9/2 News and Notes

The Week in Review

To say things got heated last week would be an understatement.  While our team didn't end up trapped inside like last year, we definitely had to be a bit cautious with the temperatures.  That's especially true given the number of days we spent at the course where shade is at a premium.

With several days of race-pace work, our runners got to spend some decent time in spikes helping their feet adjust to race distances in them.  All those intervals still had plenty of walk breaks to cool off.  

We did break things up on Wednesday for a little fun.  The runners opted for hide and seek over kickball, so those dinger photos will have to wait a bit longer.  But on Thursday we had our first pasta party of the season at Noah W's house.  As always, the water slide was a huge hit!

Jackson Meet Recap

Last Saturday we opened our race season at the Jackson meet.  As mentioned in last week's newsletter, all of the races were just 2 miles in length.  Due to the forecasted storms, race organizers modified the race schedule so that each race started as soon as possible following the conclusion of the previous one.  This threw our warmup sequence into a little bit of uncertainty.  But while our team prioritizes consistency, we've also learned how to be flexible with changing circumstances.

This certainly came into play as the races got underway.  The storms never materialized, and instead the course began to heat up as the sun climbed higher.  But our runners weathered that as best they could. 

In the freshman boys race, Luke went out fast and was able to hold on to earn a medal in 17th place.  Cain, Caden, and Bo weren't too far behind as the other members of the four-runner team score.  The scoring structure the meet used allowed unlimited displacement.  That means every one of the 16 freshman boys from Kirkwood and the 10 from Lindbergh counted for points.  This is another example of Jackson being Jackson and doing things differently than every other meet.  As by far the smallest school with a qualifying team, that made it pretty tough for our boys to claim a low score.  They finished 8th of 8 scoring teams.  On the back end, Tristin was the lone freshman to negative split (second mile faster than the first) in his race. 

Anna was our only runner in the freshman girls race, but she made our team's presence count.  She put her experience running with Perryville Middle School last year to good use, running a smart first mile and then closing with a solid second mile, passing a number of runners en route to a 10th place finish and a medal

Carter was our only sophomore to run but showed that was enough to make a strong statement.  He paced the lead pack through the half-mile mark before Farmington's Axtin Brune surged into first.  With less than 600m to go, Carter and Jackson's Kenyan Kelpe had roped him back in to create a three-way battle for first heading into the finish.  As the race rounded the big pine tree to the home stretch, Carter chased down the surging Brune and pushed right past him to cross the finish line in first.  To my knowledge (unaided by the incomplete meet records on MileSplit), he is the first SV student to take first in a race at Jackson

The junior race counterbalanced the sophomore one, with no boys and four girls.  Reagan looked strong through the first mile and a half on a trajectory toward a top three finish.  Unfortunately she wasn't able to finish what was otherwise a great race.  Audrey had the strongest negative splits of the day and leveraged that to catapult into medal territory over the last kilometer.  Sybina closed a wide gap to the next runners over the last mile and made a close race out of what wasn't shaping up to be one.  And Jocelyn held onto a group of runners and was able to beat one of them down the stretch

On the senior end, Ethan and Abby pushed to medals in the boys and girls races respectively.  Last year's race was only 1.95 miles, but this year both ran the full two miles faster than their 2023 times.  On the boys side, Noah was able to run a cross country race for the first time in nearly a year and finished within striking distance of where he left off.  Kennedy was our only other runner to negative split her race, and Reese chased down a Kirkwood runner to edge her out by a tenth of a second at the finish line

At first glance, our team places don't look the most encouraging.  One thing to note is that most of the schools our size weren't able to even field scoring teams in the majority of their races.  The fact that we could speaks to our strong (or at least lopsided by grade/gender) numbers.  The other thing to note is how we fared proportional to our size.  We had medalists in every race we ran in on Saturday.  There were only four other schools to do this.  You can see from the graphic below that we're a little bit different from the rest.  And that list doesn't even include the likes of larger schools like Lindbergh or Notre Dame.

Other than that, I don't think it's wise to force too many deep conclusions from this race.  Given the weather, the atypical structure and distance, and the fact that it was our first taste of race action, I think it serves better to give us things to work on in the coming weeks than as a predictor of what we'll look like when those weeks have passed.  Pacing is one area of focus, but that's expected during this part of the season.  All in all, I saw a lot of competitiveness and grit, and I'm excited to see how that translates into a full-length 5k.

The Week Ahead

With Labor Day off and our home meet on Thursday, this week's training will be shorter and simpler as we prep for another race.  That includes our final course build and our team family potluck on Tuesday.  The one good thing is that temperatures look much cooler in the days ahead.

Home Meet Preview

Our home meet this year is going to look a bit different than previous years.  First, the race will be on Thursday rather than the traditional Wednesday date.  Second, our meet will start with middle school races at 4:00pm and 4:30pm before the high school races begin at 5.  After consulting with the middle school teams attending, their course was shortened to 2400m (essentially a mile and a half).  Essentially it is a shortened version of the high school course, which also looks a bit different than in previous years

The high school course has some deceptive hills, but overall is relatively flat.  The biggest factor generally slowing down times besides the number of turns is the heat.  With cooler forecasts and a later start this season, I expect that to be less the case.  The finish stretch for the new course is much longer than before.  Our runners might find that a bit tricky to adjust to, but I thing spectators will enjoy seeing athletes duke it out from quite some distance as they approach the finish line.  ​

The last big change is the number of teams in attendance, which nearly doubled from last year.  The high school races will feature 19 teams, with nearly 100 girl runners and well over that mark for the boys.  None of those teams are quite as large as the ones we faced last Saturday, but there are still some competitive squads in the mix.  

Unlike Jackson, our meet just has a single high school race each for boys and girls.  That means our entire boys team and girls teams will run together respectively.  That should really benefit our younger runners when it comes to race prep and pacing.  

In terms of meet history, the overall boys meet record was set by Saxony Lutheran's Caleb Cornelius in 2018 with a time of 17:12.  On the girls side, hometown phenom and current St. Louis University runner Tegan Bishop set the record for Perryville in 2022 with a time of 20:20.  I wouldn't be surprised to see both of these records challenged this year.  

The fastest returning male runner from last year is Potosi senior Alex Smith with a 2023 time of 17:59 for 3rd place.  He also has the fastest speed time of all entries.  The fastest returning girl is defending champion and Valle Catholic senior Madelyn Griffard, who will look to improve upon her winning time of 21:50.  However, the fastest seed time on the girls side is Ste. Genevieve senior Hollyn Zangaro's, who will make her debut at our meet and owns a personal best of 19:28.    

Within our team the meet records belong to the same two runners we mentioned last week.  Levi Krauss ran a 17:31 in 2015, and Corin Carroll hit a 21:27 one year later.   After that the top 10 list has a few names from recent memory.  Unfortunately there's a good chance several of them will lose their spot on Thursday.