Simply put, last year was good for the D.C. area’s cross country runners. West Springfield’s Caroline Alcorta‘s third place was the best Footlocker Cross Country Championships race by a girl since Erin Keough won it all in 1986. Katy Kunc and Hannah Christen gave Lake Braddock two national championships qualifiers. Edison’s Louis Colson and Marshall’s Mackenzie Haight proved the 5A class’ depth by making it, and St. Albans’ Tai Dinger gave D.C. its first qualifier since Sidwell’s John McGowan.
But that was last year.
Carl Klein woke up one night to a police officer knocking on the window of his Ford Explorer. He was parked in a lot right off the highway, and the officer told him he couldn’t sleep there. Carl started his car, drove to another location and fell asleep again.
He was 17 years old.
It was an unusual high school experience, one that running helped him endure. Now in his first year as an assistant track and field coach at Annandale High School, Klein’s love of athletics is still strong.
Klein was born and raised in Perry, Mich., a small town northwest of Detroit with a little over 2,000 residents. Klein excelled in soccer, wrestling and track at a high school where each graduating class had about 30 students.
“I just fell in love with running,” he said, although he didn’t always feel that way. “I was honestly only doing it to keep in shape for other sports.”
In that first stretch of a cross country race, everything seems within control. Runners bide their time, some try to bank a few seconds, maybe break the field, or do something otherworldly. When all of those plans come together, it’s chaos. And out of chaos, at the Virginia High School League, four teams wound up at the top of the standings in the boys 6A race, separated by four points, with Chantilly on top. Oakton’s Jack Stoney won the individual title in 15:24, a personal record.
In the 5A race, Thomas Edison’s Louis Colson continued his dominant year, winning in 15:06. It’s the first year the state’s reclassification has split up schools into six races, versus the previous three. 6A results 5A results
Chantilly’s 85 points to win made them a repeat winner in the largest classification, two points ahead of Lake Braddock, which was two ahead of Robinson and Battlefield, with Robinson winning on the sixth man tiebreaker.
The girls 6A races at the Virginia High School League cross country championships were short on drama, but featured plenty of firsts for Northern Virginia programs.
West Springfield’s Caroline Alcorta pulled away from the pack within seconds of the start and bolted to a 29-second lead by the first mile on her way to a 39-second win over Lake Braddock’s Hannah Christen, setting a course record in 17:13 at the Great Meadows in Fauquier County. In winning the 6A title, the first state meet after redistricting ended the former three-classification system, she ran was 32 seconds faster than she ran for second place last year, and her first cross country state title.
“That was a little faster than we had talked about,” said Spartans coach Chris Pellegrini. “This course can come back to hurt you if you go out too fast.”
Scaling the final steep hill towards the finish line of the D.C. State High School Cross Country Championships at Fort Dupont Park in Washington D.C., Georgetown Day School teammates Tristan Colaizzi and Aiden Pillard impulsively decided to finish the race together, hand in hand. Having trained and raced side by side all season, often finishing within seconds of each other, made racing down the final straight away together at the DC championship meet even more special. Though they finished with an identical time of 17:34 for the 5k race, Pillard, a junior, was officially declared the winner, and later MVP of the boys race. Colaizzi, a sophomore, was happy for Pillard and with his own performance, saying, “It hurt, but it hurt good, and there’s nothing better than running next to teammates.”
Nora McUmber‘s dominant performance wasn’t the story Saturday at the Montgomery County Cross Country Championships. With a 46-second lead, an observer who didn’t come to expect that performance from the race’s defending champion might think she was lost, warming up, or trailing an earlier race that had long since finished. Though she contributed a single point to the team’s total with her victory, the clump of teammates a few places back put the Barons on top.
“She’s gaining a lot of confidence with these races,” said coach Chad Young. “She respects her competition and knows a lot of girls can be competitive with her in the right race, but she’s getting an idea what she can do.”
It was an exercise in resilience.
After three days of rain, things weren’t so much up in the air for the local cross country scene as they were under water. The Glory Days Invitational was called off, Bull Run Regional Park was flooded. The golf course at Georgetown Prep was too soft and slippery, but coach Greg Dunston was adamant about holding the meet. Teams were coming from Delaware and Chicago to race.
With some rerouting along the campus’ roads, harriers from dozens of schools managed to have a series of fast races that showcased a few programs.
Poolesville took the opportunity to split its team up among several races, which coach Jim Vollmer said gave his younger athletes a chance to see how they compared to their peers.
“The varsity race puts everyone together and it’s good for seeing how they stack up, but we have some young runners who are really outstanding for their age, so it’s nice for them to have a chance to see how good they are,” he said.
Pacers New Balance Cross Country Tour Podcasts from the Georgetown Prep Invitational on Oct 12, 2013
Segment #1 Race Introduction with podcast hosts Chris Farley of Pacers Running Stores & Johnny Cakes Auville from the Sports Junkies
Segment #2 Georgetown Prep Invitational meet director Greg Dunston
Segment #3 2013 Georgetown Prep Invitational Freshman Boys Winner Stephen Lang of Poolesville
Segment #4 Editor of Run Washington Charlie Ban
Segment #5 2013 Georgetown Prep Invitational Freshman Girls Winner Theresa Nardone of Poolesville
Segment #6 Kevin McHale of New Balance
Segment #7 2013 Georgetown Prep Invitational Seeded Boys Varsity Winner Chase Weaverling
Segment #8 St. Ignatius Coach and Seeded Boys Varsity Team Champions St. Ignatius from Illinois
Segment #9 New Balance Technical Field rep Tom Taylor
Segment #10 2013 Georgetown Prep Invitational Seeded Girls Varsity Winner Shreya Nalubola of Centennial
Segment #11 2013 Georgetown Prep Invitational Unseeded Boys Varsity Winner Brent Leber of Middletown
Segment #12 2013 Georgetown Prep Invitational Unseeded Girls Varsity Winner Sophie El Masry of Richard Montgomery
More than 100 runners’ feet hitting the ground on an open field toward wooded trails. Trudging up a hill, giving every last bit of effort with legs and shoes covered in mud. A strong storm just minutes away from plummeting the course; nobody paying it any mind. Team spirit filling the air as competitors burst into the finish chute and turn back around to cheer for their friends.
It may seem like a typical high school cross country race, but the racers were fathers and mothers with jobs and mortgages. They were finishing the Montgomery County Road Runners Club’s Running with the June Bugs, not a dual meet against a rival school.
Though they traveled to the meet in sedans and SUVs instead of school buses, these adults were enjoying racing off road, just like they did decades ago. There’s no time machine required to relive a race through mud, ankle-deep creeks and gruesome hills.
Rodney Rivera of Poolesville, Md. is rediscovering cross country years after competing in high school. He’s run the MCRRC Cross Country Series for the past two years, and says he enjoys its close-knit community and the toughest course out there: the Black Hills 10k.
Leonardo Placios of Hyattsville, Md., a member of the Spanish American Running Club and a cross-country runner since he was 14, said cross country is crucial to improving as a runner.
“Running on these … courses improves our speed and endurance,” he said. “When you train on these kinds of courses, you are faster and stronger. And it’s fun.”
Ant adult cross country isn’t limited to community races. Ray Pugsley, of Potomac Falls, Va. has continued to compete on the national level at cross country races. He finished second at this Feburary’s USA Cross Country Championship in the masters division, following up a fifth place finish at the USATF Club Cross Country Championships.
“You never have a chance to get into a rhythm, and that’s why I enjoy it so much,” he said. “You have to be a strong runner. It’s about as pure as running can get; You’re out there, just racing people. Time doesn’t matter, you just have to finish ahead of the next guy.”
That love of cross country has motivated Potomac River Running’s sponsorship of the Glory Days 5k in Manassas, run before the Bull Run Invitational high school meet in October. Pugsley is an owner of Potomac River Running.
Things change between high school and whatever “now” is. Their days of essay writing and science quiz prep now behind them, many adult cross country runners now balance their passion for the sport with taking care of a family.
Cross country memories have reunited former high school teammates Colleen Dahlem and Anna Savage. And while most high school friendship reunions take place over coffee, Dahlem and Savage first reconnected during a run in Great Falls Park — the first of many more runs to come. Leading up to the Rock ‘n’ Roll USA and the Boston marathons, they trained together on Beach Drive.
“We are both incredibly supportive of one another,” Dahlem says. “Anna met me at mile 6 in [the DC Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon] as it headed through Adams Morgan. She ran the rest of the 20 miles by my side handing me water when I needed it. Then I headed up to Boston to cheer her on. I was so proud of her amazing accomplishment.”
As Dahlem and Savage create a new chapter in their friendship, Dahlem says they will never forget high school cross country.
“Some of our fondest memories are on the bus on the way to meets,” Dahlem says. “Listening to the Violent Femmes on our Walkman and planning our weekend adventures. I really feel that our adult love of running is what brought us together again and has strengthened our bond.”
Emily Cole and Erin Masterson ran four years of cross country and track together. They stayed in touch during college, and, 10 years later, both are in same city again, training for the Marine Corps Marathon.
“Building such a strong bond as we did while high school cross country runners enabled this close relationship,” Masterson says. “And I know we’ll always have it. Emily is a loyal, dedicated training partner.”
After rekindling their running relationship, Masterson and Cole have gone for long runs almost every weekend. While their training and lives have evolved, 10 years later, so, too, have their conversations, which Masterson says are invaluable.
“Now we talk much less about homework and teachers and more about relationships, family job stress, career changes, weddings, babies and upcoming races,” Masterson says. “A weekly session of ‘girl talk’ has been a lifesaver for all of us during challenging times and an opportunity to share our joy during exciting periods. Running together has allowed us to share some of the most important moments of our lives.”
In the 1980s – before Internet forums – Langley High School’s Erin Keogh was the fastest high school distance runner in the country.
Now Erin Breitenbach, she recently did a Google search of her maiden name and said she found these “ridiculous things on some blog.”
Her success, someone wrote, was a product of running an extra 10 miles on top of whatever her team did that day.”I was, like, who has time for that? I can’t run 50 miles a week without getting injured,”she said.
No, Erin Keogh was a visualizer.”I was doing visualization before it was cool,” she said. “I heard this was something people had to learn how to do and I couldn’t believe it. It was so simple. The night before races, I would lie there and go through the entire race in my mind.”
High school running, for many runners,is an introduction to competitive running, but also to running culture, to the wackiness of the sport, and to one of life’s great honors: being on a cross-country team.Visualization was Keogh’s way, in a sense,of keeping herself centered, of embracing the competition without letting it overwhelm her.There needs to be some balance. There needs to be some fun. As runners, coaches and parents around here have figured out, there’s a good time to be had on the cross country team.
An Individual Sport for the Whole Family
When Polly Morgan’s son Tommy joined the cross country team at Chantilly High School,she didn’t think her family would be spending the next six years at tailgates, in horse fields and surrounded by dozens of new friends. Tommy was a basketball player without a team, but he found one as a harrier, even if he wasn’t in the top seven.His brother Bobby followed, and just last year, sister Christie.
Polly saw so many positives in her kids running she rarely knows where to start.
“They come to school part of a social group, and they’re all good kids,” she said. “I don’t think there are many days we don’t have five-to-20 kids in our house. The team is their social life, and it’s one of the few teams that are basically co-ed.”
The nature of distance running, discipline and delayed gratification, were great lessons for her kids, taught and demonstrated in away that didn’t feel forced.
“The team is so supportive of everyone else,” she said. “The kids who are finishing toward the back are as team-oriented as the kids winning the state meet. And the fastest boys cared about how their teammates were coming along.”Though their sons were content running on the junior varsity team,Polly and her husband Tim have a whole new animal on their hands in Christie, who made the varsity team last year as a freshman.”She was a basketball player too,we had no idea she’d be this fast,”Morgan said. “Even though we’ve done this for three years, it’s going to be a whole different experience now.”
K.I.S.S.
Runners need to train. There are no short cuts.
So what is the best way to motivate high school runners to put in their summer training?
“I try to make the summer running as simple as possible for the kids so they don’t have to think,” said Kellie Redmond, the eight-year head cross country and track coach at Wootton High School in Rockville. Redmond puts together training plans for all of her athletes, boys and girls.
Then, since the team cannot practice officially over the summer,Redmond relies on captains like Foster Ting, Declan Devine, Dana Sung, Lexi Levenson and Josh Messing to host unofficial practices.
She has a team listserv, and she’s not above calling or texting or emailing team members who need abit of a nudge.
“But by far I think it is the expectation of the team that keeps them going,” she said.Redmond’s training plans make putting together a summer training plan easy, said Patrick Munro, a rising junior at Wootton and a member ofa 3200-meter relay team that won a state title last spring.Additional structure is provided by the team captains’ sort-of-optional summer training runs.
And it’s fun, he said: “Running with friends is much easier than running alone and helps the distance go by faster. Sometimes we get food after our runs or go swimming. It gives us something to look forward to after.”
Ultimately, Munro added, “The main motivation for me is knowing that whatever I do during the summer will have a direct effect on my season.”
Excel at Forgetting
Michael Murray’s standout performances for Gaithersburg High School in Maryland included finishing second in the state in the 3200 and being a part of an outdoor track team that won the 1998 state championship. He went on to be atop runner at St. Francis University in Pennsylvania, and continues to race at a high level locally while working at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“You will have plenty of good races and bad races,” Murray advised.”Forget about the bad ones by the time you wake up the next morning.The most successful people I know have a short memory of bad days.”
And be Patient
Dave Berdan of Owings Mills, Md. recently won a marathon in 2:22:19, averaging 5:26 per mile.
A week later he won a road 5k in 14:55 and a 10k in 32:22. At the same event. On the same day.
The Pennsylvania native’s high school best for 5k? Slower than what he averaged in the marathon.
“I definitely think it’s important to not focus on results in high school,” he said, and simply enjoy being a part of a team.
That said, if Berdan could take a do-over, he would follow Munro’s advice and run through the summer and on the weekends.
“I was extremely under-trained,” he admitted.Now the head cross country coach at the Garrison Forest School, Berdan urges the members of his girls team to train three to five days a week and do some striders.
“I have tried getting them to follow a strict schedule, but then I thought back to myself and realized that is asking a lot out of a high schooler!”
Another top local runner and be-patient advocate, Chris Sloane,also recommends not burning yourself out in practice. Sloane ran for Quince Orchard High School, finishing 12th in the 2000 Maryland State Cross Country Championships. He joined the team his freshman year after getting cut from the soccer team.
“I think it is important to not get caught up in racing workouts,” he said, “but rather aim for the specific target of the workout and save the racing for the races themselves.”
A (Team) Experience One Can’t Refuse
Last fall, Georgetown Day School’s boys and girls cross country teams both won the Washington, D.C./Maryland Private Schools Cross Country Championships for the first time in school history.
Thirteen years ago, though,when Coach Anthony Belber took over the program, he had but a dozen boys and just one girl. This fall? Belber expects to have about 35 on each squad.
“Our program,” he explained,”has always focused on growing a love for the sport and exposing as many children as possible to the sport … Our goal is to develop a lifelong love of running and exercise.”
One of the team’s top runners,Emily Vogt, a rising senior, joined the team last year. She was a longtime soccer player who also plays basketball and lacrosse.Vogt was struck by the cohesive of the team.When signed up for cross country she figured the highlight of her season would be setting a personal best or winning a medal.
“But it’s moments like when we’re all cheering in our sports bras for the GDS boys team at an important invitational, or when we’re chatting and stuffing our faces on the bus back from a race.”
In those moments, Vogt said, times and performances are irrelevant.
