Away @ Hopkinton, 10/3/2020
/
A beautiful morning and a flat course foretold fast times at the second meeting of the week between the MV and Hopkinton Harriers. Losing the traditional fairgrounds course due to covid-related insurance issues, Hopkinton showed off a new course at Houston Fields, behind the library. Upon arriving, the team was treated to a display of collegiate running as the Franklin Pierce (Coach Walker’s alma mater) XC crew was running a workout. They would later work the race as well.
As usual, the girls were the first to the line - er - socially distanced cones. After an awkward horn start (wait, does that sound mean go?) they were off, charging across two football fields and onto the “story trail”. Before long Sophia opened up a gap that would eventually enable her to read some of the stories on the trail by her third lap. I believe she got through Moby Dick, War and Peace, and Song of Hiawatha, although she wasn’t too enthralled with the rhyme scheme of Hiawatha (“I thought poems were supposed to rhyme?”). She would go on to win by almost two minutes. After a group of Hopkinton Hawks flew past, Carlie and...who’s that?...SAMANTHA!...Samalama in her first race of the year. They would continue to run close to each other the whole race, until Sam put in a bit of a surge over the final loop to pass the two runners in front of her, thus ensuring the scoring differential was two points better than Wednesday. Less than a minute behind the Carlie-Sam duo came another duo - working together the entire race, putting the TEAM in teammates - Alyssa and Victoria. They crossed with almost identical times, times that each represented sizable PR’s for each, and the second PR in a row for Victoria. The pairings continued for the remainder of the race, although not quite as equal as these two. Smiley, aka MacNeill, was the next across, followed by another PR streaker, Liz. Then in the kick of the day, throwing enough dust to obscure the sun, Violet vs Anna. After some back and forth (“who’s it going to be! Oh, it’s Anna! No, it’s Violet!?) the soon-to-be-famous kick of Anna won out. Emmaleigh was next across, closing in on the 30 minute barrier, with Trinity not too far behind. Taylor ran her best race of the young season to close things out for the girls team.
The boys have been talking a lot lately about the importance of getting out fast in a race. On Saturday, Ryan decided to take it to the next level by demonstrating a four-point sprinter stance at the starting line. We’ll get you some starting blocks for the next home meet, Ryan! Having just raced Hopkinton three days prior, the boys were ready to take advantage of the perfect weather and fast course.
With the absence of Ethan, Elisha and Marshall’s main objective was to break up Hokinton’s top guys. From the start, Elisha executed this perfectly by positioning himself right in the mix of his competitors. Marshall took a more patient approach and ran safely behind the pack, waiting to unleash his signature kick. The rest of the boys didn’t hold anything back as they proved the effectiveness of pack-running.
In the final stretch, Elisha finished off his near-perfect race with a shiny new cross country PR and the top spot for MV. Marshall came flying in behind him, completing a one-two punch and slipping under the 20-minute barrier. In an epic battle to the finish, Oliver was overtaken by Hopkinton’s #4 runner, but the gap to Elisha and Marshall is closing each week. Next up, the pack of Jack, Trevor, Ryan and Zach finished within a span of 20 seconds of each other without letting a single Hopkinton runner break them up. Chris, who battled with a Hopkinton runner for the majority of the race, finished with another huge PR of 25:09. That’s over FIVE minutes off his time from a few days prior. Overall, the boys made up for the loss of one of their top guys with a strong fight against Hopkinton.
