Haven't been on FRB in a while. Coaching took a LOT of time. The season just ended.
https://sc.milesplit.com/meets/780684-cmsc-championships-2026/results?type=formatted
Girls team was perfect for the second year in a row, winning every race. Impressive given our conference has 13 teams. We had lots of depth- only 1 all conference girl, but we finished 11 before anyone else finished 5.
Boys were competitive all year but generally not winning. But by george, they pulled it out at the championship for 1st place. It was a real near run thing. We only had 1 boy in the top 13 and won with a very high score, 74 vs second place 77. So close, that most my top 5 boys only had a 2-5 second margin- slowing more than that would have lost the trophy.
First time both boys and girls won since 2022. Pretty exciting. I really enjoy coaching this age, even though it can be chaotic with ~45 middle schoolers. But so many of them tell me how they love running now. I'm a very involved coach with lots of activities, training, skills teaching at practice- the opposite of "just go run 6 miles." Kids I coached are now competing in college, even. One from last year is national caliber- wouldn't surprise me if she goes to the Olympics someday (aim high, right?!?)- she's just a freshman and ran a 17:46 last week.
We'll see if I coach track in the spring- I've been assistant track coach for the past 3 years but HC from last year doesn't have kids at the school anymore. I like XC a lot more than track. I've been doing this for 7 XC seasons and 4 track- the next longest anyone else coached in school history was 8 years of basketball (it's all volunteer for us). My youngest has 2 more years of middle school so I plan to keep going at least that long. Who knows, I may even keep going after that- I really do enjoy it. Hosting the race is particularly fun- we don't just run around a school, but through the woods, across a large creek, and finish up a huge hill. True cross country style.
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