2026 College Park parkrun #2

Back in August, we had to warm up in the rain and run on slippery pavement. Today we had to warm up in the cold and run on slippery pavement. I'd rather have worse conditions for the parkrun than for our official meets, and that's just what we've had so far this year.

Next week we'll face similar chilly conditions in the morning, so it's good we got a chance to acclimate this weekend.

Our August visit was the parkrun's 450th event, and today they celebrated their 10th birthday! If ever there's a time to treat yourself to some junk food, it's right after a hard effort.

Thank you to Will Dougherty's dad for getting splits today!

Let's jump right into things. As usual, I have marked in blue all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k at the parkrun, and in red I have noted all athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k. For athletes who have run this event before with us, 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 (222 total finishers in the run, including many of our parents -- way to go!). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the race. In brackets are their first mile, middle 1.1 mile {plus their mile pace for this segment}, and last mile splits:

2 Arvin Mirchandani (Sr) - 17:22 [(1) 5:53, (2.1) 6:19 {5:45/mi}, (3.1) 5:10] PCB by 51 seconds
4 Lucas Moisiuk (Jr) - 18:02 [(1) 5:53, (2.1) 6:23 {5:48/mi}, (3.1) 5:46] PCB by 33 seconds
12 Renaud Williams (Sr) - 20:38 [(1) 7:22, (2.1) 7:29 {6:48/mi}, (3.1) 5:47]
13 Dominic Hilton (Jr) - 20:40 [(1) 7:21, (2.1) 7:30 {6:49/mi}, (3.1) 5:49]
14 Blake Inzeo (So) - 20:44 [(1) 7:21, (2.1) 7:30 {6:49/mi}, (3.1) 5:53] PCB by 53 seconds
16 Alexander Soto (Jr) - 20:48 [(1) 7:21, (2.1) 7:30 {6:49/mi}, (3.1) 5:57]
17 Evan Bouchard (Fr) - 20:53 [(1) 7:21, (2.1) 7:30 {6:49/mi}, (3.1) 6:02]
18 Satchel Drabinski (So) - 20:57 [(1) 7:20, (2.1) 7:30 {6:49/mi}, (3.1) 6:07]
31 Dominic Hislop (So) - 22:59 [(1) 7:44, (2.1) 8:39 {7:52/mi}, (3.1) 6:36] PCB by 57 seconds
32 Zahir Accilien (So) - 23:00 [(1) 7:38, (2.1) 8:43 {7:56/mi}, (3.1) 6:39] PCB by 4 seconds
34 Dane Kuzner (Jr) - 23:02 [(1) 7:44, (2.1) 8:39 {7:51/mi}, (3.1) 6:39]
37 Nnamdi Onwuka (Fr) - 23:30 [(1) 7:32, (2.1) 8:38 {7:51/mi}, (3.1) 7:20] PCB by 5 minutes 15 seconds
38 Fareed Rahi (So) - 23:30 [(1) 7:51, (2.1) 8:45 {7:57/mi}, (3.1) 6:54]
39 Michael Bridges (So) - 23:31 [(1) 7:51, (2.1) 8:45 {7:57/mi}, (3.1) 6:55]
40 Oladimeji "Akin" Alade (So) - 23:36 [(1) 7:45, (2.1) 8:38 {7:51/mi}, (3.1) 7:13] PR by 2 minutes 45 seconds PCB by 4 minutes 48 seconds
48 Zachary Hailu (Fr) - 24:12 [(1) 7:48, (2.1) 8:50 {8:02/mi}, (3.1) 7:34] PR by 2 minutes 13 seconds
49 Terence Rascher (Jr) - 24:14 [(1) 7:51, (2.1) 8:45 {7:57/mi}, (3.1) 7:38] SB by 8 seconds
50 Stephen Lawrence Jr. (So) - 24:14 [(1) 7:38, (2.1) 9:01 {8:12/mi}, (3.1) 7:35] PCB by 45 seconds
51 Logan Von Spiegelfeld (Jr) - 24:37 [(1) 8:30, (2.1) 8:42 {7:55/mi}, (3.1) 7:25]
52 Chase Osby (Sr) - 24:40 [(1) 7:36, (2.1) 9:16 {8:26/mi}, (3.1) 7:48] SB by 2 minutes 55 seconds
53 Miguel Guzman (So) - 24:42 [(1) 7:53, (2.1) 9:11 {8:21/mi}, (3.1) 7:38] PCB by 12 minutes 44 seconds
55 Ryan Hickey (So) - 24:47 [(1) 7:53, (2.1) 9:11 {8:21/mi}, (3.1) 7:43]
60 Emilio Chicas (Jr) - 25:41 [(1) 8:31, (2.1) 9:29 {8:37/mi}, (3.1) 7:41] PCB by 1 minute 33 seconds
63 Luke Anthony Quach (So) - 25:46 [(1) 8:36, (2.1) 9:24 {8:33/mi}, (3.1) 7:46] SB by 2 minutes 57 seconds PCB by 36 seconds
70 Sebastian Righi (So) - 26:07 [(1) 8:37, (2.1) 9:49 {8:56/mi}, (3.1) 7:41] PCB by 56 seconds
79 William Dougherty (Fr) - 26:42 [(1) 8:17, (2.1) 10:09 {9:14/mi}, (3.1) 8:16] PR by 4 minutes 42 seconds PCB by 10 minutes 44 seconds
86 Eddie Castillo-Gutierrez (So) - 27:30 [(1) 8:36, (2.1) 9:50 {8:56/mi}, (3.1) 9:04] PR by 6 minutes 21 seconds

We also had a few team alums in the results from this weekend's parkrun. Congrats to them!

1 Coach Cory Puffett '10 - 16:33 [(1) 5:05, (2.1) 6:11 {5:37/mi}, (3.1) 5:17] SB & PCB by 51 seconds
27 Tyson Woods '26 - 22:45 [(1) 6:31, (2.1) 8:42 {7:55/mi}, (3.1) 7:32]
45 Joseph LeGloahec '26 - 23:58 [(1) 7:42, (2.1) 8:48 {8:00/mi}, (3.1) 7:28]

And finally we had two honorary team alums today. Nicely done!

62 Coach Sage Phillips '22 - 25:45 [(1) 8:36, (2.1) 9:23 {8:31/mi}, (3.1) 7:46]
116 Nolan Rascher '24 - 32:10 [(1) 8:24, (3.1) 23:46 {11:19/mi}]

The majority of our athletes running today were doing a structured workout.

We had eight athletes today who were treating this as a race. I instructed them before the start that they should test a racing strategy they haven't tried before. If they tend to get out fast and fatigue significantly in the middle of their race, I suggested getting out a little more conservatively. If they often feel like they have more energy left late in the race than they can expend, I suggested they get out harder in the opening mile.

I don't know, and don't need to know, whether they did that. They know, and they will hopefully use any knowledge gained from today, along with their previous experiences running the 5k this season, to implement the best racing strategy for themselves next week.

Of those eight athletes, four set new PRs for the 5k and two set new season bests! Nnamdi and Miguel were the other two athletes and both ran their second fastest times of the season -- Nnamdi was less than 30 seconds off his PR and Miguel was racing in back-to-back weeks for the first time.

The rest of our athletes were given target paces to run in groups for the first 4 kilometers, and then told to race the final kilometer of the course.

Some were more successful than others in hitting their goal pace, but all got what I hoped they would out of the workout. This was an opportunity to run 80% of our racing distance at a pace that is significantly easier than race pace but still presents a challenge in the context of a workout, then pick it up for a sustained closing effort while already fatigued.

Arvin and Lucas were both well ahead of their target 6:20 to 6:25 pace in the first two miles, but they both still ran their fastest mile of the day in the closing segment.

Renaud, Dominic Hilton, Blake, Alex, Evan, and Satchel got out a little slower than their target 7:10 pace but did a nice job to even it out in the second segment. They were probably at around 7:04 when they hit the final kilometer. They ran great final mile times and that slower pace explains why the only one in the group to set even a new course best was Blake, who's only had one other shot at the course in his career.

The next group that was supposed to run together was Dominic Hislop, Zahir, Dane, Fareed, and Michael. They were told to target 7:40 pace, and Dominic, Zahir, and Dane executed the first mile well. Everyone fell a bit off their pace in the middle third but finished strong. Again, only our two first-year runners in this group set new personal course bests, which is what I expected for structuring this as a workout.

Our fourth group consisted of Stephen, Logan, and Ryan with a target pace of 8:25 through the 4k mark. Logan did a great job, hitting it almost perfectly in the first mile before picking it up a little much in the second mile. Stephen and Ryan both got out a little too hard, dialed it back to pace with mixed success in the middle segment, but still closed well with their fastest mile split coming at the end.

Finally, we had Emilio, Terence, and Sebastian who were given a 9:10 target pace. Like the group ahead of them, these runners found tempo pace hard to lock into, and all three were well ahead through the first two miles. They held back enough, though, and the final mile was the fastest segment of the day for all three.

Final Thoughts

We started tapering softly last week, but we're going to see a large drop in mileage through the remainder of the season.

I am really happy with my performance today -- I haven't done a great job of tracking my own times, but I am confident this was my first sub-17 5k since college. What I'm most thrilled about, though, is that I can use it as evidence for my athletes. Take this taper seriously and don't worry that lower mileage, and a higher percentage of easy miles, will detract from your performances in the postseason. It won't.

My training has been interrupted significantly over the past few weeks -- an illness took away two quality workouts three weeks ago, and sharp pain in my knee and lower leg took away half of my MDXC week. This past week I only did 75% of the progression run on Monday and every other run was at recovery effort.

Follow instructions for our runs over the next few weeks and don't overdo it. The hard work is done. Now it's about maintenance, getting or staying healthy, and being ready to roll on race day. We've had plenty of workouts where you had to embrace some discomfort. Now you can give your body the room to be comfortable during practice so that in the final races you can push your body in into those painful upper zones of effort, knowing you only need to sustain it for 16 to 30 minutes.