Cross Country

Congratulations to Hope Bergmark, Derica Su, and Aidan Boyle who all qualified to the CIF State Cross Country Championship meet by finishing 9th, 11th, and 13th in their races at NCS this morning. The meet takes place next Saturday at Woodward Park in Clovis with the girls racing at 10:35 AM and Aidan racing at 12:05 PM.

The NCS Championships were held today at Hayward High School. Racing in Division 2 for the second year in a row, the competition was tougher than in any of the other divisions. There were three qualifying spots up for grabs for both genders, but the teams gunning for them were stronger than in any of the other divisions. The girls have been the third best team all year, but throughout the year it has been a bit of a tease because we have been healthy and our competition has not. Monte Vista was a top 15 team at the state meet last year and returned much of the group. At the beginning of the season, several of their athletes were injured and they have been slowly bringing them back, each time getting a little bit closer to us. They finally had their full team at the EBAL meet and we beat them by 1 point. We felt good about it as we didn’t feel like we ran a very good race at EBAL’s and that when we sharpened up, we would be able to outperform any fitness gains they would make. In the first mile, Monte Vista was out in front, but that was no surprise as they like to get to the front of the race. During the season, we would close the gap as the race wore on. This time was unfortunately different. Although we did catch up, we didn’t surpass them. They got big days from a couple of runners and were able to hold on for third, leaving us 14 points back. We had two individual qualifiers in the race as Hope Bergmark moved up throughout the race to finish in 9th and Derica Su finished in 11th. They ran 18:25 and 18:29. The Hayward course is still under construction, but I think that times are pretty similar to the old course. Those times would have been 3rd and tied for fourth on the top 10 list. The girls’ team time of 95:01, run by Hope, Derica, Juliette Fletcher, Becky Laurence, and Ashley Baudin would have been #3 all-time. Surabhi Kumar and Kaitlin Cartwright rounded out the top 7. For Juliette and Kaitlin, this was their last cross country race for the Dons. Both had terrific careers for us and contributed so much to the current team culture that any successes that the program has in the next few years will be in large part due to their efforts over these last few years. Both are planning to run cross country somewhere next year and when their decisions become official, I will be sure to update this page. The girls were fourth in their race, but ran the 6th fastest team time of the day. Besides Granada, San Ramon Valley, and Monte Vista in our race, they were only bested by Campolindo and Maria Carillo, all of which are traditional NCS powers.
The boys came up at 12:05 and got out to a blistering fast start. A large group came through the mile mark at 4:48. Our top two, Aidan Boyle and Jack Gray came through at about 4:55 and found themselves in 23rd and 24th. Our pack was wisely behind them and although team scores wouldn’t have looked good for us at that point, the conservative start probably contributed to our eventual strong team finish. As the race pushed into the second mile, packs of runners were beginning to suffer due to punishing early pace. Those who had been disciplined found themselves able to pass those who were undisciplined. Those teams who had planned to run at the front for as long as they could started to fall back behind our main pack. Aidan Boyle was able to capitalize, moving from 24th to 16th with about a mile to go. Jack moved up for a time, but began to struggle himself and found himself at about the place he was at the mile mark. The team behind them, just by running steady, had caught many. At this point, Dublin, Granada, and De La Salle were looking very strong, so a state meet berth looked unlikely, but Aidan was very much in the mix for an individual qualifying spot. As he entered the last hill, he was running in 15th with the two people in front of him holding the last 2 spots. He had to catch one. As they pushed over the hill, Jett Charvet of Heritage initiated the move and Aidan and the Mission San Jose athlete responded. By the bottom of the hill though, Aidan had a lot more juice left and the Mission athlete was out of gas. Aidan pushed hard home to gain the last state meet spot. He finished in 13th overall in a time of 15:38, which would have been #2 all-time on the traditional course. The boys ended up in 4th place, albeit 96 points out of 3rd with a team time of 82:15. That time would have been #8 all-time on the traditional course. The top five boys were Aidan, Jack, Aidan McCarthy, Euan Houston, and Jacob Lawrence. That group includes a junior, 3 sophomores, and a freshman. Rounding out the top 7 were seniors Matthew Duret and Hayden Talbert, who concluded their 4 year cross country careers for the Dons. Matt ran a 57 second PR on the course from last year, which goes to show what can happen when we can train healthy for even a small period of time. For Hayden, it was not the final race that he deserved as he struggled to the finish, but that does not diminish the job that he has done this year, captaining this young Dons team, nor the progress he has made as an athlete over the last four years. The boys’ team time was the 11th best of the day in all divisions.
Up next is the California State Meet where Hope and Derica will represent the girls at 10:35 and Aidan will represent the boys at 12:05 at Woodward Park next weekend.
After that a contingent of boys will continue on to run the Footlocker Regional Championships at Mt. SAC.
Full results of today’s race can be found at http://www.rtspt.com/events/cif/2017Meets/ncsxc/

Monday-Both workouts will be on the track. For those whose last race is likely to be on Saturday, we will do 2xmile at tempo pace with 2 minutes recovery and 4 cut down 200’s. The paces on the 200’s are 3200m, 1600m, 800m, and all out. Those who are likely to move on to the NCS meet will be doing 1x 1600m, 1200m, 800m, 400m. The 1600m will be at the pace that we’d like to hit for the first mile of a race, so about 5:00 for the top boys and about 6:00 for the top girls. Then each rep will get a little bit faster. Top boys will aim to be about 5:00, 3:40, 2:20, 65. Top girls will aim to be 6:00, 4:22, 2:40, 73.

Tuesday-1 strength circuit and then finish your minutes. We will meet with both the boys’ and girls’ team on this day following the workout. Remember that Tuesday is a minimum day. School ends at 12:40. We will begin practice at 1:05 in the bleachers.

Wednesday-8×300m with 2:00 recovery. The goal will be to get 1 second faster on each one. We will have a group that starts at 55 and works down to 48, a group that starts at 58 and works down to 51, a group that works from 66 and works down to 59, a group that starts at 70 and works down to 63, and a group that starts at 74 and works down to 67. Wednesday is a staff development day and so we have no school. Because this is an important workout day, practice will be in the afternoon. Although coaches probably will not be available until 3:15, we will start at 3:00. Athletes can begin warm-ups and we will get out there as soon as we can, which will probably be about the time you start drills (after the warm-up run). We will be in the weight room on this day. The only exception is for the boys who will run their last race on Saturday. They are officially done in the weight room. For the rest, the workout will be modified.

Thursday-Recovery run.

Friday-Speed development. Weight room for those whose season will continue on to NCS only.

Saturday-League Finals

Sunday-Easy or off and as always, on your own.

We had 3 revisions to the Mt. SAC Individual all time lists yesterday. Derica Su ran 19:19 in her first ever run of the course which puts her on the list at #9. No longer qualifying for the girls’ list is Maddie Quinn, who ran 19:25 in 2011. Maddie was an 11:30 3200m runner and sub 5:30 miler and was a crucial part of our team while she was here. On the boys’ side, Jack Gray improved his position from #8 to #4 by running a time of 15:48. In doing so, Jack became just the 5th Amador Valley athlete to break 16:00 on the course. Also qualifying for the all-time list was Aidan Boyle, who ran 16:04 in his first race on the course. The time tied him for #8 on the all-time list. Because there was a tie at #9, those two athletes will both move into a tie for #10 and everyone will stay on the list for another year.

At yesterday’s Mt. SAC Invitational, the team of Jack Gray, Aidan Boyle, Jacob Lawrence, Euan Houston, and Matthew Duret notched a team time of 1:23:55. That time was good for #7 on the all-time list. No longer qualifying for the list is Noah Sluss, Brad Moreno, Neal Mankins, Joe D’Addabbo, and Steven Rice who ran 1:30:23 in 2011.