2009 NXN Northeast US Regional runner-up - Germantown Friends
Germantown Friends Cross Country 2009:
The road to Portland.
Cherokee Challenge, Cherokee HS, NJ
9/12/09
Sam Butler
After weeks of steady base building during the summer, we were ready for a meet. On September 12th we went to the Cherokee Challenge in New Jersey; a two-mile race that we felt would be a great way to ease into the season. A two-mile would allow us to see what our legs could do off of pure strength. After a solid summer of training and a great week at camp, we were excited to get back on the race course.
We had never been to this meet before, so we had no idea what the course or competition would be like. On that day, the course was wet and there were severe mud patches in some places that presented an interesting challenge. There were four races, divided by class, starting with freshmen and ending with seniors. This meant that our top runners got to see how all our new recruits would perform before we raced.
The freshman race produced some good results for us, and we were pumped to get to the line. The juniors led us off with some great races, despite the mud, with a 10:11 and 10:13 from Even Caldwell and David Waterman, respectively.
After these performances, our seniors replied with some solid races of their own, Gus McKenzie ran a 9:51 and Tom Waterman a 9:56. Our usual 3rd man, Ross Wistar, just getting over an injury, ran a 10:17. All in all it was a good meet that reinforced our belief in our strength and in our ability to race well in any conditions.
Bowdoin Park Classic, aka Pre-Regionals
9/26/09
Thomas Waterman
(At the Bowdoin Park Classic: Gus McKenzie, left in orange. Tom Waterman to his left
- Photo by Jim McKenzie)
Pre-Regionals was the first sign this season we had something really good going on. We set the bar extremely high: everyone ran really well, with all of our top 6 breaking 17 minutes on the very hard course. Most importantly, though, we were there to compete against CBA, NJ and Haddonfield, NJ, two teams that the regional rankings predicted to be the class of the Northeast. And we did just that, beating CBA by ten points, and losing to Haddonfield by 3 points.
About halfway through the race, at the top of the hill where there's a sharp right turn, I glanced over my shoulder to see my team mate Evan close behind me, and the rest of my team close behind him. I knew I was in front of Haddonfield’s #2 at that point, and CBA's #1 and #2 were right with me. When we reached the bottom of the hill, with about 1k to go, I remember my coach Rob shouting to me: "we're in this, we can do this, yes we can." I didn't realize where I'd heard those words before until my assistant coach asked Rob if he was a big fan of Obama's speeches. I also remember hearing Haddonfield's coach yell to one of his guys: "every point counts." That was when it really hit me that my team was doing something really good, and in the finishing chute we were all pumped to see the results.
(At the Bowdoin Park Classic: Evan Caldwell '11 (blond), and the 4, 5, 6 group from left to right is David Waterman '11 (brother of Tom Waterman), Ross Wistar '10 in the middle and Sam Butler '10 on the right - photo by Jim McKenzie)
The most important thing we took away from this race for the rest of the season was how incredibly deep we were. No team at the Nike Regional meet has had 6 guys go under 17:00. All 6 guys had run faster than our #1 had run at Regionals last year, too. We'd also brought the three guys who were competing for the 7th varsity spot to run in the JV race, and they ran great. We were excited after our first test on a 5k course as a team, and looking forward to racing CBA and Haddonfield again at Manhattan.
Gus 16:18.4 5th
Tom 16:30.6 7th
Evan 16:50.5 13th
Sam 16:53.6 15th
David 16:57.8 17th
Ross 16:58.6 19th
5-Man Gap :39.4
5-Man average 16:42.2
COUNCIL ROCK INVITE
9/26/09
Cameron Mactavish
Two weekends after the Cherokee Challenge, the Tigers would get a chance to show everybody how much depth they had beyond the top seven and even nine runners. The runners, who didn’t take the bus up to Bowdoin Park, would compete at the notoriously flat Tyler State Park course in the Council Rock Invitational. Some of the runners were down on themselves for not competing well at the Cherokee Challenge, and saw this race as an opportunity to rebound and get their seasons back on the right path. Many runners would get the opportunity to step on a varsity line for the first time in their running careers.
Finishing number one for GFS and 21st overall was Cameron Mactavish, followed by Sam Ebert in 38th, Charles Diaz 40th, Reuben Wilson 44th and rounding out the top five was Drew Daniels in 59th. Closing out the varsity seven were Sam Korus 69th and Charlie McClelland 76th.
The JV race rendered more successful results especially from Ian Longshore, who ran a PR of 18:56, which was more than 10 minutes faster than what he ran his freshman year.
The team had come into the meet with goals of running a certain PR or finishing a certain place. No one had expected to leave the meet having won a team title. The Varsity boys won their small school division and placed 6th overall in the race with 198 points. This meet was a great confidence builder for the JV runners and would set the tone for more great performances to come later on.
Manhattan Invite, Van Cortlandt Park, The Bronx
10/10/09
Ross Wistar
After Pre-Regionals we were pretty amped for the rest of the season. We had proven ourselves against Haddonfield and CBA, two major northeast powers, and had high hopes for the next race, Manhattan. The training for the next two weeks was pretty standard, no changes in mileage, just fartleks on Tuesdays and intervals on Fridays, as we had the past few weeks. We did our standard meet prep, complete with goals session and pasta dinner the night before the race. The JV guys left early Saturday morning for the meet, and Varsity got to sleep in a bit longer for a later van ride. Two of the varsity guys, Tom and Gus, had driven up the previous night to take SAT's before the race on Saturday in New York. The Manhattan course had changed slightly from the previous years, the opening funnel had been cut about 100m short, requiring a much faster start to be competitive in the race. Evan took it upon himself to make sure we got out fast, and led the race for a few strides. Ultimately it didn't pay off for him, as he lacked energy in the back hills and final mile of the race. Overall, we had a pretty mediocre day; our number one was Tom in 12:55, a great time for him, but our usual number one, Gus, finished behind him in 13:02. Wistar was third in 13:10, a strong race. David was next in 13:31, Evan closed out our 5 in 13:39, a 44 second spread. Overall we finished 4th with 192 points, just beating Liverpool on a 6th-man tiebreaker. We weren't exactly pleased with the results, we lost to Haddonfield by 55 points and CBA by 76 points, teams which we raced with at Bowdoin. The van ride home was no fun, we'd been through these types of rides many times before, Regionals 2007 and 2008, Penn Relays 2009, and NON-2009, all rides home after bad performances. Be we would rebound, we knew it, it was too good a season to waste, and our thoughts looked ahead to the next race, Friends League.
Friends League Championships, George School 5k
10/20/09
Thomas Waterman
The Friends League is a group of 8 Quaker schools in the greater Philadelphia region. Not all of them show up to the league meet for XC. The league is also not part of the PIAA, which is why we don't get to compete at States. We weren't worried about winning our 7th straight league title, we were looking to sweep the top 6 places for a perfect score and see if our 7th man could take a top ten spot and claim a medal.
We did go 1 through 6 on the league, but our 7th man lost to a kick on a cinder track to get nipped out of 10th place. Our huge depth was also apparent: we placed our JV guys times into the results, and they would have placed second to our Varsity team. Our third team would have placed 6th overall. The most important thing we took away from this race was the knowledge that we could race hard, no matter the competition, weather, or day.
Gus 15:59 1st
Tom 16:13 2nd
Ross 16:33 3rd
David 16:40 4th
Evan 6:49 5th
Sam 16:59 6th
Cameron 17:31 11th
5-Man Gap :50
5-Man Average 16:26.8
PA Independent States, Mercersburg Academy
10/31/09
Evan Caldwell
After our win at Friends League Champs, we were all feeling very confident going into the state meet. However, we made sure not to let this confidence go to our heads. The stretch from our league meet to the Independent State meet was a few days shorter than the usual two weeks, because our league meet was on a Tuesday rather than a Saturday. We continued training as we had been all season, with runs to and around Belmont Plateau, the Wissahickon, and Manayunk all continuing regularly. Our workouts got faster while we continued running our regular 3.5 or 4 miles of volume. On Friday we ran a workout at Belmont Plateau. My group, including David Waterman and Sam Butler, ran a mile at 5:30, followed by an 8 minute tempo around 5:55 pace, 3 by minute hard then minute easy, and finally 2 by 2 minutes hard, with a minute recovery between each piece. On the Thursday before the race David Waterman came down with the flu, and we knew right away he wouldn't be able to race. We were all disappointed not to have David with us in the race, but we weren't phased because we knew that even without him we would still have the strongest and deepest varsity team.
We left for the race Friday after school. This was a much different trip than the ones we had taken all year because this was the only meet we took the entire 39-man team overnight. The trip was a lot of fun because we all got to ride together in a school bus rather than our customary van. When we arrived at the hotel we went out in our normal groups for recovery runs. All of the varsity guys, minus David, ran together. Where we stay in Chambersburg is a strange place to run, because highways, fields, railroads, and shopping centers surround the hotel. We ended up running through a supermarket at one point, but I don't think the people inside thought it was as funny as we did.
After our runs we went to get washed up and went to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Mario's. There were a couple of other teams already there, so the place was pretty packed. We all ate a lot but we were careful to only eat what we knew we could race well off of. We headed back to our hotel for the usual pre-race talk from Rob and goal session. He talked to the JV and Varsity guys separately. At the Varsity talk he told us that we should all run up front and suffer together through the first two miles, and after that hang on for the win. We knew that there would only be a few guys who could crack our top five, so there was really no reason not to have our whole team up front for the whole race. We all went over our goals, which included winning the race as a team, or individually in Gus's case, as well as finishing a certain place on the team or finishing first team all-state.
We had beautiful weather for the race that day. The JV race went first, and we watched some of it on our warm-up. The JV guys were trying to sweep as many places as possible (which ended up being 1-7 and 12 of the top 13), so it was exciting to see a ton of guys in our orange singlet all in the front of the race.
The varsity race started with some jostling for position, however we all knew that we were better than all but a few kids in the race, so we just forced ourselves to the front. At the mile marker I was in a pack with Gus, Tom, Ross, and three kids from other schools. Sam was not far behind. The pace was pretty slow through the mile because no one really wanted to lead the race. This benefited us because our top five guys were all pretty close together through the two-mile mark, and we were pretty well separated from the other runners in the race. After that Dustin Wilson from Chestnut Hill Academy tried to drop the group, and everyone sort of broke apart. Gus hung with him, and everyone spread apart behind them. The last stretch was along a dirt road and it was an incredibly windy day, so it was difficult for any one to have a big kick. Gus ended up beating Dustin and winning the race, while Ross, Tom, and I finished 5th, 6th, and 7th, respectively. Sam came in not far behind in 9th place to close out our top 5. Cameron finished a few seconds ahead of Zhewen Zhang, making him our theoretical 7th man if David hadn't been sick. We were glad to have won, but we didn't consider the race one of our best, mostly because Tom didn't finish as well as he had in the past, and Sam hadn't been right with us like we had planned. We still took 4 first team all-state spots and won by a big margin, so we just looked towards correcting our mistakes in the future rather than thinking negatively on them. We celebrated with a post-race picnic and some Halloween festivities that night.
2-mile Time Trial, GFS Track
11/14/09
Sam Butler
The period after the Independent State meet was a time for some good hard training, and for focusing on our ultimate goal of qualifying for nationals. After State’s, we had some freshmen who shut down for the season, and since all our school’s other sports had ended and we had our fields to ourselves, the atmosphere shifted perceptibly as we all got serious about the post-season. Not that we did not have fun as usual, but we concentrated on the little things, the hydration and stretching, as well as training with renewed purpose.
We had originally decided to attend the Deuce at Oakbourne Park, a two-mile race on November 14th as a final tune-up before Regional’s, but when the meet was cancelled we decided to have a two-mile time trial on our track instead. The conditions were great, temperatures in the 50’s with a slight breeze and some dampness in the air. This time trial was important not only for our top 6, this was our last chance to attack a race before Regional’s, but also our 7th man would be determined largely by their performance in the race.
Cameron Mactavish rose to the challenge, running a 10:15.1, a full minute faster than his performance at the Cherokee Challenge; solidifying his 7th man position. Our top six all finished under 10 minutes: Gus McKenzie 9:29.9, David Waterman 9:42.5, Ross Wistar 9:45.8, Evan Caldwell 9:48.8, Sam Butler 9:55.0, and Tom Waterman (on a bad day) 9:58.0. We knew we were fit, to say the least, and we were ready to take on any team in the Region.
NXN NE Regionals, Bowdoin Park, NY
November 15th-28th
David Waterman
After the 2-mile time trial we were all pretty psyched. With the exception of Tom we had all run well and having 6 guys under 10:00 was very good for our confidence. The week was fairly routine training wise. We ran a recovery run on Monday and then a tempo-fartlek workout on Tuesday, and a 60-minute run on Wednesday. After that we cut the volume down, and started peaking for Regionals. On Thursday we did a 40-minute run with pickups at the end; this run may not seem brutal but those pickups were some of the hardest pieces we've done. Gus hurt his leg a little on this run, but no one knew how injured it was, and we all hoped it wouldn't be bad enough to stop him from training or racing at Regionals.
On Friday we headed out to Belmont Plateau for a good hard workout. It was pretty muddy and Rob had us put on our spikes. Tom had run the workout earlier that morning because he had gone up to New York City to visit NYU and Columbia. I felt really sick before we started the workout and told myself to just relax and take it easy for the first part and just run with my group; me, Evan, Sam and Ross. Gus had joined our group to give his leg a little bit of an easier day intensity-wise than he normally would have. The workout was 2x2:30, mile hard, 3x2:00. The first two pieces felt very relaxed for me and we just ran some flat areas around the football fields. The mile was from the start of the 5k course to the mile marker, and it includes a hill in the beginning and some mud on the back part of the loop. I started off behind my group and told myself if I felt good at the top of the hill I would pick it up. It felt really slow in the beginning and once we reached the top of the hill I picked it up and passed the group. It felt a little weird passing our #1 guy but I knew he wasn't looking to hurt his leg even more and he wasn't wearing spikes. We came down the hill and of course saw Rob shouting at us to stay together and go with me. We ended the mile with me running 4:53, Ross running 4:58, Evan was 5:00, Gus 5:02 and Sam 5:08; a perfect 15-second spread. We finished the workout all running the last 3x2:00 together and overall it was a great workout and another piece of confidence for myself.
On Saturday we ran 30 minutes, but Rob, Ross and I took a trip out to Holmdel Park to watch the NJ MoC. It was a great meet and a lot of fun to be at, but mostly we were there to assess the competition and see where they were. Don Bosco ran well, winning, but when Rob sat down and did some number crunching based on previous gaps, current gaps, where we had finished in relation to them earlier, and so on, we concluded that we would have had a really good chance of winning. The following Monday Rob had us come to practice early and sat us down in the coaches room and really broke down all the stats from the past years. He told us that no team at the Regional meet would have 6 guys under 17:00 minutes on Bowdoin's tough course, and no team ever at the Regional meet had 6 guys under 17:00 minutes. It boiled down to: If we run to our potential we would make Nationals. That week of training was very routine; we didn't do anything crazy or change things up much.
That Friday we traveled up to Wappingers Falls and ran part of the course for our pre-race run. I personally felt terrible that run but knew that I was fit and that I would be there when it counted. We ate dinner at Ruby Tuesday's and then later than night met in the coaches room to talk about the race. Rob told us to be who we were; run hard, run fast, and get out strong. That meeting was the most memorable one that I ever had because it ended with him giving us all singlets and shorts that were navy blue instead of bright orange. His reasoning for this was that whenever he would stand by coaches during meets, they would always yell something to the effect of “Follow orange” or “Pass orange”. By changing our uniform the night before and not showing or telling anybody about it, none of the other coaches knew that we were running so well and when they caught on to our game plan, it was probably too late.
The day itself was one of the best of my life. I felt great during our early morning jog when we woke up. I ate very little, just a bagel and some melon pieces (what a waste of $10 spent on the breakfast buffet). We headed out to the course and had to start warming up almost immediately when we got there due to very bad traffic on the way from our hotel. I didn't feel amazing on the warm up but I was expecting that and just told myself to relax and not worry. I wasn't very nervous either, which is one of the main differences I've felt between this year and last year. Last year I was nervous before almost every race and I think that had a lot to do with a rather lackluster sophomore season. The race started and I had no idea how well we had gotten out but I could hear Rob yelling that we were doing great. At about the 600-meter mark I saw a kid go down and was almost positive it was a CBA kid (which it was). At that point I knew we had a great chance to win and for the next 1000 meters I was passing a lot of kids. I ended up passing my brother around the mile marker and just prayed that he would gut out a solid performance and not tank. When we reached the top of the big hill, I glanced back to see where everyone else was. I saw Evan about 10 or 15 seconds back and knew that Tom was somewhere in between me and Evan. After that I just tried to maintain my position and not get passed by kids. I probably got passed by a few the last mile, but enough damage was done in the first half of the race that as long as only a minimal amount of kids passed me I knew that we were in good shape. I finished second for our team and knew immediately when I crossed the line that we were going to Oregon.
The awards ceremony was very tense. Ian Brooks counted down from 6th place, and when they announced Don Bosco as 3rd I was just holding my breath. They called us 2nd, but I didn't even get the chance to hear anyone’s name called because all the alumni, parents, and other teammates were going crazy. It was great to have almost all the guys back from the 2007 team who didn't qualify, all the parents who support us, but most of all I really appreciated our JV team who ran the open race before us. They were ecstatic for us and I was very grateful to have such a good bunch of guys cheering for me and I hoped that for the younger kids on the team to take this as a lesson and really attach themselves to the program and make a great day come true for us again next year when I'm a senior and years after that when they are seniors. Overall that was the best two weeks of training I've ever had and was very proud that I put it together on the day that mattered most to me.
NXN Portland, Oregon
12/5/09
Gus McKenzie
I doubt any member of our top seven learned a thing in the week of school leading up to Nike nationals. Still riding the emotional high from qualifying, falling back in to our weekly routine was difficult. We still attempted to approach our training the same way we had all season. Remaining focused with all the excitement around us was extremely difficult. We had been preparing for regionals for the past year but now that we had made it to nationals we were walking on air. The excitement around our school was infectious. Interviews and pictures with the team and even a school wide pep-rally hosted by our athletic department. Often times cross country flies under the radar, but for that week we were celebrities.
When Nike is hosting a national championship, one thing is certain: It's going to come with a show. Moments after touching down in Portland, Oregon (plane tickets courtesy of Nike) I could tell Nike was going to take good care of us. From all corners of the airport the blue-clad Nike reps herded the athletes onto coach busses; playing last years race footage; and took us to the Embassy Suites. The hotel was definitely equipped for the event. Banners from each qualifying team and regional individuals hung outside the balconies of the rooms overlooking the lobby. On the beds of the athletes were Nike back packs carrying NXN warm-ups as well as custom singlets for the team. After our Nike Christmas, we were bused over to Nike World HQ. Nike campus is about 3.5 miles around and contains a collection of big glass buildings, manicured gardens, and athletic facilities surrounding a lake in the middle of campus. There we were fitted for our NXN custom trainers and spikes we were able to do a short run and use their “Lance Armstrong” locker room facilities while waiting for dinner/opening ceremonies.
The theatre in the Tiger Woods Center was able to sit the 200 student athletes along with chaperones and still have plenty of extra space. The opening ceremonies began with race footage from last year. They introduced the teams and then brought out 12 US pro runners including Kara Goucher, Bernard Lagat, Alan Webb, and Dathan Ritzenhein to name a few. Representatives of Nike gave brief speeches and it concluded with more inspirational video.
We were able to see the course and do a run-though the next day. Portland Meadows is located within a horseracing track to create an extremely spectator friendly XC race. Despite being very flat, sections of the course ran though mud several inches deep as well as the hay bales and whoop-de-doo hill strategically placed to break up any sort of rhythm. Running over the course with the other teams, there was defiantly tenseness to our team. From our first meet, the Cherokee Challenge in NJ to the NE Regional Championships we had intimate knowledge of the teams we were up against and the courses we would be racing on. In a meet and an environment where everything was strange to us, we had some difficulty setting some personal goals headed into the race.
Race day was a cold and foggy Portland Meadows. There was excitement in the air as we laced up our spikes and ran down the introduction shoot. The course began with a short funnel section with a quick left hand turn. It was our luck that we were given box no. 1 (all the way too the left). It was hard not to panic as 200 of the nation's top runners crashed in on top of us all at the same time. The course was one of the most exiting courses I have ever run on, the constant flash of cameras, the atv driving alongside the pack filming the race, and the screams of our fans and parents who made the trip out to Oregon to watch us race. What once was a 49 second gap, became a 70 second gap and the results showed it.
As a team we did not have a very good day at NXN. Sometimes ending a season on a sour or bittersweet note can be the best thing for a team. We were not 100% happy about the end result of our season. So now, when we could be resting on our laurels, we're training hungrier than ever to try to get some redemption out of our indoor season.
Rob Hewitt
As I look back at our season it was definitely a defining moment in all of our careers as runners. The lessons we have been forced to learn along the way for the past 4-6 years all played a significant role in reaching our ultimate goal of qualifying for NXN. We never got caught up in the rankings, that fact that we aren’t PIAA, or that GFS only has 351 kids in the school. After ignoring all the perceptions that surrounded our team and how good we were or weren’t, this season we chose to focus on the only thing we could control - our results.