All right. So today I’m here with Coach Leon Chau from the cross country team. So first question, what is your go to smoothie from Fartlecks since you love to take your runners out on a sweet treat every now and then.

 I kind of get something new every time. Like, they change the menus up. But usually I like things with coconut and things like that. So I think the last time it was called the Turtle Trot, but I have no idea what it’s called right now. 

Oh, and then you also like to take your students to Milk Flow as well. Do you get anything from there?I usually don’t. The couple of times I’ve taken them, I just let them get whatever, whether it’s ice cream or a shake.

Okay. So this is your second year back as the cross-country head coach. What made you take on that role? 

I wasn’t really expecting to be a coach at all, but, you know, I’ve had experience with running in. The coach left there, or one of the kids. Their coach left the first year. Miss Meyer, Emily Meyer.

But. And then. So they had an opening, and then Brown took over and, Yeah, he wasn’t too sure about what to do, and he was just. He kept asking me for help, and eventually the kids kind of convinced me to take over.

 Okay. So what challenges did you face when trying to expand the cross country team?

 I would say the cross country team requires a certain atmosphere in our school right now.

Running is such a main punishment for sportswear. People will say, oh, I don’t want to run. I don’t run or run. I can’t run a mile, I can’t run a lap. But like, it’s all about learning. And like, that’s the same thing with sports in general. But when a sport is only running, a lot of students don’t see glory in that versus, when they see football or basketball, volleyball, they feel like they can do something and it looks cooler. And so I would say running doesn’t look cool to certain people. 

Do you try to encourage kids to come out to, like, maybe take it as a conditioning for like maybe like a winter sport that they may be going into?

That is one of the main things I try to provide as an opportunity to students where I do have some kids on it now who want to do it just because they’re on the soccer team or things like that. So I tell people, running cross country, yes, you can come compete, but I’ve had a lot of people who have never done a sport before or they want to try a sport or they need a condition. And I would say, yeah, I think that’s one thing I’m going to try next year. Just try to push that. If you’re going to do a different sport, like a winter or a spring sport, you need to be running.

You need to be doing some type of conditioning in the fall.

 And then what kind of, what kind of meats do you guys run? Do you run like A5K? At your meets or how does that work? 

Yeah. So every meet we usually have one once a week. So we only have a total of seven. But each race is always the same, which is A5K.

So this season you actually hosted your own cross-country meet. is this your first time? What was that like for you? 

What I like so, we hosted one last year, so the previous athletic director and the previous coach kind of set this up. And then last year, it was kind of just thrown upon me. So we had help from the district who helped, you know, set most things up. And, and this year was our official first year where, you know, our new athletic director. And with me, we kind of had to set everything up, whether it’s online or finding a location. Our meet last year, we lost the location this year. So we had to find an alternative. And in the end, it all worked out. So the meet we ran the course ran last year. This year is actually the course they chose for regionals last year. So it was a pretty tough course. So it was good for kids to get that.

 And then recently your players went to GWAL. How did they participate and how did they do? And how’d they do at GWAL. 

So at GWAL that was kind of like our last hoo-rah. That was our last hurrah because in terms of regionals, I was only going to take the fastest runners. So at GWAL that was everyone’s last chance to show their progress. And so it was at a course at Cessna Activity Center where they ran before. And so this was finally their whole progress and final moment to show their whole progress throughout the year. And everyone broke their PR by like, you know, four minutes, which in running is crazy. Some people broke by like a minute or two. So everyone ran way faster than I expected. And who are you going to take to regional regionals? The only student I was going to take this year, the only student I was going to take this year, and who I did take the regional was, his name is Ty Julio Torres Clark, and he is the one who is the most experienced. So this is a senior year. And, yeah, he is the fastest by far compared to everyone else. Like I said, everyone else is still learning. And obviously some people, I say, are just joining in. So they are at that high level like a lot of the other runners in other schools. And Ty Julio is one.

And how did he compare regionals? 

We ran a course that we have never run before. So doing cross-country and like how everything is 5K, supposedly. But when things are measured outside, different courses are different with hills, the heat and the time you run. There’s so many psychological and physical factors that affect a runner day by day. And so during that race, he did run slower than he had before, but he was still within the 20 minute mark, which is, like I said, running faster. You know, running 20 minutes or running 3.1 miles in 20 minutes is crazy for anyone. But yeah, he was happy with his progress. And unfortunately, you know, he didn’t make it to state. But like I said, I was happy with what he did. And like I said, it was a hard DRI course with lots of hills and like just in the middle, you know, the middle of nowhere. And usually we run early in the morning. And his running time for his group was at 11: 45. So at that point, you know, things were getting hotter. And like I said, the whole area was already dry. There hasn’t been rain in the area we’re in Hutchinson. 

How are you further to encourage kids to come out and run, encourage kids. That’s for next year.

Like I said, as for next year, like I said, running. These are things we like. We also have to promote hard and also get kids who need that conditioning. So like if I’m going to work with other coaches and the athletic director, try to get something out there, just kind of get something out there where it’s like, hey, if you’re doing a sport, you need to do some type of conditioning beforehand. I know sports like to do their own conditioning ahead of time, but at the same time, if they’re just going to make the kids run at those practices, they might as well just send them to cross-country. And like I said, I’ll make them good runners. I’ll like I said, having the conditioning there, we create. I think I was the one who kind of brought on like at orientation. I brought up the idea for coaches to kind of have one on one time or like with small groups of students with the orientation kids, the freshmen and the new kids. I made the idea, I got it approved, but I didn’t actually get to go. So I didn’t actually get promoted to any of the new kids there. So I that’s why, you know, I didn’t get many underclassmen, but I think at the end of the year I want to do something similar where I’ve talked to, I’m going to try to do another kind of activities fair, but at the end of the year, where only for sports so we can get kids sign up and get physicals and so they can go to summer conditioning. I think that’s a big thing. Like a lot of kids don’t go to summer conditioning because they don’t have the information on or they don’t have the physical. So that’s my big thing. I’m going to promote. At the end of the year.

Would you also promote at west fest. We include eighth graders and feeder schools.

Yes, correct. Yes. So schools yeah I have a yes. So yeah, I have a booth at West Fest for cross-country and like yeah, we’re going to try to promote it. I’m gonna try to contact middle schools because that’s the other thing. Like get in contact with those feeder schools, try to get them in. But like, same idea. A lot of kids will say, oh, I ran in middle school. I ran in the school, but they won’t because now they have more opportunities. They’re like, oh, I want to try football now and try this and that. So like that is one thing where you know, if we have runners who like running, we have runners who like running. That’s what I want, like I want, I like teaching new people how to run. But I want runners who are athletes who want to run. And they have been running their whole lives. And I kind of want to find those kids before, you know they choose other opportunities, like, you know, like I said, I want them to try a bunch of things, but like I said, cross-country, obviously I want them

All right. So if you’re listening to this now, come run for cross-country. We want more pioneer runners. Thank you for your time.

This episode was produced by Liliana Gonzalez on behalf of the Pioneer Press out of West High School. Music. Chris by Grace McCoy. For more pioneers, news and updates, visit us at s word.com or Instagram at Pioneer Press.