Our newest blogger is Will Janakis formerly of Marshwood and presently a junior at Thomas College. Janakis fnished 15th in the North Atlantic conference championship last year running 29:02. Follow Will in his junior xc season for Thomas College.
It appears fall is finally here. I know that because I have that excitement only post season cross country brings! This past week of training has probably been the best I’ve had all season. Monday I ran 16x400m in 74-76 with 45 second rest, then Wednesday did 5x800m running up Devil’s Chair (ski hill at Quarry Road). The days between were easy seven to nine mile runs, with Friday being the usual easy four with some strides. During the week, my left leg even started to feel 100% on some runs, but not so much on others.
Saturday was probably the proudest moment I’ve ever had on a team. We knew because of how our training cycles falls that this is always a meet we run terribly at. We’ve finished next to last here before, and with there being thirteen teams, we knew it would be tough. But that’s not so much why I’m proud. Two nights before the meet our top runner, Nick Kopf, found out his grandfather had passed away. Being who he is, he still wanted to race (ended up finishing 8th!). Evan’s shins were killing him before, and he felt that he was going to do terrible. His goal was to beat his dreadful time from last year of 32:50, which he did easily with a huge 29:43! I know I was feeling kind of flat from the hard week of training, and just wanted to better my Colby time of 30:52, which I managed to by a minute (29:52)! Then Dylan, the first year runner on the team, kept up his amazing consistency streak by missing his PR by seven seconds on a course much slower than where he ran it. Aron has run more miles on the elliptical than the ground in the past two weeks due to a knee issue; we assumed he would run a bad race, yet he somehow grinded down and was only 16 seconds behind Dylan-right where we needed him! In other team news, Cole Barney dropped a minute off of his PR, and so did Dan Collins. Everyone else ran pretty solid. It was also tough on our team that two different guys had bad ankle rolls at practice and missed this meet (they should both be back and healthy next week). Then Connor, who we thought would be a big part of the top five, is coming back from Lyme disease next week, along with another runner, Cam, who is ready for a huge PR but missed the meet because his grandfather’s also very sick.
I guess in conclusion, everyone had an excuse to run terrible, yet we showed up and finished fourth in a meet we’ve been 13th in before. The more I think about it, the prouder I am to be a part of this team. We’re shaping right up to where we need to be. Next Saturday starts championship meet season; that will hopefully have the outcome we all feel we’re ready for.
