2022 Braddock Relays

I am very disappointed in the meet management from last night. Our athletes deserve a lot better and, as fun of an atmosphere as this meet as been in the past and even was at times last night, their performances were overshadowed, at least partly, by a number of issues.


First, the meet director included in his initial meet information (and this is still included on the meet's MileStat profile) that they were going to limit the field to 25 schools. Occasionally meet directors will extend that by a couple of schools so that they can have 25 boys teams and 25 girls teams in the event single-sex schools like ours enter the meet, but they do not expand the field by 15 schools as Braddock did for yesterday's meet. I shudder to imagine how chaotic those relay races would have been had they allowed each school to enter three teams as this meet has always allowed in the past.


Second, they appear to have had significant issues with their FAT (fully automatic timing) system and they still do not have results from last night. The last time we atteut nded this meet in 2019, they had issues with the timing and they still have never posted official results from that meet. They have results posted from last year, so I chalked 2019 up as an aberration. Maybe it was and their issues last night stem directly from my first concern, but considering they don't do FAT timing for any of the extras races and the coaches are solely responsible for getting those results, it's unacceptable that they can't run their system properly.


Finally, and this may be related to my second concern, their "awards ceremony," which we waited the extra hour of the girls relay race for, consisted of only announcing the winning team. Congratulations to St. Albans, there wasn't really any doubt that they had won, but with 40 schools, many of whom put out two teams of athletes who worked very hard yesterday, to not at least announce the top three or top five teams feels very disrespectful.


All that to say, this meet has left a bad taste in my mouth for a number of reasons.


Before we get to the results, I do want to pass along some good news which is that Jayden is okay. His injury appears to have looked much worse than it was as he crossed the line to hand the baton off to Sayid. The trainer on site was able to get him cleaned up and his dad says he should be good to go for practice tomorrow. I'll be keeping an eye to make sure there are no lingering affects in the first couple days of practice this week, but I am thankful that Jayden is okay; it was a very scary moment and I know it freaked out our athletes who were there watching as he entered the track to finish his leg of the race. Coach Dunham and a few of the athletes on St. John's approached me last night to see if Jayden was okay so I think it also freaked out a number of people outside of our team.


As we get into our results, with each result I have included a couple of numbers.

I counted by hand the number of athletes in each section of the extras races and Coach Hoke and I did our best to get places for our athletes, though we did miss some in the first two extras races. Our athletes were so close to each other and in such large packs of athletes that it became difficult to count, write their places, and then catch up on our count. It's one more reason why FAT timing would have been nice to have for the extras races. I know their places don't matter in terms of scoring for the event, but it's a part of competition that I wish the meet was a little more appreciative of.


By the way, for reference, when we attended this meet in 2019 all of our extras runners were placed in the same section instead of across all of them (and there were only three sections of extras races for the boys that year). Even with all 13 of our runners in the same section, there were a total of 41 athletes in our section of the boys extras race. Keep that in mind as you see how many I counted in each section of yesterday's races.


For our senior athletes who ran in this meet as freshmen in 2019, I have also noted 2500m PRs if they ran faster than they did three years ago.


Open 2500m Race


Here are the results for our runners in the coaches & parents Open 2500m Race. We're not sure how many total runners there were. Coach Puffett got 5th place.


Coach Cory Puffett '10 - 8:40 [MP 5:35, P5 18:04] Virtual SB by 2 minutes 3 seconds (Ran 20:07 in the College Park parkrun on July 2)

Coach David Hoke '13 - 11:06 [MP 7:09, P5 23:08] Virtual SB by 1 minute 12 seconds (Ran 24:20 in the College Park parkrun on August 27)


Congrats also to the parents who ran yesterday. There may have been some I didn't notice, but Jayden Keels' father Antoine (DeMatha Class of 2003) and Maximo Legaspi's father Manuel both ran. I don't have their times but they both ran very well and it's awesome that they got a chance to run the course their sons ran later in the afternoon/evening.


Boys Extras 2500m Race (Section I)


Here are the results for our runners in Section I of the extras race (105 total runners in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the first section of the extras race (if Coach Hoke and I could get it).


23 Joshua Gresham (Jr.) - 9:14.45 [MP 5:57, P5 19:15] Virtual PR by 4 minutes 42 seconds

25 William Jackson (So.) - 9:22.95 [MP 6:02, P5 19:33] Virtual PR by 28 seconds

27 Hayden Walsh (So.) - 9:23.37 [MP 6:03, P5 19:34]

29 Roman Zentek (Fr.) - 9:24.18 [MP 6:03, P5 19:36] Virtual PR by 2 minutes 18 seconds

?? Nicholas Berry (Fr.) - 10:17.68 [MP 6:38, P5 21:27] Virtual PR by 1 minute 50 seconds


Hayden's projected 5k time is identical to his 5k PR, so just because he doesn't have a notation doesn't mean yesterday wasn't a great race for him. We'll get a better sense of exactly where he's at next week when we run at the Chesapeake Invitational, but he seems to be back to where we'd expect him to be based on his performances from last year. William also seems to have bounced back into form from a bit of a slow start to the season.


Everyone else ran great, too. Joshua is used to racing distances more in the range of what we did yesterday and that experience definitely came into play with his projected 5k time. I'll be curious to see just how close he can get to 19:15 next weekend.


I'm going to talk about the freshmen (and all first-year runners) in a more general sense during my final thoughts. But I'm especially looking forward to seeing if Roman can break the 20 minute mark next week in a full 5k. We've had a few freshman reach that mark since I've been the coach, but very few have done it this early in the season if they weren't already sub-20 runners coming into high school.


Boys Extras 2500m Race (Section II)


Here are the results for our runners in Section II of the extras race (140 total runners in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the second section of the extras race (if Coach Hoke and I could get it).


~55 Brandon Smoot (So.) - 10:09.59 [MP 6:32, P5 21:10] Virtual PR by 3 minutes 5 seconds

?? William Herman (Fr.) - 10:29.32 [MP 6:45, P5 21:51] Virtual PR by 2 minutes 23 seconds

?? Maximo Legaspi (Sr.) - 10:30.85 [MP 6:46, P5 21:55] Virtual PR by 2 minutes 41 seconds

?? Xavier Raymond (Fr.) - 10:41.09 [MP 6:53, P5 22:16] Virtual PR by 49 seconds


Max did not run in this meet his freshman year but no doubt this would've been a huge PR in the 2500m run for him, too.


Boys Extras 2500m Race (Section III)


Here are the results for our runners in Section III of the extras race (102 total runners in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the third section of the extras race.


53 Jesse Holland III (Fr.) - 10:34.01 [MP 6:48, P5 22:01] Virtual PR by 1 minute 17 seconds

56 Lazarus McCarthy (Fr.) - 10:36.91 [MP 6:50, P5 22:07] Virtual PR by 2 minutes 58 seconds

72 Andrew Righi (Jr.) - 11:13.26 [MP 7:13, P5 23:23] Virtual PR by 57 seconds

74 Cameron Lamb (Fr.) - 11:17.74 [MP 7:16, P5 23:33] Virtual PR by 21 seconds

84 Peter Brown (Jr.) - 11:31.95 [MP 7:25, P5 24:02] Virtual SB by 1 minute 44 seconds

89 Yaphet Negussie (Sr.) - 11:54.25 [MP 7:40, P5 24:49] PR by 9 seconds


Andrew and Peter had their best runs of the season and Yaphet had a fantastic finish to beat the time he ran on this course three years ago!


Boys Extras 2500m Race (Section IV)


Here are the results for our runners in Section IV of the extras race (83 total runners in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the fourth section of the extras race.


44 Brendan Dougherty (So.) - 11:22.92 [MP 7:20, P5 23:43] Virtual PR by 38 seconds

57 Daman Decker (Sr.) - 11:54.48 [MP 7:40, P5 24:49] Virtual PR by 5 minutes 23 seconds

69 Amari Wright (So.) - 12:48.83 [MP 8:15, P5 26:42] Virtual PR* by 5 minutes 31 seconds (Amari has not completed a 5k yet; Virtual PR based on converted time from Eagle Invitational)

70 Anthony Bardonille Jr. (Jr.) - 12:57.98 [MP 8:21, P5 27:02] Virtual PR by 2 minutes 23 seconds

74 Joseph LeGloahec (Fr.) - 13:33.64 [MP 8:44, P5 28:16] Virtual PR* by 13 seconds (*Joseph has not run a 5k yet; Virtual PR based on converted time from Eagle Invitational)

75 Carter Leecost (So.) - 13:51.97 [MP 8:56, P5 28:54] Virtual SB by 8 minutes 16 seconds

76 Akintunde Shoetan (So.) - 14:26.08 [MP 9:18, P5 30:05] Virtual PR by 6 minutes 50 seconds

78 Devin Lewis (So.) - 14:58.62 [MP 9:38, P5 31:13] Virtual PR* by 4 minutes 47 seconds (*Devin has not completed a 5k yet; Virtual PR based on converted time from Eagle Invitational)


I'm really impressed by what all of these guys did yesterday. Based on 5k and 3-mile times we'd seen this season, there were a few guys in this section I wasn't sure would break 15 minutes but all of them did! That's a great milestone to hit.


Boys A & B Championship Relay (5x2500m)


Here are the results for the relay teams. I will show individual splits below. Each team is identified by the color of the baton they were carrying. The number in front of each team signifies their overall place in the championship relay race (51 total team finishers). The number inside the brackets is the average mile pace for each relay as a whole. [Note: We're still waiting on official results from this race. I will update with the teams' places and their official times when they are up. For now, these are just our hand times]:


5 Red - 42:05.51 [5:25]

19 Blue - 44:06.17 [5:41]


It should be noted that in 2019, our fastest team completed their five circuits of the course in 45 minutes and 24 seconds (5:51/mile) and our second fastest team finished in 48 minutes and 50 seconds (6:17/mile). If they had allowed us to run three relay teams last night, the group of five who would have been entered as our C team would have run 47:42.63 (6:09/mile) based on their times in the Extras I race.


Besides 2019, I have results from two other 5x2500m relay meets DeMatha has attended in our history. In 2012, our A team ran 42:10 at the Braddock Relays, and our team beat that time yesterday so this is a team record for this meet. The only other result for this event I have is from the 2007 Brentsville Relays, which I ran in during my sophomore season, where our team ran 40:24 (5:12/mile).


We finished with 3 points in the team competition (1 point from our Red team for a 5th place finish among A teams and 2 points from our Blue team for a 4th place finish among B teams).


Splits


Here are the splits for each of our 10 relay athletes, including their MP and P5 numbers. They are listed in the order in which they appeared on their respective relay teams.


Jayden Keels (Sr.) - 8:23.27 [MP 5:24, P5 17:29] PR by 35 seconds

Sayid Shakur (Jr.) - 8:15.26 [MP 5:19, P5 17:12] Virtual PR by 17 seconds

Christopher Toomer (Sr.) - 8:21.78 [MP 5:23, P5 17:26] PR by 1 minute 24 seconds Virtual PR by 10 seconds

Graham Fenn (Jr.) - 8:35.69 [MP 5:32, P5 17:55]

James Westbrooks III (Jr.) - 8:29.51 [MP 5:28, P5 17:42] Virtual PR by 4 seconds

Daden Grogan (So.) - 8:52.77 [MP 5:43, P5 18:30] Virtual PR by 37 seconds

Ian Parsons (Sr.) - 8:47.75 [MP 5:40, P5 18:20] PR by 1 minute 15 seconds

Jalen Neptune (So.) - 9:09.97 [MP 5:54, P5 19:06]

Michael Metz (Sr.) - 8:43.25 [MP 5:37, P5 18:10] PR by 58 seconds Virtual PR by 15 seconds

Tarik Harris Jr. (Jr.) - 8:32.43 [MP 5:30, P5 17:48] Virtual PR by 39 seconds


Great job by all of these guys. Graham missed a new Virtual PR by about a second or two so he was right where we needed him to be.


This race started out poorly. Harping back to my earlier comments about the meet management, the starter for this race did the one thing you're never supposed to do. He shot the gun to start the race and then immediately holstered his gun. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that 60+ runners on the line of an 8-lane track carries with it an increased risk of falls in the first turn. Instead I had to scream at him to fire his gun when I saw a runner at the front of the race go down awkwardly. I didn't even notice Jayden had gone down until after the starter finally unholstered his gun and shot it again to call back the runners.


Thankfully, Jayden wasn't shaken up too badly from the start and we had a clean restart. Unfortunately, I really didn't get to see very much of our relay teams after that. I saw James and Tarik on the anchor legs but I missed nearly all of our middle three legs because I was tending to Jayden. A massive oversight by Lake Braddock was a pair of screws protruding from the gate door coming off the softball field into the final 300ish meters of the race. Jayden did what runners are trained to do and took what would've been a perfect angle to make a tight turn coming off the field, but he wound up scraping his head against those two screws. He was leaning against the concession stand for several seconds (it felt like at least 15 seconds to me but it was hard to focus on anything other than trying to get to Jayden. The fact that he got back up and finished his leg of the race to keep us in striking distance has me in awe of his toughness.


The rest of our guys did a great job to help pick him up. I'm not sure how many points our B team got against the other B teams, but they had to have been one of the Top 5 at least, but the fact our A team scratched out a point after Jayden got hurt the way he did... you all deserved a lot of respect for your resilience.


Final Thoughts


Our freshmen, and in fact all of our new runners, had to do something very different from anything they've done to this point this season by running such a short distance. I'm really impressed that every single one of them ran so well today. Every new runner in the extras races ran a virtual PR on Saturday. Usually you can expect a few to not quite make it because they might start the race like it's a 5k and not be able to make up for the slower start.


For you new runners, don't be discouraged if your 5k times next week aren't quite in line with your P5 times from yesterday as those projections are estimates and many of you are still learning how to run long distance races. What those projected 5k times give you is a really good idea of what your body is capable of if you run a smart race.


I'll cut this writeup here because it's already getting into the early evening on Sunday and I need to get our practice schedule for this week, next week's meet info, and our athletes' target training paces for the week out to everyone. But I want to once more congratulate everyone on a great meet yesterday. The meet was not run very well and I will have to think very hard about whether I want to bring the team to this meet again in the future, but I'm very glad that the only thing that was frustrating about yesterday was their management because our athletes allowed yesterday to still be very successful for us.


"Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way." - Satchel Paige