Thetford 10/5/19
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Sarah’s First Race!
Marshall Marshaling A Kick
7:30 am bus departure for the last time for several weeks! The morning was beautiful as we headed north into the land of Fall Foliage for the Thetford Invite, the “Meet of Crazy Music”. With ten high school races divided into “seeds”, today was a day of opportunity for most runners.
Highlighting the Seed Five girls race was Sarah, in her first race of the year. Thetford may be a great cross country course, but it is NOT an easy one, so for Sarah it was trial by fire (hill). She did great, by the way, finishing as the second MV girl out of five and 64th out of 127 runners. You know who else did well? MacNeill, who brought her fast shoes and ran her best race of the year, by far. MacNeill placed 6th and earned MV’s first ribbon of the day, given to the top 15 racers in each race.
Sam-A-Lama in Second
On to the boys, where Ryan continued overcoming his illness to run a solid time, and Tim, CRUSHED his PR to finish 8th and earn the second ribbon of the day. Knocking on the door of varsity, Tim!
The girls Fourth Seed race saw the largest contingent of MV girls, an entire scoring team of 7. And in the end, with 4 in the top 30 they would have been the winning team. Anna had a particularly good race with (maybe?) a PR, as did Nicole, Cassidy, and Carlie, who finished the day as MV’s 7th runner. Finishing 6th on the day for MV in yet another huge PR AND taking the highest finish of the day in a race was Violet, placing second and almost going sub-24 for the first time.
The boys Fourth Seed was the only race of the day where MV entered and didn’t earn a medal, but it was only Jack and he still ran a very solid PR. In fact, when the dust settled he was only 9 seconds behind Elisha (in a different race) for a solid 6th on the team.
With no girls in the Third Seed, it was on to the boys, where the top 6 minus Ethan were all entered. Even while goofing for every picture on the course and recovering from his annual cold, Christian managed to run a very solid race, finishing only 17 seconds out of the ribbons. Highlighting the race was Mark, running a very consistent race to place 8th, earning yet another ribbon for MV.
Lots Of Sitting Around…
In the Second Seed girls race, Maddy and Samantha each got off to a great start. While Morty the Monster took his toll on Maddy (actually, the downhill portion), Samantha was a monster herself, moving from 20th to 10th at the mile, to 4th at the two mile, to second and then finally third at the finish, for a superb PR on a tough course. Steady forward progression, that is the way to race! Maddy did manage to beat the 2018 version of herself for the crucial 5th spot for the team.
In the boys version, Ethan was the lone entry, and got a fantastic start...for 50 meters. Clipped from behind (and there is a photo where you can see the actual moment), Ethan fell down and when he got up he was Dead … Last… in the race. Undeterred, he carried on and eventually managed to secure yet another ribbon for MV, this one for 12th place.
…And Laying Around
In the final race for MV, the girls First Seed, Emma and the Sophias were entered. Morty munched a bit on Emma as well, and the trail munched on Sophia10’s ankle (yet she still managed 11th place overall, not too shabby), but Sophia9 conquered Morty and all of the Thetford trail and competitors save two, including Division II’s current top seed. It came down to the kick!
As a team, the girls placed 6th, one spot out of their goal of top 5, while the boys placed a respectable 29th of the 52 teams entered.