The team, who finished in fourth place overall in 2010, are just one point behind Hale and determined to reach their goal, according to co-senior coach Katy Hooper. Miss Hooper and co-senior coach Kate Williams are new to cross country coaching at CCGS this year. They are joined by Diane Hooley, now in her fourth season of junior coaching, and the squad’s professional coach Chris de Boer, an 800m specialist who has competed at national level.

Miss Hooper said the boys had great respect for Chris, who began coaching Christ Church last year. “I think Chris’s coaching has had a really positive effect on the boys and they have been starting to race as a team. Sometimes, I think it’s hard for the boys to get their head around that they are not running as individual and that the outcomes are better when they work together.”

The seniors have a 3-3 win-loss record while the junior team is in a similar position with a 2-2 record. In general, the 39 senior squad members have all improved, knocking off on average of about 30 seconds from their times over the 5km-distance this season. Ms Hooley said most of the 25 junior boys had also improved their 3km times by at least 30 seconds.

Cross Country Captain Sam Foster (Year 12) said most of the senior boys had been running in excess of 50km a week. “This sort of training has been necessary to train the boys for the gruelling 5km race distance,” Sam said. Helping to bolster the team’s power this season are three State representatives. They include Sam Foster, Seb Simich (Year 10) and Jack Hawkseford (Year 8), who have been selected in the 2011 WA Cross Country Team to compete at the All Schools Cross Country Nationals in Canberra in August.

The first event in Term 3 will be the All Schools 5 man x 2km relay (junior) and All Schools 5 man x 3km relay (senior) at Scotch on 29 and 30 July respectively. The following week Christ Church will host the All Schools 3km race (junior) and the All Schools 5km race (senior) at Kings Park on 5 and 6 August respectively.