Motivational Monday: Running Reflections at New Years

Many of us take a moment to reflect on the previous year around this time of year. This New Years I'd like to take a look back at the last year specifically my time coaching at Cal High. This last year was my 4th track season and 5th XC season at Cal High in Whittier, CA. 3rd and 4th years as the head XC coach and head distance coach. Every day of every year I have spent with this team has been blessing  and this last year was no exception. It was a year filled with heartache and headaches but I would have never traded any of it for all the money in the world! As we often say on the team its was a year filled with "Blood Sweat, and Tears!" On both the boys side we came into 2017 knowing that on paper we would end our XC undefeated streak this year if we didn't get it together considering our returning times after our seniors graduated. Around the same time to add insult to injury we lost one of our very top returners due to a move out of state. We knew it was time to dig deep and move forward and our boys did just that with an amazing track season. Not only being able to watch our senior class end their time at Cal High with a very strong season but watching our returners step it up during the season and realizing that hope was still alive for another undefeated league season. My best race memory of that track season was one that left me literally jumping up for joy! At the San Gabriel Valley Champions which is a championship track meet for all the school in the SGV bringing in the top talent from those school we had a chance to repeat as SGV Champs! The previous year the boys had won it with a strong group effort in different events from hurdles to pole vault to distance but this year the head track coach had approached me right before the 3200 to say sorry we won't be much help this year to get points for the win. We were in 12th or 14th place going into the 2nd to last event the 3200 and almost 30 points out of first place. No one and I mean no one including us gave us any chance to win this. As the gun went off for the boys varsity 3200 any hope of a repeat championship rested on our loaded 3200 group. Our boys put in a tremendous effort on a hot afternoon and not only took first in that race but went 1 2 3 4 to score over 30 points in 1 event catapulting us all the way into 1st place! As our boys took that last corner and into the straight away I literally jumped and threw my hands into the air almost hitting another coaching standing next to me with my clip board! On the back of our boys we had clinched another title! The girls entered 2017 coming off of the first league championship in XC in a few years and knowing they were no longer the underdogs in the league or anywhere for that matter! The pressure to perform again and again was something new to them. We knew it will be twice as hard to continue that momentum but our girls were up for the challenge. While there is not one race highlight in my mind the biggest highlight comes in a form of something much more valuable. The girls team made a huge jump during the track season in terms of the level of discipline and organization they rose up to! I would challenge any coach that could honestly say their team had more raw GRIT than our girls and that was a defining moment. I had the coach from Valencia high girls team tell me during on of the invitationals that he uses our girls team as the example when he speaks to his girls team. Saying " We need to be more like Cal High I see them running even on holidays!" I have to admit that made me smile on the outside and in my mind I was throwing my first in the air! Now came the summer and of course the XC season! Our bread and butter! Our everything for this team! Expectations were high not just from us but from everyone around us! Can boys make it to state 3 years in a row? Can girls team arrive to the top level of the state teams! Can we do this without driving each other crazy ! (yes its a real thing!) Once again tragedy struck us on both the boys and girls side. We lost a our #2 boy runner to disciplinary issue and several of our best returning girls as well in the course of 2 months time right before the start of the season. Any other team would have dialed it in, called it a night, and went home for the rest of the year... but not this bunch of kids from Whittier! Like they say when the going gets tough the tough get going! And did this team ever step up! Boys team now being down 2 of teh top 3 returners from last years XC team stepped up big time to not only go undefeated again in league to finish ranked 10th in all of Division 1 in the entire STATE of CA!!! While we just missed making state it was a heck of a run for these boys! The girls facing so many loses of top runners including a couple more during the season it would have been ok to just win league and call it a season but that was not enough for these girls! They not only won league and went undefeated for the second straight year but  did so in a dominate fashion. At league finals they went 1 2 4 5 7 to score 19 points in a blowout and put all 5 scorers on the all league team!!! To top that off our girls went out at CIF prelims and qualified for CIF Finals for the first time in school history!!! Along the way they broke every team school and league records in the books. It was an amazing year in 2017 one that I will never forget. I will always even with the added grey hairs I would never trade the time I have spent with these kids and their families for anything in the world! They are truly my family and 2017 would not have been what it was without them! Thank you for the memories! 

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