Less Than Two Weeks!

It has been a whirlwind last three weeks! After returning from Montreal I had a week at home and then was off to Greensboro, NC for the USATF JO meet for 5 days. We had never been to that meet before to recruit and it was definitely an experience!  For as many athletes as they had competing, they did a remarkable job of keeping things efficient. They announced that they ran 94 heats of the 100m in 64 minutes! 

While I was gone Chris did a great job of doing some finishing touches on the wedding planning. When I got home we had 5 days until wedding day! However, there was still work to be done before I could focus on wedding week. In July, a coaches job really doesn't end as I had a home visit on July 30 before the quiet period began on August 1. The good news is it was a GREAT visit! It is always fun to meet new families and tell them all about the great things that the University of Minnesota has to offer! 

After that I could finally turn all of my attention to our wedding!!  It was an amazing week that culminated in the most fun day I could have asked for. Our friends and family are truly wonderful people and the whole day was perfect. It was also fun that so many girls on the team came to celebrate with us at the wedding ceremony. 

Chris and I were able to get away for a few days on a road trip to Kansas City and St. Louis to catch a baseball game in each city. While they were both fun, I have to say St. Louis was awesome! It truly is a baseball town and the stadium was beautiful!

But...enough with the wedding stuff and on to the REAL excitement...the season starts in less than two weeks!!!!!!!  The girls report back on August 22nd and we leave for Ely on August 23rd. There is a lot to do between now and then, but I could not be more excited for everything to get started. We have an amazing group returning and add an awesome freshman class to add to the group! 

While I have always claimed that we have one of the deepest teams in the country and would win a national title if we scored 10 deep, I was affirmed of this by an independent writer who was doing previews for all teams that competed at NCAA's last year. 

http://thewoodrunningreport.blogspot.com/2013/08/ncaa-xc-top-31-countdown-womens-20.html

I firmly believe that this team can accomplish some special things this year. They have worked hard together for 4 years and while the Big Ten and the Midwest Region are always challenging, they have all the tools to compete for the titles!

As I sent them today....

Gotta Run!

Hop

CAMP!

Hello again!

Back from my whirlwind trip to Montreal and right back to the throws of high school cross country camp!  Luckily, I had three awesome camp coaches to take the reigns while I was gone. Nikki Swenson, Matt Gabrielson and Jamie Piepenburg deserve all the credit for a great week of camp!!!

We had a "huge" group compared to previous years and that made it even more fun!  55 distance runners in total made for lots of great training groups, good lectures with insightful questions and LOTS OF LAUGHS!  Not only were they great runners, but they did a pretty good job with Gopher Olympics as well :):)  Special thanks to the team from Canby for bringing down a big groups as well as the group from St. Anthony. They are both going to have successful seasons ahead of them!

For those of you future coaches out there, building up a camp from scratch has been a challenge that seems to finally be paying off. It takes a lot of years with smaller groups before it can become a destination that is on everyones radar. The biggest group we had before this year was 26. One thing we finally did this year was to involve more high school coaches, which was not only great for us, but I think will help the camp continue to grow. Thanks again to Matt Gabrielson from Edina HS as well as Patti Percival from White Bear Lake for their help. It was also great to have Travis from St. Anthony accompany his team for two days. I hope this is something that more coaches take advantage of in the future! 

I also had the pleasure of speaking to the Minnesota High School Cross Country Coaches Association on Tuesday. At these events I am reminded of how lucky I am to get to recruit in a state that has such wonderful coaches. I hope that they took a few take home points away from the talk and didn't get too bored!

A few days of deep cleansing breaths before heading Mitchell, SD to speak at a high school camp and then to the USATF JO meet in Greensboro, NC next week!  Oh yea...then I guess I will get married when I get back :)

Gotta Run!

Hop

P.S. A big shout out to Brookdale Volkswagen for my new wheels :)  I will be cruising around in style with my new black VW Jetta!

American Coach in Paris....

Well, not quite Paris, but Montreal seems to be good practice!  I am here to watch and recruit the 2013 Canadian Junior Championships! My high school french is helping a little, but thank goodness most people seem to be amazingly bilingual (Bilingual is Beautiful...right Paula??) The only hiccup was the check-out person at the Wal-Mart where I was loading up on snacks for the weekend. She was trying to ask me something about my sour worms, but my rusty french didn't understand a lick of it. Just my luck she was probably telling me I could get an even bigger bag for the same price...but my wedding dress will probably be thankful I didn't understand! :)

On a similar note, French-Canadians do not seem to enjoy the same delicacies as I do...Dr. Pepper, Blueberry Pop Tarts and Tuna To Go were no go's at TWO grocery stores. I did, however, get to feel like a freshman on my first travel trip again where I just wandered the isles of the grocery store, knowing I should get something, but being VERY indecisive about what that something is. Ahhh...memories... 

Other than that, I have settled in and am ready to watch some great track and field action over the next two and a half days.  I am very excited that one of my favorite coaches in the biz, Andrea Grove-McDonough will be here tonight!  She is coaching one of her juniors and will probably be eye balling all the same kids I am...let the recruiting battles begin!!

A few early observations/tips (mostly reminders to myself for future trips, but maybe someone else will think they are interesting/useful):

1. Get to the meet early! It takes a session to get your bearings. This morning I watched some riveting qualifying heats of some pretty slow races, but I figured out where the heck the track was, saw the "interesting" seating arrangements and developed a plan for watching/filming the events I really need to pay attention to.

2. Try to find heat sheets in advance. Tried my best before I left, and then when I arrived a "printer malfunction" means no heat sheets at the track. I do have descending order lists, but not quite as helpful as a good ol' heat sheet would be.

3. DO NOT FORGET YOUR SUNGLASSES....rookie mistake :-/

4. Put your phone on "airplane mode" that way no accidental million dollar phone bills for the University, but I can still iMessage/Tweet/FB when I have wireless access. Brilliant! (thanks, Chris!)

Time to eat some of those tasty snacks and then head back to the track for the 1500 semi's and the STEEPLE :):)

Gotta Run!

Hop



 

Start of New Era!

Hello All! 

On July 1, 2013 both myself and Minnesota Women's distance running began a new chapter. After 4 years of competing as a Golden Gopher and 8 years as a volunteer assistant coach, I was blessed to take over the cross country program at the University of Minnesota! I could not be more excited to take over an AMAZING program built with a strong foundation on the successes of all of our wonderful alums and a legendary coach in Gary Wilson. I have big goals for this program and hope to help take it to new heights! 

I also begin a new chapter in my personal life as I will be getting married to Chris Hopkins on August 2nd (hence the name that most of you might not be familiar with) and add to a list of Coach Hop's. My future father in law is a legendary high school basketball and baseball coach in upstate New York and Chris is a basketball coach who just signed on to work with the Edina Boy's basketball team. Since I met Chris, he has become a huge Gopher Track and Cross Country fan and it is great to have another supporter of the program on the sidelines! 

I decided to start this blog at the beginning of it all to document my journey. I sincerely hope that this blog will serve many purposes. First and foremost, to keep everyone updated on the progress and behind the scenes happenings of Minnesota Women's Cross Country and Track. Second, I hope that young and aspiring coaches out there check back often as I chronicle the ins and outs of my first several years in the "business"!

Please feel free to comment and ask questions and I would be happy to answer them!

Gotta run!

Hop