Welcome to our seventh season. It looks like this year we’ll have our largest running contingent yet. We look forward to a great season of fun and challenging practices and competitive races.

Our season started with a practice last Saturday at the Hundred Acres Wood at the Indiana Museum of Art, and will end with the Indiana Middle School Championship, up in Carmel, on Saturday September 30th. (We will meet some on a more informal basis after Fall Break to train for the IPS Kid’s Movement 5k, which takes place on November 4th. Any runner on our team is eligible to do this, and there are usually a few spots for parents who have practiced with the team and wish to run. 7th and 8th graders with appropriate training may be eligible for the half marathon.)

Please make sure you complete your child’s registration process as quickly as possible. It’s all explained under “how to register” on our team app site. You’ll need to provide your runner’s information(make sure you request appropriate access group), sign the waiver and the code of conduct, and pay your dues. There is a scholarship fund for anyone who needs financial assistance. We would like this done by August 19. We will start distributing our jerseys then, and will know your runner’s size through the registration information

Our practices during the week are at Butler, meeting at Holcomb Gardens on Monday at 4:30 pm and at the softball field parking lot on Wednesday at 6:00 pm. On Saturdays we meet at the “chopstix” at the Hundred Acre Woods at 9 am. Practices are usually done in an hour. Parents are encouraged to run with us. We will try to post some general information about type of practice upcoming— whether a distance run, or an interval practice— for parents who might wish to run with us. You can find all practice information under “schedule” on our dashboard.

We currently have 6 meets on our schedule, and you can see information for each meet, as it becomes available, under “events” on our dashboard. The races are 3 kilometers or 1.8 miles, and usually include a girls and a boys race; bigger meets may have more specific age group races as well. As IPS has a late dismissal time compared to many schools, we usually have to move quickly after school, but we’ve never yet been too late to run.

Please make sure your child brings water to the runs, and please remind them to drink water during the day at school, especially if we start having more typically hot August weather. For meets that last some time, like the Horizon Christian races and the Middle School championship, we will have parents bring appropriate snacks for our runners. At meets we will always have our MIdtown Public tent out, and that will be where we congregate.

Those interested in spirit wear should place their order by August 19th, so that we can order appropriate sizes, and get them shipped to us and distributed while we still have events.

If you have any questions, please email me at midtownpublic@gmail.com or call me 317 523 8464. Many thanks to everyone who has volunteered already to help with both the coaching and some of the team chores, like uniforms and spirit wear. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Eric