By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.—Building a Foundation.

Though the season doesn’t ‘officially’ start until late August, Head Arch Zellick is already having his squad out on three-to-six mile runs in June to build a foundation for those long runs over the summer and come season time.

“Summer is vital,” said Zellick.  “We found over the last couple of years that the more miles we can get and the more kids we can get out, we can hit the season a lot harder and start seeing results right away and a lot better results.”

One key vocal points Zellick and company have been focusing on, as they saw numbers push 30 and above on the first day of practice, it also helps builds that team bonding over the summer months.

“We get kids before school ends, get as many out as we can and they get to spend the whole summer together.  We do a lot of fun activites, we do trail runs, water ballon fights, like today we have a run and play ultimate frisebee, it gives them a chance to hang out and get to know each other.

“Especially at the beginning because then people don’t feel as intimated because everyone is gearing up again and we’re doing easy short runs and it gives everyone a chance to run together and get to know each other and it’s really shown in the amount of kids we get that stay out and that are out at the beginning of the season.”

Zellick knows that over the summertime, families have trips, have things going on.  But the message he has that he’s sending his team as McKay slowly ends the school year is this:

Come out as much as you can.  Run as much as you can.  Make your presence known to them.

“Expectations is that they’re out as much as they possibly can,” said Zellick.  “We understand that it’s summer, it’s voluntary, they got trips, they got things going on.  But we meet three-days a week, I still got plans for the other three or four-days, give them a day or two of rest.

“We have incentivizes, we try to give out shirts for hitting a certain amount of practices over the summer, they get mile club T-Shirts, and doing incentivizes like that with the expectations that if they’re in town, come out.  Start running because the kids we see over the summer are the kids that make our varsity squad and if they want that, they need to out here working.”

Follow Jeremy McDonald on Twitter at @J_McDonald81 or like jmcdonaldmedia on Facebook!