It was a chilly day yesterday, one of the coldest SPAM races on record.  I am sure that was a welcome feeling for the runners after a warm 5k at Collegiate last week.  This meet is a fun way to "end" the season running just Collegiate and being on "neutral" ground to enjoy all of the antics the SPAM race has to offer.  Along with the random people and dogs at the park, jumping the SPAM walls, human SPAM, and even a bonus "Swedish Chef" from the Muppets helped add to all of the fun.  The predict-your-time contest and wall clearance contest also add another layer of interest in the meet.  Given this is a short race (2.02 miles) and we do not take splits, it is just a "let it rip" kind of race and it is always fun to see the results.  Plus, being one of our shortest races of the year and the most fit we have been all season, there are always some blistering times.

 

I try not to project winning or losing onto the boys during the season, but instead focus on the improvement of times and hitting goals.  That being said, this SPAM race is the only race I would like to win every year because I do NOT want to have the smaller runner up trophy for at least a year.  We usually know from running Collegiate so much during the season what the result will be, and this year ended up being another dominating win for the Saints (17 to 44).  We went 1-2-3 and also 5th and 6th to near a perfect score of 15.  This marked the 10th straight year we have won the race, making sure the extra large trophy (updated in 2017) has never made its way to Collegiate.  We have 15 victories across the 19 years of the meet, with some tight races in the early part of this meet's history.  In terms of the individual title, we have also had similar success.  Grant Clarke won this year's race, just one second ahead of Mac McClendon, to become just the 4th 7th grader winner in meet history.  The previous three 7th grade champions all went on to win in 8th grade as well.  No female has ever repeated as SPAM champion.  Grant tied the 8th fastest time ever run in meet history while Mac ranks just behind him in 10th.  Grant also earned more accolades as one of the top wall clearances with his spin-o-rama over the wall.  In the time prediction contest, we had our first year ever with 2 (technically) perfect time guesses (only 4 have occurred previously).  Nic McDonnell (technically) became the 2nd St. Chris runner ever to predict his time, 14:23, but was given a 14:28 due to hitting a few cans off the wall during his second wall jump.  So, we will add his name with an asterisk on the all-time perfect time guessers.  We also only went 4 deep this year and we usually do 5 time guessers.  So, Liam Dunn, who was 6 seconds off his actual time, ended up in that 5th slot and we will get him his prize(s) today.  There were 15 time guessers at 11 seconds or closer, 6 of those 15 were our guys, so well done.