2016 Covenant Life XC Invitational

We've had a great start to the season weather-wise. The sun didn't appear until after the JV race, providing excellent running conditions for our boys.

The Covenant Life course in Gaithersburg consisted of two circuits around a 1.5-mile loop. Today's course was, in my opinion, faster than the one up at Brunswick. The course featured only a few minor hills and the start and finish lines were right next together, so there was no overall elevation change from start to finish. That said, it was a full 5 kilometers (3.1 miles), while Brunswick was just a 3-mile course.

Given the two weeks we have had to work since Brunswick, I expected our healthy athletes to run around the same time today as they did at Brunswick. Some of our boys have been limited in practice the last couple weeks and so were not as race-ready as they will be later in the season.

We did not see the same level of competition as we did at Brunswick. The overall fastest time of the day was 17:47.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes. The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the JV race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

63 London Bailey (Fr.) - 22:08 [(1) 6:58, (2) 7:57, (3.1) 7:13]

82 Brandon Turpin (Fr.) - 23:25 [(1) 7:03, (2) 7:52, (3.1) 8:30]

95 Andrew Byrd (Sr.) - 25:57 [(1) 7:27, (2) 8:38, (3.1) 9:52]

106 Caleb Ghatt (Fr.) - 29:34 [(1) 8:03, (2) 10:02, (3.1) 11:29]

London has been working through some pain in his knees and I was a bit nervous putting him out there on Saturday. We still have to take it a little easy in practice to protect his legs, but he turned in a great race on Saturday. Despite the course being a tenth of a mile longer than Brunswick, London ran 3 minutes and 45 seconds faster than he did two weeks ago. Brandon's Achilles and shins have been bothering him and I wanted him to step off the course when he passed me at the mile mark. He completed his first race in a solid time, and hopefully he didn't aggravate anything. Though I would have liked for him to play it safe, I appreciate his never quit mentality.

Andrew came through the mile mark in exactly the same time as he did two weeks ago at Brunswick. He fell a bit off the pace after, but that may be due to the tight ankle wrap he wore due to a pretty severe ankle sprain he suffered early in the week following Brunswick. As for Caleb, he ran 30 seconds faster for his first mile than in his last race, ran almost the same split for his second mile, and finished the race very well.

Note: Manuel Legaspi (So.) came through the mile in 7:14 but stepped off because he rolled his ankle during the race. He was walking fine on it afterwards but it was probably a wise decision to play it safe and step off the course.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes. The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

5 Devin Smith (Fr.) - 18:09 [(1) 5:22, (2) 5:37, (3.1) 7:10]

10 Matthew Metz (Jr.) - 18:40 [(1) 5:36, (2) 5:40, (3.1) 7:24]

13 Jacob Keppler (Sr.) - 18:51 [(1) 5:35, (2) 5:47, (3.1) 7:29]

19 John Ahalt (Jr.) - 19:25 [(1) 5:42, (2) 5:59, (3.1) 7:44]

31 Thomas Parsons (Fr.) - 20:10 [(1) 6:14, (2) 6:06, (3.1) 7:50]

33 Ashby Ervin (So.) - 20:17 [(1) 5:57, (2) 6:18, (3.1) 8:02]

Matthew met my expectation more perfectly than seems possible. He ran exactly the same time at Covenant Life as he did at Brunswick. Jacob Keppler was only four seconds off his time from two weeks ago. Thomas was the only other varsity runner who ran at Brunswick. Though his time was slower than at Brunswick, his overall pace was just a little faster and he pulled off an impressive feat, running his second mile faster than his first.

Devin had a terrific debut. He was in the lead at the mile mark and was not overtaken until just before the second mile marker. He was unable to hold the pace from his first two miles down the stretch, but that will come with experience. Today was also the first race of the season for John and Ashby. Next week at Landon I will be looking for them and Thomas to do what Matthew and Jacob did by making an adjustment from last meet and running more even splits in the first two miles while conserving enough energy not to fall so far off the pace down the stretch.

Note: Westley Douglas (So.) was right behind Ashby at the mile mark, coming through in 6:01. I was really happy with his effort in the first race of his career. Unfortunately he's not quite healthy yet from the lower leg issues that kept him out of the Brunswick Invitational so he came off the course when he ran by me at the mile mark to avoid aggravating it.

Team Results

Though they scored teams for the JV race, Covenant Life did not officially do so for the varsity race. I was able to go back through the result and score each team, however. The teams stacked up like this:

1. Georgetown Prep 56 points

2. Gaithersburg 59 points

3. The Heights 61 points

4. DeMatha 75 points

5. Washington Latin 129 points

6. Magruder 160 points

7. Gonzaga 164 points

8. McLean 238 points

9. Covenant Life 238 points

While that was the Gonzaga in the WCAC, this was not the varsity squad we will see at the conference championships. The varsity team was in North Carolina for the Adidas XC Invitational.

I thought were were a little bit closer to Georgetown Prep than we wound up being, but I am very happy with the team's performance. I hope to have an update on Josh Gatti's foot/ankle in the next few days to get an idea of his recovery time table. I am still hopefully he will be able to contribute at the championships. I also look forward to seeing how Westley can do when he is healthy. For everyone else, I am excited knowing they will improve, especially our young runners whose increasing knowledge of how to run this distance should result in significant improvement over the next few meets.

Next week we will get to see how we stack up against two of our closest WCAC competitors, St. John's and Bishop Ireton, at the Landon Invitational. Look for information concerning that meet early next week.

"I succeed on my own personal motivation, dedication, and commitment. My mindset is: If I'm not out there training, someone else is." - Lynn Jennings