We have a lot to catch up on!
January Conditioning Restarts
Monta Vista Cross Country got together again–in PERSON!–to begin conditioning on Tuesday, January 19. MVXC has seen about 20 runners out consistently, and while it has been cold, otherwise the weather has been kind. The running has felt good, and seeing each other in person has been GREAT…I can’t tell you how good it feels to see our athletes face to face. I miss you all when we are not together.
MVXC athletes got some solid running in this week, and once more found the rhythm of running as a group and being safe.
SCVAL Announces XC Season Plans!
This week, we got the news that there can be a cross country season!
The Santa Clara Valley Athletic League agreed with CCS to pull out and run it’s own athletic competitions for the rest of this academic year. Cross country will be the first sport to restart; first practice of the season is scheduled for Monday, February 1. The season will last until the end of March.
Details of the season still need to be determined; we will keep you informed as we learn more. There is talk about meets being on Wednesdays this season, and trying to run some dual and tri meets to get some more competition for our athletes.
Athletes, please note that beginning on February 1, everyone must have completed their athletic clearance in order to practice and compete with our team. A list of all the athletes cleared as of January 24 is at the end of this post. Clearance procedures are posted.
Please fill out this form so your coach knows that you are planning to join the team for the February-March cross country season.
Mac and Cheese with Truffle Shuffle and Des Linden
After an eventful first week, the team got together on Saturday night and Boston Marathon champion Desiree Linden to cook truffled Mac and Cheese with Truffle Shuffle. It was a pretty great night and we all learned how to bring our mac and cheese skills to a new level. Even if there is no truffle carpaccio handy, we can use these techniques to build a wonderful Mac and Cheese–we don’t have to rely on those little boxes!
If you can cook, you will always have friends around you. Besides all the practical benefits and health advantages of being able to prepare your own meals, being able to cook allows you to bring some joy into the world and some happiness to the people in your life. The point is to be able to cook a nice meal and have people gather around a table as a group–as a family–to eat. Get people to be able to depend on you and offer them some joy and community in a world that doesn’t always make things easy. After a while, people will be asking you, ‘is there dinner this weekend?’
People can get lonely, and they want to be part of something. Invite people over, they show up, you can feed them. There is lots of pleasure to be found in cooking for others as well as cooking for yourself. You are not only feeding your bodies, you are feeding your souls.
I hope that you all find yourself making some special Mac and Cheese five, ten and twenty years from now, and thinking back to Saturday night with your cross country team where you learned how.
Athletes Who Have Completed Clearance for the Season
As Of January 24
Kimaya Basu
Sophia Chen
Upasana Dilip
Sandhya Fasnacht
Margaux Francouer
Ellie Hsu
Rachel Jiang
Insiah Kizilbash
Srika Kodur
Meena Kolli
Anoushka Lakshmi
Vivian Lau
Megan Nieh
Sylvana Northrop
Nikhita Saldi
Jannah Sheriff
Sydney Stevens
Jasmine Varma
Rohun Agrawal
Sean Basu
Andrew Cole
Sotirios Kougirious
Arnav Latkar
John McNelis
Alex Nguyen
Max Ready
Pranav Reddy
Andrew Richardson
Nathaniel Schober
Matthew Sun
Brian Xu
