Braves,
I want to begin by saying thank you for all of your help in
making the alumni meet go smoothly. It is difficult to run a meet in which we
are also racing. Special shout out to our managers, Leah, Alyssa, and Jinny,
and to Kamora, Makayla, Kole and others whom I may have missed for helping with
heats, timing, marking the times, moving hurdles, etc. I know more of you
helped in many capacities but those were some I was with most directly. All of
your willingness to help made our lives easier, so thank you.
I had an awesome time at the meet catching up with former
runners and coaches, and seeing you all compete and work to improve. I hope
that you walked away from the meet with some positives about your own performances
and with some clear goals for the meet next week. I also hope that this meet
gets some traction for the coming years and that more and more alumni will come
out. I hope all of you will come after you graduate as well. It is kind of a
selfish motivation on my part for making it an alumni meet rather than just a
time trial, and that is so I get a chance each year to catch up with you as you
move on in your post high school life.
As I said at the end of the meet, the effort was there
during each race and made our team better. We took a step forward in terms of
our physical fitness due to the hard work in each race. That is something that
our team typically does well, and that is a good thing. We also did a great job
of supporting each other. I loved that if you weren’t competing or warming up
that you were down by the finish line ready to help if needed, and cheering for
your teammates as they came through. That speaks to the character of our team
and our desire to see each other succeed. Those two things, hard work and
support for your teammates, are a big key to success and if we can keep doing
that we will be a tough team to beat at region and state. Our next big step
forward is going to be a mental one. We need everyone determined before every
race that we are going to, and want to, give our absolute best. If we mentally believe
in ourselves that we can at least do our best in spite of any other condition,
then we increase our ability to physically perform at our best. Having
confidence in your abilities to perform also gives you confidence that you can get
better, and that is what each of us needs, to simply get a little better each
day. Believe in yourselves. You’ve put in some hard work over the past few
weeks of the outdoor season, now amidst the anxiety and pre-race jitters of the
impending performance, believe that you can perform at your best, because you
absolutely can. That’s what you’ve been training for.
This week we have our first official meet at Box Elder High
School, on Thursday. The official start time is 3:30. Due to bus limitations
from the district we have to leave fairly early. You will be excused from class
at 1:15 and the buses leave at 1:30. If you arrive at 1:31 you will be left.
The driver has to drop us off then get back to pick up kids from another HS,
JH, and elementary before returning to get us. Remember that if you have not
completed register my athlete that you are ineligible to compete and cannot go,
and as stated many times we will only have room on the buses for those who are
not missing practices.
We are looking forward to a great week of work outside on
the track!!!! I cannot explain how excited I am to be able to be back on the
track. We have put in some great work on the roads and in the halls, and I
think that was a big advantage to us, and now we can carry that over onto the
track.
If you have any questions for me please let me know. We are
excited about this team and what each of you can do.
Coach Jacobson
