By Emerald Briggs
Let’s play catch up! The official Newfound XC season started on September 3rd at 3 pm. The returners kicked off the week with a 30-40 min easy run, focusing on a low heart rate. Our newcomers, or “freshies” as Coach LaPlume likes to call them, started with just an easy base run. It was a fun first day of back-to-school running, with the girls reuniting and having a chatty run. The next day consisted of a pre-meet run, a lift, and a “LaPlume yap sesh” in our home base, room 106.
Finally, we had our first race of the season! This was the Early Bird race hosted by Gilford at Gunstock Mountain. Emerald and Ceili placed top ten (3rd and 9th respectively) and the rest of the girls also had good openers not far behind. Captain Josie and “Assistant to the Captain” Tucker, sadly had their last first race ever. Also unexpectedly, but also expectedly, Colin missed the starting gun because of a last-minute bathroom trip. After starting in dead last, Colin worked his way up to an impressive 9th place. Our new mascot, Pickle Rick, made his public debut at the Early Bird as well.
Painfully, we only had one day before our next race, Great Glen. So, we held a “post and pre-meet” run. This included a visit to our shrines, a tradition we started during track two years ago. After shrines, the first “LaPlume Wars” of the season were held. This was a relay around the track. We divided into two teams under the coaches. First was the 200m backward run, then a shuttle run having to retrieve a ball. The next leg included a three-legged “run” which handed off to the woggler sprinters. After that, a bear crawl. Finally, a ball throw where you had to knock down two foam rollers. In the end, “DudePlume’s” team technically won, but it was appealed and it resulted in a draw due to some interferences…
On the bus the following day, our speaker fought a long battle with the boys, yet tragically died. Despite this, the meet day began at the base of Mount Washington with the JV girls. Our two girls in that race fought hard and placed 4th and 12th. Reece had an outstanding finish, passing 5 people in her final kick. JV boys had a good team race, and in the varsity race, Colin secured himself a 7th-place finish. The varsity girls race ended with 3 girls in the top 10, bringing home more t-shirts to add to their collection. After the JV and varsity races were completed, our favorite time of the meet arrived… The coaches race! They suffer through what we just had to endure. Coach LaPlume raced after eating a pre-race pickle on a stick. Our girl’s coach, Coach Kendra, had the most fun race after being chased by Pickle Rick the entire time. In her words from a Strava comment, “I wouldn’t have finished yesterday if it wasn’t for y’all and Pickle Rick.”
Sunday was a rest day for most and on Monday we returned to regularly scheduled practices. Most of us had a long run on schedule. One group did their long run on River Road, while the others ran up the ever-dreaded Peaked Hill. A few kids ran a “half Peaked” as we call it, which includes running up and over the hill and then running on the main road back to school. A full Peaked consists of running up and over the hill and once you reach the end, turning around and running it again.
Half Peaked = 710ft elevation gain
Full Peaked = 1,350ft elevation gain
(both according to Strava)
After somehow surviving Peaked long runs, most of our team tackled the challenge of two speed days in a row. Tuesday for most included a 2-mile threshold run on the renowned “LaPlume XC loop” for speed. For a few, they instead took on 7x1k Penguin Hill repeats. This involved going up the steep Penguin Hill, down Newfound Road, and back up the dip. Since Monday, Laplume’s favorite saying has been “Run, Eat, Sleep” so following that fashion, he told us to eat and sleep lots in preparation for the next day.
On Wednesday, the entire team took on 300m cruise intervals. Once again, we ran on the XC speed loop. We ran 8-10 intervals at a harder intensity for 300m and then easy for 100m. The focus of this workout was to run as a pack and to “hang on” and run tired. After this speed workout, the team had “Workout Wednesday” together with Coach K. A mixture of weighted exercises and core exercises were performed. As LaPlume says, after we run, now we eat! Thanks to the LaPlumes, our team has a few bins of snacks including proteins, carbs, and electrolytes. Safe to say we dug in.
