STAL Finals

Hey All,

Great Meet, honestly we couldn't ask for anything better well maybe some 6th places turning to 5ths but...haha (we had Ashlynn in the 100h, Lauren in the LJ, Dominic in the TJ, & Catherine in the 100 all finished in the dreaded 6th spot, as we know only the top 5 advance) Of course Ashlynn, Dominic and Catherine all PRed and Lauren had her 4 longest jumps of the season so lets not get too gready haha.

So the good news, everyone who was ranked in the top 5 going into the meet advanced, on top of that we had a couple people who were ranked outside the top 5 step up and advance as well. Chelsie went from ranked 13th out of 15 runners to 4th place in the 3200. Jada went from 8th in the HJ to 4th. Sosebee went from 9th to 5th in the LJ and from 6th to 3rd in the HJ. So our team is bigger than we expected it to be which is awesome.

Next the great news, we had 38 PRs. This brings our season total up to 236, our goal is 250. Could it happen at BVAL? Full list here.

Also we had 2 school records. Jada broke the Frosh Soph Girls 300h school record with a 49.52 and Catherine, Pauline, Erika and Lauren broke their own school record with a 50.14 in the 4*100.

Other notes from meet:

Stephanie, Jacob, and the guys 4 by 4 all won league titles (Viz, Daw, Eric and Montoya).

Daw had 4 events he won 2 of them (HJ & 4 by400). Got second in the other 2 (400 & 4 by100)

Jacob, Erika, and Pauline advanced in 4 events.

Chelsie had 3 huge PRs. 8 seconds in the 800, 8 seconds in the 1600 and a minute and 2 seconds (13:46-> 12:44) in the 3200. An awesome meet for her.

Taylor "Santiago" Howard - got 9th on Tuesday with a PR, then the 8th place person dropped out so he got into finals and took advantage going from a 46.32 to a 44.98. Both were PRs.

TJ advanced in 3 events, the only one he didn't advance in, he got a PR by over a foot (SP).

Our 3 100 hurdlers Aly, Ashlynn and Tula were ranked 9,10 and 11th going in to the meet and all 3 made the finals.

2nd Year in a row all 4 relay teams advanced.

Like I said Great job everyone. See you at the track- Coach Mike

Been a while

Hey I know it has been a while since I have posted but I am really trying to use the new website alot more. www.liveoakcaf.com All my updates as well as any information posted is listed in the "News" Section. It is just a running tally of the most recent news. I would like the website to be something that you check each day rather than each week. As for the blog, well I am still trying to figure out what its role will be in the future now that I can update the website much more easily.

I think it will be around for larger updates that are too big for the website. If I do that though I will link it to the News section so the website should be all you need to check. - Coach Mike

New Uniforms

Here is a picture of Leach sporting the new uniforms.

Spring Break

Schedule for the rest of the week:

Tuesday: form running drills, 4*150s (walk back as recovery) Arnold Workout
Wednesday: In-n-out 200s (bring some cash if you want to get something there)
Thursday: Speed day (relay handoffs, starts, short approach jumps) 3*Sprint-float-sprint, multi jumps, multithrows
Friday: Capt the flag or Pre meet for those competing Sat.
Saturday: Quicksilver Invite Entries posted here


Also at 1:00-3:30 before practice on Tuesday and Wednesday we will have our "decathlon" Some alums are coming back for it, some athletes are trying it for the first time. Should be fun. If you do the decathlon on Tuesday you are excused from the running (150s). On wednesday you can skip the interval runs and just go straight to in-n-out. With no pole vault it is modified a little. Plus to get it to run faster we changed the order of events.

Tuesday
100m
Shot Put
Long Jump
Weight Throw
400m

Wednesday
110hh
Discus
High Jump
Javelin
1500m

Sobrato Dual Meet Results

Just letting you guys know I posted the results of the Sobrato meet on the website.

www.liveoakcaf.com

I will let you guys find the results, force you to navigate through our new website.

In other news

I finally purchased new software for editing my website and so I don't need to bust out my old computer everytime i want to update it. Expect it to be updated way more often and for some changes.

Andrew Hill results

Here are the Results that AH sent me, plus the distances that Fresh got in the throws and that I got in the horiz jumps. That first time is obviously bogus (probably closer to 52 seconds)



Event 1 Girls 4x100 Meter Relay
Team Relay Finals
1 Live Oak A 55.64

Event 2 Boys 4x100 Meter Relay
Team Relay Finals
1 Live Oak A 45.59

Event 3 Girls 1600 Yard Run
Name School Finals
Faulk, Chelsie Live Oak 6:24.00


Event 4 Boys 1600 Yard Run
Name School Finals
Groen, Adam Live Oak 5:10.95
Cook, Lucas Live Oak 5:39.00
Dominguez, Gabe Live Oak 5:48.00

Event 5 Girls 100 Yard Hurdles
Name School Finals
Marusarz, Aly Live Oak 19.43
Adair, Ashlynn Live Oak 19.76


Event 7 Girls 400 Yard Dash
Name School Finals
Olsen, Pauline Live Oak 1:00.74


Event 8 Boys 400 Yard Dash
Name School Finals
Daw, Jacob Live Oak 53.29
Ukanwa, Alex Live Oak 58.54

Event 9 Girls 100 Yard Dash
Name School Finals
Rodriguez, Erika Live Oak 12.84
Sparling, Catheri Live Oak 13.54

Event 10 Boys 100 Yard Dash
Name School Finals
Alonzo, Taylor Live Oak 11.59
Ornduff, TJ Live Oak 11.75
Tolson, Eric Live Oak 11.87

Event 11 Girls 800 Yard Run
Name School Finals
Faulk, Chelsie Live Oak 2:58.10

Event 12 Boys 800 Yard Run
Name School Finals
Valencia, Artie Live Oak 2:15.54
Cook, Lucas Live Oak 2:30.00

Event 15 Girls 200 Yard Dash
Name School Finals
Rodriguez, Erika Live Oak 26.27
Sparling, Catheri Live Oak 28.37

Event 16 Boys 200 Yard Dash
Name School Finals
Ornduff, TJ Live Oak 24.64
Lee, Kenny Live Oak 25.83

Event 18 Boys 3200 Yard Run
Name School Finals
1 Groen, Adam Live Oak 11:28.00

Event 19 Girls 4x400 Yard Relay
Team Relay Finals
1 Live Oak A 4:35.32

Event 20 Boys 4x400 Yard Relay
Team Relay Finals
Live Oak B 3:44.26
Live Oak A 4:18.59

Event 23 Girls Discus Throw
Name School Finals
Saulala, Fa Live Oak 96-09.00
Dronek, Nikki Live Oak 73-10.00
Cimino, Gaby Live Oak 64-08.00
Mallette, Lexie Live Oak 54-02.00

Event 24 Boys Discus Throw
Name School Finals
1 Alberto Suarez Live Oak 81-06.00
2 Diego Rodriguez Live Oak 68-11.00
3 Ramon Lucatero Live Oak 64-07.00

Event 25 Girls Shot Put
Name School Finals
Saulala, Fa Live Oak 30-10.50
Dronek, Nikki Live Oak 23-01.00
Cimino, Gaby Live Oak 21-05.00
Mallette, Lexie Live Oak 19-06.50

Event 26 Boys Shot Put
Name School Finals
1 Alberto Suarez Live Oak 27-01.50
2 Diego Rodriguez Live Oak 28-01.00
3 Ramon Lucatero Live Oak 26-07.00

Event 27 Girls High Jump
Name School Finals
1 Armstrong, Stepha Live Oak 5-00.00
2 Williams, Jada Live Oak 4-06.00

Event 28 Boys High Jump
Name School Finals
1 Daw, Jacob Live Oak 5-11.00
2 Sosebee, Nick Live Oak 5-08.00

Event 29 Girls Triple Jump
Name School Finals
1 Balala, Alexandra Live Oak 30-03.00
2 Drewniany, Lauren Live Oak 28-06.00


Event 30 Boys Triple Jump
Name School Finals
1 Ornduff, TJ Live Oak 40-11.00
2 Balala, Christian Live Oak 36-09.50
6 Silva, Daniel Live Oak 34-01.50
7 Butterworth, Mark Live Oak 32-02.50

Event 31 Girls Long Jump
Name School Finals
1 Williams, Jada Live Oak 15-03.50
2 Drewniany, Lauren Live Oak 15-00.00
3 Balala, Alexandra Live Oak 14-00.50
4 Adair, Ashlynn Live Oak 13-06.00
5 Urban, Tula Live Oak 13-02.00
6 Barker, Sydney Live Oak 13-01.00
8 Alonzo, Kendryl Live Oak 12-05.00
9 Duarte, Taylor Live Oak 12-02.50
10 DiSalvo, Annalise Live Oak 12-02.00

Event 32 Boys Long Jump
Name School Finals
1 Sosebee, Nick Live Oak 18-09.50
2 Lee, Kenny Live Oak 18-08.00

3 straight days of meets

So we had the Andrew Hill meet Thursday, and the Stanford invite friday and saturday. So I am a little behind in updating everything. That is what I am up to now. Just like I did yesterday, I will offer photos of the Stanford Invite until I can post more. - Coach Mike

Results

Hey All -

Finally got the email from the AH coach. If you noticed they cared a little too much about winning and keeping with that philosophy apparently if you weren't in the top 3 your time didn't matter because that is the only results they sent. I am very sorry if you ran a race and didn't end up with a time. Let's just move on because I don't want to even think about that coaching staff again. (I could make a complaint list longer than the one I made about the alisal invite last year)

Like I said I am really sorry. Next week is a home meet and I promise we will get everyone a time. As well as let everyone compete and not pull cheap move like saying only the 3 runners can run the 100. Sorry complaining again.

I will get the results posted soon. In the meantime here are over 200 photos of the meet (the first 60 or so are me trying out my frame by frame picture taking sequence on Kenny and Lauren) the rest are from Steve of everyone else on the track team.

(by the way check out the look on coach cunanans face when he looks at Laurens 4 by 400 split, picture 218, classic)

Meet vs Andrew Hill

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to let you know that I am still waiting on results from Andrew Hill. I was told they would be emailed to me that night. Its 8am the next morning and still nothing, so as soon as I get them I will post them and update the PR list.

What I can say is there were some great PRs that I heard about or saw. Kenny Lee had a big PR in the long jump, going from 18'1" last week (first 18 foot jump of his life) to an 18'8" this week, he really pushed himself this week, can't wait til he hits the taper. Fa Saulala improved her discus by oh about 20 FEET. She improved her 76' throw up to 96'. In the mile Gabe Dominguez also had a HUGE PR. Improving his PR from 6:01 to 5:48. Cookie (Lucas Cook) also had big one in the the mile improving from 5:48 to 5:39. Kendyl Alonzo had a great Long Jump improving by over a foot from last week 10'9 to 12'2 plus she is geting alot more consistant with her approach. Tula Urban joined the 13 foot club with a 13'2". In the triple jump TJ Ornduff had a foot PR going from 39'11" to 40'11". I know there were other PRs and I will post everything once I get results.

-Coach Mike

Pretty Cool

So the State Leaders were posted and for the first time since Cobbie ran for us we are on the list. (Unfortunantly it is an event that is not run at State haha) The girls SMR from Saturday is ranked 6th in the state of California. Link

SMRs from yesterday

Here is some video from St Francis. Here is the girls sprint medley, when I zoomed in the camera lost focus so I just turned it off. But you can see erika really opening up the race in her 200.



Here is the guys sprint medley, I learned not to zoom in during filming haha.

St. Francis Invite

Pretty good meet. Here are some photos taken by Steve and then some by Leach.
http://picasaweb.google.com/MikeSullivan705/20100320StFrancisInvite#

We had 2 event winners (within about 5 minutes of each other) Stephanie won the High Jump with a leap of 5'4" and the girls sprint medley relay team of Catherine Sparling, Lauren Drewniany, Erika Rodriguez and Pauline Olsen ran a 1:50 which broke their school record by 4 seconds (set last year)

The Varsity Boys also broke the school record in the SMR and came back an hour later and ran their PR in the 4 by 400. They got 3rd in both races, individually Viz ran a big PR and while Montoya didn't run a PR he put together 2 52s in a span of an hour, which is extremely impressive.

TJ PR'd in the LOng jump with a 19'11", (he also shaved his head and his legs to jump further). He did run a fast anchor leg in the 4*100 though. Leach got his PR in the triple on his first jump which made him happy, then he spent 30 minutes using his moms gps to find a mcdonalds and couldn't which made him sad.

Pauline got her first PR in the 400 since CCS sophmore year. (58.85) She is looking strong, she ran a 37 on the hill on Tuesday of this week.

Erika ran a PR in the 100 (if it is wind legal).

In the distance Chelsie ran a 6:00 1600, her PR is 5:58 which she ran 2 years ago, so she is getting close, her best last year was a 6:02.

Adam fresh off 3 PRs in the dual meet Thurday broke the 5 minute barrier in the 1600 with a 4:59.54.

Prelim Count

35 PRs.

Nice Job, all the results are entered. I will post them shortly.

Piedmont Hill Results

HEy Guys,

Coach Cunanan recorded all the races on his camera and what I am doing is counting the frame rate from when the smoke leaves the gun until you cross the finish. THese will be FAR FAR FAR more accurate than the times you got at the finish. Gonna be a while though, I am up to the 100s right now. Then once i get all these times calculated I will enter the field event results and post them. Best to just check back tomorrow.

Another Day of Hurdle Practice

Taylor "Santiago" Howard with a bit of a bloody knee... and this photo was taken after he cleaned it you can see the bloody sock from where all the blood ended up. Like a true hurdler he taped it up and kept practicing. Tomorrow he runs his first ever hurdle race, Im excited.

Warning!

There is a sniper at Live Oak, if he doesn't like you technique he will take you out!

Some TJ

Lauren doing a short approach TJ:

Things to notice.
1) Too high on the hop, needs to be out. In the long jump it is about jumping as far as you can in a single effort so you want to get some hight but the tj is a coordinated movement. You need ot get distance without compromising your ability in the other 2 jumps and find that balance. Thats why there are tons of great long jumps and not a lot of great triple jumpers, easy to just go all out its difficult to go hard and restrained. So when she jumps this high she adds distance to her hop but it comes at the cost of her 2nd and 3rd phase. Not a good deal. Laurens PR is 31 feet and that distribution is probably some thing like 13-6-12. Ideally it would be closer to 11-9-13 = 33 ft. Sure she is jumping 2 feet further in the hop right now but it is the same as a 200 meter runner who is always winning coming of the curve but the dies on the straight away, its irrelevant. There is no biggest hop competition (there actually is its called the long jump haha)

2. Second Phase is miniture. After this rep I had her just stand on the board and jump as far as she could and she went further. This shows that her recovery from the big hop not only slowed her down considerably but also had detrimental effect on her jumping ability. (not good when you can jump further from a standing start). Just watch the force of impact her leg has to absorb when she comes down from the hop. (Note: I think her second phase would have been a little further is she wasn't running out of runway but this effected her 3rd phase more than her 2nd phase)

3) Watch her feet on all 3 jumps in the 1st jump it is moving backwards (running off the board) in the other 2 it is just held out in front and absorbs the force of the jumps. If she tried to bring it underneath to absorb that force by the time she can push her foot will be to far behind her. All 3 foot contacts should have that negative foot speed.

Things I liked: Her posture stays upright throughout. Such an important thing that people have alot of trouble with. She swings the foot low on the free leg. Very nicely done.

All her problems are set up from a too big hop and can be fixed by focusing on flatter shorter first phase. Go 2 feet shorter on the hop so you can go 4 feet further in the step thats a good trade. What we see at alot of high school meets are athletes that have trouble with the second phase so they try to go bigger with the hop to make up for it. Lots of 15-7-15s in our league for the guys. Here is a video of lauren and one of Jonathan Edwards (WR holder)

The Rest

So I still have some things to do, I will come back and critique these later but here are the videos of everyone:

Varsity Boys B:



Frosh Soph Boys:




Varsity Girls A:



Varsity Girls B:

BTW

If you click the icon on youtube with 4 arrows you can get the video to go full screen where it is easier to see. Also if you want to watch it frame by frame tomorrow let me know and i can talk you through your form.

Group 2

Varsity Boys:

Posture:

All of them have a slight forward lean, Kenny probably has the best of the group and Montoya probably has the biggest forward lean.

Arms:

For the most part pretty good, Leach never quite gets the elbow to open up behind him, which limits what his legs can do in front. A little asymmetry with everyone else.

Legs:

Very common problem, when the toe comes off the ground they are still pushing. This is the cause of that circular heel recovery, as a group we need to focus on bringing the leg forward as soon as it leaves the ground. Taylor is the only one who does a really good job of this, Kenny is probably the biggest culprit (very large circular hell recovery)

Distance Runners

Group 1: Distance Runners

Adam - Posture: Good, it stays upright the entire time. Arms: Adam actually does a really good job of taking his arms through the optimal range of motion. Short in Front, Big in Back. Legs: At toe off (when foot comes off the ground, Adam bends the knee a little bit before the thigh comes forward, this indicates a little bit of a backward push. I would tell him to focus on more of an Up and Down Motion with the legs rather than a forward and backward on. I would consider this excellent form though.

Chandler -
P: Good
A: Good
L: Loos like he keeps his foot on the ground a little long, which causes him to push late and like adam he has a problem with the knee bending before the thigh is brought forward

Chelsie -
P: Good
A: Good - Maybe a little limited but that is ok with a distance runner, she is getting the core rotation we need
L: Very good Ankle stays at 90 degrees, she brings the thigh forward immediately after it leaves the ground and if you watch she moves up and down while running. That undulation means she is being very reactive.

Danielle -
P: Good
A: Left Arm is limited, Right arm as a larger range of motion
L: Similar Problem with Adam and Chandler knee bends before coming forward we want to pull that thing right off the ground and move forward.

Eddie:
P: Good except that head may move up a little keep it in a neutral allignment
A: Good
L: Sinks a little too much in the support phase, try to lift that free hip when running.

Lucas -
P:Excellent
A:Good
L: Similar to Chandler, he puts the foot down softly and then waits and pushes late, we want more of a downward strike not a backward one.

Tonight

I will be posting Footage 1 Group at a time. Remember the Three Things we covered today Posture, Arms and Legs. PAL. You guys looked good, I wish I filmed the 200s and 100s afterward because you guys lost alot of it. The way we will do this is I will write some things for you to look at and then let you look at the video.

Breaking Down Footage Now

Here are the flying 30 Times:
I rounded up to the nearest tenth but since i did use the camera to calculate these times I put the actual time in parenthesis.
Boys
Taylor A 3.3 (3.30)
Eric 3.4 (3.37)
Nick 3.4 (3.37)
Alex H 3.5 (3.43)
Dominic L 3.5 (3.43)
Kenny 3.5 (3.46)
Jacob M 3.5 (3.47)
Christian 3.5 (3.50)
Joesph 3.5 (3.50)
Kean 3.5 (3.50)
Pelz 3.6 (3.54)
Taylor H 3.6 (3.56)
Artie V 3.6 (3.57)
Silva 3.7 (3.63)
Archer 3.7 (3.66)
Cookie 3.8 (3.74)
Eddie P 3.8 (3.77)
Mark B 3.9 (3.83)
Chandler H 3.9 (3.84)
Devon J 3.9 (3.90)
Adam G 4.1 (4.10)

Girls
Erika 3.7 (3.63)
Pauline 3.8 (3.73)
Taylor D 4.0 (3.96
Jada W 4.0 (4.00)
Ashlynn A 4.0 (4.00)
Lauren D 4.1 (4.03)
Sydney B 4.1 (4.04)
Michela S 4.1 (4.06)
Tula U 4.2 (4.17)
Megan P 4.2 (4.17)
Alexandra B 4.3 (4.23)
Aly M 4.4 (4.36)
Chelsie F 4.4 (4.40)
Kendyl A 4.7 (4.70)
Danielle Y 5.2 5.17)

This week

This will be our last week for the rest of the season we don't have a meet, so let's take advantage of it. Just wanted to give another plug to Coach Cunanans Website: http://www.coachcunanan.com/index.html

Lots of good videos in there, including jumping and relay videos from the gilroy meet. Check it out. - Coach Mike

Goal this year

Just a random thought but I think it would be great if we made it through the whole year and people had no idea how you win or lose a meet. Is their any other sport where you try to keep "how do you win" away from your athletes???

Gilroy Meet

Whew, that meet is over and we are now off and running into our season. We had 21 total PRs which brings our season total up to 24. The full list is posted on the homepage as well as full results of the meet, or you can go here

I didn't get to see ANY field events but some of the things I noticed from the Track and read about/heard about from the field.

*Girls 4 by 100 team (Catherine-Pauline-Erika-Lauren) ran a 51.80 (the school record team from last year didn't run this fast until April 23rd)

*Lucas Cook had a great finish in the Mile and Gabe Domiguez came soooo close to breaking 6 minutes, (6:01, which was a 14 second PR!)

*Adam Groen is getting better (especially in the 2 mile) at running his own race. He came close to 2 of his PRs (mile/2 mile) and got a PR in the 800. Great early season start for him.

*Chelsie Faulk PR'd in the 800 (she could care less but I enjoyed it, haha) IN the mile she went out a little too fast, but that is alot better than going out WAY too fast and ran a season opening 6:08. (Im very excited for her)

*TJ Ornduff learned how tough it is to run a 400, but considering its his first ever he ran great. HE also had a PR in the triple jump.

*Erika Rodriguez, who has been working out since november for her senior year, came out well. Ran a PR in the 200 (26.18) and great 400 relay split (60.7, also a PR).

*Viz and Catherine started out the year with PRs in the 200.

*Pauline Olsen started the year right at 60 in the 400 in the open and relay and also ran a very fast 27.07 200.

*Alex Ukanwa took 10 seconds off his 800 meter PR and ran the first 2 400s of his track career.

*The meet ended beautifully all three 4 by 400 teams winning their races (more importantly running very well at this point in the season.) Such a great ending to the meet.

* Alex Hafenbecker just broke a minute in the 4 by 4 with a split of 59.97. His frosh-soph teammates of Uriel Flores, ALex Ukanwa and Lucas Cook also ran well to give them a time of 4:07 (they will be under 4 minutes in no time)

* The Varsity guys team (Who went to CCS last year) came out sharp, winning their heat and being less than 2 seconds off their best from last season. Eric Tolson had a PR of 54.0. Jacob Montoya held off a great runner from gilroy and one of the best in the CCS from sobrato by running a 52, just a week into the season. Viz had the new experience of getting the baton in first place and trying to run without someone to catch and Jacob Daw ran a strong leadoff leg, fresh off jumping 5'8 in the HJ.

*The Varstiy Girls 4 by 4 of Lauren Drewniany, Tula Urban, Erika Rodriguez and Pauline Olsen also had a solid performance. I was really happy with Lauren, who volenteered to run it because we needed someone. Its a tough race to run especially if you don't do 400 training, very selfless. Tula learned a little about race distribution. Erika ran her fastest lap ever with a 60.7 and Pauline followed that up with a 60.1.

*Taylor Duarte showed some speed in the 100 and from what I hear jumped well in the LJ. Coach Cunanan made sure to point out to me he was impressed.

*Annalise Disalvo ran a great 2nd leg in the 4 by 1, and got her first ever long jumps in.

*Artie Valencia ran a 2:16, with a 1:08 and a 1:08 perfect splits.

*Taylor Alonzo PRed in the LJ, once he gets rid of his nagging quad injury his new PR won't last long.

*Alberto Suarez had a 10 foot PR in the Discus, let me say that again a 10 FOOT PR.

*Diego Rodriguez matched Erika's 2 PRs with 2 of his own (SP and DT)

*Fa Saulala got 2 PRs with a small improvement on her great shot put from last week and for good measure also PRd in the DT

*Ramon Lucatero missed a 100 time because no one in his race knew 2 gun shots meant false start but he ran well, but he did make sure to hit a PR in the discus to the day was worth it.

*In the LJ, Devon Jones, Patrick Archer and Artie Valencia all found a little more distance than their first attempts at the event last week. Keep it up guys.

* I know coach Cunanan was impressed with Mark Butterworth and Daniel Silva in the Triple Jump.

* Aly Marusarz got her first hurdle race under her belt, I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous, she has been injured so I didn't know what to expect. Not only did she run it but she ran it well.

I just wanted everyone to get a time and a mark I was really impressed you all had a lot of great early season performances. Great job, have a good weekend see you Monday. -Coach Mike

Entering Results right now

Just want to let you guys know I am entering results now and I will post them a little later tonight. Preliminary Count 19 PRs. Great job. Now that all the new people established a mark that number is going to sky rocket. Be back soon with results! - Coach Mike

Meet vs Gilroy/Sobrato/Christopher

On Friday, (weather cooperating) we will have our first meet against other teams. It will be a 4 way meet with the other high schools in the south county. Just like the alumni meet last week this will be more of a 'meet specific practice'. Our first actual meet is on March 18th. Changing the starting date from Jan 5th to Feb 1st has really shortened out season and I just want to remind everyone that we don't care about meet results in March and April, only May. So if you are feeling unprepared for this meet its because you are, we have a progression we are going to follow and these upcoming meets in my mind are just practice.

Also in the next week or two expect some changes. Our roster is now at 60 athletes, which is great but it is also something we are unaccustomed to. (Last year we finished at 27 and had 7 of those graduate) Which means we have 40 new to track athletes. I am going to have to organize practice a little differently. Yesterday I know their were people who recieved no coaching whatsoever, which is not ok by me. Don't worry we will figure it out.

Bus will leave at 2:30, you guys will be let out of class at 2:15. The bus leaves on time, we wait for nobody. If you want to drive to Gilroy, you can. However, you are NOT allowed to drive anyone but yourself to the meet.

-Coach Mike

Alumni Meet

Hey all -

So the results are posted. Amazingly we had some PRs even. (well tied PRs). Jacob Daw tied his HJ PR with a jump of 5'10 and Nick Sosebee tied his HJ PR of 5'8. We have 4 high jumpers that can jump 5'8 or higher. That is awesome. (not too mention Stephanie who is one of the top HJers in CCS). Jacob and Viz both also ran a 300 in sub 40. Some other impressive results: Erika ran a 43.02 in the open 300, which is a 57 second 400 pace so she is on track to go after 60 soon. Fa (our new freshman thrower) won the SP and DT. In fact her shot put distance 30'2" would have qualified her for CCS Semifinals last year. Wow.

Well that was fun, and like I promised very laid back. This next week we will be competing against our south county bretheren (Gilroy, Sobrato, Christopher) this will be similar to the alumni meet in that it will be pretty laid back. More of a meet specific Practice than a meet itself. We will talk about our expectations tomorrow.

Alum Meet

Hey guys I will post some results in a little bit, but if any one wants to see some pics from the meet they are posted here, likewise, if you took any pics then send them my way and I will post them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/MikeSullivan705/20100227LOHSAlumniTrackMeet#

Good Problems to Have.

Classify this under the good problems to have catagory. Holy smokes there were alot of people at track practice yesterday. I don't remember ever having the problem were there wasnt enough room on the track for everyone. As coaches we are going to need to put alot more effort in to organization of practice then we ever needed to before. It used to just be "ok lets go to the weight room", thats not really possible anymore, we need to assign different times for the weight room, split up groups within the same event. So our life just got a little bit harder but our goal is to still provide the same 'athlete first' philosophy and attention.

This got me thinking about back when I was an athlete, the times when my grades were at their best was when I was doing a sport. In college during football season we had weightlifting from 6-7am, had class time from 8-2, then we had films everyday at 2 to watch our practice from the day before, we practiced from 3:30 to 6:00 had dinner as a team til 7:00 and then you would be exhausted and have to do your school work. When I had very little free time I became super efficient and was a good student. Then when football eneded and I had all the time in the world, things didn't get done immediately, they got postponed, I would wait til the night before to start a project and my grades would slip. It always seemed counter intuitive that I did better with less free time then I did with all the time in the world. My point is sure this is going to be more challenging for us coaches but I also think it is going to make us alot better and more effcient. SO like I said, this is a good problem to have.

(also I might need to buy more uniforms because we might not have enough)

Meet this week

Saturday is our Alumni Meet. This is our first ever so I am sure this won't run too smoothly but hey as long as we have some fun, the alums don't pull too many hamstrings and we bbq afterward I have tough time seeing how this wont be successful.

Not Every event will be contested. Here is the event schedule:

Field Events
LJ/TJ @ 12:00
SP/DT @ 12:00
HJ @ 1:00

Running Events start at 1:00pm(Rolling Schedule, should be done around 2:30 or so)
4*100
Mile
65m HH
300
65m Dash
1000m Acorn Run
200 meter hurdles
4*400
(So basically 2 relays, 2 sprints, 2 hurdles, and 2 distance events)

and Yes the distances are going to be a little shorter. 1) Some of are alums aren't in as good of shape as they used to be (looking right in the mirror on that one haha) and 2) We want this to be fun and not too taxing. Also in the relays the alums can pretty much do whatever they want. 8 by 200 instead of a 4 by 4, go coed in a 4*100, etc...

The acorn run will be 2 - 500 meter laps and will involve some running on the grass, and have one or two obstacles and hopefully be a good time.

I will post the list of athletes and events on the bulletin board at practice today.

Afterward there will be a BBQ.

Vacation Week

Tough part of a vacation week is the fact so many people are on vacation, haha. Oh well I planned a light week into the schedule for that exact reason. Today we accomplished a good amount:

Observations from today:
We found out what happens to Laurens LJ form when she does a full approach.

We got Pauline her first 4*100 handoffs.

Silva learned some triple jump.

The throwers have the best attendance for the week.

The distance runners have the worst.

Alberto and Ramon had one of the most disasterous/entertaining handoffs of all time.

Erika is still fast.

Catherine is a tough grader.

Ally and Tula learned the hurdles.



Tomorrow and Friday we will probably try to have a little fun and get ready for next week.... it is a meet week already.

Random Thought

The lazy side of me struck today, I started thinking about the videos I posted on Mark and Lauren Long jumping last night, with my voice over analysis. I actually had the thought, if I just have the athletes send me videos I don't even need to leave my house to coach, haha. That may have been the laziest thought I have ever had, not to mention the dumbest, considering my favorite part of the day is when I am away from the computer and on the track.

In a related note I do think I am going to try and film people more often and post videos with my description of whats good and bad so people can see the things they are doing and what they should be trying to do. I probably won't be able to do that for everyone but I will try to do enough people that we cover all the common problems and show examples of proper form. That way it at least paints a picture of what you are going for. Hopefully they are helpful.

Alumni Meet

In case anyone is wondering, this year we will be running an alumni meet. I figure that I have been around long enough that we can muster up enough alums to compete. The goal of this meet is two fold:

1) For the athletes: An introduction to what a track meet is like, in a low key situation so when the season starts they have some experience in meet conditions.

2) For the alums: More importantly a chance for alums to come back, have some fun either competing or just seeing their old teammates again.

At my college we have an alumni meet and I just competed at it for the 11th straight time (4 as athlete, 7 as an alum) One of my buddies said "You know when I left high school, I would never have pictured myself going back and competing in an alumni meet each year" I think alot of people feel the same way about track they could never imagine themselves competing after they graduate. My goal has alway been the same as a coach, get people to enjoy or at least appreciate the sport of track and field and for everyone to have a positive experience with track. I think an alumni meet is a good reflection of that. Right now I think we will only have 10-15 alums and hopefully each year that number will go up. I imagine if we did this 5 years ago the number of people would be 1-2, since most people didn't do track after their junior year anyway.

The Meet is at noon on Saturday February 27th.

King of the Hill

We are running Diana today for the 3rd time this season. One of the traditions we have at Live Oak is to name a King of the Hill after each time we run it. The king of the Hill is not necessarily the fastest person up, sometimes it has been the slowest person up. The idea is more about effort if you normally run 75s up the hill and I see you push yourself to a 68 when you are tired that is more worthy than someone who normally runs 35s running a 37 and beating everyone. Like our philosophy with everything we don't care about the best, we care about personal improvement and effort. That being said the first 2 kings of the hill were the fastest guy and fastest girls. So who were they?

Week 1: Eric Tolson (ran it 4 times 45, 40, 40, 35) just a great progression and a very fast 35 for the first time on the hill this season.

Week 2: Pauline Olsen (ran it 4 times 50, 48, 45, 42) another great progession and tied the girls record for fastest time up the hill. (Note: Eric was no slouch and ran a 34 this week)

Week 3: Who will it be?

(In case anyone is wondering why Pauline isn't considered the "Queen of the Hill" a couple years ago I asked alums and current athletes if we should call female winners "Queen of the Hill" and they unanimously voted everyone should be called "King of the Hill".)

A tale of 2 Jumpers

So this last Friday Live Oak track alum Mark Cedeno (class of 08) and former jumps coach, jumped at SJCC and I went and filmed it, even though he is wearing the orange and blue of west valley I thought I could break it down and the post it here. I plugged my Rock Band Microphone into the Computer and just started talking (and sometimes breathing right into the mike haha) Mark does alot right in this and I try to point out a couple of things he can improve so as a whole I think it is a good explanation of long jump mechanics.

The other video I posted was of Lauren in her first ever high school meet (back when I was the jumps coach), she wasn't as fast and her form wasn't nearly as good as it is today but back then she did naturally the 2 things that Mark still needs to work on. (to be fair to Mark it is easier to do those things at slower speeds) I just think it is helpful to see the things that I am trying to explain in Marks vid. Anyways here they are... (you might need to make them larger and in 720p to see the details ) (EDIT: I just watched these again, I might be a little harsh on Laurens Running form, haha. This was supposed to be a compliment to her. Also I should mention her penultimate doesn't roll over and she doesn't really lower, so her jump mechanics weren't perfect she just does a good job of swinging the foot low and getting some negative foot speed, which were the 2 things mark didn't do.)

MArk LJ


Lauren LJ

9 Days In

Realizing I haven't posted anything recently:

Season Update #1
Last year I knew exactly what kind of team we had, mainly because we only had a couple new people, so it was the same as the previous year. This year we are 9 days in and I am clueless, which makes it exciting. WE have alot of new athletes this year, most still don't even know which event they want to do. It is great for the program and a little more challenging to the coaches but coaching is what we enjoy. We had to take the first 2 weeks kind of slow and make sure everyone understands the different parts to our basic program. After next week we will get the winter sport athletes out and I think we will have the biggest team we have had since I've been here. (or everyone will quit after winter break, haha)

Due to all the newcomers we did something we have never done before and that was have a little bit of a track circuit. We had 4 stations: throwing station, long jump/triple jump station, handoff station and high jump station. Everyone spent at least 15 min in each station seeing what the event is and then trying it out to see if it speaks to them or not. I am kicking myself for not taking pictures since I literally did nothing but observe our coaches working with everyone. Some people found events they didn't even know existed and we learned a little about the athletes (who are the type that are willing to try anything, who are the kind who only like doing things they are good at)

Next week is winter break. The athletes that are still around, we still have practice (@3:30)

Off and Running

Well the season has begun, alot of new faces which is a good thing. Depending on how many I scare off after this first week we might have the biggest team we have had in at least 13 years, probably longer.

First Day Tomorrow

Track Season starts tomorrow, before we get to that though just want to say great job to Lexie. I went and saw her performance in L'il Abner, I couldn't understand what anyone was saying for the first 5 minutes or so but then my brain finally tapped into the dialect and it was great. I recommend it to all. Here are the remaining performances:
•Friday Feb 5th 08:00 PM
•Saturday Feb 6th 08:00 PM
•Sunday Feb 7th 02:30 PM
•Friday Feb 12th 08:00 PM
•Saturday Feb 13th 08:00 PM
You can even see a picture of her in action in the MH times...
http://www.morganhilltimes.com/news/262652-lil-abner-opens


As for track, really excited to start tomorrow, this is a month later than we have been able to start, so this season is just going to fly by. A big concern of mine is people getting physicals, I put in our rosters and alot of the people who signed up were not cleared yet, we have 4 less weeks this year, so missing the first 2 because you don't have a physical and then the 3rd week is winter break and the 4th week we start getting into our meets. If you don't have a physical schedule one immediately.

See you all tomorrow. Make sure you go support our track athletes in their other endevours, we have people playing basketball, soccer, wrestling and acting. I am going to try to see everyone at least once hopefully more. - Coach Mike

Winter Update

Just like with the fall I try to see as many track athletes as I can in their other sports. Tonight i went and saw Kenny in a wrestling match, the match didn't last long but that is becasue Kenny pinned the guy quick. Pretty exciting stuff I never had been to a high school wrestling match before. Kenny really did dominate the match, good stuff, very impressive.


Here is a pic I took on my phone showing Kenny standing over his exhaused victim haha.

All Comers Meet

So today Me, Mark and erika went to the LG All Comers Meet. Here are some slo mo vids of me and mark jumping. As well as me and Erika running in the 55 and the 100. Erika ran a 13.35 100 which she didn't run until May of last year. So she is way ahead of schedule.


Here are 2 of my jumps


Here are 2 of Marks jumps



Here is me and Erika in the 55 meter dash


Here is me and Erika starting the 100 meters



Mark in the 400

Looking forward to the season

Today was one of those days where everything just goes 10 times better than you planned. Lauren was lightyears ahead of where she was last week in her skipping series. The team picked up the remedial jumps and started fixing their own balance, strength and stability deficiencies with out me. I think this workout is going to really help this year. Just made me excited about being able to coach again next month.

New Software

So I got this new software that will allow for some good motion analysis. So I went to the Long Jump pits and recorded this video. I knew the board was 10 feet away from the pit so once I had that reference distance put in I was able to figure out all kinds of stuff. For example the low point of my penultimate was 2.8 feet off the ground whereas the high point of my jump was 5.15 feet in the air. It allows you to look at speeds and acceleration, I can figure out athletes angles of projection in jumps and throws, it has a ghost feature where is overlays all the images of you on to one picture. Lots of great stuff and I am still learning to use it.

The last couple years I have been trying to talk myself into getting Dartfish, which is a motion analysis program. THe cheapest one is over a thousand dollars, this seems like it gets you 80% of the features for FREE. Very happy with this find. (It is software designed for phyiscs teachers, to help students understand labs, haha)

Here is a little of the program in action:

Here is a pic of my long jump in one picture.



Here is a graph of the height of my center of mass vs time.





Here is a video tracking my center of mass.

January Update

Still trying to figure out when we can have our preseason meeting, I am teaching a winter class at SJSU for the next 3 weeks so I won't able to be on campus at lunch. I will talk to Porras about it. The biggest thing is just letting people know they need to get a physical if they haven't played a sport yet and that practice starts on Feb 1st.

The meet schedule is all set, I need to upload it to the site (not as easy as it sounds, the computer with my web publisher is no longer the computer I use) Right now the Dual meet schedule is posted. Debating if I should buy the program again or just plug in my old computer everytime I want to update the website.

You guys all know that I don't care how many people we have on the team, but you should still encourage any of your friends that might be interested in track try it out. The more people out there the more we can let people specialize on their best events, with a small team we tend to run a little thin. I think there is a big misconception that track is just running and torture but there are 6 field events and we focus more on running quality and full recovery then the conditioning you see in other sports.