2024 Maryland XC Invitational

If you took photos during this week's meet, you can upload those photos to our Maryland XC Invitational folder in Google Drive using this link. Once they publish the photos from the meet photographer, I will go through them to find all pictures with our athletes and upload them to a sub-folder within this Drive folder.

After the WCAC Championship, this has become the meet I and my coaching staff look forward to the most each season. The meet is organized incredibly well with great communication from meet management, the competition is fierce, the atmosphere is festive, and the course is generally quite fast.

On the last point, the course conditions today ran just a little slow compared to previous years, particularly for the Black & Gold Varsity race. Most of the course had dried out enough that it wasn't as squishy as last year when there was a steady, sometimes heavy mist throughout the day. But there were a couple of trouble spots where the mud was like clay and didn't offer much traction or a solid surface to push off from.

Because the conditions weren't particularly wet, rather than athletes making the course more sloppy as the day went on, they actually seemed to be packing the surface down better allowing for better course conditions for the JV race and even moreso for the Open Race.

From that standpoint, I would have been curious to see how our varsity athletes would have performed in the Red & White varsity race in the afternoon, though the warmer conditions may have offset the improved course conditions.

I also want to express my appreciation to all the parents who came out to support their sons and the team. I'm hoping they'll improve the shuttle system next year (if they need to use it). I saw how packed it was at the top of the hill as Coach Martin and I returned with the bus to pick up the athletes returning to the school. I even saw the Picketts walking back to their vehicle along the road and I'm curious whether they beat our other families back to their vehicles.

The meet director addressed the issues in an email Sunday morning:

"I want to acknowledge the issues we had with our remote spectator parking, as I'm sure you've gotten an earful from your team parents. To avoid situations with mud and cars getting stuck I opted for an offsite, paved option, and while I think this plan can work I did not organize nearly enough resources to execute the plan smoothly. This lead to some really long wait times to get to and from the meet, and I can't apologize enough for this. If you have upset parents please feel free to pass along my email (will@charmcityrun.com) and I will do my best to make it right. I'm sorry if this took away from your meet experience, and I am already planning on ways to improve if we go with a similar plan moving forward. Again, I apologize."

For our results below, I have marked in blue all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k at the meet. Additionally, in red, I have noted all athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k. For returning athletes who ran faster today than they did on this course in either of the past two seasons, in silver I have noted all athletes who set a new PCB (personal course best) for the Shawan Downs 5k course.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (241 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Black & Gold varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

90 Roman Zentek (Jr.) - 17:40.60 [(1) 5:27, (2) 5:41, (3) 6:04, (3.1) 0:29] PR by 0.03 seconds PCB by 41 seconds
93 Brandon Smoot (Sr.) - 17:41.16 [(1) 5:34, (2) 5:44, (3) 5:55, (3.1) 0:28] PCB by 1 minute 37 seconds
114 Arvin Mirchandani (So.) - 17:54.78 [(1) 5:43, (2) 5:44, (3) 5:57, (3.1) 0:31] PR by 7 seconds
152 Phillip Marshall II (So.) - 18:43.24 [(1) 5:54, (2) 6:02, (3) 6:18, (3.1) 0:29] PCB by 19 seconds
183 Maxwell Ellison (Sr.) - 19:19.09 [(1) 5:58, (2) 6:10, (3) 6:36, (3.1) 0:35] PCB by 11 seconds
191 Jalen Neptune (Sr.) - 19:23.62 [(1) 6:07, (2) 6:24, (3) 6:23, (3.1) 0:30]
203 Jesse Holland III (Jr.) - 19:38.36 [(1) 6:08, (2) 6:23, (3) 6:38, (3.1) 0:29] PCB by 43 seconds

Roman just barely set a new PR, knocking a few hundredths of a second off his time from last week at PG.

Arvin's PR is particularly notable because this is his first time breaking 18 minutes! He couldn't attend this meet last year, so this stands as his personal course best.

Jalen is working his way back into form. He probably could have taken a little bit of time off the middle mile and still closed as well as he did today. We'll need him, Max, and Phillip to get down closer to 18 minutes for us to compete for a top three spot at WCACs.

Team Results

1. St. Albans 26 points
2. Mountain Brook 153 points
3. Montgomery Blair 195 points
4. Winston Churchill 238 points
5. Towson 246 points
6. Gonzaga 248 points
7. Thomas S Wootton 280 points
8. North Hagerstown 286 points
9. Dulaney 296 points
10. Crofton 304 points
11. The Heights 324 points
...
16. Good Counsel 451 points
---
25. DeMatha 619 points
...
35. Marriotts Ridge 1063 points

First of all, holy cow on St. Albans' part. Scoring just 26 points in a meet like this is insane so hats off to them.

We've been feeling pretty good coming off our last two meets, but clearly we still have some work to do these last three weeks of the season. That's too large a gap between us and Good Counsel and we need to bring that down.

Gonzaga and The Heights lived up to expectations today, and Gonzaga was missing their top runner today due to illness, but if we want to compete for at least third place at WCACs, we have to close that gap to Good Counsl and be ready for whatever St. John's brings on the 26th.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (570 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the JV boys race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

80 Malachi Wilson (Sr.) - 19:31.76 [(1) 6:09, (2) 6:14, (3) 6:34, (3.1) 0:35] PR by 23 seconds
155 William Jackson (Sr.) - 20:01.30 [(1) 6:18, (2) 6:16, (3) 6:52, (3.1) 0:35] SB by 24 seconds
156 Lucas Moisiuk (Fr.) - 20:01.44 [(1) 6:20, (2) 6:30, (3) 6:38, (3.1) 0:33]
185 Elijah Hawkins (So.) - 20:18.47 [(1) 6:10, (2) 6:29, (3) 7:04, (3.1) 0:35] PR by 12 seconds
251 Nicholas Berry (Jr.) - 20:49.10 [(1) 6:19, (2) 6:40, (3) 7:18, (3.1) 0:32]
290 Tyler Ellis (Sr.) - 21:10.87 [(1) 6:30, (2) 7:01, (3) 7:10, (3.1) 0:30] PCB by 56 seconds
302 Renaud Williams (So.) - 21:17.54 [(1) 6:45, (2) 6:49, (3) 7:05, (3.1) 0:39] PR by 29 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 6 seconds
304 Cameron Lamb (Jr.) - 21:17.84 [(1) 6:43, (2) 6:51, (3) 7:10, (3.1) 0:34] PCB by 46 seconds
307 Don DeRocha Jr (Jr.) - 21:18.40 [(1) 6:50, (2) 7:00, (3) 6:58, (3.1) 0:30] PCB by 2 minutes 6 seconds
318 Jeremy Juste (Jr.) - 21:22.93 [(1) 6:28, (2) 7:01, (3) 7:14, (3.1) 0:40]
334 Alexander Soto (Fr.) - 21:33.46 [(1) 6:45, (2) 7:04, (3) 7:13, (3.1) 0:41]
363 Ryan Pickett (Jr.) - 21:45.44 [(1) 6:49, (2) 7:00, (3) 7:18, (3.1) 0:38] SB by 42 seconds
451 Brendan Dougherty (Sr.) - 22:59.46 [(1) 6:52, (2) 7:30, (3) 8:00, (3.1) 0:37]
463 Alexander Davis (Jr.) - 23:07.39 [(1) 7:09, (2) 7:20, (3) 7:57, (3.1) 0:41] PR by 51 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 42 seconds
475 Tre Whitfield (Fr.) - 23:24.02 [(1) 7:09, (2) 7:20, (3) 8:13, (3.1) 0:42]

Malachi took a nice chunk of time off his PR and had the team's seventh fastest time of the day.

William and Luke ran nice races today. Will had very strong first and second miles, we just need to get his closing mile back under his legs and his PR will be within reach. Luke's race was a little more balanced and he nearly caught William on the closing sprint.

Elijah broke 20:30 for the first time and Renaud had his first race sub-21:30 as both ran solid PRs. Elijah may have gone out just a little too fast as he didn't quite have the legs for the final mile, but he still ran very well today.

After running his first PR of the year at PG, Alex Davis has now taken nearly a full minute off his PR coming into 2024. He ran a terrific race today.

I was really impressed with a few of our athletes in particular in this race. Luke, Renaud, and Cam ran very balanced races, with their fastest and slowest miles being within 20 seconds of each other. Don did them one better and ran all three of his mile splits within 10 seconds of each other!

Team Results

1. Mountain Brook 17 points
2. The Heights 77 points
3. St. Albans 102 points
4. Montgomery Blair 121 points
5. Gonzaga 208 points
...
18. Bishop McNamara 524 points
...
26. DeMatha 693 points
...
30. Good Counsel 869 points
...
50. Long Reach 1642 points

Open

Here are the results for our open race athletes (353 total male finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place among male competitors in the open race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

50 Olutimilehin Adefiyiju (Fr.) - 21:18.58 [(1) 6:37, (2) 6:55, (3) 7:09, (3.1) 0:38] PR by 1 minute 16 seconds
126 Tyson Woods (Jr.) - 22:37.60 [(1) 6:45, (2) 7:20, (3) 7:56, (3.1) 0:37] PR by 26 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 40 seconds
140 Kazuki Reeves (So.) - 22:46.78 [(1) 7:11, (2) 7:23, (3) 7:32, (3.1) 0:41] PR by 1 minute 59 seconds
196 Julian Maring (So.) - 23:39.66 [(1) 7:18, (2) 7:38, (3) 8:08, (3.1) 0:36] SB by 48 seconds PCB by 33 seconds
266 Julian Righi (So.) - 25:44.52 [(1) 7:28, (2) 8:27, (3) 9:07, (3.1) 0:43]
292 Aleko Rodousakis (Sr.) - 26:32.52 [(1) 8:26, (2) 8:46, (3) 8:39, (3.1) 0:42]
298 Jaidon Contreras (Fr.) - 26:43.71 [(1) 7:42, (2) 8:36, (3) 9:52, (3.1) 0:34] PR by 2 minutes 44 seconds
319 Terence Rascher (Fr.) - 28:07.67 [(1) 8:04, (2) 9:09, (3) 10:09, (3.1) 0:46] PR by 4 minutes 31 seconds
322 Emilio Chicas (Fr.) - 28:21.54 [(1) 8:59, (2) 9:13, (3) 9:30, (3.1) 0:40] PR by 56 seconds
336 Stavros Rodousakis (Fr.) - 30:23.16 [(1) 8:59, (2) 10:00, (3) 10:41, (3.1) 0:43]
347 Devin Lewis (Sr.) - 33:50.40 [(1) 9:55, (2) 11:49, (3) 11:21, (3.1) 0:45]

I'm sure a contributing factor to all the PRs and season bests in this race were the improving course conditions through the day, but that alone does not account for just how much our athletes were breaking their previous best times by. I was particularly impressed by Jaidon and Terence today. Though they both lost a lot of time on their second and third mile splits, their fearlessness attacking the first mile set each of them up to run the team's two biggest PRs of the day by time.

Timi was a little off last week at PG but bounced back and then some today. We've now got four freshmen under 22 minutes and there's still time for him to improve even more.

Kazuki also ran very well today, taking almost 2 minutes off his PR and running incredibly balanced splits with his third mile only 21 seconds slower than his first mile.

Team Results

1. Mountain Brook 19 points
2. St. Albans 98 points
3. Dulaney 128 points
4. Gonzaga 140 points
5. Towson 164 points
...
8. The Heights 178 points
...
17. DeMatha 541 points
...
27. Loyola Blakefield 831 points

Final Thoughts

Though today showed us that we have a lot of work left to do if we're going to get in the mix for a Top 3 spot at WCACs, the vibes coming out of today's race should be mostly positive. Despite less-than-perfect course conditions, we had a lot of PRs and new season bests. Of 19 athletes who ran this course last year or in 2021, 12 of them ran faster today than they had on this course previously.

We've seen a pretty significant uptick this year in injuries. Fortunately most of them have been minor in nature, ones than we can run through, but it's still a concerning trend. Shin splints, in particular, have hit us quite hard. This week I began hearing from several of our athletes about tightness in their legs beyond the norm. For some of our athletes, I will be bumping them down a tier (and a half, in some cases). After this coming week, we will begin tapering toward championships, but some athletes will benefit from beginning that taper process a little earlier.

For those new to the sport, an end-of-season taper is essentially the process of cutting back a bit on the mileage to increase rest and freshen your legs in preparation for the biggest race(s) of the season. Our intensity does not change during workouts, but you'll run fewer minutes, fewer miles, and/or fewer reps during practice.

It takes between 10 and 14 days for a given workout to have an impact on your performance in a race. That means for today's race, our athletes' performances were dictated largely by workouts up through either Monday's long run or Wednesday's 800m repeats from Week 17 of our training plan. The workouts we completed this past week won't show up in our performances until our next race at the College Park parkrun on the 19th. Once we get inside of that 10 to 14-day window ahead of championships, our workouts are no longer about improving performance. Rather, they're just about maintenance, and so fewer reps are needed and in fact rest/recovery becomes much more important.

All of that to say, for our athletes who aren't showing those signs of excessive fatigue or soreness, this will be your last full week of workouts that will impact your performance at championships, so make the most of these workouts and continue doing the little things you need to do to stay healthy, whether it be stretching properly, icing after workouts, or seeing the trainers for minor issues. For our athletes who need to start tapering a bit early, trust that the work you've done so far this season will still carry you through championships and that the risk of further injury is far greater right now than the benefits of two or three more workouts will be.