Cross Country News

Northern Zones Championships: A big congratulations to our seven year 4 - 6 students who competed at the Northern Zone Cross Country Championships last Thursday. Not only did they represent the school well by behaving excellently, but they were self-motivated and put lots of effort into preparing for the race. Our students all competed well on the day, finishing well up in each of their races. A special congratulations to Tom Pavan who finished in 7th place and goes through to Wellington Inter-Zones as a result.

Cross-Country Training: A number of students (of all ages) have indicated that they would like to continue with cross country training. My husband, John, and daughters, Zara and Serena, are prepared to help with this. On Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes they will come to school and do some cross country training with students who are interested. In order to ensure variety in the training and some hill training which is essential to cross country running, the training will sometimes happen on the school site, but will also sometimes happen off site but adjacent to school - no transport will be involved. For example, they may use Romaine Road for hill training or they may walk to Derry Hill and use the path and steps up the hill for training. If you are unwilling for your child to leave the school site in this way, please let us know.

On Monday afternoons, John is happy to organise a longer run (up Mt Kaukau) for the older students after school. Zara and Serena will accompany the students on the run - one at the back and one at the front. They run Mt Kaukau several times a week, so are very familiar with the area. John would pick up these older students after school on Monday and transport them to where the run will start and then drop them home afterwards. We will send out a separate email to parents when we have an idea of which older students are interested to gain your consent for this.

Just to let you know - John is a very experienced middle distance coach. He has coached for many years and has had athletes compete at the highest levels of International and National competition. However, John is happy to work with anyone who wants to run, but he most particularly enjoys working with people who are willing to put effort in to improve.

Below photos of the students at the Northern Zone Cross Country Championships. Thanks to Voula for taking these.