2023 MileStat.com XC Invitational

I'm so glad I was able to make the drive down to Mechanicsville to watch Chase and Sayid run in person. It was a really cool atmosphere with so many teams in attendance (and this was just for the morning session; just as many teams were going to replace those in attendance for the afternoon session of races). It was also great to see Chase and Sayid race and represent DeMatha and themselves so well.

As I've mentioned, this is an incredibly fast course, and the meet director wasn't lying when he told coaching early this week that the rain shouldn't affect athletes' times. Last year, Charlie Ortmans from The Potomac School set the course record in a blazing fast 14:40, 59 seconds faster than his previous PR and 39 seconds faster than any other 5k time he would finish his high school career with outside of the 14:35 he ran on the track several months later at the New Balance Outdoor Nationals.

Today's winner was Drew Griffith from Butler, a high school in Pennsylvania, and he reset that course record with a 14:21, winning the race by more than 20 seconds.

That's how cross country works. Unlike track, where times can be directly compared between all races and all regions across the country, athlete times can be wildly different from one race to the next.

When I set DeMatha's current cross country 5k record in 2008 with a 15:27 at Georgetown Prep (a faster version than the one our current athletes are familiar with, to be clear), it came two weeks after I ran 17:40 at St. Mary's Ryken, a week after I ran 16:34 in a 3-mile race at Hereford High School, and a week before I ran 16:41 at Lake Fairfax for the WCAC Championship.

It's an important aspect of cross country for new runners to understand. But even on a fast course, you have to be strong enough to take advantage of it. "Fast" courses really only make a difference for runners who are at least moderately fast to begin with.

To that end, Chase and Sayid absolutely took advantage of this course's speed, with both setting new 5k PRs (personal records) for the cross country 5k (3.1 mile), noted below in blue.

Elite

Here are the results for our athletes registered in the Stan Morgan Elite Boys Race. The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Elite race (350 total finishers). In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

43 Chase Lopez (Sr.) - 15:51 [(1) 4:52, (2) 5:20, (3.1) 5:39] PR by 39 seconds
59 Sayid Shakur (Sr.) - 16:03 [(1) 4:59, (2) 5:15, (3.1) 5:49] PR by 42 seconds

I glanced through results from the other races on the meet schedule, and though the Small Schools boys varsity race from the afternoon session has not been uploaded as of the time I am writing this, of the other races that have been run only one athlete from the Emerging Elite race would have finished ahead of Chase and the second place finisher in that race would have finished ahead of Sayid. 

This means that out of the first 1,642 male athletes to run in this meet, Chase was 44th and Sayid was 61st. While college coaches won't care that much about the times run on this course, those places are terrific and definitely worthy of some attention from coaches at the next level.

To put those performances into a historical context within our program:

• Chase is tied for the 5th fastest 5k time ever run by a DeMatha athlete. Only two DeMatha cross country runners have ever run faster than him.

• Sayid is tied for the 9th fastest 5k time ever run by a DeMatha athlete. Only three DeMatha cross country runners have ever run faster than him.

The Top 5 cross country runners in DeMatha history are now:

1. Cory Puffett '10 (PR - 15:27, 2008 Georgetown Prep Classic)

2. Robert Patterson '09 (PR - 15:48, 2008 Georgetown Prep Classic)

3. Chase Lopez '24 (PR - 15:51, 2023 MileStat.com XC Invitational @ Pole Green Park)

4. Sayid Shakur '24 (PR - 16:03, 2023 MileStat.com XC Invitational @ Pole Green Park)

5. Rudy Kriester* (PR - 16:08, 1991 Metro Catholic Championship @ Georgetown Prep)

*Kriester was a German exchange student who spent one year at DeMatha before returning to Germany for his senior year.

Final Thoughts

I don't have much to add here today.  I'm really happy for both Chase and Sayid. This is Chase's first foray into cross country and he continues to improve every week and close the gap on the top WCAC finishers in every meet. And I know Sayid mentally needed a bounce-back race after Glory Days and MDXC. I think he go that today. After finishing about 40 seconds behind Chase at each of the last two meets he was only 12 seconds back this week.

My hope is that two weeks from now the two of them will be able to work together to break up some of the strong groupings from Gonzaga, St. John's, and The Heights, which finished 5th, 9th, and 13th respectively in the team standings in the Elite race today.

The two of them will be off next week as the rest of the team does their tune-up race at the College Park parkrun. Information on that and the WCAC Championship will be published this weekend along with this week's training plan.