Week 5.
Hello Team Sakina!
Fall has arrived and has brought with it beautiful sunny days, cooler temperatures. This will be my 25th fall in North Carolina and I think there is a certain smell in the air that I associate with changing seasons, changing leaves, and RUNNING! This past week I really started to notice that smell. Fall is in the air. It makes me feel energized calling up from memory all the afternoon cross country practices, sweat, camaraderie, shoes landing on fallen leaves, running fast through the woods, working hard day after day, culminating in that one big, exciting, intense, fun race at the end of the season one day in November. That has been the prototypical “Fall” season of my life and Team Sakina is on a similar path this season.
This week will be Week 5. We are almost halfway through the season as hard as that seems to believe. Last we had what I thought was a “breakthrough” practice in terms of progressing individually and coming together as a group. Looking ahead, the next 7 weeks will pass quickly and our race will be here before we know it. So, a couple things on the race:
- Team Sakina has chosen the Old Reliable Run as our goal race.
- The Old Reliable Run is the largest and longest running 10k in North Carolina with about 2,000 participants.
- The race is on Sunday, November 16th in downtown Raleigh.
- The 5k starts at 1pm and the 10k starts at 2pm.
- Registration is now available on the race website: http://uwta.convio.net/site/TR/Run/General?fr_id=1000&pg=entry
- You are responsible for signing up for the race and paying the $25 dollar registration fee.
- However, the race will be a TEAM event. Team Sakina will go to the race as a group, both participants and coaches, warmup/race/cooldown together and support each other.
More logistical details of the race are to come, but I wanted to give some initial information about the race and encourage everyone to go ahead and sign up.
This week we will meet at the track at 6:15.
Endurance group- will be running 3 miles
Aerobic group- will be doing long intervals in Gimghoul neighborhood
Advanced group- will be doing long intervals in Gimghoul neighborhood
We will not be having an official seminar this week. However, after practice we will be doing a more lengthy core/drill/strides session. Afterwards, we will spend a short time doing some informal team-building. Please plan to stay for this. We should finish by 8pm.
Hopefully, everyone enjoyed Sage Roundtree’s seminar last week on Yoga for Athletes. She teaches a class on Monday nights at Carrboro Yoga Company at 6pm as well as at the Wellness Center. Team Sakina’s optional yoga on Tuesday nights at 7:30 at Carolina Fitness will also continue to take place. If you enjoyed the 15 minutes of yoga in the grass after a hard run, think about how great an hour would be J.
There is a good chance that I will not be able to attend practice on Thursday due to a medical test I have on Friday. But, I leave you in good hands with our great coaches and will see everyone next week.
Endure, Sustain, Sakina!
Kerry
PS- Thanks to generous donations last week, Team Sakina was able to add 2 more scholarships for children in our partner community in Tanzania. We have raised over $450 so far towards our goal of 20 scholarships.