10/7 News and Notes

The Week in Review

We spent most of the last week gearing up for our two races.  That meant a lot of dialing in race pace efforts while keeping volumes low.  

We did have a fun day on Tuesday, but the band was at a festival, and cheer had practice.  That left three runners at practice to play spike ball.  That meant I had to hop into the circle and play.  Hence there are no pictures, but Cain and Audrey did come out on top!

On Thursday we enjoyed a team pasta party at Petunia and Lily's.  Our runners enjoyed some Cornhole and Chameleon.

Perryville Meet Recap

Monday's race at Perryville was exactly what we expected.  The rains from the previous weekend left the ground a bit soft and squishy.  The rolling hills and twists and turns kept times slower across the board.  On average, the top three boys each ran more than 45 seconds slower than their season bests, and the top five girls averaged nearly a minute over their season bests.  

Our runners weren't exempt from this trend, but by and large they looked competitive.  In the boys race, Ethan's goal was to hang close to the #3-5 runners from Perryville.  He dealt with some cramping in the second half of the race but still managed to finish just 3 seconds off Perryville's #5 runner and managed to beat district foe Kelly's #2 runner by nearly 20 seconds.  That got him to a medal for 13th place.  Besides staying as close to Ethan as possible, Luke's goal was to compete with Kelly's #3 runner, whom he beat by 30 seconds.  He finished just three places away from a varsity medal. 

For our next three boys, their goal was to try to match up with Kelly's #4-6 runners.  Noah H went out quick and held on to run 40 seconds faster than his time on the much faster Arcadia Valley course.  That landed him right in the middle of the Kelly boys.  Bo and Caden got their first taste of a really tough course.  While their times fell off a bit from Arcadia Valley, they still both put forward some very competitive finishes, showing that there's still room for a lot more improvement.  Tristin started conservatively but then passed 20 runners over the last two miles of the race. 

In the girls race, Abby's goal was to make the top 10 in a much more talented field than last year.  On a squishier course, her time was on par with last year and good enough for a 9th place medal.  The plan for Anna was to stay with Abby for as long as possible.  She was able to go the distance with Abby and even sprint a bit faster to the finish for 8th place.  Her time was only three seconds slower than at Arcadia Valley.

Audrey's goal was to compete with the crowd of Perryville girls.  She finished just behind them.  More impressively, her time was nearly five minutes faster than at last year's meet.  Kennedy's plan was to compete to the extent her knee would allow.  She felt good through the first half of the race and was able to stay with Audrey and make a strong kick at the finish.  Her time was a minute faster than last year and just 6 seconds slower than her Arcadia Valley time.  Jocelyn pushed through some nagging pain.  She didn't really have any competition over the second half of the race and still managed to finish 90 seconds faster than last year's race.  ​

Notre Dame Meet Recap

In last week's preview I predicted a crowded meet at Notre Dame.  That turned out to be true, but not quite to the extent it could have been.  In the end the meet included around 35 schools, which was down a bit from last year.

What wasn't down very much from last year were the temperatures.  Highs still hit the mid 80s, and by the end of the girls race we were pretty baking.  Like last year, that definitely impacted times a bit.  But compared to 2023, our runners looked much stronger in the face of the warmth.  That showed in their times, in particular how they stacked up to last year.  

In the boys race, Carter went out smart and was able to pass half the field ahead of him over the final two miles to finish fourth.  Unfortunately he ran out of time to close on Woodland's Calvin Layton, but he still finished well within reach.  Carter's finish time of 17:14 was the fastest by an SV runner on the Notre Dame course, topping not only Jack Baer's meet record but also Carter's own record time from last year's district meet. 

Looking to build on his performance from Monday, Ethan set out for a rematch with the Perryville boys, and this time he didn't disappoint, finishing right in the middle of two of them.  His finish time was more than 80 seconds better than last year, almost 30 seconds faster than Monday's race, and just 25 seconds off his time on the course during the much cooler and later in the season race at districts last year.

We ran all of our boys in the varsity race to see how we could perform as a team.  That included the freshmen.  Luke was the first of them across the finish line.  He showed up big over the last mile, passing 8 runners to finish in the top 50.  His time of 20:44 was just 12 seconds off of his Arcadia Valley PR, and had he run that time in the JV race, he would have finished 13th.  

Our next three boys stayed close throughout the race.  Cain and Caden stayed neck and neck the entire time.  After a footrace to the finish, Caden ended in front.  Despite a much more challenging race environment, both boys were less than a minute off of their Arcadia Valley times.  Considering this stage of the varsity race had way fewer runners to compete with than their JV race at Arcadia, I would say this was an accomplishment.  Noah W. finished just a few seconds after them.  His time was well more than 4 minutes faster than at last year's meet and an improvement on his time from his last race at the much easier Van Buren course.  

Tristin marked the last of our boys.  He made the most of the opportunity to run a varsity race.  Without many runners to compete, he nonetheless chased a few boys down in the final miles.  Overall the boys finished 7th of 12 teams, beating every other school from our district other than Woodland.  

With Reagan unable to run, we only raced four girls.  Unfortunately the girls won't see much overlapping competition in their last few races of the season, which makes finding race goals tough.  For this race, Abby and Anna were trying to keep with Saxony's top girls and Leopold's Elise VanderMierden.  Given the heat, they ran a very conservative race over the first mile before moving up in the second half.  That brought them in front of the Saxony girls.  Abby pulled a few seconds ahead of Anna in the final stretch before loosing a race to the finish with VanderMierden.  But she still walked away with a season best time that was just a few seconds away from the fastest regular season race of her career.  Anna's time of 23:50 marked a new PR and moved her ahead of Shelby Schumer, Fayth Brewer, and Cailyn Prost into 6th place on the all-time freshman list.

Sybina and Reese ran most of the race alone as the temperatures climbed.  That definitely makes it hard to stay competitive.  But fueled by some Sabrina Carpenter at the two-mile, they pushed to strong finishes.  Sybina's time was nearly four minutes faster than last year, and Reese saw an improvement of nearly three minutes as she pushed past a number of start-and-stop runners over the second half.

The Week Ahead

With Homecoming this week, we have to be mindful of the chaos and the lack of sleep this likely includes.  Stress is stress, and so we want to be careful not to overload training.  That means fitting the bulk of our work into the front half of the week before bonfires, parades, and football games, and dances take over.

​Upcoming Races

Given all of the Homecoming events, we won't have a race this week.  We were due for a break anyway after our recent stretch of races.  However, that means we have just two more races remaining on our schedule before districts.  The first is our Conference meet.  The second is the Northwest Last Chance, a new meet for our team that we originally added when Homecoming was scheduled to conflict with Conference.  

It follows just four days after Conference, which is a quick turnaround at any point in the season, let alone this late in the season.  For most of our runners, doing both races isn't in their best interests.  Fresh legs and the chance to give some nagging body parts a breather is of much greater value than race experience.  While the conference course is going to provide the better race preparation, for those battling leg pain of one form or another, the less challenging Northwest course might be the safer option.

For a few of our younger boys who are feeling strong and healthy, the experience of two races might be the better asset going into districts.  We need our back-end runners to believe they can run fast, and the Northwest course can provide that.  There's also the very real possibility our boys won't qualify for state as a team.  For those runners who won't qualify as individuals, this ensures them a full slate of races.  If we do make it to state as a team, the opportunity to run on the state course would be icing on the cake.

That being said, below are our projected rosters for these last two meets, though this could change depending on how training goes in the coming weeks.