Fan Fest!

Our annual Fan Fest celebration took place earlier today at the football stadium. Each team has an area for fans of all ages to stop by and obtain autographs, meet the student athletes, and play some games. We were in charge of a huge inflatable obstacle course. As usual our team was terrific interacting with the kids and adults. With this being our inaugural season in the Pac-12 there was a lot of excitement about that.

If your local you may have also heard senior Alyssa Abbott and myself on ESPN 700 radio just before 1PM being interviewed about the upcoming season as well. Overall, it was a fun day...but now the season can begin. We will be at Utah State next Saturday morning for our usual season opening meet. More details about whose running later in the week so check back.

Camp '11

Your 2011 University of Utah Women's Cross Country Team

Why Does it Have to End?

What a terrific camp! I am really pleased with how everything went. The workouts, the team activities, and team bonding were all very successful. This mornings run at Deer Creek Trail above the reservoir was amazing. Cool temps mixed with the rising sun and a few high clouds made for a very enjoyable run.

The run was followed by blueberry pancakes, packing, and some quick showers before heading back to camp. Tomorrow we will finish the week with a long run up on Pipeline Trail near campus. I hope you've enjoyed following our camp journey this week. School and the regular season begin on Monday. I'll keep you updated.

Todays pics are pretty cool. See if you can find Amanda and Alyssa in the picture that looks like the side of a mountain:)

Keep'em Fed So They Train Well

Tonight I was able to redeem myself as a grill master...whew!!! I received some help from our resident English woman (Lucy) and Nikki. Overall it was another terrific day of camp. Two good running sessions, great meals, excellent team projects, and a well deserved stop at the local ice cream shop (Fill'er Up). Camp comes to an end after our run in the morning and blueberry pancakes. Be sure to catch pics of our run tomorrow. We will run at Deer Creek Trail which has some amazing views.

The AM Workout

Another productive day of camp is well underway. A short, but fairly intense hill workout this morning followed by breakfast and a team meeting. The rest of today includes working on team goals, and afternoon run on the Rail Trail near Echo with lunch, dinner, and an evening activity mixed in.

Camp has progressed well thus far (with the exception of my grilling skills last night which included charring a few of Tyson's best). Check back for more amazing pics from our run later today.

It's All About Tempo

After a great dinner, team introductions, and an evening run the first day of camp ended with many tired individuals. However, we were up early for an AM threshold interval workout that went well. We had a few different groups and they all ran well together. Sometimes something that simple...just running together can be a challenge for a new group. However, the freshmen all found there spots and fit right in. Breakfast, team meetings, team activity, lunch, short nap, and an afternoon easy run before dinner are on the schedule yet today. Check back for more pics. I hoped to have video, but I'm struggling with downloading my flip cam at the moment.

Don't worry parents...they are eating well and getting plenty to drink :)

Report Day

The 2011 University of Utah Cross Country season officially kicks off at 4:30p today. Student athletes will arrive and get physicals. Tomorrow we begin at 9am with meetings, followed by a short team run, and then we are off to camp. Check back here this week for pictures and video of camp. We have a terrific returning group and six new freshmen who will lead us into our inaugural season in the Pac-12. It will be exciting and a great challenge to be part of the best xc conference in the country. We all look forward to raising the bar and continuing to keep this program on the steady rise towards being a national power.

More Academic Success

After having three individual athletes receive all academic honors from the US Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association last week, the same association has honored the University of Utah Track & Field TEAM as one of 164 all academic teams from the past season. The Utes combined for a 3.29 GPA during the spring semester.

That is the highest overall team GPA we've had in my six years as the head coach here at Utah. We've continually made progress each year. To have over 40 young women combine for that type of GPA is impressive. However, our goal is to have that become the standard rather than an exceptional year.

Our athletic academic support services do a terrific job to help our athletes receive the support and resources they need to be successful in that regard.

We had 16 athletes receive Dean's List honors (3.5+) and 30 achieve a GPA of 3.0 or higher. It took 3.84 to be on our top ten list for the spring semester. As a coach it's hard to ask for much more.

Nice job gals!

The A's Have It

Senior Alyssa Abbott along with sophomores Angie Kaplar and Amanda Mergaert were named to the 2010-11 US Track & Field/Cross Country Coaches Association All Academic Team. To be eligible student athletes were required to obtain a 3.25 cumulative GPA. They also had to finish the indoor or outdoor season ranked in the top 96 of an individual event, be part of a relay that was ranked in the top 48 on the national list at the end of the season, or compete in any round of the NCAA Championships.

Abbott (3.89 GPA) qualified for the NCAA Championships in two events (1500 and 5K) for the third straight year. Kaplar (3.25) was a first time NCAA qualifier in the 100 meter hurdles. Mergaert (3.31) was also a two event qualifier (800 and 1500) in consecutive seasons.

Pics from top to bottom: Kaplar, Mergaert, Abbott

2011 XC Schedule Posted

Our cross country season schedule has been finalized and is now posted to the right of this post. We go to some great meets and cities. The meet in Reno, NV on September 10th will be under the lights as it is a twilight meet. Stanford is always a huge meet and our gals love that course. The trip to Las Vegas will be our first ever for cross country. The Chile Pepper meet at Arkansas is another huge meet where we have performed well in the past. Our initial Pac-12 conference meet will be in Phoenix which should be a lot of fun. The Mountain Region meet is only 45 minutes from our campus so we expect to have a good following helping us try to qualify for the NCAA Championships. Wish us luck!