The WHS cross country team beginning a run. The team's first competition will take place at the end of the month in Juneau.
Wrangell High School's cross country team has a new coach this year, Drew Larrabee (center). Pictured here is Larrabee speaking with the team at the end of a parent/student meeting last Wednesday, Aug. 7.
Members of Wrangell High School's cross country team, and their parents met in the high school commons Aug. 7 to meet with the team's new coach. Drew Larrabee, who teaches the high school's CTE class, is the team's new coach after Jen Davies decided to step away from the position this year. The first thing he told everyone in attendance, about 20 people in all, is that he does have experience in cross country.
"Rest assured, I have coached cross country for quite a few years previous to this," he said. "Before that I ran all of my middle school and high school career ... I used to run in college, and I've run all of my adult life, minus a couple of years after I broke both heels."
As the team's new coach, Larrabee said that he wanted the team to have a very educational and safe year. In training, he said that his emphasis will be on the mechanics of running, proper stretching, and other things that will protect student when they are running. Following his emphasis on health and safety, Larrabee suggested that his students consider getting a new pair of running shoes if the ones they currently had were a year old or more. He also said that the team might be getting some assistance from the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium with staying in shape. The cross country team in Sitka has an agreement with SEARHC, he said, where the team can get some physical therapy and training to avoid injuries on the track.
"They're talking with Sitka, and they're going to try to reproduce that program over here for us, for our cross country team as well as for the other teams in the school," Larrabee said.
Besides getting out and actually running and staying healthy, to prepare for the new season, Larrabee also had a homework assignment. All team members were expected to find a running-related article in a magazine or online and to bring it back to the team later next week. It could be about anything, from eating right to studies done about running.
The cross country team's first meeting will be on Aug. 31, in Juneau. Runners were reminded, before the meeting closed, that they needed to keep their parents updated about travel plans and that they needed to keep their grades up to compete.
Reader Comments(0)