Field is not: long, slow, dreary... Exhaustion and physical failure are not the goal. This is not "conditioning" in the old-fashioned, tear-you-down-and-rebuild-you-like-Robocop-or-a-supersoldier sense of things. This isn't Junction Boys. "Speed kills. Power devours." You can't be fast or powerful when you are exhausted. Practice starts March 14. 2:49 to 4:30pm Meet in the Track Barn. Come correct. Not sure what that means? Ask. Until then, Speedwork Tues/Thurs after school. Meet in Room 206 (Sprinters' Delight, but good for all y'all). Mon/Wed, 4:30pm Running workouts with Coach Lewis (Mid-distance interval-type work). Both types of workout last an hour or less. Thank you for reading this, and for recruiting your friends and teammates to join us and get fast and powerful. |
@westernTnFThis is the Front Page to the newsfeed for Western High School's track and field teams. Here you will find news, views, and announcements pertaining to our track teams as well as interesting news and notes from the sport at large. Archives
March 2023
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