Transcript
With us on coaches corner, KWBG, going to talk some augmenting cross country today. Ryan Kabliska joining us as the Bulldogs have obviously been in the full swing of things for practice-wise. And it's kind of one of the first things I always ask coach was, how did the offseason go? Because if there's a sport that you know if the offseason wasn't good, cross country's got to be one of the top ones that I always kind of know immediately. And coach, it sounds like to me that the kids did a nice job here in the offseason, huh? Yeah, I think we really did, Ryan. And we try to emphasize every year when we have our meeting in the spring that those medals, those trophies, those banners in the fall, they really get earned in the summertime. And so it is important to get out there and get a head start on the season. We had a core group of pretty experienced varsity boys who knew what to expect for summer training. And they really were just accountable for getting out and getting the work done. And we're pretty excited about the miles and the training they got in this summer. Our girls team is maybe a little different approach this summer. We're a lot less experienced on that group, but there's some pretty healthy numbers this year. And so took a little more of a gradual approach to the summer, but kids kept showing up. And we made progress week after week after week. And I feel like heading into the start of the season, we just have a great baseline of fitness we're ready to start tackling some more difficult training and ready to start racing later this week. I know you guys had your time trial last week, Ryan. I guess what were your thoughts and what were you kind of thinking might happen going in? And then what did you kind of witness from last week's that time trial?
I think what we got to see with the time trial was that we're maybe a little bit ahead of where we thought we were, which when you've been training for a couple of months or two and a half months over the course of the summer, sometimes you're kind of just itching to get out there and compete because you really don't know how much progress you've made. So I do feel like we're in a good spot for fitness level. And for the boys, I think the order of finish was about what we expected. Very happy with the times that they ran. But girls side, that was where I think we really needed to have that time trial on the schedule just for them to have a little clearer idea of what their expectations should be as we get ready to race because there are so many new girls in that group. But what we really are excited about with the girls and what we haven't seen for several years was that there's just a lot of depth. We have eight or nine girls that were able to run together but also able to run well together. We don't have girls that we're expecting to be at the very tail end of the race. So time trial was a great confirmation to see that kids, the work they'd been putting in the summer is really helping them progress. Well, and you've got besides not maybe having the veteran experience on the girls side, having new, having fresh, having eyes that maybe don't know what this is going to be like on a race day. Exciting coach, and I got to imagine terrifying at the same time, right? You do like to have some veteran experience there to get you through. And we do have some great captains this year, and Sophie Seligman and Elise Fisher to help lead and teach and guide this inexperienced team. But on top of that with the girls group, I think there are girls who bring good experience from other activities. Elena Wilson has competed at the State Track Meet for us several times as a hurdler. Ryland Casey has qualified for state for the wrestling team. And we've got some girls like Kelsey Spencer and Ada Weaver who were our top two middle school runners for the last two years. So definitely some good pieces in place. And I don't know that as long as we're well led, like we are by our captains, I don't think we're too concerned about just not having a lot of racing experience because we'll have time to get that in over the next month here. Well, and you also said something else, too, when it comes to having numbers. I mean, you have competition on that girls side every single day, coach. So I mean, you can't have somebody who is new to it just kind of say, ah, I'll be fine. I'm easily going to be in the top three. I mean, we've got to be still working every day to stay in the top three, top four. Yeah, you're right there, Ryan. I think that's a big difference from maybe some of our girls teams in the past where we maybe only had six or seven girls out in a season. We have expecting 10 girls this year. And so there is maybe some competition for varsity spots. But I also think it's a girls group that gets along very well this year. And I wouldn't say it feels like competition in practice. We're very much a cooperative team, and they're very good about supporting each other and working together just to help everybody get better week to week. Well, on the boys side of things, you already kind of mentioned that with having veteran leadership, and they knew what to do in the off-season to get ready for this season. Are you seeing that payoff so far, Ryan? And I know we had obviously time trial last week. And we're kind of getting to that spot where it's probably good Johnson is coming up. Because I got to imagine, especially on the girls side, too, but as well on the boys, we get tired of running against same kids every day, my friend. That's right. We, like I said, that core group of boys that returned, they've been pretty hard at work for 11, maybe 12 weeks already. And so they're definitely ready to get it out there and test things. But that group, there's Miles Trombley up front, who's a returning state qualifier currently ranked in the top 25 in class 1A. And just based on how fit he looked at our time trial and how well he looked at practice, we expect him to keep climbing up that list this year. Beck Anderson is another kid who was a first year runner last year, but decided he really liked the sport and wanted to put in more work this summer. So we've seen some great things from him and Thomas Bergstrom, another senior who's a returning state qualifier. Dealing with some injuries may not be in the lineup for a little while, but we're working to get him back in there. So it gives us a lot of strength in the front of that lineup that can maybe offset some of our lack of depth for not having as big a numbers for the guys team this year. Well, and you get a chance. And I really, I've always liked your schedule. I like where things kind of fall on here. And Johnston, Sunrise Invitational is coming up, obviously, here this weekend. And then we've got Mattered Invite, Green County, Panorama. I mean, the schedule, for the most part, Ryan looks pretty similar to last year. Were there any changes that I might have missed? No, Ryan, we actually, this year's schedule is the exact same as what we ran last year. And we were pretty intentional about those first few weeks. We really liked the Johnston meet, especially with a team like this where we're fairly inexperienced and kids are still learning how to spread out their effort over a 5K race. We go to Johnston for that first race where it's a very large race field. We'll have over 300 kids in those races. And so all of our kids that are learning to race will have plenty of kids around them that they can match up with and compete with, which when you go to a small race for your first meet, sometimes kids end up in the gaps where they're running by themselves. But for a first meet, we get some great racing experience. And I think that sets us up very well to go compete with schools our size at Madrid and at Green County. Ryan, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck coming up this weekend as well as next week. And we'll talk to you here in a couple. OK, thank you, Ryan. You bet. Ryan Kabliski and joining us, Ogden Cross Country, here on Coaches Corner.
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