2020 Holy Cross Invite #2

Nothing has ever seemed to go exactly to plan this year, and today was no exception. We all arrived earlier than we were supposed to but exactly on time based on the most recent information we were given. Regardless, it gave me a chance to get everybody their uniforms without us having to be in a massive rush and we were able to get a good warmup in before the race.

Carlos Pla, the head coach at Holy Cross, informed me after the race that it was, in fact, a full 5k (3.1-mile) course we ran today. The meet info on Milesplit said it is a 3-mile course, but we did run a full 5k today!

Let's get right into our results. We all ran together, but I did have to designate varsity and junior varsity when I registered our athletes so I've split them up into those two groups below.

As always, in blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile). In red, I have noted all athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k. This was the first time any of us have run on this course (in fact, it's only the second race ever held on this course), so we won't have the possibility of PCBs (personal course bests) until next week.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (18 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the junior varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

1 Sayid Shakur (Fr.) - 18:48.1 [(1) 6:06, (2) 5:55, (3.1) 6:47] PR by 59 seconds

3 Christopher Toomer (So.) - 20:17.2 [(1) 6:11, (2) 6:33, (3.1) 7:33] SB by 23 seconds

5 Michael Metz (So.) - 21:06.1 [(1) 6:15, (2) 6:44, (3.1) 8:07]

13 Georges Tadonki (So.) - 25:24.5 [(1) 7:20, (2) 8:35, (3.1) 9:30] SB by 6 minutes 57 seconds

14 Jonah Lyke (So.) - 25:54.4 [(1) 7:20, (2) 8:25, (3.1) 10:10]

15 Jacob Robertson (Jr.) - 26:32.3 [(1) 7:36, (2) 8:40, (3.1) 10:17]

16 Peter Brown (Fr.) - 30:33.9 [(1) 8:51, (2) 10:00, (3.1) 11:42]

17 Maximo Legaspi (So.) - 32:36.8* [(1) --, (2) 20:08, (3.1) 12:29]

18 Ian Brown (Jr.) - 36:37.3 [(1) 10:03, (2) 12:19, (3.1) 14:15]

Sayid ran his first 5k with us at last week's time trial and he took off nearly a full minute today and broke 19 minutes! He ran a very even race, and was our only athlete to run a faster second mile than his first. I don't know if it was how he paced himself, but the times would suggest he did a good job of using Gavin to pace himself. He was 20 seconds behind Gavin at the mile mark, 10 seconds behind him at the two mile, and then finished just five seconds behind him, cutting his deficit in half each of the last two miles of the race.

Christopher ran a solid race today and though he's still a ways off his PR of 19:02 from last year, he's working his way back down to sub-20s.

Georges seemed to a have a tough time finding his pace last week at the time trial, and I knew he could have run quite a bit faster based on how fast his finish was. Having gotten that first 5k of the season under his belt, he seemed to be able to find his pacing much better today and took nearly 7 minutes off his time from last week. He's still about two minutes off his freshman PR, but today was a really good race for him!

You may notice the asterisk and a missing 1-mile split for Maximo. He took a wrong turn (or maybe a wrong straight?) and cut the course a bit, shortly before heading up to me at the first mile mark. He was behind Ian when they passed down the hill from the mile mark by roughly 20 seconds. He ran a virtual 5k time of 34:22 at our first time trial (the one that was longer than 5k), but because I'm not sure by how much he cut the course today, I can't estimate whether he would have set a new season best today or not.

Team Results

1. The Heights 27 points

2. DeMatha 32 points

Our first three JV athletes finished before the first three athletes for The Heights crossed the line, but they got their final two scorers plus their sixth and seventh runners in before our fourth and fifth scorers, finished, so they were able to displace us enough to win in what wound up being a dual meet at the JV level.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (39 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:

1 Jayden Keels (So.) - 17:57.5 [(1) 5:37, (2) 5:48, (3.1) 6:33]

2 Dawson Grogan (Jr.) - 18:27.4 [(1) 5:38, (2) 6:00, (3.1) 6:50]

5 Gavin Foran (Sr.) - 18:43.3 [(1) 5:45, (2) 6:06, (3.1) 6:52] PR by 3 seconds SB by 18 seconds

6 James Hudson (Sr.) - 19:37.3 [(1) 5:55, (2) 6:13, (3.1) 7:29]

12 Ian Parsons (So.) - 20:38.6 [(1) 6:10, (2) 6:44, (3.1) 7:45]

14 Nick Sims (So.) - 20:54.0 [(1) 5:48, (2) 7:42, (3.1) 7:27]

23 Jaiden Mosley (Sr.) - 22:30.7 [(1) 6:44, (2) 7:18, (3.1) 8:29]

While Jayden doesn't have any markings next to his result, today was a big day for him as he essentially tied his 5k PR. He ran 17:57 last year at the WCAC Championship and now that he's run this course once I suspect he's got a great chance to knock some more time off that and set a new PR next weekend.

Dawson ran 17:51 last week on our time trial course and though he came through the mile mark about nine seconds slower today than he did last week, he had a bit of trouble holding the pace through the final two miles of the race. Still, he put in a strong effort today to hold off the third place finisher from The Heights, who finished first overall on this course two weeks.

Gavin should be thrilled with his race today, and I'm sure he's especially happy to learn that this was, in fact, a PR for him since the course was a full 5k. He ran 18:46 at the WCAC Championship in 2017 and had been trying to get back down to that time since then. Now that he's finally broken it, any pressure he may have been putting on himself should be gone and I hope to see another drop in his time next week.

This was Nick's first 5k. He's been stellar in practice, but running a full 5k with no rest is a bit of a different animal. He did a good job to hang with Gavin through the first mile, but he fell way off the pace in the second mile. I'll get a chance to talk to him this week to get some more information about his race and hopefully help him with his strategy a bit, but it's worth noting that he was our only athlete who ran faster in his last 1.1 miles than he did in the second mile of his race. Maybe he slowed down more than he needed to in the second mile, or maybe he caught a second wind late. Regardless, while I expected a faster time based on his practice performances, 20:54 is not a bad time for his first 5k and now his body has its first feel for the distance.

Team Results

1. DeMatha 26 points

2. The Heights 31 points

3. Bishop Ireton 92 points

4. Good Counsel 95 points

I wasn't sure when we'd left whether we had won or not. I knew that if I had had Sayid registered in the varsity race, we definitely would have won (since we had five of the first seven overall finishers), and I strongly suspected that if Christopher had been registered in varsity that we would have won.

I thought we might have won, but the pack of runners from The Heights had me trying to do math in my head and I was confusing myself too much to be certain.

Well, we did win, so congrats to all of you! It's been a long time since we've won an invitational, regardless of how big or small it was. In 2014 we won the Landon Invitational and the Don Stoner Invitational. Our juniors and seniors know Michael Metz's brother Matthew, who was a freshman on that team.

Final Thoughts

I know some of you haven't been able to run much at home, and there's no doubt that my recent illness was detrimental to those of you that applies to. I have no doubt, however, that you all have been doing everything that you can do this summer and fall and today was a culmination of all of that hard work. I don't care what teams did or did not race today; we can only race ourselves and the teams who show up. We had two new PRs and three new season bests today, and we won the varsity race! Give yourselves a pat on the back and then let's gear up for one more race on this course next week. Hopefully we'll get a third race on the 14th, but in case we don't let's make sure we put our best effort out there next week.

Once I figure out how many athletes are available for next week, there will be a two-step process for me to determine who will race next weekend. Anybody who can race next week but was not able to be there today will get priority registration. Currently I only have two athletes that applies to, but I will be giving our team until Tuesday to make sure they've submitted that availability Google Form (remember, athletes only since it will not allow anybody to access it who is not logged into their DeMatha email account on Google). Once I get those athletes registered, I will see whether we're only allowed 14 athletes or if we can go over that limit again like we could today. I'll register athletes starting with the fastest finishers from today.

I'll keep everybody updated on that and I will get next week's training plan on the team website and practice schedule emailed out tomorrow.

Once again, great job everybody!

"You don't get what you wish for; you get what you work for." - Unknown