9/21/24 - Manchester Invitational
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Manchester! One of the biggest meets of the year, and the race that signifies the end of the first part of the season. A meet that draws athletes from all six New England states as well as New York, and sometimes beyond for a carnival of 10 races throughout the day. The weather was damp and cool, in other words perfect running weather. We did get a little damp on our course walk, but survived as we surveyed the many changes to the course - the most significant changes in the 50+ history of the infamous Derryfield Park XC Course. While the weather was quick, the course would prove to run about 30 second slower, due to its being extended to a true 5k (it was always 117 meters short) and the addition of a little more elevation gain along the way.
The day kicked off with a nice surprise; another visit by alumni - this time Samantha and Ryan joined Anna (all from MV’s class of ‘23) in cheering on their old teammates. We also had a future MVXC’er on hand running the camera - Maddy’s sister Isabel. We were only down Raven, struck down by illness for the weekend, resting and recovering for the future!
With no Raven, Emma decided to move up to the JV “C” race and join Keira for the 2 mile version of Derryfield. Out of the 199 runners, Keira placed 26th (!) and Emma placed 141st. That’s 58 runners defeated Emma! Extending their paces out over another mile would have given Keira just under 25 minutes and Emma right around 30 minutes. No problem!
Tessa took to the line all by her lonesome in the JV “B” race. Despite a great attitude and a great first mile she wisely pulled out shortly after the first big hill due to to injury. Live to run another race - brain over pain.
On to the girls varsity, made up of Lily, Maddy, Reagan, Emily, Kendra, Nicole, and Jessi. Course conditions were still good, despite the wetness, and some good showings were on hand. Looking back over the splits it’s clear that the entire team got out a bit slow, but that just allowed them to CRUSH the last two miles. Reagan especially, as she passed something like 60 people throughout her race. Lily ran her usual strong seemingly effortless race, cruising in with a new course record for MV, 22:41, good for 52nd place and 28th out of DII runners. Maddy looked great the whole way, eventually placing 70th in 23:16 (34th in DII). Playing the hunter and running down about a billion competitors was Reagan, running yet another PR of 24:45. Not an easy course to PR on! Placing 4th for MV was our other 10th grader, Emily, in 25:39, followed by Kendra in 26:24 (quite a bit faster than last year with the conversion!). Speaking of faster than last year, Nicole was our #6 with a time of 28:14, half a minute faster than 2023 not even including the conversion! Rounding out the runners was Jessi, returning to Derryfield after a year away with a very respectable 29:30. As a team we finished 16th of 23 complete teams, and many more incomplete teams. Among DII teams we were 6th of the 15 complete and partial DII teams represented.