You couldn't draw up a better day for a distance meet.  There was a little bit of slipping at the start for those who did not wear spikes, but low 60s and misty conditions are ideal for cross country runners and distance events.  The boys certainly took advantage of that, as did all the teams as the top-5 records list for this meet took quite a hit.  For our boys, it was a chance for our distance guys to run in one last burst of cooler temperatures, our mid-distance guys to step up from the 800 to the 1600, and our sprinters to run the 400 or 800.

 

Much like Wednesday, we had a great percentage of personal bests with 18 of 20 individual entries yielding a personal best.  Three of these 18 were NEPRs as Jack Bodt ran his first-ever 3200 while Zavier Lanneau and Dax Alexander each ran their first 800 (not including their mile time trial split from February).  Of the other 15 personal bests, there were some huge time drops and 5 elite performances, 3 of which were brand new.  The 3200 started off the meet and the time-dropping was astronomical.  Other than Jack, the other 6 runners dropped a cumulative time of about 3:13 seconds, highlighted by Liam Dunn and Nic McDonnell each dropping close to 40 seconds.  Liam earned a new elite performance with his time, his 2nd new EP this week, and now ranks 10th on the all-time STC list.  Charlie Branch and Asa White hung with the Louisa runner for all 8 laps with Asa emerging victorious and Charlie finishing in 3rd.  Both had big drops in time and lowered their previous elite performances even more with Asa now 4th on the all-time STC list and Charlie 7th.  Charlie's time ranks him 2nd in history among STC 7th graders in the 3200.  Asa and Charlie also now rank 2nd and 4th, respectively, in this distance meet's history.

 

The 1600 runners did their best to not be outdone by the 3200 runners.  Of the 6 earning a personal best in the 1600 they dropped a cumulative 2:57.  This was led by Chris Rauchle who dropped 52 seconds.  There were also multiple elite performances as Mac McClendon and Langdon Sexton both broke 5:20, giving us now 5 on the team to earn that achievement.  Mac's time ranks him 28th all-time STC and Langdon's time ranks him 34th all-time.  Langdon is also part of a small crew of about 8 previous 7th graders who have broken 5:20.

 

In the shorter events, there were some great races.  Much like Zavier's 800, Alexander Koussoglou also had a surprising 800.  He won the event and broke 2:30 in the process.  In the 400, RJ Johnson continued to chase the 1:00 mark as he got closer in 1:00.48.  Speaking of 400s, it was fun to see 5 STC teams in the 4x4.  We even had 4 PRs (3 alone from the D team - Chris, Bryson Shepard, Zavier) and one from Kyan Patel who went out so hard he may have also had a personal best in the 100 and 200!  Records-wise, the A team ran the 6th fastest time in meet history, so they almost cracked that top-5 list.  But, perhaps the greatest news related to the 400 was the final relay of the day with the STC family 4x4.  Thank you to everyone who ran.  We hope you had fun with that!

 

We did not keep score in the meet, but if we did, we would have won 71 to 48 over Louisa.