2025 College Park parkrun #1

If you took photos during this week's race, you can upload those photos to our parkrun folder in Google Drive using this link.

We truly could not have asked for better weather for our first 5k of the new season. A slight chill in the air as we arrived gave way to perfect mid-70s temperatures by the time everyone get out on the course.

We have so many new athletes this year, which is very exciting. In all, 13 of our athletes ran their first high school 5k for DeMatha today; that's well more than a third of our athletes who ran!

We did have two athletes run today who are not fully cleared by our athletic trainers, but since today is a community run open to anybody, and not a high school sanctioned meet I register athletes for, it was permitted for them to run and I did get their splits, so they are included in our results below. In addition, two recent alums ran today and you'll see them included in the results after all our current athletes.

For our returning athletes, in blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile). I know some of our new athletes have run the distance before and may have set new PRs, but I only track your DeMatha times here. In silver, I have noted all athletes who set a new PCB (personal course best) for the Paint Branch Trail out-and-back 5k course.

Open Race

Here are the results for all of our athletes (255 total entries in the run - I saw a lot of parents in the results; Well done!). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the race. In brackets are their first mile, middle 1.1 mile, and last mile splits:

1 Arvin Mirchandani (Jr.) - 17:48 [(1) 5:20, (2.1) 6:40, (3.1) 5:48] PR by 7 seconds PCB by 25 seconds
4 Phillip Marshall II (Jr.) - 18:38 [(1) 5:59, (2.1) 6:58, (3.1) 5:41]
6 Lucas Moisiuk (So.) - 18:59 [(1) 5:59, (2.1) 6:58, (3.1) 6:02] PR by 50 seconds PCB by 53 seconds
7 Dominic Hilton (So.) - 19:46 [(1) 6:00, (2.1) 7:17, (3.1) 6:29]
8 Elijah Hawkins (Jr.) - 20:06 [(1) 6:16, (2.1) 7:25, (3.1) 6:25] PR by 9 seconds PCB by 4 minutes 20 seconds
11 Don DeRocha Jr. (Sr.) - 20:24 [(1) 6:14, (2.1) 7:28, (3.1) 6:42]
13 Andrew Stinson (So.) - 20:46 [(1) 6:28, (2.1) 7:29, (3.1) 6:49]
15 Ryan Jones (So.) - 21:16 [(1) 6:44, (2.1) 7:51, (3.1) 6:41]
21 Jeremy Juste (Sr.) - 21:41 [(1) 6:16, (2.1) 7:59, (3.1) 7:26]
22 Alexander Soto (So.) - 21:42 [(1) 6:37, (2.1) 8:07, (3.1) 6:58]
23 Renaud Williams (Jr.) - 21:43 [(1) 6:47, (2.1) 8:04, (3.1) 6:52]
26 Nicholas Berry (Sr.) - 22:16 [(1) 6:37, (2.1) 8:12, (3.1) 7:27]
29 Fareed Rahi (Fr.) - 22:45 [(1) 7:25, (2.1) 8:17, (3.1) 7:03]
33 Satchel Drabinski (Fr.) - 23:04 [(1) 6:46, (2.1) 8:39, (3.1) 7:39]
35 Tyson Woods (Sr.) - 23:27 [(1) 7:04, (2.1) 9:01, (3.1) 7:22]
38 Ryan Pickett (Sr.) - 23:42 [(1) 6:52, (2.1) 8:46, (3.1) 8:04]
42 Xavier Raymond (Sr.) - 24:01 [(1) 6:46, (2.1) 9:13, (3.1) 8:02]
44 Nathaniel Garvin Jr. (Fr.) - 24:14 [(1) 7:26, (2.1) 8:44, (3.1) 8:04]
46 Michael Bridges (Fr.) - 24:27 [(1) 7:29, (2.1) 9:04, (3.1) 7:54]
47 Ian Andrews (Fr.) - 24:35 [(1) 7:19, (2.1) 9:12, (3.1) 8:04]
51 Stephen Lawrence Jr. (Fr.) - 25:19 [(1) 7:16, (2.1) 9:40, (3.1) 8:23]
59 Julian Righi (So.) - 25:49 [(1) 7:57, (2.1) 9:42, (3.1) 8:10]
69 Dane Kuzner (So.) - 26:45 [(1) 8:22, (2.1) 9:38, (3.1) 8:45]
70 Stavros Rodousakis (So.) - 26:49 [(1) 8:28, (2.1) 9:25, (3.1) 8:56] PR & PCB by 1 minute 55 seconds
80 Oluwatoni "Toni" Adefiyiju (Fr.) - 27:45 [(1) 9:06, (2.1) 10:10, (3.1) 8:29]
84 Terence Rascher (So.) - 28:06 [(1) 7:43, (2.1) 10:48, (3.1) 9:45]
89 Chase Osby (Jr.) - 28:24 [(1) 8:21, (2.1) 10:38, (3.1) 9:45]
100 Jaidon Contreras (So.) - 30:09 [(1) 7:57, (2.1) 12:24, (3.1) 9:48]
107 Sebastian Righi (Fr.) - 30:38 [(1) 9:08, (2.1) 11:21, (3.1) 10:09]
121 Emilio Chicas (So.) - 31:38 [(1) 9:14, (2.1) 11:42, (3.1) 10:42]
139 Luke Anthony Quach (Fr.) - 33:53 [(1) 10:19, (2.1) 14:04, (3.1) 9:30]
178 Olademeji "Akin" Alade (Fr.) - 38:20 [(1) 10:20, (2.1) 14:06, (3.1) 13:54]
Roman Zentek (Sr.) - DNF [(1) 5:58, (2.1) 7:00]

We also had a few former team members in the results from today's parkrun. Congrats to each of them!

12 Corlie Jackson McCormick '22 - 20:40 [(1) 6:33, (2.1) 8:01, (3.1) 6:06]
18 Olutimilehin "Timi" Adefiyiju (So.) - 21:31 [(1) 6:46, (2.1) 7:57, (3.1) 6:48]
105 Yaphet Negussie '23 - 30:35 [(1) 9:18, (2.1) 11:09, (3.1) 10:08]

We had 32 athletes finish today's parkrun. It is the most we've had at the season-opening parkrun since we had 31 finishers in 2019!

A big shoutout goes to our four athletes who set new PRs to open the season. Stav ran a terrific race. That middle split was an 8:34/mi pace, so he did very well in controlling how much his pace slowed in each third of his race and it led to a big PR.

Lucas and Elijah both started their second seasons of high school cross country very strong. While I typically worry a bit when faster runners open the season with a PR, because it often indicates they may peak too early, this is less of a concern with second-year runners. They lacked experience running this distance entering last season, and now that they have a season under their belts that experience is a big factor in their performances. For Arvin, as long as he wasn't over-training this summer, his PR could be a great sign moving forward this season.

Xavier's time today was faster than his 2024 season best, so I'm excited to see how his season turns out. He missed the second half of last season with an injury and I know he's been disappointed after some challenging early-season performances these last two years. This is his best season-opening performance since his freshman year so hopefully it's provided him with some confidence moving foward that he can make his last high school season his best.

Dominic had a strong freshman season with the track team and did well to break 20 minutes in his 5k debut this morning. I was also impressed with Fareed and Satchel, our first two freshman finishers. They've been very consistent in practice this past week and I was glad to see both of them where they were, right around that time threshold distinguishing Tier 3 from Tier 4 in our training plan.

Julian and Akin were both running through injuries today. A priority this week will be getting the two of them, along with some of our other athletes nursing various ailments, in with our athletic trainers so we can make sure these injuries don't linger through the entire season.

And just to put it out there, Timi, who is not running cross country this year to focus on the 400 and 800 in track, was less than 13 seconds off his 5k PR from last year. If he reconsiders between now and his junior year, we'd be more than happy to welcome him back!

Final Thoughts

If this was the first time you've ever run a 5k, congratulations! Not everyone is willing to put themselves through 3.1 miles of running. Finishing is its own victory. Now the focus turns to making yourself a little bit better every day.

If you did not break 30 minutes today, don't fret. Because of the open race before the varsity high school races, we have enough time between the JV and varsity races for anybody who has not broken 30 minutes to be entered in the JV race at Trials of Miles.

Information for the upcoming week and next Friday's meet is on the website. Athletes, keep an eye out for an email with recommended training paces for this week's workouts. It will be in your student email inbox by Monday morning. If you did not run today, you may not see paces next to your names. I'll do my best to provide something for our returning runners, but I don't yet have a strong baseline for our new athletes. If you're in that category and have found that you can stick with one or more of your teammates over the past couple weeks in practice, see if their pace still works for you this week.

Parents, you'll receive an email from SignUpGenius soon that you can use to volunteer to bring water, gatorade, and various snacks for the athletes to have at next Friday's meet. You're also welcome to drop it off Friday morning and have your son leave it in my office until we head out.

Thanks everyone and congratulations! We've officially begun the 2025 season!