Sehome High School is located in Bellingham, Wa which is about twenty miles south of the Canadian border. The Sehome Mariners compete at Washington's 2A level and last year both girls and boys won the 2A Washington Cross Country state titles. Both teams return most of their athletes and look to defend the titles. On the Saturday visit, the athletes ran their Saturday long run at the Interurban Trail near Fairhaven. At the end of the run, athletes have a Sehome tradition of slapping the stop sign.
Long time Coach Kevin Ryan explained their summer schedule and the program:
During the summer season, how often does the team practice? We offer practices 6 days a week. M-W-F we meet at 9am at Lake Padden. Tues & Thurs we meet at 4pm at the school or nearby. Saturday we meet at 9am at the Vet for our long run.
What are some special summer activities? A large amount of kids attend the White Pass Cross Country Camp. This year we had 59 kids attend. We have a Varsity camping trip to Orcas Island at the end of July where we camp at Moran State Park for 4 days and 3 nights and run the trails – one of the days we will run to the top of Mount Constitution. We will have some other fun days such as a digital scavenger hunt.
How do you build team culture? The culture comes from the veterans on the team and we work with them to make sure it is an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcome. They are high school kids, so it isn’t always going to be perfect and they are going to make mistakes along the way. We try to stress that every year is a new team and it is up to them to build that year’s culture and that it doesn’t need to be identical to past years – they don’t need to do all the same things. We have a summer kick-off each year which is a meet and greet for new runners and their parents to welcome them to the team. The White Pass Camp plays a large role as the kids are all together for a week and it includes a goal setting session where they meet as a team and not only discuss goals, but discuss the past year’s culture – pros and cons. This gives the opportunity for the team to have an honest discussion about how thing went the previous year and what things they may need to work on. A really simple thing is that on our Lake Padden run days in the summer (M-W-F) we have Otter Pops after the run. This results in kids of all levels hanging around and socializing longer after their run.
What are some events that the team is looking forward to in the fall season? Our first invite of the year is the Northwest XC Preview that we host at Civic Stadium in town with around 50 teams attending. The kids always look forward to this is they finally get to let it loose and race. This year we will travel to The Mook to race and the kids are really looking forward to that trip. Marysville Nike Twilight is always one of our kids favorite meets because of the atmosphere and it being on a golf course. Both teams are also excited about racing in the Elite Race at The Hole in the Wall in early October.
To see the photos of the practice, click HERE
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