Volume 4 Week 2
What screams “Mascenic Cross Country,” more than a 1.3 mile hill that the team must struggle up at race-pace effort on a Monday? Absolutely nothing. The week began with the brutal hill workout which has come to be known as, “The Grinder.” For the boys, the goal is to make it up the hill in under 8 minutes, with the reward for the task being a t-shirt. For the girls, 10 minutes will get you the same prize. Though no boys finished the workout under 8 that haven’t already won a shirt, Quinn crushed the hill, being only the second Lady Viking to finish under 10 minutes in the Grinder’s young history. Mondays, man.
The week continued with a 2-mile scrimmage up at Hinsdale on Wednesday that helped the team shake off the rust from the summer. It helps that Hinsdale’s course makes MOC’s look hilly, but the rust was certainly busted for the most part. Running a controlled opening mile, given the green light to roll the second mile, the team got the task done with the results we were looking for.
Week 2 ended with some speed, as we took to our lovely dirt (well, it’s really half dirt-half grass at this point) track to rip 300’s on the hottest day of the week. But you know, what’s 300’s at Mascenic if it’s not a scorcher? The team seemed to put in some good work, with most athletes maxing out the amount Smith would let them do at this point of the season.
Overall, Week 2 definitely ramped up the intensity in comparison to Week 1. The first couple weeks always seem to be blur, but the season really starts to pick up steam from here on out.
-Logan Thibault
Volume 4 Week 3
There’s really only one word to describe the past week: hot. So hot in fact, that our first meet of the year was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday. School 
started up this week, and it was definitely an adjustment to go learn for 7 hours and then go to practice. Monday’s practice consisted of a 300 meter hill workout on a nearby housing development, with repeats ranging from 6-16. Our guys were sure to stay hydrated as the sweat made it feel like we were swimming. Gotta love the hills and heat.
On Thursday, our team headed up to Coe-Brown for our first meet of the season. The goal was for our guys to run the first two miles at a tempo pace, and then really go for it and try to move through the field in the last mile. The team appeared to do this pretty successfully, especially our super-freshman Connor, who finished as our #2 guy for the race. The girls group also managed to cook the last mile pretty successfully as well, which chalked the meet up to be a pretty solid outing from both sides of our team. The real positive about the meet was that it’s finally racing season!
On Friday, there was no school due to Labor Day Weekend. Because of this, a few members of the team took the opportunity to go up to Derryfield Park and get a pretty good 2-on/3-off mini-workout in. We got to break in the brand new finish line upgrade and simply familiarize ourselves with the course for later in the season.
As a whole, week 3 felt a little short due to the lack of scheduled practice on Friday, but we still were able to get some good work in. Personally, I’m pretty excited for week 4, as we get to go race at Sanborn on Tuesday and that race is always competitive.
-Logan Thibault
