Newfound Invitational - 9/20/22
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The Sam Stare-down. Sam and Lily vs Ceili and Addie (of Newfound)
A meet and a course new to us; very unusual and very fun! We used to go to the Belmont Invitational, but replaced it with the Thetford Invitational. While we would never not go to Thetford, everyone’s favorite meet, Belmont has been missed with it’s smaller DIII schools, tough course, and top-ten t-shirts. While Newfound may not have had the t-shirts, it did have a different mix of schools for a change of pace. Also it had Coach Irving’s daughter! - running for Newfound. Mrs. Irving did a great job meeting the requirements of beng a double fan, with a Newfound top and MVXC sweatpants.
Striking fear into the hearts of the team with tales of hills with names and rooty rocky single-track, not to mention an additional 150 meters, we arrived to find that all of it was…true. Not an easy course by any stretch, and certainly not a fast one either, but definitely unique and maybe even fun. Attitudes were much better than a week previous (we are RUNNERS, gosh darn it!), and pre-race procedures were smooth. A course that was surprisingly good for spectators, we saw Sam always in contention, always between 7th and 8th place, eventually claiming 8th place for the first MV award of the season. Her time was under the old course record of 24:11, breaking into the 23’s on a course that must run at least a minute or more slow. Wearing her new-to-her magic slippers (spikes), Lily ran the best race of her fledgling high school career to finish 13th, not too far ahead of Maddy, who declared that she “had a good time”. Interesting definition of a good time, but yes, all runners know exactly what you mean! Our 4th runner, the hippity hip sore hipster Kendra, got to meet another Kendra for the first time EVER! You are welcome for the opportunity, Kendra-dra! 5th in, our final scorer on the day, was Victoria. Playing the silent ninja the entire race, she passed approximately 2,536 runners over the final 2 miles. A very solid time, we think, although as of this writing results are not yet in. Very solid runs were had by the rest of the team - it was a great day to be a member of the MVXC Pride Family!
