2022 Woodward Relays

Way to start the season with a bang gentlemen!

The Woodward Relays are always a brutal meet, particularly for our relay teams. It's early in the season so the temperature is still typically high, as it was today, mile repeats in a race setting is a completely different experience than in the controlled environment of our practices, and since the meet was moved to Georgetown Prep a little more than a decade ago athletes have to deal with the rolling hills of their golf course with very little reprieve from the late-summer sun.

Our guys handled this meet extremely well today and I don't want to waste any time so let's jump right into the results.

While our Relay runners won't have PRs or SBs listed, for our Open Race, 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. Also, any athletes who have previously run the Open Race at Woodward Relays had an opportunity to set a new PCB (personal course best), and those will be marked in silver.

Boys Relay

First, here are the results for the relay teams (61 total teams in the race). Each team is identified by the color of the baton they were carrying and the number before their color signifies their overall place in the relay race. In brackets are the first, second, and third 2-mile splits (the splits after both athletes on each team had run one, two, and three of their three loops):

5 Red - 34:03.00 [(1) 11:00, (2) 11:25, (3) 11:38]

11 Black - 35:30.4 [(1) 11:14, (2) 12:00, (3) 12:17]

15 Blue - 35:53.3 [(1) 11:06, (2) 12:18, (3) 12:30]

17 Gold - 36:09.3 [(1) 11:38, (2) 12:08, (3) 12:23]

42 Silver - 40:29.3 [(1) 12:23, (2) 14:49, (3) 15:37]

53 Green - 43:26.1 [(1) 13:00, (2) 14:49, (3) 15:37]

In the time since this meet has been held at Georgetown Prep, today's time posted by Sayid and Jayden on the Red Team is the fastest time by a DeMatha duo. There were a couple of teams in the mid-90s under the 33-minute mark but back then the meet was held at Walter Johnson. In fact, the only other duo to break 35 minutes on this course was this same tandem last year when they ran 34:53.5!

Last year our second team got 15th, our third team got 25th, and our fourth team got 34th. This year all of those teams moved way up despite 10 more pairs running in the event!

Splits

In brackets are the athletes' first mile, second mile, and third mile splits*, plus their total times:

Sayid Shakur (Jr.) [(1) 5:34, (2) 5:46, (3) 5:55, (T) 17:15.0]

Jayden Keels (Sr.) [(1) 5:26, (2) 5:39, (3) 5:43, (T) 16:48.0]

Tarik Harris Jr. (Jr.) [(1) 5:37, (2) 5:57, (3) 6:02, (T) 17:35.6]

Ian Parsons (Sr.) [(1) 5:37, (2) 6:03, (3) 6:15, (T) 17:54.8]

Graham Fenn (Jr.) [(1) 5:38, (2) 6:08, (3) 6:19, (T) 18:05]

James Westbrooks III (Jr.) [(1) 5:28, (2) 6:10, (3) 6:11 (T) 17:48]

Michael Metz (Sr.) [(1) 5:59, (2) 6:13, (3) 6:27, (T) 18:39.0]

Christopher Toomer (Sr.) [(1) 5:39, (2) 5:55, (3) 5:56, (T) 17:30.3]

William Jackson (So.) [(1) 6:10, (2) 7:01, (3) 7:12, (T) 20:22.9]

Hayden Walsh (So.) [(1) 6:13, (2) 6:54, (3) 6:59, (T) 20:06.4]

Roman Zentek (Fr.) [(1) 6:20, (2) 7:16, (3) 7:23, (T) 20:58.3]

Xavier Raymond (Fr.) [(1) 6:40, (2) 7:33, (3) 8:15, (T) 22:27.8]

As I said above, mile repeats in a racing environment makes this the most brutal meet you'll run all season. You may see some courses that are similarly hilly, but you won't have to run another race like this in 2022. All of you should be very proud of yourselves just for finishing this race.

My recommendation to all of you is to look at your race splits and think about how you felt during each circuit. Sayid, Jayden, and Christopher ran their races pretty much perfectly. Tarik and Michael had bigger drop offs in the second mile than I'd like to see, but they didn't really lose any more ground.

Some of you went out way too fast. You know who you are because you were in agony by the time your third loop came around. It's really easy to get caught up in trying to beat people off the line, and that element of the race is exaggerated in this meet because everyone knows they're only running a mile at a time the start is even quicker than usual. Learn from this experience and apply it to your next race.

Team Results

For today's meet, team results were determined by adding the finishing place of each team's best three pairs.

1. Winston Churchill 13 points [2, 4, 7]

2. DeMatha 30 points [5, 11, 14]

3. St. John's 33 points [3, 9, 21]

4. Georgetown Prep 49 points [6, 17, 26]

5. Magruder 50 points [1, 15, 34]

6. Sherwood 57 points [10, 22, 25]

7. Walter Johnson 64 points [12, 20, 32]

8. Bethesda Chevy-Chase 65 points [8, 28, 29]

9. Osbourn Park 83 points [19, 24, 40]

10. Gaithersburg 97 points [18, 31, 48]

While beating St. John's today doesn't matter nearly as much as what we hope to accomplish on October 29, today still feels great, especially knowing that our fourth pair of Michael and Christopher also beat the third team for St. John's.

Also, I'd like to point out Magruder in 5th place. Their 'A' relay won the event, and it wasn't close. Our 'A' team was closer to Churchill 'A's second place finish than Churchill 'A' was to beating Magruder. In fact, Churchill's 'C' team was closer to second place than second place was to first.

This just shows that it doesn't matter if you have the faster runner(s) or how much faster the fastest guy is than the field, at least not when it comes to team scoring. You need a strong supporting cast, and that goes beyond the second, third, and even sixth and seventh guys. It applies all the way down the roster, all the way down the results list.

Open Race

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (160 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the open race. In brackets are their first lap, second lap, and third lap splits:

36 Nicholas Berry (Fr.) - 23:16.6 [(1) 7:09, (2) 7:45, (3) 8:13] PR by 12 seconds

37 Jesse Holland III (Fr.) - 23:18.0 [(1) 7:15, (2) 7:50, (3) 8:13] PR by 43 seconds

51 Joshua Gresham (Jr.) - 23:56.6 [(1) 6:33, (2) 8:20, (3) 9:04]

56 William Herman (Fr.) - 24:14.1 [(1) 7:41, (2) 8:20, (3) 8:14] PR by 3 seconds

59 Brandon Smoot (So.) - 24:15.1 [(1) 7:36, (2) 8:22, (3) 8:06]

69 Lazarus McCarthy (Fr.) - 25:05.2 [(1) 7:29, (2) 8:34, (3) 9:02]

75 Andrew Righi (Jr.) - 25:31.4 [(1) 8:13, (2) 8:48, (3) 8:31]

79 Cameron Lamb (Fr.) - 25:39.0 [(1) 7:43, (2) 8:48, (3) 9:08]

84 Maximo Legaspi (Sr.) - 26:15.2 [(1) 8:06, (2) 9:05, (3) 9:04] PCB by 3 minutes 57 seconds

102 Brendan Dougherty (So.) - 28:21.7 [(1) 8:34, (2) 9:47, (3) 10:01]

108 Daniel Traves (Fr.) - 29:06.2 [(1) 7:33, (2) 10:34, (3) 10:59]

109 Peter Brown (Jr.) - 29:07.8 [(1) 8:15, (2) 9:49, (3) 11:04]

117 Daman Decker (Sr.) - 30:12.3 [(1) 8:42, (2) 10:34, (3) 10:56]

137 Yaphet Negussie (Sr.) - 34:51.3 [(1) 9:17, (2) 10:41, (3) 14:54]

140 Carter Leecost (So.) - 36:38.0 [(1) 10:34, (2) 12:53, (3) 13:11]

143 Akintunde Shoetan (So.) - 36:55.0 [(1) 10:39, (2) 12:04, (3) 14:12]

We had three additional athletes start the race:

Amari Wright (So.) - Neither Coach Hoke, Coach Anthony nor I saw Amari pass the start/finish area three times. We had several athletes come through the mile mark telling us that Amari had stopped and wasn't able to keep running because his knee was hurting. Coach Hoke went out on the course to find him and make sure he was okay, and shortly thereafter we saw Amari coming by. He passed the mile mark at 16:28, went back out for a second circuit and returned at the 26:40 mark. He says he did three loops and, while we watch closely to spot all our athletes, it's possible we missed the first time he came through. We'll get an official 5k time for him next week in the Eagle Invitational's open race.

Anthony Bardonille (Jr.) - LA came through the mile mark at 9:11 and the 2-mile mark at 20:56. He was having some difficulty breathing at the mile mark and I think it was all he had today to push through the second lap. He'll bounce back next week on Centennial's 3-mile course.

Devin Lewis (So.) - Last week Devin got a little mixed up while running the parkrun and didn't complete the course. Today he really impressed his coaches. While he didn't finish the race, he's learning better how to pace himself and he ran a couple of fairly consistent mile splits with a 12:45 first mile and a 13:45 second mile. When he first came out a couple weeks ago he generally would run very fast for short bursts and then have to walk; now he's finding his rhythm where he can run slower but for longer periods of time, thus allowing him to cover a lot more distance during his runs.

Nicholas and William did a nice job of making an adjustment from last week when they struggled to maintain their paces in the middle of the 5k because they got out a little too hard. Nicholas still saw his pace drop quite a bit over the course of the race today, but because he got out in a more controlled manner, he didn't fall off as badly and wound up setting a new personal best, as did William.

Jesse, on the other hand, actually started a few seconds faster in his first mile today than he did last week, but it seemed like he trusted himself more to be able to finish the distance. Last week gave him a sense of how far 5k is, and today he allowed himself to run the middle portion of the race significantly faster than he did last week despite his quicker first mile. Last week he was able to bring his third mile back down around 7:35 and he was over 8 minutes today, but because of his controlled aggression in the first two miles, he ran a huge PR!

Maximo still has almost two minutes to drop to reach a new PR, but he is well ahead of where he was this time last year when he was unable to break 30 minutes on the Woodward Relays 5k course. I'm very excited to see what the rest of the season has in store for him.

Joshua, Brandon, Lazarus, Daman, and Tunde all ran their first 5k of the season and, for some of them, ever. Overall I was very impressed. Brandon, in particular, ran a really smart race. He didn't run outside of himself in the first mile, and while his second mile was almost a minute slower than the first he was able to recover enough in that time to run a significant negative split in the third mile. Joshua got out too hard in the first mile and was more than half a minute in front of our second runner at that point. He wasn't able to maintain that pace, but now that he's gotten a better sense of the 5k distance, I expect he'll be able to make the adjustment and come back next week with a much faster time.

Daman was only about 12 seconds away from our 30-minute performance threshold. Twelve seconds is not a significant amount of time, certainly not enough time for me to hold over an athlete's head and particularly on a course as challenging as Georgetown Prep's. He has met our performance threshold for the season.

Final Thoughts

Everyone will get to race next week at the Eagle Invitational. The course at Centennial High School is a 3-mile course, not a 5k. It is another challenging course, but in my opinion Georgetown Prep is tougher and most athletes in the past have run quite a bit faster at Centennial than they do at Prep.

Those of you who did not hit the 30-minute mark today will get to run in the Open Race next Saturday, which is the last race of the day. It will be another opportunity to hit the 30-minute mark (really I'm looking for you to be around the 29-minute mark since it is a tenth of a mile shy of 5k).

Looking back at the relays, last year I made an observation that none of our athletes were ready at that point in time to run their total time in a straight 5k but that it would be a great goal to try and achieve by the end of the season. While not every single athlete quite made it there, on average our athletes in the relay last year not only reached those times but bettered them.

Some of our relay runners today have already hit their combined times in a 5k or come very close. The implication, I believe, is that today we were not at our best. That can be a little disappointing to think about because it means we have to determine what prevented us from being at our best. Do I need to make an adjustment to our training plan, and if so do I need to add miles or build in more rest? Do the athletes need to change something about the way they are practicing or the things they are eating and drinking? Was the weather just not optimal today?

On the flip side, if we can find the answers to those questions, then the idea that we were not at our best today actually becomes very exciting. It means we are better than our performance today suggests, and our performance was pretty darn good! We took home a pretty nice trophy, after all!

This is what cross country, and indeed all athletic pursuits, are about. Learning from every performance, making adjustments, and applying them to future endeavors. We'll get another great week of practice in this week and next Saturday we'll be better for it.

I'll be in touch later tonight or tomorrow morning with details for the coming week. Let's make sure we're staying focused at practice, holding each other accountable, and being good teammates. Today was a successful day, but today won't carry us through the slog of the next eight to ten weeks.

"Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games." - Babe Ruth