2019 Landon Invitational

Every year I say this is the toughest course you'll run all season. It's likely the one minor course change from previous years made it a little bit easier, but this is still a very difficult course and I was impressed with everybody's performances.

There was some talk before the race that the course might be just a tiny bit short (3.05 miles rather than the full 3.1), but the results still label it as a full 5000m race, which means these times can count as PRs or SBs for many of you. Usually this course runs about 45 seconds slower than a course like the one we run at WCACs. If this course was 3.05 miles, it still likely runs about 30 seconds slower than you'd run at Bull Run at this point in the season.

Out of 22 athletes who ran both this meet and the WCAC Championship last year, athletes dropped an average of 37 seconds off their times. Four athletes dropped at least 1 minutes 40 seconds from Landon to WCACs and there was one athlete who ran a little more than 2 minutes slower at WCACs, which skewed that average drop a bit. In all, 18 out of 22 athletes ran faster at WCACs, and last year's championship meet was wet and sloppy, certainly not the ideal conditions we saw at Bull Run in 2017, so everybody should feel very confident that they will drop their time considerably in the next five weeks.

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. I fully expected many, and maybe even most, of our new runners to set new PRs today. This is not a traditional PR course, but we hadn't run an official 5k since the parkrun back on August 31. I figured the past three weeks of training plus the experience our young athletes have gained in that time to make up for the difficulty of the course. What I didn't expect was that several of our returning athletes would also set PRs today as that's not something I'm used to seeing at Landon.

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.

Varsity A

Here are the results for our Varsity A athletes (103 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:

14 Jayden Keels (Fr.) - 18:24.9 [(1) 5:42, (2) 6:07, (3.1) 6:36] PR by 47 seconds

18 James Hudson (Jr.) - 18:41.1 [(1) 5:34, (2) 6:14, (3.1) 6:53] PR by 32 seconds - PCB by 2 minutes 0.1 seconds

20 Dawson Grogan (So.) - 18:43.6 [(1) 5:43, (2) 6:06, (3.1) 6:55] PCB by 1 minute 24 seconds

30 Thomas Parsons (Sr.) - 18:57.1 [(1) 5:58, (2) 6:10, (3.1) 6:49] PCB by 30 seconds

39 Hayward Smith-Cassidy (Sr.) - 19:21.5 [(1) 6:00, (2) 6:17, (3.1) 7:05] PR by 26 seconds - PCB by 1 minute 31 seconds

53 Jaiden Mosley (Jr.) - 20:03.4 [(1) 6:05, (2) 6:35, (3.1) 7:23] PCB by 41 seconds

59 Tariq Lewis (So.) - 20:15.0 [(1) 6:01, (2) 6:42, (3.1) 7:32] PR by 54 seconds - PCB by 1 minute 57 seconds

63 Michael Metz (Fr.) - 20:25.0 [(1) 6:21, (2) 6:42, (3.1) 7:22] PR by 2 minutes 43 seconds

82 Ronald Rucker (So.) - 21:34.2 [(1) 6:24, (2) 7:16, (3.1) 7:54] PR by 54 seconds - PCB by 1 minute 4 seconds

Even taking into account the possibility that this course might be about 80 meters shorter than previous years, that difference works out to be less than 20 seconds for these guys. Every single non-freshman in this group set a new course best, which is awesome. Even more impressive, four non-freshmen set new personal records despite the difficulty of this course.

A year ago, Thomas was the only athlete on our team to break 20 minutes at Landon. In fact, since I've been the head coach, only two different DeMatha runners have broken 19 minutes at this meet, and we got four sub-19 performances today! Our guys ran hard, they ran smart, and they should all feel very proud of what they did this morning.

Team Results

1. St. John's 22 points

2. DeMatha 118 points

3. The Heights 134 points

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7. Landon 170 points

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9. Bishop Ireton 199 points

...

13. Maret 323 points

Three years ago, in my first year as head coach, we placed 5th at this meet. Each year since, we've fallen further in the standings. Placing 2nd at this meet is a huge deal for us. Obviously, St. John's is rolling right now. That's a pretty big point spread. But we beat every other WCAC team that was at Landon today even with our fifth fastest time of the day coming from the Varsity B race.

Varsity B

Here are the results for our Varsity B athletes (106 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:

6 Langston Stovall (So.) - 19:08.1 [(1) 5:50, (2) 6:15, (3.1) 7:03] PR by 45 seconds - PCB by 59 seconds

11 Ian Parsons (Fr.) - 20:12.2 [(1) 5:53, (2) 6:44, (3.1) 7:35] PR by 39 seconds

12 Julius Gamble (Jr.) - 20:15.1 [(1) 5:54, (2) 6:52, (3.1) 7:29] PR by 1 minute 14 seconds - PCB by 2 minute 28 seconds

13 Anthony Perry (Sr.) - 20:18.9 [(1) 6:06, (2) 6:40, (3.1) 7:33]

30 Christopher Toomer (Fr.) - 21:06.3 [(1) 6:42, (2) 6:59, (3.1) 7:25] PR by 2 minutes 36 seconds

31 Samuel Cockrell (Fr.) - 21:14.5 [(1) 6:19, (2) 7:10, (3.1) 7:46] PR by 1 minute 9 seconds

33 Desmond Holt (So.) - 21:24.6 [(1) 6:24, (2) 6:58, (3.1) 8:03] PR by 55 seconds

67 Jaden Davis (Fr.) - 23:30.6 [(1) 7:01, (2) 7:39, (3.1) 8:51] PR by 1 minute 17 seconds

82 Gavin Foran (Jr.) - 24:49.7 [(1) 5:53, (2) 8:57, (3.1) 10:00]

Langston came to run today. He finished with our fifth fastest time of the day and would have given us an extra few points of separation ahead of The Heights in the Varsity A race. He'll be back on Varsity next week at Chesapeake.

It was generally hit or miss on athletes hitting their projected 5k times from last week's Braddock Relays. Most of our athletes ran a bit slower today, which is to be expected on a tougher course, and those who ran faster generally did so by small margins. Ian showed that he is definitely better suited for longer distances as he beat his projected time from last week by 44 seconds. The next biggest difference was Julius at 36 seconds, so it's appropriate that the two of them, who made the final exchange on the blue relay team last week, would finish one right after the other today.

Anthony cut the course by a bit at the very beginning of the race, and then he was directed the wrong way by somebody later in the first mile of the course. The meet director thinks it was probably a wash, I'd say that the additional distance he ran probably more than made up for what he cut at the beginning. In either case, he struggled to rebound after that. The good news is that he said he felt healthy after the race, just frustrated and a bit out of running shape. He'll race again, on JV, at Glory Days and at that point we'll see where he's at in respect to our championship lineup.

And of course our freshmen/newcomers, Samuel, Desmond, and Jaden ran big PRs today. They've been pushing themselves in practices. It showed today and it will continue to show through the rest of this season.

Team Results

1. St. John's 18 points

2. DeMatha 71 points

3. The Heights 82 points

4. Bishop Ireton 151 points

...

14. Field 351 points

It was a WCAC sweep as the four conference teams at the meet took the first four spots in the team standings in the Boys Varsity B race. We might end up officially having to add one more point to ours as I think they may have placed Langston one spot ahead of where he actually finished in the unofficial results I received mid-afternoon on Saturday. But even so, we finished pretty comfortably in second in this race. Considering 9 ran in the Varsity A race, that means we have to be at least 14 deep with strong runners to earn a result like this. Of course, every other team with a Varsity B team was also running their 10-18 guys in this race, so they had to deal with the same part of their "depth chart" as we did, but we're not used to being this deep at DeMatha. There's a lot to be excited about from this group.

Varsity C

Here are the results for our Varsity C athletes (122 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:

31 Steven Camarano (Jr.) - 22:28.9 [(1) 6:29, (2) 7:25, (3.1) 8:35]

45 Michael Duarte (Fr.) - 23:18.3 [(1) 6:42, (2) 7:23, (3.1) 9:13] PR by 18 seconds

59 Dominic Williams-Dzirasa (Sr.) - 24:03.2* [(1) 6:54, (2) 8:04, (3.1) 9:05] PCB by 37 seconds

61 Cameron Polk (Jr.) - 24:05.6 [(1) 7:14, (2) 8:00, (3.1) 8:52] PCB by 2 minutes 1 second

67 Jacob Robinson (So.) - 24:14.9 [(1) 7:15, (2) 8:09, (3.1) 8:51] PR by 1 minute 39 seconds - PCB by 3 minutes 7 seconds

70 Caleb Ghatt (Sr.) - 24:54.6 [(1) 7:04, (2) 9:06, (3.1) 8:45]

85 Bodior Elliott (Sr.) - 26:03.6 [(1) 7:29, (2) 8:50, (3.1) 9:45] PCB by 25 seconds

87 Maximo Legaspi (Fr.) - 26:14.4 [(1) 7:49, (2) 8:33, (3.1) 9:52] PR by 32 seconds

88 Yaphet Negussie (Fr.) - 26:18.4 [(1) 8:01, (2) 8:58, (3.1) 9:19] PR by 2 minutes 54 seconds

103 Georges Tadonki (Fr.) - 28:09.3 [(1) 7:47, (2) 9:17, (3.1) 11:05] PR by 2 minutes 41 seconds

105 Andrew Foreman (Fr.) - 28:20.2 [(1) 7:48, (2) 9:16, (3.1) 11:16] PR by 1 minute 6 seconds

108 Jaquada Moses (Fr.) - 28:46.6 [(1) 7:56, (2) 8:34, (3.1) 12:17] PR by 3 minutes 42 seconds

115 Jackson McCormick (So.) - 30:36.2 [(1) 8:59, (2) 10:55, (3.1) 10:42]

121 Ian Brown (So.) - 32:49.4* [(1) 8:59, (2) 10:58, (3.1) 12:52]

Several PRs and new course bests for many of our returners should have this group feeling very good about the work they've been putting in this season. I can't say enough about how impressed I am with the past couple of weeks for Max. He ran the parkrun last week to get his qualifying time and the knocked off another half minute on a far more difficult course! Dominic and Ian both hit their goal times, meaning everybody on the roster is good to run all meets going forward. And even though I gave it to him based on his projected 5k time of 27:22 last week, Jaquada earned his keep by officially breaking 29 minutes and setting a massive PR.

Team Results

1. Spire Homeschool 32 points

2. Flames Homeschool 49 points

3. St. John's 92 points

4. Landon 118 points

5. Bishop Ireton 152 points

6. The Heights 158 points

...

9. DeMatha 226 points

Final Thoughts

I like to go back and look at previous results not just for the stats but also for the comments I've made in the past. Following this meet last year, I brought up how abnormal it is for many high school cross country programs to put their JV athletes through many of the same workouts as the varsity athletes, albeit tailored to their ability in terms of number of reps and how fast they are running during those workouts.

I put a lot of consideration this offseason into separating the JV and varsity teams, partly to take a little bit off my plate and partly to help eliminate some distractions from our varsity runners. If I had found another assistant coach, I almost certainly would have done it. I think it's been a blessing in disguise that it didn't happen because not only have the guys who are lower on our depth chart responded very well to the workouts, but I haven't found there to be nearly as many distractions with the team this year as I did last year.

Everybody has been pushing each other, supporting each other, and encouraging each other and it's been great to see that with such a large team, at least by our standards. I am doing to push for a renewed sense of focus at the ends of practices during our strength and stretching routines, as this past week got a little out of hand with some side conversations and phone usage during that time, but otherwise I've been very pleased with everything I've seen during practices and the results spoke for themselves today.

Quick Preview

Next week we are in Pasadena, Maryland for the Chesapeake Invitational. We've never run there before but I'm told it's a very fast course, so we should expect another round of new PRs for our athletes, maybe even a couple sub-18 performances. Good Counsel and St. Mary's Ryken are the only other WCAC schools registered there. Good Counsel ran at Bull Run at Hereford (not our championship course) today and while their team finished second to last in the Elite race, they had some decent performances on a very tough 3-mile course. While I think we should be able to beat them based on today's results, they placed 4th last year and only one of their top five were seniors, so we have to expect that they'll still be strong this year.

We get to run 10 on Varsity next week and everybody else will be in the JV race, so that will be a very packed starting line. I will have meet info and will list who will run varsity and who our alternates will be by Monday (hopefully tomorrow). I'll also have a signup list for water, gatorade, and snacks early in the week. I forgot to send that out again this week so I took care of getting some stuff, though they went through almost everything but the water a little earlier in the meet than I'd anticipated.

"Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second." - William James