http://www.ymsrunning.com Site for the Yorkville Middle School cross country team, which is a member of the IESA. en-us Content And Design Copyright 2010 Derek Miller demiller@yorkville.k12.il.us (Derek Miller) demiller@yorkville.k12.il.us (Derek Miller) http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=120 For those who didn't get the email, Yorkville's annual Hometown Days 5K is tomorrow, and we are giving our runners the opportunity to participate in the race as an alternative to practice. We have also gotten a discount for our runners so they only have to pay $10 to race. We will meet at 6:45 at the Beecher Center, which is located across ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=119 We finally received the results from Tuesday's meet at Minooka. The course was just over a mile, but the hills made it seem like more. The girls took 3rd place with Oliva Reese finishing 8th at 9:27, Julia Schultz in 10th at 9:37, Gianna Salzbrunn in 12th at 9:45, Rebecca Jasutis in 14th at 9:56, Erin Reynolds in 15th at 9:59, Brook Stuepfer... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=118 We hope to have results from the Minooka meet by Wednesday afternoon. As soon as we have results we will post them here. The course was a lot less than the 1.9 miles we were told so the times won't help much, but we are pretty sure the boys won their race with 5 runners in the top 10, including the Hofferts who finished 1-2. We'll have to s... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=117 Our first meet is this Tuesday, August 31 at Minooka. It should be fun to see how our runners have progressed and how they match up against other teams. Runners should not leave on the buses after school, but should meet in the cafeteria. The bus will leave at 3:15 from the athletic entrance of the school. Since our uniforms haven't come in ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=116 This Saturday we will be running on our home course at Harris Forest Preserve, which is located on Route 71 just west of Route 47. It is the same place the high school cross country team used to hold their home meets. You can see a map below showing the location of the park. We will be running the entire 2-mile course so it is important that ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=115 The high school cross country team has their first meet today hosted by Sandwich. The meet is at Silver Springs so it is very close and would be a great opportunity for our runners to see what a cross country meet looks like. The meet starts at 3:15, but it should last a few hours so heading there after practice might be a good idea. Coach Mi... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=114 Jake Firrantello was named our Runner of the Week for last week. His work during Saturday's fartlek workout cinched the award for him, although there were a lot of runners who stepped it up on Saturday. For anyone who wants to view the cross country videos we watched at Tuesday's practice you can go to 5min Life to see them. We watched vide... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=113 Everyone had a great practice on Saturday at Maramech. We were interested to see how the team responded to a difficult workout and some runners ended up running for over an hour! Great job everyone! If you haven't turned in the permission slip for Raging Waves you can still do so. We still need 4 more people to qualify for the group rate of ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=112 Our practice on Saturday the 21st will be at Maramech Forest Preserve, which is just past Silver Springs off Fox River Drive. You can see a map of the preserve below or check out the calendar for driving directions. ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=111 Thanks to those of you who came to Fall Sports Night. If you couldn't make it you can get most of the cross country information from our cross country packet. You can also download the PowerPoint that Mr. Larson and Mr. Zwemke presented. We also talked about our trip to Raging Waves. It will be a week from Saturday and the cost will be $17.9... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=110 Our last time trial went so well that we thought we had measured it incorrectly. After going back once practice was over and checking the distance we got it right, which means some of our runners drastically improved over the last time trial and records were smashed. Some of the records were broken by so much that the runners thought we had t... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=109 Since we like copying everything the high school team does, this Friday will be the first YMS cross country scavenger hunt. Teams can either drive around town (they must have a parent volunteer to drive them) or run. Each team must be co-ed, but you can have as many team members as you want. To join the runners on the team must turn in a sing... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=108 We forgot to congratulate Luke Hoffert for being named our Runner of the Week for the first week of the season. Luke was a great leader on our team during that week, and ran the second-fastest time during our time trial. For the second week of the season our Runner of the Week is Rachel Strobel. While she isn't the fastest runner on the team... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=107 Saturday was certainly an interesting run, wasn't it? It definitely showed that it is important to know the route you are going to run before running it. This will be even more important during meets. Luckily, there really wasn't anyway to get lost since the forest preserve only had two ways out so everyone made it out okay, with the except... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=106 For those who don't already know, our practice this Saturday will be at Richard Young Forest Preserve, which is located on Route 71. It will be on the left side when you are going east a little past the middle school. Check the calendar to print out driving directions if you need to. We will be announcing our team captains at this practice s... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=105 If anyone is interested in some mini-golf, we will be having an outing at Parfection Park on Thursday after practice. The park is located just south of the corner of Rotues 47 and 126 in Yorkville. The cost will be $5 a person if we have less than 20 runners and $4.50 if we have 21 or more. Please contact Coach Miller by the end of practice o... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=104 Everyone did a great job during Friday's workout. It was our first difficult workout of the year and everybody ran those hills as hard as they could. Brody Vester, Chad Gholson, Chase Pranga, James Daugherty, Luke Hoffert, Mason Brant, Olivia Reese, and Ryan Cyr ran the entire 30 minutes so they deserve some extra recognition. I think Chase ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=103 A lot more runners participated in our first time trial than I expected. I made this time trial optional and was planning it to be just for our top two groups, but most of our runners stepped up and ran, which was great to see. Even our runners who didn't run the time trial ran their entire route without walking, which was one of our goals f... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=102 Well Tuesday was certainly an interesting practice, wasn't it? Luckily, we avoided the rain, still got some running in, and even had our first game of Ultimate Frisbee. With all the craziness I forgot to mention that Wednesday, after practice, we are having our 1st Annual Movie Night. We will be showing the movie The Long Green Line in room ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=101 This coming Monday is our first cross country practice. Practice will be from 9am to 10:30am at the Yorkville High School track. Please bring your registration form, physical, sports waiver, and $50 activity fee if you haven't already turned them in to the middle school. We will be giving our runners a lot of information, but most of that in... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=100 Cross country practice will start August 2 and hopefully those who are interested in joining are running, whether it's with Endurance Camp or not. We will be practicing at the high school track until school starts and would love having parents or any other volunteers running with us. If you're interested in running with the team in August s... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=99 An error on the Endurance Camp brochure mistakenly said that Endurance camp starts June 7, but the actual start is Wednesday, June 9. Endurance Camp is highly encouraged for everyone who has an interest in cross country. Those interested in Endurance Camp can go to the YHS Cross Country site. The last time I saw the list Jake Hoffert, Luke Ho... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=98 It was great to see so many potential runners at Step-Up Night. We are going to have quite the team next year. For those who didn't get all the forms tonight you will need a registration form, physical, and sports permission form. You will also need to pay the $50 activity fee. Checks can be made out to Yorkville Middle School. For those wh... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=97 Coach Miller will be at Step-Up Night from 5:30 to 8:30 on Thursday, May 27 at Yorkville Middle School. You can meet him in the cafeteria along with the other sports and clubs, get information about cross country, and register for the team if you're interested. Hope to see you there!... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=96 We don't have all the results from Friday, but we'll post what we have. You can check the IESA website for the full results once they're posted. In the 7th grade boy's 110 meter hurdles Tyrius Porter placed 27th with a time of 18.74 In the 7th grade girl's discus Megan Brineman threw 64"3' for 30th place. We don't have official res... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=95 It will be off to State this Friday and Saturday for the Foxes. There will be a pep assembly in the gym at 7:30 on Friday and then it will be off to Peoria's Eastside Centre where the State meet is held. The girl's field events will be on Friday along with the premilinary races for the boy's 100m dash and hurdles. The rest of the boy's ru... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=94 The Yorkville Foxes had a great day at Sectionals in Romeoville. We will be sending 9 athletes to State this coming Friday and Saturday. Our State qualifiers are listed below along with the times and PRs (marked with stars) from the distance events. Congratulations to all the State qualifiers and everyone who participated in YMS track during ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=93 Yorkville had a pretty good showing at our Conference meet. It was awesome to see the 4x400 races as we won 3 out of the 4 races to end the meet. Yorkville finished 4th overall with 230 points behind Sandwich in 1st with 354 points, Traughber in 2nd with 308, and Bendarcik in 3rd with 260. Below are the results from the distance races with pe... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=92 I wasn't expecting any fast times at the meet at East Aurora since it was more likely a runner would be blown off the track than set a PR. There were a few PRs that are marked with stars, but even those runners who didn't set personal records ran well. I loved the fact that almost everyone ran strategically and tried to use the wind to thei... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=91 Our last home meet before Conference went off pretty well with a number of runners hitting personal records. Below are the distance race results with PRs marked with stars. I didn't get the 8th grade girl's results so I apologize to Jordan, J'Keyah, and Sara as well as anyone else I may have missed. I will update this if I get those result... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=90 Even though we were down a lot of runners because of the band field trip it was nice to finally have a home meet as well as a meet that was done before 7:30. Everyone ran great and we also loved how much our runners helped out during the home meet. Below are the times from the distance events with PRs marked with stars. 800m Girls Brey Klei... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=89 Although it was another looooong meet (it will hopefully be the last really long one) our runners churned out some great times. Below are the results for the distance events as well as two of the 4x400 races that I timed. PRs (personal records) are marked with a star. 800m Girls Brey Klenwachter - 3:18* Gigi Barajas - 3:22 Jordan Bulliner -... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=88 I didn't expect many of our runners to run the Tax Dodge since it is in the middle of track season, but that didn't stop some. Sorry if I miss any track runners, but I don't know everyone on the track team yet so only those who have run distance are included. If I did miss anyone on the track team please let me know. The only runner from ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=87 That sure was a long meet wasn't it? Here are the distance results from the 5-team meet with PRs (personal records) marked with a *: 800m Girls Brey Kleinwachter - 3:24* Hannah Leonetti - 3:25 J'Keyah Swope - 3:21* Jordan Bulliner - 3:28 Rachel Strobel - 3:44* 800m Boys Brody Vester - 2:51* Josh Meyers - 2:35* Lucas Grogan - 2:59* Maso... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=86 I will kind of unofficially be posting results from our 2010 track meets here. The full results will be posted in the school, but since I try to get the times for the distance races I thought I would post them here as well. Everyone did a great job at Thompson on Monday and ran some great times even with the wind. Below are the results from t... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=85 Sunday, April 19 is the annual Yorkville Tax Dodge. The race is at 8:30 and there are awards for different age divisions. The younger age divisions usually don't have many runners so it is a good chance to come home with some swag. There is a 5K race (just over 3 miles) and a 10K race (just over 6 miles). I wouldn't recommend the 10K to ma... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=84 Track season is almost upon us! The first informal workout will be on March 15 while March 23 will be the first practice. If you haven't been running during the winter now might be a good time to start up again. Coach Martin and Coach Miller will both be helping out with the track team this year so we hope to see you there.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=83 Are you already starting to think about the summer even though there is freezing rain outside? If so start thinking about how you will get your running in to be ready for the cross country season. The #1 reason we fell short of State was because we had so few summer runners. Hopefully that will change this year. If you are interested in Endu... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=82 Some sad news out of Minooka. Ryan Rames, a fifth-grader on Minooka's cross country team, died after falling into a retention pond on January 9. He was walking his dog and most likely followed the dog onto the pond. You can read the full story from the Chicago Tribune. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Ryan, and hope they get ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=81 I hope everyone had a great holiday and is enjoying the new decade. Hopefully those of you who are planning to run cross country again next year have been doing a little running. If not, I can think of a pretty good new year's resolution. While it is much more important to run in the summer than it is the winter for cross country you will he... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=80 Although we only had two of our runners in the race, along with Coach Miller and Mr. Butler, the Ellis Reindeer Run 5K was a lot of fun. The weather was great and since it had snowed the day before we had some nice slop to run through. The last half-mile was through the woods and we had to hop over logs and take sharp turns. I definitely reco... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=79 Coach Muth, the head high school cross country coach, is being honored as the Coach of the Year for Girls 2A Cross Country by the Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaches Association. The girl's team finished 2nd at State and even the announcer at the State meet seemed surprised when he announced the results so the team obviously shocked som... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=78 In case you haven't noticed, it's December and it's cold. Some runners (like Coach Miller) have retreated to the warmth of a treadmill, but a treadmill is not nearly as much fun as running outside. For those of you who love the great outdoors here are some tips for running in the cold. A good tip for cold weather is to dress like it is 20... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=77 Margie's mom told me about another 5K in the area that I wasn't aware of. It's the Reindeer Run that is being held at Ellis House and Equestrian Center in Minooka on December 20. The course should be muddy and wet, but it sounds like a fun race. The race starts at 9:30 and Coach Miller may be running this one. If you're planning on runnin... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=76 It was good to see a number of YMS Cross Country runners participate in the Yorkville Chili Chase 5K. I know that most of those who participated were running in their first 5K. On the girl's side Sarah Butler, Margie Fincher, Jordan Bulliner, and Kaelyn Scull all participated. Unfortunately, Jordan's time wasn't listed but she did well accor... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=75 Yorkville is having their annual Chili Chase 5K on November 22. If anyone is interested in running it you can download the registration form here. If you run it let Coach Miller know how you did. Don't worry too much about running a good time, though. Just go out there and have some fun.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=74 Anyone who makes the trip down to the IHSA State Cross Country Meet at Detweiller Park in Peoria can't help but enjoy the atmosphere, especially with the great weather for this year's meet. The course is packed with spectators who run back and forth across the course to see some of the best athletes in the state running to find out who has ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=73 For those of you who don't get the Record Coach Draper posted a great article about A.J. Branson and Tim Pape, who are sophomores on the high school cross country team. It's a really inspiring read and goes to show how inclusive a sport cross country is. You can check out the article here.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=72 Once again the high school cross country team is off to the State meet in Peoria! The girl's team ran a great race and ended up Sectional champs! Ali Hester placed first individually to lead the team. The boys had a tougher hill to climb as they were ranked 10th out of 10 teams going into the Sectional. They stepped up and ended up in 4th pl... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=71 It was great to see almost our entire cross country team at the meeting this morning. We even had a lot of new faces who plan on joining next year, which was great to see. Coach Martin has copies of the workout plan we handed out so see him if you need an extra copy. You can also talk to or email either of us if you have questions during the ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=70 It was good to see so many responses to my note about running during the off-season. To make it easy for everyone we are going to have a meeting about it during advisory on Thursday in the gym as opposed to after school. We'd love to see everyone there even if you don't plan on running this winter just so we can see your smiling faces...or ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=69 Congratulations to the Yorkville High School cross country team for their great performance at Regionals on Saturday. The top 5 teams from each Regional advance to Sectionals and the Yorkville teams both turned in dominating performances to move on. The boy's team won the race with a score of 34 to Oswego's 64. Scott King finished 3rd with... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=68 Hopefully most of our runners have taken the last two weeks to relax and take some time off from running. If you haven't taken any time off it is a good idea to take at least a week off so you can recover from the tough cross country season. Once you've recovered from cross country you may be looking for a way to stay in shape until track ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=67 The high school cross country team recently chose their Regional/Sectional team, and both Zak Arcara and Eric Baker were chosen for the team as freshmen. Zak ran for Yorkville Middle School last year and it's great to see him having so much success at the high school level. Eric didn't run for YMS, but he ran for Cross Lutheran and we saw h... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=66 Without a 6th grade team Yorkville is at a disadvantage because it is very hard for us to win overall awards at meets. However, even without a 6th grade team we placed 2nd overall at the Prairie Conference meet, and we weren't that far behind the first place team. The 7th grade boys finished 1st, the girls finished 2nd, the 8th grade boys fi... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=65 Thanks to everyone who came to the parade today. Almost 3/4 of our team was there, which is a great turnout given the fact we found out about it after the season. Full Conference and Sectional results will be posted this weekend, although you can check individual times in the Records/Results section now. We will also post some information ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=64 The Yorkville Homecoming Parade will be this upcoming Saturday, and the YMS Cross Country team has been asked to participate. If anyone is interested in walking in the parade please email Coach Miller at demiller@yorkville.k12.il.us. The lineup for the parade will begin at 9am and the parade itself will start at 10 from the high school parkin... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=63 Most of you knew Coach Miller was running the marathon, and even though he wasn't very confident going into the race he beat his PR from last year by over 10 minutes with a time of 3:49, which is an 8:44 pace. The high school coaches also ran the race with Coach Muth finishing in 3:21 (7:40), Coach Draper finishing just behind him in 3:22 (7... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=62 I know a lot of you are probably disappointed that we won't be going to State, but everyone ran a great race at Sectionals and we almost made it. If you gave it everything you had you have nothing to be disappointed about. We had a great season and I hope everyone plans to run cross country next year. Endurance camp will really help since I... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=61 Well, those conference results were certainly worth waiting for. All four of our teams earned some hardware since the top 3 teams win trophies. The 7th grade girls took third place led by Sarah Butler, who won the race with a 9:58, and Caroline Almas who finished 4th with a 10:03. Anieka Bosman, Brianne Soles, and Sarah Megazzini rounded out ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=60 Remember that tonight is our Awards Night. We will have it at the middle school cafeteria from 7 to 9pm. You can use Entrance 19 to enter the school, which is the door nearest to the football field. At practice today we will be watching some of the movie Without Limits, which is about the great distance runner Steve Prefontaine as well as his... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=59 Our meet today will be against the Oswego schools and Sandwich, and will be held at Thompson. This is the same course we ran at the Tiger Trail Invite and our runners have done well there. The conditions, though, will not be very good. It will probably be cold and rainy and we are going to run as long as there isn't lightning. This means our... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=58 Thanks to everyone who offered to bring things to Awards Night this Friday. We will be sending a confirmation note home on Wednesday to make sure everyone knows the time and place. The Awards Night will be held at the middle school cafeteria from 7 to 9pm. We will hand out awards towards the end of the meal. If you offered to bring food pl... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=57 I hope everyone enjoyed the great weather at our last home meet. The conditions were great, and it showed with the great times our team ran. These were the fastest times we have run at our course, and Justin Vacha, Jazmin Lazcano, James Daugherty, and Caroline Almas all set course records for our team. The girls came in second behind Traughbe... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=56 I hope everyone had fun at today's race and at mini-golf afterward. I think Tim and I tied for the most hole-in-ones with 2. Photos from today are up already so check them out. We have two meets this week besides Sectionals. We have our last home meet on Monday against Traughber and Sandwich and we have our conference meet at Thompson on Thu... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=55 On Saturday we will be holding YMS Cross Country's annual Red/White Run at Silver Springs. It will be a 2-mile race amongst our team, and we will have trophies for the winners of each grade and gender. After the race we will be announcing the runners we will be taking to Sectionals, which is a week from Saturday on October 10. The rest of ou... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=54 Because of the possibility of rain today the meet at Harris Park has been canceled. We will not have practice today either. Sorry about the late notice but I just found out myself. We will still have practice after school on Friday.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=53 I had no idea there were going to be so many teams at the Washington Aurora meet, and I have to say I was impressed to see our runners step up to the competition again. Rotolo had an incredibly good team, especially on the girls side, and that is the kind of competition we will see at Sectionals and, hopefully, State. Almost everyone ran a mi... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=52 All I can say is "Wow!" The hits just keep on coming and everyone ran great races at the Tiger Trail Invite. Some of you were disappointed with your places at Troy, but I told you it was the times that matter and Troy had some of the toughest competition in the state. Tiger Trail had some good competition too, but our Foxes did a great job ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=51 Saturday will be the Tiger Trail Invite at Thompson Junior High in Oswego. It is a bigger meet, but not nearly as big as Troy. It is mainly local teams and our team has a much better chance of bringing home some awards. Runners should be at the middle school at 7:15am as the bus will leave exactly at 7:30. The meet will begin at 9am and the 7... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=50 Our team showed some guts at Tuesday's home meet. The conditions at Harris were awful, and I'm glad everyone gutted through and finished the race despite the wall of gnats. Plank won both the girl's and boy's races. They scored 18 points in the girl's race to our 41 points and Simmons' 194. The boy's race was really close with Plank sc... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=49 I hope everyone enjoyed the Troy Invite. Not only was it one of the biggest middle school meets in the country, but some of the best competition from the state was there. For that reason I wasn't as worried about our team places. The 7th grade girls ended up in 16th, the 7th grade boys had the best finish in 9th, the 8th grade girls finished... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=48 Before I talk about the Troy Meet I want to again congratulate our runners for a great home meet. Although I am happy with the results (the girls beat Waldo 18 to 76 and the boys won with a perfect score of 15 to Waldo's 97) I am even more happy with how our team supported each other by cheering during the other race and how they responded t... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=47 What a great race everyone had at Thompson! The Thompson coaches even complimented our runners. Almost everybody ran PRs, and we won all four races! The 7th grade girls won 18 to 37, the boys 16 to 54, the 8th grade girls 25 to 37, and the boys 26 to 31. James Daugherty won the 7th grade boy's race, Caroline Almas won the 7th grade girl's r... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=46 Jordan's mom is being kind enough to make hoodies for our team again this year. The hoodies we had last year were great, and this year's look even better. I'm not going to give away the final design here, but I do want everyone to take a look at the back of the hoodie and make sure your name is spelled correctly. You can click on the image... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=45 This was our last week to get a lot of hard work in since we have so many meets during the next few weeks. We still have a speed workout on Saturday morning to go, but so far everyone has done great, and it will be fun to see how everyone performs during the meets next week. I'd especially like to congratulate all the runners who ran all ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=44 The girls and boys both had great races at Simmons, which is our shortest meet of the year. All of last year's record times were beaten. Jake Hoffert set the 7th grade boy's record with a time of 7:11; Caroline Almas set the 7th grade girl's record with a time of 8:30; Justin Vacha set the 8th grade boy's record with a time of 6:47; and A... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=43 Even though we had a meet this afternoon, this post isn't about the meet. The kids did do great today and I believe the girls and boys both won and everyone seemed to run better than they did at Harris last week. We will post results as soon as we get them from Simmons. This congratulations, however, goes out to Coach Martin, who had a go... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=42 All of our runners did a great job on Thursday as evidenced by the fact that so many beat their times from the time trial. Harris Park is a tough course to PR and it was good to see that so many runners did. I also want to recognize Jake Hoffert for beating our 7th grade boy's record at the Harris course with a time of 13:46. The 7th grade b... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=41 It's finally time for our first meet! We will be starting at 4:15 at Harris Park. The girls will run first followed by the boys. We expect to start on time as long as none of the teams are late so we should be done within an hour. If anyone can help out please talk to me at the meet. We could use some help at the finish line and possibly els... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=40 What a great practice today! We gave everyone goal times to beat and I think everyone met, and in some cases far surpassed, their goals. We also named our 2009 captains at the end of practice. Caroline Almas, Tate Smock, Anna Greenawalt, Jazmin Lazcano, and Graham Clark will be our team leaders for the rest of the season and we expect they wi... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=39 The high school had their first meet at Sandwich on Thursday and had a pretty good showing with both the boy's and girl's teams coming in first place. Ali Hester won the girl's race while Scott King won the boy's. YMS Cross Country alums Savanah Sellars, Zak Acara, Shawn O'Malley, Brad King, Alec Hamburg, and Josh Love all finished with ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=38 We've talked about good form a lot over the first week, and I figured it would help everyone to see some videos describing good form. This should especially help you heel runners out there so you can have a better idea of what it means to run on the ball of your foot. There are three videos I recommend that demonstrate all-around good form. ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=37 What a great first week of practice! Coach Martin and I are really proud of the runners who have turned out so far. Everyone is showing a lot of heart and it's great to have so many runners out this year. A special shout-out goes to Caroline, Graham, and James who ran over 5 miles at Saturday's practice! It was also great to hear that a few... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=36 It's been a great first week. It was awesome to see so many athletes running with my group on Thursday. No one was walking, and according to Coach Martin very few are walking in his group so we are very near our goal for the first week. Great job! Practice this Saturday will be held at Silver Springs off Fox Road. We will meet here every Sa... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=35 Sorry about the late notice, but there was some confusion about the time practice will start on Monday. The administration wants all sports to practice at the same time so we will be practicing at 9am everyday until school starts, including Monday. We know this may be an inconvenience to a lot of parents but we can assist in setting up car... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=34 With Endurance Camp over we are only a few weeks away from practice starting. Even if you didn't run during Endurance Camp try to get as much running in as you can before practice starts. I have a feeling we will have a lot of new runners this season so if you get a little experience it will help you a lot. Practice will start at 5pm on Au... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=33 It was great to see so many 7th and 8th graders out for Endurance Camp, whether or not you are all going to run cross country at Yorkville Middle School in the Fall. I have already seen everybody improve in just the first week so I can only imagine how much you will all have improved by the end of July. Just make sure you keep running between... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=32 Endurance Camp begins this week. If you are running cross country in the fall you will be a step ahead if you participate in the camp. Even if you don't run everyday at camp anything you do will help. I will be at camp during the first week so if you are there and will be running cross country be sure you introduce yourself. There will be ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=31 So you've signed up for cross country in the fall. What do you do next? First of all, make sure you have your $50 activity fee, physical, and registration form turned in by the first practice on August 17. You can get the forms from the main office at YMS. After you've done the boring paperwork it's time to do some running. Any running you... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=30 Cross country is a popular sport that involves running a course that may consist of grass, mud, trees, and water. The IESA has stated that middle school athletes, both boys and girls, run a 2-mile (3200 m) course during their meets, although the meets we run in may vary between 1 and 2 miles. Boys and girls normally do not run in the same rac... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=29 The Yorkville High School cross country teams will be starring on the Fox 32 Morning Show on Friday the 19th. There will be a preview of their segment at 8:12am and they will be on during sports at 8:17am. Joe Runkle's sister Julia will be one of the participants along with most of the other varsity runners. Be sure to check them out. CHAN... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=28 The high school boys and girls cross country teams both ran their best races of the year at the East Peoria Sectional to pave their way to the State Meet next week! The boys team was led by Jake Austin who finished 19th in 15:47, Max Sliwa who finished 23rd in 15:56, Dan Szopinski who finished 37th in 16:12, Mike Addison who finished 39th ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=27 Congratulations to the high school boys and girls cross country teams, who both won the Sandwich Regional today. They will be moving on to Sectionals next week where they will compete for the change to go to State. Head to the high school page for more info.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=26 Photos are up from the Pasta Party and the Conference Meet. Unfortunately, we don't have photos from the girl's race, but if anyone has any they would like to add to the site let me know. I will post results of the race as soon as I receive them from Traughber. Finally, I'd like to thank everybody for encouraging my attempt at the Chicago ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=25 Congratulations to everybody on a great Conference race! I think our work for the past few weeks on sprints after all our workouts helped since I saw a lot of great finishing kicks. I hope you will all be running at the Endurance Camp over the summer to get better, even if you aren't running cross country next year. For information on the end... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=24 Thank you to Jana and Dale for hosting our Pasta Party/Awards Night. Also, thank you to all the parents who brought food to the event. I'd also like to again thank the kids for a great season and wish everyone good luck at Conference. The meet will be held at the soccer fields at Oswego High School. Check the schedule or calendar for directio... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=23 Congrats to the runners who ran Saturday morning. The trophies went out to Joe Runkle for the 8th grade boys, Ana Greenawalt for the 7th grade girls, and Lexie Bulliner for the 8th grade girls. Since no 7th grade boys ran we will give that trophy to whoever finishes first at Conference. Speaking of Conference, it will be held at the soccer... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=22 We're in the home stretch of the cross country season now. This week is one of the most important weeks in terms of training so everyone should try to be at every practice. Next week will be much easier since we will be tapering the workouts so everyone is fresh for the conference meet. This Saturday we don't have a meet, but we will have ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=21 Photos are up from the Tiger Trail Invite. I will post results as soon as we receive them from Thompson. We didn't have the correct location for the mile so we don't have everyone's mile times, but it seemed like everybody had a great race. Monday's meet will be at Harris Park again. The rest of the uniforms are in so we will be taking som... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=20 I'd like to thank the parents who helped out at the first YMS meet. We couldn't have pulled it off without your help. Even with some of the kids following the wrong path we received emails from coaches who said their kids really loved the course so I think we did okay. The results for our team are posted in the results section, but we won't k... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=19 It's almost time for our first home meet at Harris Park! We took a bus to the park at Wednesday's practice so the runners would be familiar with the course. It should be a fun course, and hopefully everyone does well. Given the fact that everyone seemed to run fast at Sandwich even though we had a hard workout the day before I imagine we will... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=18 Everyone had a great workout today. I want to especially congratulate Alec, David, Jazmin, Joe, Josh, and Savanah for completing the longer run. It's especially great to see David and Jazmin running the longer route as 7th graders. Our meet on Tuesday is in Sandwich and we will be leaving the middle school around 3:15. If any of you are going... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=17 Congrats to everyone for their races at the Troy Invite. It was a fun meet to watch and it seemed like you all had a great time running it as well. Runners caked in mud are a sign of a great cross country meet. The photos from the meet are posted, and if any parents have photos that they wouldn't mind having put up on the website you can give... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=16 The meet starts at 9am tomorrow, but the 7th grade races do not start until 9:30. The 7th grade girls will run at 9:30 and the boys will run at 9:50. 8th grade girls will be running at 10:30 while the boys race will be at 11:00. After the boys race there will be awards at 11:30. You can view a map of the course by click this link. Good luck t... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=15 Saturday's meet is going to be a fun one! There will be 53 teams participating and around 2500 runners! It will certainly be a different experience compared to our first few meets. Since there will be so many runners free parking is not available at the course. Parking next to the course at Hope Lutheran Church is $10 per car. Free parking is... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=14 The high school varsity runners were in Peoria over the weekend at the Peoria Woodruff Invite. The invite is held at Detwiller Park, which is the site of the IHSA State Meet. The boys finished 8th out of 33 teams with 245 points. Max Sliwa finished 7th followed by Jake Austin at 17th, Mike Addison at 35th, Jack Bilinski at 69th, and Josh Elle... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=13 Because of the thunderstorms and tornado watch practice at Silver Springs has been canceled for today. Try to run a few miles this weekend, and those of you going to the YHS meet at Peoria may want to try running the course down there. It's a great course. Remember that we have a meet on Monday so wear your uniforms.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=12 What an incredible first meet for YMS Cross Country! Everyone who ran improved on times we ran in practice, and some of our newcomers did great given how little they have run. Our 8th grade boys impressed with the 1-2-3 finish of Zak, Joe, and Shaun and Josh wasn't far behind. Brad was our 5th runner for the 8th grade boys and finished in the... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=11 Our first meet will be on Tuesday at Old Post Elementary. Everyone should have their uniforms, and we recommend a pair of black running shorts so we will all match. Running shorts are lighter than normal shorts, and can be found at any sporting goods store. Here is an example of a pair of running shorts, although you do not need to buy that e... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=10 Practice on Friday will be a little longer than usual since we will be watching a few short cross country videos and handing out uniforms. We should be done around 4:30. Our first meet is on Tuesday at Old Post Elementary. You can check the schedule for a map to the meet. Finally, photos from last week's 2-mile time trial are available in the... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=9 Our schedule for this week is a little different because of teacher meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, but after Wednesday we will get into the routine of practice right after school. Remember that we meet at the middle school for practice at 3:30pm on Tuesday and Wednesday. The YHS Invite is at 4:30 on Wednesday, and we're encouraging as man... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=8 Congratulations to everyone who ran the time trial on Friday. Everyone ran very well and I hope you all made the times you were shooting for. On the website, you can log-in to see what your race pace is, which we will use during some of our workouts. Again, congratulations to everyone and I hope you all have a good holiday weekend.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=7 We discussed Saturday practices as a team today and decided that we would rather have practice early so the rest of the day is free. Starting this Saturday all of our Saturday practices will begin at 9am, and we will still meet at Silver Springs.... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=6 These are the tops I ordered for the team the other day. They are suppose to arrive just in time for our first meet. I recommend getting a pair of black running shorts to go along with the top. Running shorts are lighter weight than normal shorts or basketball shorts so they can be an advantage when running, and every advantage helps. You can... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=5 Our schedule for this week has been changed around a bit since we couldn't use the track Monday because of soccer. Our time trial will be this Friday instead, and our hard workout will be moved to Wednesday. Also, thanks to Mrs. Pranga for volunteering to host our Pasta Party in October. If anyone is interested in helping cook that night plea... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=4 Thank you to all the parents and athletes who showed up at Parent's Night on Friday. Hopefully you all had your questions answered, but if you still had questions you can always email me. If any parents are interested in hosting our Pasta Party on October 8th please send me an email. If you missed Parent's Night you can check out a video from... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=3 I hope as many parents as possible will show up at Parent's Night on Friday. We will meet at the YHS track after practice and then go over to the high school as a group. We will talk about the sport of cross country and what will be expected of the athletes this season. Additionally, we will talk about how parents can help out if they are int... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=2 Congratulations to everyone for their effort at Wednesday's workout. It was a difficult workout and you all fought hard and made it through. Just make sure that you all eat well before workouts like this one in the future. I'm going to post the details of the high school team's diet in the FAQ section to give you all a better idea of what to ... http://www.ymsrunning.com/index.php?id=1 What a great first practice! It was a hard workout for a first day and I'm glad so many of you stepped up and decided to run the longer route. Tomorrow's run will be a lot shorter so you can all recover. We're definitely going to get some shirts made up for the team, and I think Colton's line, "I'm not competitive, I just like winning" would ...