2021 Fall Cross Country Season

Are you interested in joining the Boys Cross Country team at Madison Memorial in the Fall of 2021?

Here are your next steps to be ready for the season start on August 16th, 2021

PAPERWORK 

1) Athlete Questionnaire - HERE (Fill out form with contact info) 

2) Online Athletic Forms - HERE
(Parents AND Athletes BOTH must complete - use Infinite Campus log-ins) 

3) Physical Cards (Green or Yellow Cards)
- Green Card = physical from a doctor after April 1st 2021
- Yellow Card = Alternate year card...If you turned in a physical to JMM in 20/21 school year

- Questions...e-mail our athletics secretary Cara Hanson - cmhanson@madison.k12.wi.us

4) Attend Spartan Sports Kickoff - July 29th (Virtual)
You can watch the recording through the MMSD Youtube page

SUMMER TRAINING  

1) Get out and RUN (training ideas HERE)  Start easy and build...consistency and confidence is the summer goal

Summer Running Group will meet at 8:00am near Memorial tennis courts Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, & Fri (park by the track/stadium)

2) JMM Speed & Strength Options - SIGN UP HERE

Speed & Strength (M/T/R/F @ 12:30pm - 2:00pm)

Yoga (W-8am)

Seek out opportunities to improve as an athlete and a runner this summer! The work you do during June, July, August will determine how well you race in October.

Last Hurrah - Memorial Tops the Field

The "Last Hurrah" was for athletes looking to get in one last cross country meet of the Alternative Fall Season. Some athletes had already transitioned to their Spring sports. Each athlete & team made decisions about what was best for them in regards to this meet. Madison Memorial brought 13 athletes to compete against Madison East & Madison West one more time at Lake Farm Park. The meet got delayed from Monday to Wednesday due to inclement weather and race day greeted us with nice Spring temperatures for one last 5k of the season. 

Our JMM guys ran aggressive today which led to some "rah's" and some "hu's" in our attempt for a hurrah...it had been a week and half since we raced and some of us were ready after the long lay off and others maybe just missed the mark. It was great to see the JMM green be aggressive and hopefully we learned from the experience if today wasn't our day. Freshman Jonathan B led our group up front and battled for the race lead settling for 2nd place with a lifetime PR and sub 19 performance of 18:57. Soph Alvaro was 3rd in 19:28. First year CC runner Charlie M (6 - 19:48) and veteran Felipe R (9 - 20:46) both scored top ten finishes with their performances on the day. Alex T (13 -21:14) rounded out our scoring 5 giving us a team total of 33 points. This was enough to out distance West (38) and East (56). It was nice to gain a team victory on the day and really took a group effort. If they had scored a JV race today (runners 8 - 14) our team would have won that race too with a score of 27 points. It was nice to see our depth come through today at this meet. Alec H, Elijah E, and Will T all ran season best times in today's race. This group worked hard all season long and were rewarded with one more beautiful day for racing cross country.

Seniors will head on to their next journey and I hope that running remains a part of their daily routine. Underclassmen will have a quick Spring season before we are right back to Summer Running and preparing for Fall CC. Our 2020(1) season was a journey of delays, virtual practices, masking, social distancing, and new routines. I don't know what the future will hold but I do know that running continues to be an opportunity and the more you run the better you become at running. I hope we can keep the momentum going with our underclassmen, add in some new teammates, and find the commitment & consistency to make our Fall 2021 CC a huge success. See you on the roads running. Every runner, every run, every day.

RESULTS
Madison City Last Hurrah Meet - HERE

**Turn in uniforms & team equipment to Coach Casey ASAP

NEWS & NOTES
- Keep an eye on your email for end of season information & summer running
- Look for opportunities to improve as an athlete and a runner
- Finish the school year strong in the classroom

Sectionals - 2nd in Race #2 (6th Overall)

I always assumed, the more I coached...the less new things I would see. That was not the case this year and definitely not the case for our Alternative Spring Sectional Meet. Sectionals were created earlier this Spring but a host for the meet was not found until about 10 days prior. We found out Middleton would be hosting on there new course in Cross Plains and that the WIAA was splitting the 15 teams into 2 different races. The week of the meet, we found out Seneca was not bringing a team to Sectionals which made the races "uneven" and somehow Madison Memorial was the team shifted over to Race #2 from Race #1. Just like everything else this season we tried to take this transition in stride. Race #1 was going to be packed where as Race #2 would be a little more spread out...we felt like Middleton had a chance to qualify out of Race #2 but Race #1 had Sun Prairie, Verona, East, LaFollette, West, & Monona Grove. We knew what we had in front of us and we took our 7 weeks of training out to the battle field. 

The wind & the sun greeted all the teams at the Sectional and provided just as much of a challenge as the teams in the race. Race #1 was fast & competitive with Sun Prairie looking great and individuals running fast. We knew we had our work cutout for us in Race #2. The guys attacked early and really put their best effort forth. Jake Z led the way chasing down the front end of the chase pack. The junior led us with a season best 17:18. He was closely followed by seniors Dylan A (17:26) and Aidan P (17:33). Junior Mick S was our 4th runner crossing in 17:51 and senior Bobby R gave us five runners across the line at 18:01. Our 1 - 5 gap was under 45 seconds but our group was just a little too far back when times were combined to give us the team finish we were hoping for today. We knew Middleton had won Race #2 and we were confident that we were second in Race #2. The wind was tough during our race and hurt our overall times as we combined with Race #1...if we could have been 15 - 30 seconds faster across the board it might have been a different story. That being said, we had the 3rd best #5 runner on the day (only Sun Prairie & Middleton had 5 finishers faster). Similar to the week prior, we gave up to much at the #1 position (our first runner was at 17th...so we gave up a lot of points to other teams that was hard to make up). A positive is we bring back Jake & Mick and also our #6 (Henry B) and #7 (Jack G) runners next year with a plethora of talent to support them. Can we make the next step in our training and our racing to compete with the top 10 runners in the race? Can we start with our #1 runner around 16:45 (or faster) and still put 5 runners within 45 seconds? Sun Prairie put 2 runners under 17:00 minutes and 6 runners under 17:30...that is the type of team effort it will take...CAN WE DO IT?

RESULTS
Middleton Sectional - HERE