Tips to stay healthy

Dear Cross Country Parents,
Traditionally this time of year, students are getting sick by the bunch. There have been years where I have seen almost half the team pass around colds, flu and other infections. That has been happening to a few members of the team, and we want to take preventative measures to minimize this as much as possible. We believe preventative medicine is much better that curative medicine. It becomes particularly important that our kids stay healthy as we enter our championship portion of the season (county, region, sectionals and state). Therefore, we are sending home a reminder to the kids with a list of tips (listed below) to avoid getting sick in the days and weeks to come.

Here are just a few reminders as to how to stay healthy:

Get enough REST!!!
Eat a healthy diet (protein, carbohydrate, vegetables)
Take a vitamin a day
Hydrate your body with lots of water
Wash your hands before you eat
Don't drink after each other (Exceptions can be made if you drink out of the same squirt bottle in a manner that does not spread germs)
Leave the caps of the squirt bottles open (so we don't have to touch them where people are drinking, thus we prevent hand-to-mouth passage of germs)
Stay warm (getting out of the shower, outside, etc.)

Hopefully, this will help reduce the spreading of germs and keep us strong throughout our season. Our season has been very successful thus far and we do not want to hinder that success.
We ask that the parents help keep the kids accountable, as much as possible, to assist us in this task. Let me qualify this with two statements. First, I am sure that most of us are already doing these things at home and at practice. Second, I understand that we may not be able to follow these guidelines perfectly (for example, some nights you are just going to be up later than usual doing homework), but we want to do the very best we can.
Thank you for your assistance in this undertaking.