Welcome to the 2009 Denville Strider Track Season. Our first meet is home (Morris Knolls) on Sunday, April 5^th. Our first practice is Monday, March 23^rd. If weather permits we may start practice a week earlier which would be Monday, March 16^th. Please have your child at Morris Knolls track promptly at 6:30 PM. Each child will be required to sign-in. After sign-ups I will speak briefly to the athletes and after have them take two laps around the track and meet in the middle of the field for warm-ups. Warm-ups will take approximately 10 – 20 minutes. The warm-ups are required so the athletes can stretch and loosen their muscles before the aggressive running begins.

Either I or one of the assistant coaches will need an additional 15 minutes of the parent’s time to discuss our home meet on Sunday, April 5th. In order to have the meet we need a number of volunteers to fill the tasks that are necessary to host a home track event. There is only ONE home meet, and therefore it is mandatory that all families participate. I have attached a copy of the assignments. Please read over the task description and advise where you would be able to help. On Wednesday, April 1^st at the beginning of practice I will have a Parent sign-up sheet available to take names of volunteers.

All athletes need to be at the meets 30 minutes before the starting time to sign-in and begin warming up to prepare for their competition. Meets start promptly at 1:00 (please see schedule for times) with the 9 – 10 boys 800 meter race going first.

Please review the attached events list with your son or daughter. Send me an e-mail to d.farrelly@healthedencore.com and farrel23@tcnj.edu and confirm which of these events your child would be interest in running. Please note to always send your reply to both e-mail addresses. Some correspondence may be done through e-mail therefore it is mandatory that I receive an e-mail address from each athlete.

Please review the Denville Strider website at: http://www.denvillestriders.webs.com. All updates will be posted on this website. Due to the amount of athletes on the team it is impossible to continue sending updates via e-mail as in past years.

Each child may participate in FOUR EVENTS, 2 individual running events, 1 relay (if selected) and 1 field event (Long Jump or Shot Put). There is only one 400 X 100 meter relay and if I do have enough athletes to field two teams for each age group, the 4 athletes with the best times will be our relay team. I have also listed the order of running events during a weekly meet. This will show you the order in which your child will be scheduled to run.

Please try to forward me your child’s track and field interests as soon as possible. Having this information before our first practice will help me to organize and separate our athletes into groups by sprints and distance runners. This will also provide me with a plan on how many coaches I need to recruit.

Please be sure your child has eaten at least one hour before practice. All athletes should bring a bottle of water, wear layered clothing if cold or cool, tie back long hair, and wear running sneakers – NO SPIKES are allowed at Morris Knolls!! For those athletes who prefer wearing spikes, they are allowed at away meets.

I am looking forward to a great 2009 Spring Track Season.

Coach Donna