2018 Landon Invitational

Congratulations to everyone for getting through, in my opinion, the toughest course we run this year. Some athletes argue that Georgetown Prep is a more difficult course, but it comes later in the season when you will be more prepared for it.

The distance for this course was a full 5 kilometers, or roughly 160 meters longer than our two previous races. For our new athletes, this means there really isn't an easy way to compare your times from Seahawk and Howard County to this meet. Even for our returning athletes, you can't really compare those times; but you do have last year's Landon times to compare to.

Out of 18 athletes who ran both Landon and the WCAC Championship on our team last year, our athletes ran, on average, 2 minutes 23 seconds faster at Championships than they did today. Every single athlete ran faster at WCACs and, in fact, every single athlete ran at least 1 minute and 6 seconds faster than they did at Landon. Several athletes broke their Landon time by 3 minutes and one even broke his by more than 4 minutes.

I include all of this information to make sure that all of our athletes, especially those who were hoping for or expecting a better time today, know that they can expect to get quite a bit faster before the end of this season.

In blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile) at today's meet. For every athlete who made their high school cross country debut today, their time becomes their PR, and a blue asterisk (*) denotes that this was the first time they have run this distance in cross country. Additionally, in red, I have noted all athletes who set a new PCB (personal course best) for the Landon Invitational, albeit on a slightly different course than last year. By all accounts, the one change made it a bit more difficult, so I'd still consider it a course best if an athlete bettered his time from last season.

Varsity A

Here are the results for our Varsity A athletes (108 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Varsity A race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

29 Thomas Parsons (Jr.) - 19:32.4 [(1) 6:07, (2) 6:37, (3.1) 6:48]

45 Langston Stovall (Fr.) - 20:07.0 [(1) 6:17, (2) 6:46, (3.1) 7:04]*

46 Dawson Grogan (Fr.) - 20:07.9 [(1) 6:01, (2) 6:45, (3.1) 7:22]*

56 James Hudson (So.) - 20:41.0 [(1) 6:24, (2) 7:07, (3.1) 7:10] PCB by 56 seconds

59 Jaiden Mosley (So.) - 20:43.7 [(1) 6:16, (2) 7:06, (3.1) 7:22]*

62 Hayward Smith-Cassidy (Jr.) - 20:52.6 [(1) 6:25, (2) 7:08, (3.1) 7:20] PCB by 29 seconds

74 Steven Camarano (So.) - 21:31.4 [(1) 6:36, (2) 7:25, (3.1) 7:30] PCB by 1 minute 21 seconds

84 Tariq Lewis (Fr.) - 22:11.5 [(1) 6:28, (2) 7:51, (3.1) 7:53]*

101 Ashby Ervin (Sr.) - 23:49.6 [(1) 7:01, (2) 8:18, (3.1) 8:31]

Unless this is your first 5k race, it's tough to PR at Landon. It's not a fast course in general and the course was a bit of a mess from the rain they got leading up to the race. James and Steven both crushed their times from last year. Based on an approximate course conversion, James should be able to break 19 minutes easily at championships, Hayward should be under 19:30, and Steven should be under 20 minutes. Each of those times represents at 5k PR of at least 24 seconds.

Thomas kept each of his splits, including the long third split, within a 40-second range, which is impressive on this course. He wound up about six seconds off his time at Landon last year, but the last third of his race was faster by about 11 seconds.

All of our first-year runners did very well. Langston and Jaiden have been the two most consistent guys on the team in our quality workouts and their races have reflected that so far. The only thing Dawson is lacking at this point is endurance, which takes more time to develop, and Tariq had a very strong varsity debut.

Team Results

1. St. John's College 41 points

2. Bishop Ireton 107 points

3. The Heights 131 points

...

8. DeMatha 225 points

...

14. St. James 388 points

Varsity B

Here are the results for our Varsity B athletes (94 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Varsity B race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

27 Manuel Legaspi (Sr.) - 21:29.6 [(1) 6:54, (2) 7:03, (3.1) 7:33] PCB by 25 seconds

49 Julius Gamble (So.) - 22:43.0 [(1) 6:55, (2) 7:47, (3.1) 8:01]*

61 Gavin Foran (So.) - 23:43.5 [(1) 6:52, (2) 8:18, (3.1) 8:34]

63 Lance Bigelow (So.) - 23:57.9 [(1) 7:22, (2) 8:15, (3.1) 8:21]*

66 Sean Leonard (Fr.) - 24:12.9 [(1) 7:43, (2) 8:27, (3.1) 8:03]*

70 Dominic Williams-Dzirasa (Jr.) - 24:39.9 [(1) 7:44, (2) 8:30, (3.1) 8:26]*

74 Lucas Arzayus (Jr.) - 25:01.0 [(1) 7:50, (2) 8:34, (3.1) 8:38] PCB by 23 seconds

Assuming my unofficial times stand, Manuel ran his way onto our top 7.

Sean and Dominic were two of four DeMatha athletes, the other two being Ryan and Ian in the Varsity C race, who ran faster splits in the last 1.1-mile stretch than they did in the second mile of the Landon course.

Gavin has had a rough last couple of races. He doesn't seem considered that it's anything to severe, and he did run more than a minute faster than he did two weeks ago, so I'm not ready to worry yet.

Lance is fighting through some pretty severe knee pain and while it's likely we already know what it is because he's dealt with this issue in the past, he'll have a bit of a break while we get him in to see the trainers.

Julius and Lucas continue to be steady in their performances. Julius knocked a little more than 1 minute off his time from the Howard County meet and Lucas set a new course best despite admitting to not feeling particularly great ahead of his race.

Team Results

1. St. John's College 24 points

2. St. Andrew's Episcopal 37 points

3. Georgetown Prep 108 points

4. Bishop Ireton 120 points

...

6. The Heights 165 points

...

9. DeMatha 246

...

13. St. James 399 points

Varsity C

Here are the results for our Varsity C athletes (124 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Varsity C race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

29 Ronald Rucker (Fr.) - 22:37.7 [(1) 6:43, (2) 7:53, (3.1) 8:04]*

71 Caleb Ghatt (Jr.) - 24:44.5 [(1) 7:26, (2) 8:34, (3.1) 8:45] PR by 2 minutes 5 seconds - PCB by 2 minutes 25 seconds

74 James Carroll (So.) - 25:09.4 [(1) 7:35, (2) 8:32, (3.1) 9:02]

90 Haroon Zaid (Fr.) - 25:48.9 [(1) 7:12, (2) 8:52, (3.1) 9:45]*

96 Bodior Elliott (Jr.) - 26:28.6 [(1) 8:04, (2) 9:08, (3.1) 9:17]

99 Christopher Lamb (So.) - 26:40.8 [(1) 8:04, (2) 9:13, (3.1) 9:14]*

110 Jacob Robertson (Fr.) - 28:26.4 [(1) 8:02, (2) 9:47, (3.1) 10:38]*

114 Garett Joldersma (So.) - 29:12.1 [(1) 8:53, (2) 9:57, (3.1) 10:22]*

115 Ryan Kasner (So.) - 29:12.7 [(1) 9:02, (2) 10:22, (3.1) 9:49] PR by 1 minute 12 seconds - PCB by 3 minutes 48 seconds

119 Ian Brown (Fr.) - 30:02.9 [(1) 9:05, (2) 10:45, (3.1) 10:14]*

This is a longer course than the Howard County Invitational course we raced on two weeks ago. It's difficult to judge which is more difficult, but eight out of our 10 Varsity C athletes ran faster times at Landon than they did at Centennial. Ronald dropped more than three minutes off his time from two weeks ago and his was our 10th fastest time at Landon yesterday.

Caleb is improving rapidly from meet to meet and I have been very impressed with his work ethic this season. His performance has reflected that work ethic. He did not run last year so those stats go back to his freshman year in 2016.

James had a great sprint at the end of his race. He's going to scare the pants off his competitors in rugby this spring when they see him coming the way he came to the finish line.

Ryan was ready for his race yesterday as he obliterated his time from this course a year ago and set a new 5k PR. In fact, he was the only returning athlete from last year who did so, making this performance especially impressive. Additionally, he pulled Ian along for a little more than a mile and Ian did a great job of controlling the last half of his race. He just missed breaking the 30-minute mark, but this represented a 3 minutes 23 second drop from his performance at the Howard County Invite two weeks ago.

Team Results

1. Spire Homeschool 38 points

2. St. John's College 48 points

3. Flames Homeschool 84 points

...

6. Bishop Ireton 177 points

...

10. DeMatha 264 points

Final Thoughts

As I said to a few people yesterday, my goals don't include winning JV championships. I value giving the athletes opportunities to run against strong competition. I could have run the usual 7 on Varsity A and 7 on Varsity B and the result would have been higher team finishes in the Varsity B and Varsity C races. But our team finishes in those races aren't important to me and shouldn't be a concern for the athletes. I find much more enjoyment in seeing how much faster those guys are getting as the season wears on.

While I may not have the most rigorous high school cross country training program, there aren't many coaches that push their JV athletes to do workouts that are similar to those the varsity runners complete. These guys show up every day and do the workouts I assign and their results so far are speaking for themselves.

Keep grinding, gentlemen. Just five weeks left in the season!

"The good and the great are only separated by the willingness to sacrifice." - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar