Pembroke Duel 9/24, AKA Pride Invades SPARTA!

RESULTS HERE SOON

Fun Times On The Course

A Wednesday meet?! It felt strange, but sure enough a bus showed up and whisked us to the Land of the Spartans. The first victory was surviving the bus ride, as it was 90% bondo and 10% bus. The driver (not our normal one) said that this was the last trip before the junk yard for the bus. Lucky us. It brings to mind a certain unforgettable van ride to New Englands track (maybe Emma was there?) involving flat tires, seized tires, broken cupholders, being locked in bathrooms from the inside (unrelated to the van), and great Dominican music on a Connecticut mountaintop waiting for a tow truck at 9pm. The van in question was accidentally given to us that year, so I wonder...bondo-bus? Accident? By the way, parents, thanks for entrusting us with your children!

“Shades” Graham

At least it’s cross country you’re entrusting them to. While zipping to and fro today on the course I ran by the Pembroke football team practicing - varsity or JV, I don’t know. I have never heard so many F-bombs, S-bombs, B-bombs -- choose your bomb -- coming out of someones mouth outside of a movie. And this was the coach. One thing about MV - I have never heard anything like that from a coach, football or otherwise. It was pretty disappointing. Not to get preachy in the blog, but Sandu and I believe in a little breaking down, sure...of the body in workouts. But build up the mind. Always.

--Moving on--

A new course! We hadn’t run at Pembroke since our 2nd largest team, 2008. 11 years later, and my memory was a bit vague of the course, but it turned out to be quite a nice little course. Lots of hills, some grass, 200 meters on the track for spectators, not too bad! The girls discovered that the start line, which looked more like a hyphen, was precisely one Emma (with arms outstretched) long. And Emma discovered upon getting up that the paint was still wet. So...team bonding...everyone got a patch of paint on their right arm!

The Predators

The girls race was up first, as usual. It was temp workout day, with the girls choosing their paces. Sophia Rebenciuc chose FAST, and shot out to the lead and eventual win, fast-tempoing solo. Sophia Reynolds was the only one in sight at “80%” tempo, looking like she was starting to come down from altitude (the cold is getting better, maybe?). Emma, mini-Emma (Samantha), and Maddy ran as a trio, making things very interesting as MV was losing to Bow for the first 2 miles. 20th place...18th place...15th place...10th place...8th place...finally at the finish Emma took 4th, Sam 5th, and Maddy one Brochu twin back in 7th, for a resounding victory. Violet was the 6th MV girl, while Cassidy either PR’d or came close to finish as our 7th. One other highlight of the day was that today Sarah RAN a half mile!! Sarah suffered a stress fracture over the summer with a delayed diagnosis, and has still been to every single practice and meet. Today she started running, so it’s finally Sarah season!

The boys, on the other hand, discovered the line was one Mitchell long. And Mitchell’s uniform discovered the paint was wet. Oh well. A uniform with a story. The boys were up against a strong Bow team, and eventually did place second, but ran a great race none-the-less. I noticed a lot of forward progress, lots of MV uniforms passing other ones. That’s toughness, and we like to see it! Ethan led the way as he has all season, placing 4th. Christian was next, where he should be, even managing a kick. Speaking of a kick, Isaac kicked into third on the team today, just ahead of Mark. Rounding out the scoring was Elisha, followed closely by Marshall. I haven’t calculated the average team time, but through four it was our best of the year. Maybe through five, we’ll see.

Today was a great mid-week race workout day, now we have an unprecedented week and a half to train, train, train. Let’s do it!