Gate City Striders

     The Gate City Youth program is for young runners between the ages of 7 and 18. It is a year long program that focusses on devoloping a healthy lifestyle while offering friendly competition at the USATF level. We offer a full range of competition starting with Track and Field, Indoor Track, Cross Country, and local road races. Practices are usually 2-3 days a week for about an hour and a half. Our focus at practice is not only to train the kids to be the best they can but educate them in areas of stretching, nutrition, and mental preparation to be a winner. Our coaches will spend close attention to all of the youth athletes’ needs and will further their desire to love running.
     Each year in our Track and Field program we advance a young athlete to the USATF Nationals. Last year Parker Lyttle and Corey Hahnl represented Gate City in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 2008 Cecelia Muller, Peggy Lai, and Corey Hahnl Qualified for Nationals. In 2007 Cassandra Wright, Peggy Lai, and Gus von Marschall qualified and in 2006 Connor Crowley participated in Maryland.
   Last year was our first big year in Cross Country with Gate City fielding 3 girls teams from the ages of 8 to 14. Our 13-14 year old girls team went all the way to Nationals in Reno, Nevada and placed 7^th . We were the first team from the east coast in both the regional and local competition. This year we are planning to field both Boys and Girls teams in all age groups.

If you any questions please contact our Youth Program Director Michael Wright at mmscoachwright@comcast.net.