AVHS Track & Field

Hi my name is Sandy Urquhart and it’s a pleasure to be your Team Manager again this year.

Being that it’s the beginning of the season, I will have lots of information to share with you all over the next couple of weeks so, please bare with me.

PLEASE NOTE IMPORTANT MESSAGE: If you know of an athlete and/or parent that hasn’t registered with TeamPages, please have them register. ALL COMMUNICATION WILL ONLY COME VIA TEAMPAGES. We will no longer be sending two different sets of email messages.

Watch for sign up requests. I will be asking for volunteers for our biggest and hopefully our only fundraiser of the season, Dan Gabor on March 3rd. We will need volunteers for field events, ticket sales, and especially in the snack bar. We need everyone to make this fundraiser a huge success. You don’t need experience to volunteer for a field event. There will also be one home game on March 29th against Livermore. What I do ask is that if you do sign up for a shift that you will be there from the start of your shift to the end. Please be considerate to the volunteers before you. They will have done their shift and would like to leave once it’s over. The other request that I have is that everyone do their part. Please volunteer for at least one thing this season. It’s not fair that the same families volunteer over and over again to ensure coverage. This is for our/your kids, not for the adults.

Our coaches, athletes, and parents meeting will be held on February 17th, so please mark your calendars. I will send more details as the event gets closer.

The track & field practices and meets will be posted on our TeamPages calendar.

Last but, certainly not least, please pay your student athlete’s registration fee via credit card on our TeamPages website or via check/cash at the Student Services desk. We need at least 90% payment even if you are only participating to get PE waived. Your registration fee goes to cover your transportation as well as your coaches stipends. Whatever the percentage of participation versus the registration collected will need to be paid by the end of the season and will be taken out of our fundraising money. Please not that this season Amador Valley Athletic Boosters is now accepting applications for scholarships to help families in need. The process is confidential and the application is located at TeamPages.com, scholarships under the documentation section of the home page.

I look forward to working with you all to make this a GREAT season for our student athletes.

Sandy Urquhart
Team Manager

Mid-Distance and Distance Runners,

Due to technical problems on my end, I was not able to get the preseason training out to you last week as I wanted to. I know that the majority of the team was set to begin last week and at least a good number of you did. I have attached the minutes sheet for the entire preseason. It is in pdf format. You will probably have to print it to be able to read it because the print is small. It was really the only way for me to give it to you in a legible way. I also have it as an excel file and will put that on the documents section if you’d prefer to download it in that format.

Please remember that all preseason training is a suggestion and not required. If you are participating in another sport over the winter, any training you do for track should not compromise your ability to be at your best for that sport.

Please remember that the weight room is open on Mondays at 4:30 and Wednesdays at 5:00. That should give you time to get your run in and then return to lift.

As for the specifics of the running: The goal is to get you to midseason cross country mileage (or track mileage if you didn’t run cross country) in four weeks. The first two weeks of running should be easy runs each day with 4×100m strides every other day. As you can see, Saturdays are long run days. You should also complete a strength circuit on Fridays. After those first two weeks, the workouts break down like this.

Mondays: After your first two weeks of easy running, Mondays will be the day that you will get some pace work in. In weeks 3-5 of your training, you will be running either 1 or 2 sets of 6×200m on the track. If you have 48 minutes or more you will do 2 sets. If you have less than 48 minutes you will do 1 set. If you have 58 minutes or more, you should also do a 20 minute warm-up instead of 10. The paces you should run for the 200’s are 5k, 5k, 3200, 3200, 3200, 1600. You don’t need to do anything faster than that. Your recovery is a 200m jog and then just roll into the next one. If you have two sets, you should run a mile in between the sets. You can do this on the track or you can just run for 7-8 minutes around the school or down Del Valle. That’s up to you guys. Starting in your 6th week of training, that workout should become a run where you include a section that you do 6×2:00 surges at about 3200m pace with 2:00 rest in between. You want to make sure that you are running as fast or faster on #6 as you are on #1. We want these to feel difficult at the end, but manageable at the beginning. This doesn’t mean to sandbag the beginning, but have a reasonable expectation of how hard you can run for 6 reps. In fact, the first time that you do this workout, you should sandbag a little bit at the beginning, because you will overestimate your fitness. Then just do better the next time. Do this until the regular season starts.

Tuesdays: These will be easy runs throughout.

Wednesdays: After your first 2 weeks, you will do speed development on Wednesdays. If conditions are dry, go to Doom Hill and do 4 reps of about 8 seconds with 4:00 minutes rest in between each. If conditions are wet, do not go to Doom Hill. We don’t need anyone falling and missing training time because of that. Just do 4×50m on the track with 4:00 rest.

Thursdays: Tempo days. After your first two weeks, you will do tempo on Thursdays. On the purple weeks, you will do tempo miles on the track. On the yellow weeks, you will go out to Patelco Park and run tempo there.

Friday: Strength circuits and easy running. After the first 2 weeks of training, you should complete 4×200m cutdown before going on your run. The first 200m at 3200m pace, the second at 1600m pace, the third at 800m pace, and the fourth one all out. You should take 200m jogging recovery after this and go for your cooldown.

Saturday-Long run.

Sunday-Easy or off.

Core-Complete Hip Hop core on Mondays, Classical core on Wednesday, and Jazz core on Thursday.

If you have questions, please ask. Otherwise, happy training and I’ll be seeing you out there.

Coach Ozzie

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are just 2 short months away from the start of the track and field season. I know that there is a lot coming up between now and then, but if you plan to have a successful season, it is time to start preparing for it. I know that some of you already have, which is awesome. If you are not currently playing another sport, we are going to start opening the weight room next week on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Mondays we will open it at 4:30 and on Wednesdays we will open it at 5:00. Outside of Christmas Break, this will be the schedule until the start of the regular season. The schedule will be different over break, but it has not yet been determined what it will be.

In addition, there will be a meeting for all pole throwers on Wednesday of next week and all pole vaulters on Thursday of next week. Both meetings will take place at 3:10 in my classroom. I don’t expect that they will take very long, but I have a few details for you. If you know anyone who is interested in participating in sprints, jumps, or hurdles this spring who would not be on this email list, please pass this information along.

Coach Ozzie

ps. Hi,
This is Sandy Urquhart your Team Manager for the 2017-2018 Season If you would like to be removed from future communications through TeamPages, please let me know and I will remove you. If you know someone that is on the team but, is not signed up on TeamPages, please encourage them to sign up as all my communications will come from TeamPages. Thanks

AVHS now taking nominations for the inaugural AV Hall of Fame class of 2017. Visit us at http://www.amadorsports.com/organizations/2708/pages/125883 to make your nomination today.

Own your own piece of Amador history! The AVHS Booster club is currently taking orders for AVHS Commemorative Bricks. With your name and text of your choice, the purchased bricks will be placed around our future Amador Hall of Fame in the Amador Stadium (rendering shown) where past alumni will be honored for their great achievements. Beautifully placed around the Hall of Fame area, your brick or bricks will literally make your mark on the Amador campus for years to come. Buy yours today! http://www.amadorsports.com/organizations/2708/pages/137461