Coaches Corner

with us on coaches corner, KWBG. We're gonna talk some Ogden cross country today with the head coach, Ryan Cablisca, the Bulldogs. We're also part of that meet at Madrid last week or we're supposed to be a part of the meet in matter that was canceled due to the heat and the humidity. And boy, I tell you what, Ryan, there have just been some days that have been perfect cross country runnering and then there have been a lot of days in a row that have just been mother nature undefeated as always. And I know I'm sure a little disappointed because I'm sure coach would have liked to see what the kids could do in Madrid, but you know what? I remember last Thursday, it was not a pretty day. No, Ryan, like you said, we've had some great days at the start of the season with weather and felt like first couple of weeks of our season really went according to plan, but then the heat and the humidity and everything that mother nature threw at us last week really disrupted our routine. For us, when we saw the forecast coming with the high dew points and that heat index of like 105 or even 110 some days, we were pretty quick to move our practice time to 6.30 in the morning before school just to keep kids out of the heat. So it's really disrupted how we normally do things. And when we're talking today, September 8th, I looked at my calendar the last time we had practice after school that our normal time was way back on August 28th. So we're looking forward to getting back into the normal routine, but those morning practices, we've had some big trade-offs. Kids are getting a lot less sleep because we're showing up 60 minutes or 90 minutes earlier than normal, but also just to get practice done in time for school to start to get kids there on time. We feel like we have to streamline practice and cut a lot of things out. On normal week, we might have eight or 10 hours of practice time with the kids. And with those four practices last week in the morning, we just had four hours with the kids. So disappointed that we didn't get to run at Madrid. That's always such a great start to the season for our middle school team and has been a very fun race for our high school team. But I think more than anything, we're returning to normal weather this week. We're just excited to get back into our normal routine. So let's start with the actual meet that you didn't get a chance to compete in. And that was Johnson. And I know I'm gonna make you think back a little bit because this is back on August the 29th. It was that Saturday morning opportunity. And I wanted to talk about the girls and the boys because believe it or not, the last time we talked, we were getting ready for Johnson. And on the girls side of things, I thought we had a lot of fun stuff. And anytime I see personal records, boy, things like that make me really excited for girls cross country. And Sophie Sligman was able to get that in 22 minutes, 39 seconds coach. I saw that Kelsey Spencer in her first varsity debut also had a personal best. I mean, we had a lot of good things. I haven't even brought up Alina Wilson yet. Yeah, very exciting meet for the girls. And starting to get some of those questions answered because even more so than the boys, our girls team is very new and inexperienced this year. We're excited that there's quite a few more girls than we've had in the past. But exciting just to get them on the course and get them past the initial nerves of that first race and maybe get a chance to surprise themself. Like I think a lot of our girls did. But Sophie, like you mentioned, great start to the season. That was almost a full minute faster than her best race time last year. She got to finish in the top 25% of what's a really large competitive 3A, 4A type of meet. Establish yourself pretty early as our top runner. But then we had six other girls that were running their first high school 5K that spent about the first half of the race working together in a pack. And it's given us a starting point this year that's a lot higher, I think, than we've had in the past few seasons because if you look at our average 5K time from this meet, we were about three minutes faster or three and a half minutes faster than what we ran at the same meet last year. So a lot of exciting things coming from the girls. And I think as we continue to refine and adjust, we'll see this team get better and better. Well, and you just brought up something, Ryan, that you and I have talked about over the years. And it was, if you're gonna run in the pack, I want the pack to be up there. I want the pack to make sure that our times are really good. And with what I'm seeing from the girls that did run in that pack, Ryan, I think you got exactly what you wanted out of the girls that day. Yeah, it was exciting to see that cluster of white dogs and jerseys working together in this meet, but not something we've been able to do with the girls team a lot in the past handful of years. So to see Kelsey, to see Olayna Wilson, that group of girls working together. And then I think with it being that first race for a lot of kids, we maybe got a little unsure if we could hold the pace throughout, but then as they got to the end of the race, finish very strong. And I think you're gonna see that group of girls just continue to get stronger and stronger this year. You had a lot of girls that had opportunities to what we talked about the PRs, but coach they also had a chance to run in that first varsity meet and that first, well, that big experience. Let's be honest, there were a lot of girls that were running that day. What were the comments afterward? What'd you hear from the ladies after running in such a kind of a big meet to start the year? It is a very big meet and it's meat has grown a lot in the last few years. There were well over 300 girls on the starting line. So of course, for our first time athletes, that can be a little intimidating and nervous, but for the most part, that all goes away once the gun goes off and you can just focus on competing and catching that next runner. And I think what we really liked about competing at this meet is because there are so many runners, each of our girls, each of our runners has somebody else to match up with and to go push themselves throughout the race. And I think that helped lead to some of the good performances that we saw. Well, let's go to the boys side of things now and not a big surprise here, I don't think, but Miles Trombley led the way for you coach. I run 1658 and when I see that Miles is able to run a PR, I know he must have really got after it because he's run some really fantastic races so far in his young career. And then Beck Anderson was right there as well, another PR from him. And then let's throw Luke Fisher in that spot as well with another PR. So boy, Ryan, boom, boom, boom. We got three, our top three all PRs. We love to see that. Yeah, it's hard for me as a coach to be disappointed when everybody's showing up and setting those PRs in the first race of the season. For us, that's a real good indication that those guys did their homework over the summer and Miles Trombley, like you said, under 17 minutes for the first time, there's not a lot of runners in our program history that had been able to say they're part of that club. Beck Anderson, Nick deserves special mention. He's a senior, was out for the first time last year and really committed himself this summer. His time, his 1749 was almost a minute and a half faster than his best from last year. So it's just a huge improvement from Beck. And then Luke is one of those freshmen. Something we like to see is that his pace for this race for three miles was faster than he was running for the two mile last year as a middle schooler. So for the boys, I think those top three, just a great core group. You can see the potential for a very competitive boy. Coming together this year as we continue to get more and more guys back each week over the next month here. Well, you talked about we had a little break, obviously, with last week and then, you know, Labor Day, Holiday Week, and that always kind of throws a wrench in things as well. So tell us, Ryan, what's coming up for Cross Country for Ogden? Well, this week we will go compete at the Green County Invitational on Thursday over at Spring Lake Park. It tends to be one of the kids' favorite courses. They get a lot of variety racing back in the woods and on some trails around the lake. But we really like that we get to take some of those things that we learned from competing at that big Johnston meet. And now we get to improve on those and apply those towards trying to figure out how do we have our best team competition this week when we get to race in a little smaller meet, competing against schools that are more our size. So, like I said, very much looking forward to getting back into our practice routine this week, but also kids, kids are very excited. It's been two weeks since our last competition. We're very much looking forward to getting back onto the course and racing this Thursday. Yeah, you bet. Ryan, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck coming up on Thursday. And now we'll talk to you again here in a couple of weeks. Okay, thank you, Ryan. You bet. Ryan Kabliski again joining us. Ogden Cross Country on coaches' corner.