We met Oakdale Cross Country on the last week of summer practice before they started school the following week. The freshman were inside the school for orientation and some of the older cross country runners were leading freshman orientation and were unable to practice. Head coach Guy Fowler was inside school with teacher orientation and assistant coach Vic Moreno led the team at practice. The Oakdale Mustangs won the boy's California Division 3 state title last fall and with five varsity athletes returning this fall, they hope to defend the title.
Today was an easy day where they ran in the neighborhood with the dog park as the turnaround point of the run. Oakdale High School is located in the "Cowboy Capital in the World" of the San Joaquin Valley (near Modesto) and has a celebrated rodeo in the spring.
Coach Moreno described summer practices and the program:
When does Oakdale practice in the summer?
We practice at 8:30am Monday through Thursday throughout the summer, but we do take one week off on the week of the of July 4th. However, they are still expected to put in their miles.
What are some special summer activities?
Our only special activity is TRAINING. During the summer families are traveling and kids are here with us when they can be. It rare for all of us to be together at one time during the summer weeks so it makes doing an organized activity difficult without leaving someone out.
How does Oakdale build the team culture?
Our culture is built upon consistency. We train together year round with the purpose of reaching each athlete's full potential. The freshman come in and they are led by example
by the upperclassmen. Our two seniors who graduated this past year, Dax and Caleb, really started this by buying into the program and doing everything we asked of them. I believe they were the first true distance runners this school has ever seen. Every sport has its own culture and these two really embraced the culture of distance running and others soon followed.
Our athletes are like family. They train together of course, but they also do most everything else together too.
What are some of the Oakdale team traditions during the cross country season?
I am not sure we have any team traditions other than maybe the boys and their chili pepper shorts. They have raced in them almost exclusively the past two post seasons and they have worked out well for them. It remains to be seen if they will be wearing them again this coming championship season.
We talked with Omar Alsaidi about the team:
One of the highlights of summer training is all of the guys coming together. None of us have to be here, but we choose to be here. We all know who is going to step up this season. Fun runs around here? We go down to the farm lands, it kind of smells, but it is pretty fun. I am looking forward to this season is being underrated. We are never really good until the last month of the season. If you look to last year, in October we were barely breaking sixteen minutes and then we had four guys under sixteen minutes by the State Meet. I like being out of the scene . . . . being outside looking in and then breaking in.
Check out the photo gallery of Oakdale's run HERE
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