Week Eight: Tracking the Newton South Cross Country team

Seniors Melanie Fineman (19:02.4) and Madeleine Reed (19:21.8) took third and fifth place respectively, while sophomore Anna Laurence set a personal best on the course with an 11th-place finish in a time of 19:55.8.

‘‘Our top three ran great; they have a chance to finish in the top three at All-States,’’ said South head coach Steven McChesney. ‘‘After the meet, me and [Lincoln-Sudbury head coach] Henry [Phalen] conferred and he thought we’d won and I thought they’d won. Unfortunately I was right, but we’ve been playing this game with L-S the last five years and neither is satisfied unless they win this meet.’’

The night before the meet, McChesney learned that Phalen had been named the National Coach of the Week by DYEstat.com, an honor McChesney received last season. The award added just enough motivation to push L-S over the top.

‘‘I knew they came in with an added sense of pride and motivation after seeing their coach get that honor,’’ McChesney said. ‘‘So I came in the next morning with my jacket on and said to the girls, ‘You’ve got a National Coach of the Year too.’ ‘‘It just shows that we never have to look much further than down the road for our best competition.’’

Looking ahead

The Lions traveled to Wrentham yesterday to compete in the State Coaches Invitational. Normally McChesney would run his alternates, but he planned to run two of his top seven varsity runners on the 5K course.

Junior Jenny Epstein and freshman Kayla Burton were to use the meet to gain more experience before running at this year’s EMass. Division 1 meet and all-state meets, which are scheduled for Nov. 14 and Nov. 21, respectively. At the DCL meet, Burton placed 23d (20:56.4) and Epstein finished 32d (21:40.2).

‘‘Very rarely do I run anyone that will be in the top seven at this meet,’’ said McChesney. ‘‘But I want Jenny and Kayla to run one more meet to get more experience. With Kayla being injured and coming back for DCL, it will be good for her. Typically this meet is a reward for those who won’t run at states, but it’ll give Jenny and Kayla more experience going into those big meets.’’

Coach McChesney’s tip

Buy a training log or diary online or at any store that specializes in running. Each day, record your sleep hours, pulse rate, miles that day, time run for distance runs, accumulated miles for the week, workout times run, and how you felt.

If a log is up to date, you can use it as a formula for future training. You can also see when and how things may have started to go wrong. You can see if certain trends are forming. You can also see if an athlete does well during low-mileage times, but struggles when the mileage gets to a certain point. A lot of answers can be found about why things happen in your running by keeping a log.

I can often point out how little sleep an athlete is getting during certain periods and find many warning signs of illness and injury are right there in a runner’s log, as well as what works best for them and a future road map to success.

To keep healthy we ask our kids to get into a new pair of shoes about every 400 miles. This is made simple if an athlete jots down in their log book the day that they started in a new pair of shoes. Then predict about when 400 miles will come by averaging future miles and they pretty much know when it is time to get a new pair.

A running log is a recording of your training. Reading that data reduces a lot of the guesswork that could go into writing a training program.

Compiled by Sapna Pathak

TRACKING THE TEAM For more coverage of the Newton South girls’ cross- country team, go online to www.boston.com/newton.