2018 Glory Days Grill Invitational

We will likely have a later return time to DeMatha from Georgetown Prep in two weeks than we did today. The good news is that we won't have to leave DeMatha until after 10am for Georgetown Prep, so this is officially the longest meet we will attend this season. It was worth it, though, for our athletes to run on a sloppy but fast cross country course and to see the course they will run in three weeks at the WCAC Championships.

A few quick notes before we get to the results:

1. Today's course was officially measured at 2.95 miles, 242 meters short of a typical 5k. Unless we run the exact same course for championships, this will almost certainly be the only time our athletes run this distance during their cross country careers.

2. I spoke to today's meet director who will serve in the same role at WCACs. He said that if we get a couple weeks of dry weather, the problem areas of the course should be in great shape and we can return to the course we ran for championships last year. Now, that old course apparently is just a bit more than 5 kilometers (making all of the PRs at WCACs last year even more impressive). He intends to make a slight adjustment that would drop the distance right to 5k.

3. While this will not officially be a PR for our athletes, I have converted their times today to what their time would be in a 5k on a similar course - you will see this with a bold CT (Converted 5k Time). If you see Virtual PR by _____ after your time, that is a rough estimate of how much you would have PRed by had you run an additional 0.15 miles.

Open Race

Here are the results for our open athletes (98 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the open race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 0.95 mile splits:

6 Cory Puffett '10 - 17:15 [(1) 5:55, (2) 6:10, (2.95) 5:10] CT - 18:13

7 John Ahalt '18 - 17:28 [(1) 5:56, (2) 6:16, (2.95) 5:16] CT - 18:27

19 Matthew Metz '18 - 18:48 [(1) 5:57, (2) 7:02, (2.95) 5:51] CT - 19:51

All three of us took a wrong turn just before the half mile mark. I'd estimate I ran an extra 70 or 80 meters while John and Matthew probably ran an extra 40 or 50 meters between how far we went through the swamp and then having to double back. Sometimes I wonder why I bother training for just this one race each year, but I'm always happy I ran after the fact. I think the guys enjoy getting to see me race and I enjoy getting a taste of what our athletes have to go through a half dozen or more times every season.

Freshman

Here are the results for our freshmen athletes (277 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the freshman race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 0.95 mile splits:

50 Langston Stovall - 17:52 [(1) 6:04, (2) 6:25, (2.95) 5:23] CT - 18:52 Virtual PR by 1 minute 15 seconds

139 Tariq Lewis - 19:19 [(1) 6:12, (2) 7:13, (2.95) 5:50] CT - 20:24 Virtual PR by 1 minute 12 seconds

159 Dawson Grogan - 19:32 [(1) 5:56, (2) 7:05, (2.95) 6:31] CT - 20:38

206 Ronald Rucker - 20:27 [(1) 6:12, (2) 7:52, (2.95) 6:23] CT - 21:36 Virtual PR by 52 seconds

234 Sean Leonard - 21:26 [(1) 7:31, (2) 7:53, (2.95) 6:02] CT - 22:38 Virtual PR by 1 minute 35 seconds

237 Haroon Zaid - 21:29 [(1) 6:35, (2) 7:56, (2.95) 6:58] CT - 22:42 Virtual PR by 3 minutes 7 seconds

255 Jacob Robertson - 23:26 [(1) 7:04, (2) 8:41, (2.95) 7:41] CT - 24:45 Virtual PR by 3 minutes 23 seconds

276 Ian Brown - 28:07 [(1) 8:33, (2) 10:27, (2.95) 9:07] CT - 29:42 Virtual PR by 21 seconds

Langston ran a heck of a race today! Obviously by all of the virtual PRs our freshmen ran, every ran great today but I'm especially impressed by guys like Langston and Tariq who both took off more than 5 percent of their previous 5k PRs despite having less time available to drop than most of our other freshmen.

Haroon and Jacob did a really good job of running this course and figuring out how to use it to drastically drop their times. Sean ran the third fastest final mile(ish) of the race out of our eight freshmen.

Team Results

1. Loudoun Valley 82 points

2. Millbrook 116 points

3. Winston Churchill 121 points

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19. Good Counsel 502 points

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25. DeMatha 638 points

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28. Saint John Paul the Great 697 points

Though we finished far lower in the standings for this race this year, it's largely because we had two athletes finish in under 20 minutes on the 5k course last year. I do want to point out, though, that last year our top five freshmen averaged a time of 20 minutes 52 seconds. Our top five freshmen today averaged 19 minutes 43 seconds on the short course which converts to roughly 20 minute 50 seconds. Our top freshmen this year are comparable to our top freshmen last year. In fact, Haroon as our sixth man today was about as close to Sean as our sixth man last year was to our fifth.

JV #1

Here are the results for our JV athletes (215 total entries in the JV #1 race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the JV #1 race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 0.95 mile splits:

109 Julius Gamble (So.) - 19:25 [(1) 6:33, (2) 7:09, (2.95) 5:43] CT - 20:31 Virtual PR by 2 minutes 12 seconds

141 London Bailey (Jr.) - 20:09 [(1) 6:48, (2) 7:24, (2.95) 5:57] CT - 21:12

163 Dominic Williams-Dzirasa (Jr.) - 20:52 [(1) 6:50, (2) 7:47, (2.95) 6:15] CT - 22:02 Virtual PR by 2 minutes 20 seconds

186 Lucas Arzayus (Jr.) - 22:09 [(1) 7:22, (2) 8:07, (2.95) 6:40] CT - 23:24 Virtual PR by 20 seconds

192 Cameron Polk (So.) - 22:26 [(1) 7:20, (2) 8:28, (2.95) 6:36] CT - 23:42

194 James Carroll (So.) - 22:46 [(1) 7:18, (2) 8:31, (2.95) 6:57] CT - 24:03 Virtual PR by 15 seconds

198 Christopher Lamb (So.) - 23:08 [(1) 7:20, (2) 8:34, (2.95) 7:14] CT - 24:26 Virtual PR by 2 minutes 15 seconds

209 Bodior Elliott (Jr.) - 25:00 [(1) 7:42, (2) 9:26, (2.95) 7:52] CT - 26:25

210 Garett Joldersma (So.) - 26:19 [(1) 8:30, (2) 9:38, (2.95) 8:11] CT - 27:48 Virtual PR by 1 minutes 24 seconds

213 Ryan Kasner (So.) - 26:23 [(1) 8:34, (2) 9:52, (2.95) 7:57] CT - 27:52 Virtual PR by 1 minutes 21 seconds

Even our few athletes who did not run virtual PRs today were well ahead of their virtual season bests, so I am thrilled with all of our JV athletes today. Julius ran great and cut more than 9.5 percent of his previous PR off his time today. And I'm so excited to see both Garett and Ryan with virtual PRs under 28 minutes when neither has broken 29 in a 5k yet. Having seen this course now, I expect that all of our guys to perform even better at championships in three weeks!

Team Results

1. Briar Woods 70 points

2. Bishop O'Connell 97 points

3. Saint John Paul the Great 111 points

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9. Good Counsel 220 points

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15. DeMatha 455 points

16. Paul VI 511 points

17. Covenant Christian Academy 528 points

As usual, I don't pay much mind to team results for JV races. But it's always nice to see us ahead of another WCAC school like PVI.

Seeded Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (214 total entries in the varsity race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the seeded varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 0.95 mile splits:

158 Thomas Parsons (Jr.) - 16:57 [(1) 5:39, (2) 6:07, (2.95) 5:11] CT - 17:54 Virtual PR by 21 seconds

174 James Hudson (So.) - 17:15 [(1) 5:46, (2) 6:17, (2.95) 5:12] CT - 18:13 Virtual PR by 1 minutes 15 seconds

192 Jaiden Mosley (So.) - 17:33 [(1) 5:38, (2) 6:22, (2.95) 5:33] CT - 18:32 Virtual PR by 1 minutes 57 seconds

198 Hayward Smith-Cassidy (Jr.) - 18:04 [(1) 5:51, (2) 6:34, (2.95) 5:39] CT - 19:05 Virtual PR by 49 seconds

208 Manuel Legaspi (Sr.) - 19:05 [(1) 6:23, (2) 7:00, (2.95) 5:42] CT - 20:09 Virtual PR by 2 seconds

214 Gavin Foran (So.) - 21:40 [(1) 6:28, (2) 8:31, (2.95) 6:41] CT - 22:53

Steven Camarano (So.) - DNF [(1) 6:37]

As I stated above, these virtual PRs are not official. Still, I think it worth congratulating Thomas on being on pace to break 18 minutes for the first time in his high school career. That's a big milestone and I hope that by WCACs, if we have a full 5k course, he'll be down around 17:20. For reference, Matthew Metz ran 17:58 in last year's Glory Days Grill Invitational and ran 17:26 at championships.

Though Hayward slipped back a bit in our standings, he still ran a great race and PRed by quite a bit. James and Jaiden had to run HUGE PRs to leapfrog Hayward this week. Manuel's previous PR of 20:11 was from WCACs last year, so I figure we should see a nice PR for him at this course in three weeks.

Steven had to step off the course at the mile mark, unfortunately, as his blood sugar was low and he could feel the effects. Just one more reason I like to be stationed at the mile mark in case I need to check in on an athlete or and athlete needs to check in with me during his race.

Team Results

1. Dulaney 100 points

2. W.T. Woodson 105 points

3. Patriot High School 237 points

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23. Bishop O'Connell 524 points

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26. Good Counsel 597 points

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31. DeMatha 900 points

32. George C Marshall 924 points

While I certainly would have liked for us to be closer to Good Counsel and O'Connell, I'm not too concerned with our overall standing in this race. Firstly, Langston would have been our fourth finisher today but was running in the freshman race. O'Connell didn't run anybody in the freshmen race and Good Counsel's fastest finisher in the freshman race was 17 seconds behind Langston. That alone will help us close the gap at championships.

As for our overall place, I told our guys before the race that they were going up against some stiff competition. I believe we have to put ourselves in positions like this to get the guys motivated to work toward changing the culture of DeMatha cross country. They have to want to push not only themselves but each other, and the only way to do that is to become tired of getting beat. I hope that's the mentality our athletes take.

Final Thoughts

The coming week is our last chance to put in some hard work. While we will still hit a couple of workouts in the final two weeks leading up to WCACs, I'll remind everyone of something I've brought up a couple of times this week: it takes roughly two weeks for the benefits of a workout to show up in a race. The best comparison I can give you is astrological - it takes 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach us. When you look at the sun (ideally not directly at it), you are looking 8 minutes into the past. When you run a race, you are reflecting workouts you've done long in the past. The most recent workout you all have done that benefited impacted your times today were the threshold 2000m repeats we did at the lake two and a half weeks ago (the 2 to 4 full-lap repeats you all completed). Anything we have done since then won't impact any race you run until Georgetown Prep in two weeks.

Now, that doesn't mean what we do in the final two weeks is unimportant. We still have to keep your legs used to moving for 17 to 30 minutes at a time. But we'll be doing less quantity in order to allow your legs to feel fresher by the time WCACs rolls around. If you want to drop more time from your 5k, this week is your last chance to get in some quality workouts that will help you reach your goals.

"Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, "I'm possible!" - Audrey Hepburn