With the start of the 2024-2025 school year, Coral Gables Senior High’s cross country team has kicked off their preseason training in preparation for the rest of the season up ahead. The team started practicing on July 31 at Gables starting at around 9 a.m., aiming to hone their skills and show them off this season by making it to the state-level competition through extensive conditioning.
Along with their preseason training, the team had to transition their conditioning from 9 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. One challenged faced by runners throughout this year’s preaseaon was the need to adapt to the heat as their coaches adjusted the workouts for student’s safety. Despite the high average weather in August, the team was able to keep an eye on certain workouts due to the heat and improve their running technique and speed for future meets.
“With the help of [Alexia Clark] and several weather applications I keep track on, we can determine weather the team has to practice indoors or outdoors or if the team can go run off campus or on campus,” Coach Nelson said.
Occasionally, due to the heat, the cross country team resorted to doing workouts instead of running to keep a steady training schedule. Inside of the 9000 building in Gables, the team could be seen doing abdominal workouts and leg workouts instead of jogging outside, as Coach Nelson saw the several heat advisories posed a risk for the team.
The cross country team exercised by repeating exercises like six inches, plank, leg raises, crunches, reverse crunches, butterfly and scissors for ab workouts and worked on both cardio and strength throughout their planned leg workouts. For cardio, they made sure to walk the stairs instead of running through them to prevent shin splints, and for strength, they performed repetitions of lunges, squats and step ups.
“We have to pay attention to the heat on a daily basis, it changes things. Sometimes we will have to cut practice a little bit short in segments,” Coach Nelson said.
Despite the heat, the Gables’ cross country team consistently trained with several different workouts, including working on increasing their mileage before advancing to speed conditioning. The team goes on several runs off-campus such as to the University of Miami or around Jeronimo Street. The team ran to UM through two separate runs: When the team runs to UM there are two separate runs: the short version being running to the front of UM and back to Gables, around 3.5 miles, while the longer version is a run from school to the university, run around and come back, around 4.5 miles. The junior varsity team usually runs a short UM, while the varsity runs a long UM due to the difference in pace which each team runs at. The team practiced this workout to work on mileage and prepare and grow the ability of running for longer distances.
“Practicing for different mileage with my teammates helps me prosper. For example, long runs on Saturday helps me prepare for the distance [we will run] during meets,” junior Sharon Contreras said.
In addition to those runs after school, Coach Fotso takes the team to run for several miles on Saturday’s at locations such as Coco Plum, Granada and Tropical Park. Depending on how conditioned each runner is, they can run from four to ten miles, exercising their stamina and correct form.
“Saturday runs help me build up my endurance to be able to run faster for my distance. [These] runs help me perfectly for meets,” junior Paul Winston said.
The Cavalier cross country team used their extensive and innovatice training in the preseason in hopes of making the most out of the 2024-2025 season. This year, the team is registered to compete in seven meets before the District-level race. Between and throughout those races, the team is ready to prepare with the aim of reaching the States competition for the third year in a row.
