2017 Landon Invitational

Last year, 17 boys teams competed at the Landon Invitational. The field was a bit thinner this year as only 12 teams showed up, but all of the top placing teams from last year's meet were here so believe when I say the level of competition was about on par with previous editions of the invitational.

It was a little warmer than the forecast predicted. The temperature and humidity were both right around 75 when the varsity boys started their race and while the humidity dropped a bit, it was around 79 or 80 degrees by the time the JV race began. This is pretty ideal weather for racing, but may have shocked some of the boys' systems after a fairly cool, often overcast week. Overall, the guys did quite well today, but this is just one more lesson and reminder of how important it is to keep your body hydrated even when feel like you don't need to take in as much water.

Our JV athletes finally had the opportunity to start and finish a race today, and I am very glad because we had some very promising performers from this group, as you will see.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (122 total entries in the race). 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:

12 Hayward Smith-Cassidy (So.) - 21:22.2 [(1) 6:21, (2) 7:09, (3.1) 7:52]

19 Manuel Legaspi (Jr.) - 21:55.0 [(1) 6:40, (2) 7:00, (3.1) 8:15]

30 Creedence Jackson (Fr.) - 22:39.6 [(1) 6:40, (2) 7:41, (3.1) 8:19]

54 Mathias Roy (So.) - 24:10.2 [(1) 7:26, (2) 7:58, (3.1) 8:46]

60 Robert Gordon (Fr.) - 24:39.9 [(1) 7:43, (2) 8:05, (3.1) 8:52]

72 Lucas Arzayus (So.) - 25:24.0 [(1) 7:48, (2) 8:26, (3.1) 9:10]

75 London Bailey (So.) - 25:37.0 [(1) 7:29, (2) 8:53, (3.1) 9:15]

80 Nathaniel Ager (Fr.) - 25:49.6 [(1) 7:45, (2) 8:46, (3.1) 9:19]

87 Cameron Polk (Fr.) - 26:06.7 [(1) 8:10, (2) 8:51, (3.1) 9:06]

97 Bodior Elliott (So.) - 26:59.5 [(1) 8:53, (2) 8:44, (3.1) 9:23]

98 Drew Robertson (Jr.) - 26:59.9 [(1) 7:56, (2) 9:18, (3.1) 9:46]

118 Ryan Kasner (Fr.) - 33:01.3 [(1) 9:56, (2) 11:20, (3.1) 11:45]

I was very impressed with some of these performances, but the first thing that jumped out to me and Coach Sam was Bodior's splits. He negative-split every single mile of this race (that is, he actually got faster throughout the race). His second mile was 9 seconds faster than his first, and during the last 1.1-mile section he was running at a pace of 8:32 per mile, or 12 seconds faster than his second mile. While this typically is not the formula used by successful runners on the varsity stage, I am very pleased with Bodior's race because it suggests to me that he is learning how to pace himself properly. As he becomes more in-tune with his body and develops a feel for the 5k distance, he will get better at determining what the right pace is for him.

Hayward did a fantastic job yesterday. He did not run cross country last year but did run track. He had an okay season, but I wasn't sure what to expect from him in a longer distance. He had a terrific workout on Wednesday and backed that up today with a time that will earn him a varsity roster spot for the Wildcat Invitational in two weeks.

Last season, Manuel was a tough athlete for me to read. I wasn't always sure how much he wanted to run, though he always seemed to do pretty well on our quality workouts, especially later in the season as we moved to half-mile repeats. He put in a good workout this week when we did 1000m threshold repeats. As we were preparing for the start of the race, he asked me what the time to beat was to earn a varsity spot. He felt that the time I gave him was doable, and indeed it was. He didn't quite earn a varsity spot for Wildcat, but he's within striking distance. In the mean time, he took nearly a minute off his time of 22:47 from last year's Landon Invitational (his PR up until today).

Team Results

1. St. John's 31 points

2. Spire Homeschool 99 points

3. The Heights 108 points

4. Landon 117 points

5. Bishop McNamara 123 points

6. St. Mary's 139 points

7. DeMatha 148 points

8. Bishop Ireton 180 points

9. Washington Latin PCS 266 points

The team place in the JV competition isn't ever really a big focus for me, but I am glad to see us within striking distance of most of these teams. Putting five athletes in the top 60 for the race was huge. Last year we only had one in the top 60 - Manuel, in 55th place. Even more importantly, last year we only had four competitors in the JV race, so having 12 athletes in today's JV race made me very happy. We had four athletes missing, three due to injury and one due to another obligation. Hopefully we can get those other guys healthy in the next two weeks because I'd very much like to see our full team able to go for our next meet.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (67 total entries in the race). 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:

8 Matthew Metz (Sr.) - 18:34.5 [(1) 5:48, (2) 6:08, (3.1) 6:39]

13 John Ahalt (Sr.) - 19:11.2 [(1) 5:58, (2) 6:22, (3.1) 6:51]

21 Thomas Parsons (So.) - 19:26.5 [(1) 6:01, (2) 6:27, (3.1) 6:59]

41 Gavin Foran (Fr.) - 20:48.3 [(1) 6:10, (2) 7:24, (3.1) 7:14]

47 Ashby Ervin (Jr.) - 21:36.0 [(1) 6:31, (2) 7:14, (3.1) 7:51]

48 James Hudson (Fr.) - 21:36.7 [(1) 6:25, (2) 7:18, (3.1) 7:54]

56 Steven Camarano (Fr.) - 22:52.8 [(1) 6:53, (2) 7:51, (3.1) 8:08]

Our guys ran hard. Matthew and John ran their races almost exactly the same as they did last year and ultimately ran just a bit faster than they did on this course a year ago. Thomas took more than a minute off his time from last year. I know he's anxious to run his first sub-19:00 5k in a DeMatha uniform, but he is well on his way and I am confident he will do so before the season is over.

Our freshmen are still learning the distance. During the second mile of the course all three fell at least 50 seconds off the pace they set in the first mile. All three, though, ran at a faster pace in the third mile. Part of this was likely due to the challenging hill near the end of the second mile, but I also think this indicates all three are able to recover in the middle of a race. The more times they get to run this distance, the more comfortable they will feel with it. I am very happy with their early-season performances.

Team Results

1. St. John's 49 points

2. Landon 49 points

3. Washington Latin PCS 119 points

4. The Heights 127 points

5. DeMatha 128 points

6. St. Mary's 150 points

7. Bishop Ireton 154 points

8. Bullis 158 points

9. Maret 247 points

Keep in mind while reading these results that if Anthony had been healthy for this race, we would have easily placed 3rd (20:15 would have placed him 36th and dropped us to 118 points). Based on where I think he would have been when healthy, we could have been under 100 points. That is still a significant gap to close to get up with St. John's. This was a solid meet, but we have a lot of work to do.

Final Thoughts

We are allowed seven varsity runners at the Wildcat Invitational in two weeks. Our varsity will consist of Matthew, John, Thomas, Anthony, Gavin, Hayward, and Ashby. If we have an injury, we will have the ability to move others up to varsity the day of the meet, so James and Manuel will be our two alternates for varsity.

One thing we have to be better about is remaining focused during practice, especially when we come together for strength work at the end of practice. The strength work is probably the most important thing we do, and some of us are not putting in the effort during this part of the workout. We'll talk more about this as a team on Monday.

"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen." - John Wooden, UCLA basketball coach