2021 Landon Invitational

Coming into today's finish line, I'm sure many of our athletes saw the clock and wondered one of three things: (1) Did they start it early? (2) Is 5 kilometers really that much longer than 3 miles? (3) Did I have a bad race?

If that was you, the answers in order are: No they didn't; no, it's not that much longer; no, you probably didn't.

Today's course was longer than 5k, though the official distance listed in results is (currently) 5,000m. In fact, I measured it almost exactly 5,200m, or roughly 0.12 miles past the 5k mark. That may not sound like a lot, but it's significant. It's half a circuit around an outdoor track, or approximately a 49-second conversion from a 20-minute time on today's course to a 5k course of a similar difficulty.

This course was already different enough than previous years at this meet that nobody was going to be running personal course records (PCRs), but now we'll also be treating this as an entirely different distance and a PR at the distance, not that it's likely you'll ever run this exact distance again unless they reuse this course in the future.

With that in mind, in our results I will include an estimated 5k conversion time from today's distance of roughly 5,200m. As I've done in the past for off-distance courses, I will indicate whether your converted time is a Virtual PR (personal record) or a Virtual SB (season best) in the 5k. Note that any virtual PRs or SBs do not take into account past virtual PRs or SBs such as the ones from last week's 3-mile course at Centennial.

Varsity A

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (100 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 1.22 mile splits {and in braces, their average mile pace for that final split}:

8 Jayden Keels (Jr.) - 18:34.54 [(1) 5:28, (2) 6:04, (3) 7:03 {5:47}] CT-17:49

13 Sayid Shakur (So.) - 18:48.40 [(1) 5:42, (2) 6:00, (3) 7:06 {5:50}] CT-18:02 Virtual PR by 35 seconds

19 Christopher Toomer (Jr.) - 19:08.29 [(1) 5:42, (2) 6:07, (3) 7:19 {6:00}] CT-18:21 Virtual PR by 43 seconds

27 Michael Metz (Jr.) - 19:47.79 [(1) 5:50, (2) 6:24, (3) 7:34 {6:12}] CT-18:59 Virtual PR by 17 seconds

29 Ian Parsons (Jr.) - 19:51.97 [(1) 5:47, (2) 6:26, (3) 7:39 {6:17}] CT-19:03 Virtual PR by 14 seconds

49 Tariq Lewis (Sr.) - 20:45.06 [(1) 5:56, (2) 6:42, (3) 8:07 {6:39}] CT-19:54 Virtual PR by 21 seconds

63 Hayden Walsh (Fr.) - 21:30.89 [(1) 6:19, (2) 7:05, (3) 8:07 {6:39}] CT-20:38 Virtual PR by 28 seconds

I'm thrilled with our entire varsity team's performance. Jayden's converted time is just four seconds away from setting a new virtual PR. The meet director gave me an estimate of 3.15 miles rather than 3.22 miles as the actual distance of the course. I'm going with my GPS measurement but even if I use that for the conversions, Sayid and Christopher would have set new virtual PRs by a small margin and everyone else would be within reach on one of the most challenging courses we'll run this year.

If I had to offer an estimate, for our guys running between 18:30 and 20:30 on today's course, you can probably take about 45 seconds off your converted time for today and that's roughly where you would be on our championship course right now, with six weeks left to prepare for WCACs. That's something to be very happy about.

Christopher decided to experiment a bit today and go out with Sayid; they came through the mile mark so close together I couldn't even click my stopwatch twice and had to just give them the same time. Usually, Christopher is around or behind Ian and Michael at the mile mark and then works his way forward through the field. While he said afterwards that he felt like he was more fatigued than usual in the final couple of miles, his splits were still very strong. He might consider letting Sayid get a small advantage of 5-10 seconds next week, but I really don't think Christopher needs to back off too much.

The most important thing about this race, beyond our guys getting another strong performance in, was keeping Sayid and Michael healthy after some hamstring tightness earlier in the week. I'm very happy to hear that neither of them had any problems today as they both turned in great performances.

Team Results

1. St. John's 38 points

2. St. Albans 55 points

3. DeMatha 92 points

4. Sidwell Friends 134 points

5. The Heights 135 points

6. Georgetown Prep 152 points

...

9. Landon 223 points

...

12. St. Mary's Ryken 291 points

13. Covenant Life 328 points

Our second straight third place finish gives us a lot to be excited about. I would say this meet was just a bit less competitive overall than last week's Eagle Invitational, but certainly better at the top with St. John's and St. Albans being in the race. The fact we were the first team after them and with a comfortable margin over fourth place should leave us feeling very good about our performance today and what we are building towards at Championships.

Varsity B

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (169 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 1.22 mile splits {and in braces, their average mile pace for that final split}:

3 Graham Fenn (So.) - 20:02.23 [(1) 5:56, (2) 6:24, (3) 7:42 {6:19}] CT-19:13

19 William Jackson (Fr.) - 21:55.73 [(1) 6:49, (2) 7:04, (3) 8:03 {6:36}] CT-21:02 Virtual PR by 1 minute 30 seconds

66 Isaias Blandino (Fr.) - 24:24.74 [(1) 6:28, (2) 7:48, (3) 10:09 {8:19}] CT-23:25 Virtual PR by 4 minutes 18 seconds

71 Desmond Holt (Sr.) - 24:31.90 [(1) 6:37, (2) 8:12, (3) 9:43 {7:58}] CT-23:31

86 Jacob Robertson (Sr.) - 25:07.26 [(1) 7:14, (2) 8:09, (3) 9:44 {7:59}] CT-24:05 Virtual SB by 1 minutes 14 seconds

88 Austin Boynes (Sr.) - 25:12.75 [(1) 7:19, (2) 8:18, (3) 9:36 {7:52}] CT-24:11 Virtual PR by 3 minutes 32 seconds

117 Andrew Righi (So.) - 27:48.17 [(1) 8:04, (2) 9:01, (3) 10:44 {8:48}] CT-26:40

123 Peter Brown (So.) - 28:17.28 [(1) 7:48, (2) 9:10, (3) 11:19 {9:16}] CT-27:08 Virtual PR by 59 seconds

125 Jackson McCormick (Sr.) - 28:20.97 [(1) 7:14, (2) 10:06, (3) 11:01 {9:01}] CT-27:11

126 Brendan Dougherty (Fr.) - 28:30.96 [(1) 8:07, (2) 9:23, (3) 11:01 {9:01}] CT-27:21 Virtual PR by 35 seconds

128 Maximo Legaspi (Jr.) - 28:36.35 [(1) 8:09, (2) 9:27, (3) 11:00 {9:01}] CT-27:26 Virtual SB by 2 minutes 46 seconds

135 Ian Brown (Sr.) - 29:29.21 [(1) 7:45, (2) 9:34, (3) 12:10 {9:59}] CT-28:17 Virtual SB by 2 minutes 4 seconds

150 Carter Leecost (Fr.) - 31:16.80 [(1) 8:26, (2) 9:55, (3) 12:56 {10:36}] CT-30:00 Virtual PR by 1 minutes 49 seconds

155 Anthony Bardonille (So.) - 31:56.72 [(1) 8:42, (2) 10:32, (3) 12:43 {10:26}] CT-30:38 Virtual PR by 55 seconds

166 Jaquada Moses (Jr.) - 37:49.60 [(1) 9:40, (2) 14:35, (3) 13:34 {11:08}] CT-36:16

Difficult courses become even slower for athletes who haven't yet reached the 20-minute mark for the 5k. In fact, for our athletes at and above 24 minutes for their virtual 5k time today, I'd say you can subtract between a minute and a minute and a half from your virtual 5k time to estimate where you'd be at on our championship course.

Graham made his DeMatha cross country debut today and ran great! He looked very controlled at the mile mark and by the two mile mark had significantly closed the gap on the two St. John's runners in second and third place. He passed both on the track before one of them caught him on the final field loop, but considering Graham hasn't raced competitively since elementary school and even then not at this distance, this was a great first race for him. He'll get a few more cracks at the 5k to develop his feel for the distance before we get to our championship meet at the end of October.

William and Isaias also ran well today, and while their virtual PRs don't take last week's converted times into account, they 'virtually PRed' today by more than they did last week at Centennial despite this being a much more difficult course. Isaias is still learning the distance; he went out a bit too hard in the first mile and paid for it in the final portion of the race as he fatigued. If he can control his start just a bit, he ought to be able to take even more time off his PR when we finally get another official 5k next week. As for William, I don't have much more to say than to point out his splits. Very even and, in fact, his mile pace for the final 1.22 was his fastest segment of the entire race.

This was also Desmond's first race of the year and Andrew's first outside of a parkrun he did last week.

Carter and Anthony both ran very well, too. Based on the converted time, Carter hit the 30-minute goal I set for every athlete and he did it on a very difficult course. Even if I did slightly overmeasure the course's distance, he'd be close enough for me to give it to him based on the course difficulty alone. And for Anthony, he's also close enough for me give him the qualifying time. JV runs last next week anyway, but he won't have to worry about that 30-minute goal going forward. On any other course, I'm confident his 5k time would have been under 30 minutes today.

Team Results

1. St. Albans 47 points

2. St. John's 59 points

3. The Heights 72 points

4. Landon 129 points

5. Sidwell Friends 171 points

6. DeMatha 172 points

7. Georgetown Prep 190 points

...

11. St. Mary's Ryken 312 points

...

13. Maret 366 points

We were just two points out of fifth place. Graham pretty much singlehandedly accounted for the gap back to Georgetown Prep and a couple of stronger finishing sprints would've made the difference. Still, I saw a lot of great finishes and not one of you lost a sprint because you gave up. In fact, more often than not I was seeing other teams' athletes break when they saw our guys fly by them at the end. Keep that finishing mentality going forward!

Final Thoughts

One third place finish is exciting. Two of them is thrilling and also signals that we have some momentum. Keep it going into Georgetown Prep. We'll again be seeing a few WCAC opponents: The Heights and McNamara, who we've already seen, plus Bishop O'Connell, who typically field a pretty competitive team.

As we've said at practice, continue to take care of your bodies. Keep our coaches and trainers informed on any issues, even if they seem minor. In fact, it's almost more important to tell us while it's minor because if it develops into a major problem, it may be too late to do anything about it besides completely shut you down for some period of time. When we catch things early, like we did this week for Michael and Sayid, we can make adjustments. While it might not always work out as well as it seems to have for the two of them this week, at least it gave us an opportunity to try to mitigate the damage.

We're now six weeks away from WCAC Championships. The next four weeks are crucial. Everything inside of two weeks is all about maintenance, the next 30 days are where we will make our gains in preparation for October 30. Have fun, enjoy the camaraderie and the atmosphere our team provides, but remain focused, too. We've put a lot of hard work in, including those of you who didn't get to us until August as our summer training led into our in-season training. Don't let it go to waste.

"For me, winning isn't something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream." - Emmitt Smith

P.S. Thank you to Mrs. Bardonille for more photos today that have been posted to our team Instagram (@demathaxc). Anybody who takes photos of our athletes at the meets is more than welcome to send those to me. I'll take the best of them and post them on our social media.