Brookline Wins Manchester Invite Elite Race

My Bay State readers should be interested in this.

On Saturday, Brookline H.S. won the Elite race at the prestigious Manchester (NH) Invitational meet. The course is notoriously hard, and running under 17 minutes there is difficult even in ideal conditions. Saturday was way too hot to be considered ideal, but the Brookline lads had three runners under 16:40. Very impressive!

Here are the times and places for Brookline's top six:

   3    3 2010 Chernet Sisay      Brookline                      11 16:15  5:15 
   9    9 2011 Romey Sklar        Brookline                      12 16:32  5:20 
  11   11 2006 Mark Perry         Brookline                      11 16:36  5:22 
  29   29 2003 Matt Goroff        Brookline                      11 17:28  5:38 
  37   37 2014 Tharindu Weersingh Brookline                      11 17:46  5:44 
  69   68 2005 Aaron Klein        Brookline                      10 19:19  6:14 

(9/22/10) Weymouth Takes Two

I'm a little behind, as you might notice, in reporting NNHS results.

Last week Newton North hosted Weymouth in what has become a showcase meet for BayState talent. On a sweltering day that seemed more like July than September, the visiting Wildcats brought the heat to the Tigers, winning both individual races, as well as both varsity meets.

The boys race featured a to-the-line battle between Steve Sollowin and Ezra Lichtman. Last year, Sollowin was a half a minute better, but this year, Lichtman gave him everything he could handle as the two finished with the same time of 16:12. Weymouth's Nolan Parsley also broke 17:00 to take 3rd, while Dan Ranti and Justin Keefe took 4th and 5th too keep it close for a few moments.

But that's when the Weymouth depth became evident. The Wildcats had the next four runners (and eight of the next nine), to secure the win 25-33.

Returning to the top runners for a moment, one can't help but wonder how fast they would have run on a crisp day in October compared to a humid day in September. Since I've been keeping track, only one NNHS runner has gone under 16:00 at the Cold Spring course. It seems certain that Lichtman has the potential to do so in the right race.

NN vs. Weymouth Boys Results (top 20 from athletic.net):

1. Steven Sollowin    16:12 Weym
2. Ezra Lichtman      16:12 NNHS  
3. Nolan Parsley      16:52 Weym  
4. Dan Ranti          17:02 NNHS  
5. Justin Keefe       17:38 NNHS  
6. Chris Whitten      17:46 Weym  
7. Steven Connolly    17:50 Weym  
8. Connor McLaughlin  18:04 Weym  
9. Matt Dickson       18:11 Weym  
10. Jon Long          18:14 NNHS 
11. Matt Murphy       18:15 Weym
12. Anthony DeTommaso 18:16 Weym 
13. Franco Kariuki    18:19 Weym  
14. Benjamin Franco   18:53 Weym  
15. Steven Michael    18:59 NNHS  
16. David Demerest    19:02 NNHS  
17. David Buzby       19:04 NNHS  
18. Brendan Butler    19:23 Weym  
19. Emmett Greenberg  19:40 NNHS  
20. Isaac Feinhaus    19:56 NNHS

The only mildly surprising thing about the girls race is to see Margo Gillis' name in the second position. Gillis finished 45 seconds behind Weymouth senior and former soccer standout Jillian Corcoran, who looks like she might be pretty good at cross country, too.

After the two top runners had run, finished, and had time to catch their breaths, the Weymouth pack came rolling in. The Wildcats took nine of the next ten spots, and their 2nd through 5th runners finished within a few seconds of each other. The Tigers never had a prayer, and the final score was 19-43, Weymouth.

NN vs. Weymouth Girls Results (top 20 from athletic.net):

1. Jillian Corcoran   19:18 Weym
2. Margo Gillis       20:03 NNHS 
3. Andrea Hicks       21:01 Weym 
4. Bridget Jaklitsch  21:04 Weym 
5. Julie Tevenan      21:05 Weym 
6. Molly Barker       21:05 Weym 
7. Morgan Fitzgibbon  21:32 Weym 
8. Julia Schlossman   22:14 NNHS
9. Belinda Bechtold   22:16 Weym
10. Abby Sheehan      22:18 Weym
11. Emilee Stevens    22:19 Weym
12. Vanessa Murphy    22:26 Weym
13. Kaylee Spitaels   22:33 NNHS
14. Devika Banerjee   22:52 NNHS
15. Julia Schiantarelli 22:56 NNHS
16. Rebecca Trayner   22:58 NNHS
17. Meghan Bellerose  23:20 NNHS
18. Lauren Wiessmeyer 23:35 Weym
19. Allie Phillips    23:37 NNHS
20. Tammy Nguyen      23:47 Weym

NNHS Alumni and NSRP Results - 9/18/10

UMass Dartmouth Shriners Invitational - Men's 8K

Running in the JV race at the UMass-Dartmouth Invitational, UMass-Lowell freshman Jake Gleason (NNHS '10) had an impressive race, finishing 14th in 26:35.

At least three other NSRP regulars competed in the meet, led by Johnson & Wales senior and Newton South grad James Vance. Vance finished 19th in the varsity race, running 25:19. If you haven't seen Sam Donovan's essay on how James Vance developed into a top runner, you should take the time to read it on Sam's blog.

And speaking of Sam, the Brandeis senior finished 19th in the JV race, just a few seconds behind Jake in 26:49. Finally, Will Cha ran 26:48 in the varsity race. If I missed anyone, let me know!

Bates Super XC Meet - Men's 8K

Meanwhile, Bates College hosted the Super XC at Pineland meet on Saturday. Bates sophomore Andrew Wortham finished 3rd in 26:21. Tufts sophomore transfer Tyler Andrews finished 10th in 26:50, with teammates Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot 34th in 28:08 and Cliff Bargar 47th in 28:45.

Oneonta State Invitational

Rochester sophomore Dan Hamilton (NNHS '09) competed in the Oneonta State Airfield Invitational on Friday afternoon, running 26:45 for the 8K course. Teammate and Newton South grad Yuji Wakimoto ran 26:25.

Mike Glennon Named USATF-NE Volunteer of the Year

At its annual meeting in Waltham Thursday night, the New England Association of USA Track and Field awarded its Volunteer Service Award to Brookline Track and Cross Country Coach Mike Glennon and the Brookline High Cross Country team.

Glennon's teams regularly volunteer at major cross country events and road races. As a competitor myself, any time I race at Franklin Park, I see Mike and the Brookline team helping with course management, finish line duties, and anything else that needs doing. They are not only helpful, but extremely knowledgeable and resourceful.

Mike talks often about giving his high school kids the chance to see and be part of the other side of the sport, and in so doing he helps bridge the divide between high school running and the vast world of post HS, post-college competition.

The citation on the USATF-NE web site says, in part:

"Michael Glennon (Needham MA) and Brookline (MA) High School cross country were recognized with the Volunteer Service Award. A supporter of the sport for over a decade, Glennon has led his squad to Franklin Park each fall to provide volunteers for USATF-NE development meets, the Mayor's Cup, and New England championship events. The also provide many workers for major fall road races in the area. The team has also been honored in the past with the Mass.Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) service award."

Congratulations to Mike and Brookline for this well-deserved honor!

Tigers Sweep Dedham, Framingham in 2010 XC Opener

The Newton North cross-country teams opened their 2010 season On Tuesday with a tri-meet against Dedham and Framingham, held on the campus of the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham held at Cold Spring Park in Newton.

In the boys race, Framingham's Ben Groleau took the top spot, but Newton took seven of the next nine places overall to earn the sweep. Senior Ezra Lichtman was North's top finisher, followed by Dan Ranti and Justin Keefe, all under 17:00.

NN Boys Results (from athletic.net):

2 Ezra Lichtman 16:31 NNHS 12   
3 Dan Ranti 16:43 NNHS 12  
4 Justin Keefe 16:57 NNHS 11  
5 David Demerest 18:07 NNHS 10  
7 Jon Long 18:27 NNHS 10  
8 Steven Michael 18:47 NNHS 11  
10 David Buzby 18:51 NNHS 11  
16 E Greenberg 19:50 NNHS 11  
17 Max Brandl 19:52 NNHS 9  
18 Evan Harris 20:06 NNHS 11  
19 Ben Duvall 20:13 NNHS 11  
20 Jesse Tripathi 20:26 NNHS 11  
21 Isaac Feinhaus 20:28 NNHS 11  
22 M Schlichting 20:38 NNHS 9  
24 Hansen Yang 20:44 NNHS 11  
25 Thomas Bishop 20:50 NNHS 10  
26 A Butterton 21:04 NNHS 9  
27 Jeremy Markson 21:12 NNHS 12  
32 Sam Schamm 21:34 NNHS 11  
29 Bernard McSally 21:37 NNHS 11  
30 Jared Freedman 21:38 NNHS 9  
31 David Cohen 21:38 NNHS 9  
33 Alex Fabry 21:40 NNHS 9  
35 Ben Galgano 22:16 NNHS 9  
36 Mike Denaro 23:03 NNHS 10  
37 Adam Goffstein 23:05 NNHS 9  
41 Cory Chin 23:12 NNHS 9  
42 Jacob Close 23:12 NNHS 9  
43 Julian Chase 23:19 NNHS 9  
45 Henry DeGroot 23:51 NNHS 9  
47 Zachary Wolff 25:05 NNHS 11  
48 Alex Felt 25:27 NNHS 9  
51 Joseph D'Urso 26:27 NNHS 9  
52 GMalek Smith 26:28 NNHS 9

For the girls race, senior Margo Gillis won the race in 19:33, and her teammates, led by 4th-place finisher Devika Banerjee, took places 4-9 to easily secure two wins.

NN Girls Results (from athletic.net):

1 Margo Gillis 19:33 NNHS 12   
4 Devika Banerjee 21:46 NNHS 12  
5 Kaylee Spitaels 21:48 NNHS 10  
6 J Schlossman 21:57 NNHS 10  
7 Rebecca Trayner 22:13 NNHS 11  
8 M Bellerose 22:31 NNHS 10  
9 J Schiantarelli 22:45 NNHS 10  
12 Allie Phillips 23:11 NNHS 11  
14 Melissa Weikart 23:56 NNHS 11  
17 Sophie Sokolov 24:33 NNHS 9  
18 C Raymond 24:36 NNHS 10  
19 T Kugener 24:46 NNHS 11  
20 Rosie Sokolov 25:01 NNHS 11  
21 Jenny Hamilton 25:16 NNHS 11  
22 Elizabeth Rudie 25:17 NNHS 9  
25 Tiffany Leung 25:57 NNHS 12  
27 Laura Cooke 26:14 NNHS 11  
28 Emma Walter 26:16 NNHS 10  
30 Katie Brandl 26:32 NNHS 12  
31 Christina Mori 26:48 NNHS 11  
32 Meara Hemler 26:48 NNHS 9  
33 Rebecca Kalish 26:56 NNHS 10  
36 Caroline Loftus 27:59 NNHS 10  
37 Sarah Sylvia 28:09 NNHS 10  
38 Shani Yavin 28:18 NNHS 9  
42 Anastasia Horn 28:44 NNHS 9  
49 Maeve Sockwell 30:04 NNHS 10  
50 D Handler 30:07 NNHS 10 

North runs next against Weymouth on Wednesday, Sept. 22.

NNHS Alumni Results: Road Wins for Jampol, Davis; Early XC Results

On this first weekend after Labor Day, there were dozens of road races around the greater Boston area and numerous opportunities for post-grads to see how that summer training is working out.

Noah Jampol (NNHS '06) won the Arlington Running With Friends 5K race, romping home in 17:23, twenty seconds ahead of 2nd place.

Tom Davis (NNHS '04 and current Track and XC coach at Westwood H.S) won the 8th Annual Caritas Norwood Hospital 4M race in 21:44.

Meanwhile, two NNHS alums and a number of other local runners were in action at the Boston College XC Invite at Franklin Park. Northeastern's Jess Barton ran 18:41 in the women's 5K event, four seconds behind BC's (and formerly Newton South's) Bridget Dahlberg. Brown sophomore Carolyn Ranti (NNHS '09) finished in 19:43, only a few seconds behind BU's (and formerly Wellesley's) Anna Lukes.

Race Report: Victoria Falls Half Marathon

Joni Waldron (NNHS '02) placed 112th out of 300 finishers in the Victoria Falls Half-Marathon, held in Zimbabwe on August 29th, 2010. Waldron was "in the neighborhood," since she was already in Zambia where she is working for six months.

Being headstrong, like her father, she decided to run the race on a minimum of training, Not only that, she suffered a foot injury a week before the race that had her hobbling around wondering if she could run even one mile, let alone 13.1 miles. She travelled many hours to the race with friends hoping for a miracle that would enable her to participate. Alas, the morning of the race her foot was as sore as ever. But... well, I'll let her tell the story from here...

"Honestly, I'm not really sure why I ran. It was really stupid. I'm not even sure why I picked up my race number on Saturday. I hadn't been planning on it, but decided it was worth it for the t-shirt (and in the off chance I miraculously felt better), and then, it turned out they didn't give you your t-shirt until the race finish. So I blame the race coordinators for my stupid decision to run. (and the race t-shirt is just a beer advertisement anyway!)

Perhaps the dumbest part about deciding not to run (and then running) was that I didn't eat breakfast before the race. I had brought peanut butter, wheat bread and bananas, but when I woke up at 5am and my foot was hurting, I thought "no reason to eat that, since clearly I won't be running." It wasn't until I showed up at 6:15 and Shakira was playing on the loud speaker, there were last minute strides, and a marathon start of roughly 100 runners heading down the bridge towards Victoria Falls as the sun just started to appear above the trees that I realized it was worth it to at least stand on the starting line with my friends and run the first mile or two of the race past the waterfall. (The decision not to eat breakfast came back to haunt me at 13.5km when I completely and totally bonked, and decided - a little too late - that drinking the gross-looking red stuff was probably an unfortunate necessity). My friends started slower than was comfortable for me, so I weaved in and out a little bit, thinking - well this is obnoxious - to leave my friends in the dust when I am planning on dropping out - until i settled into a 8:40ish pace. At that point I met another running buddy, and ran near her for the entire first 10km of the race. Perhaps I should blame her for my decision to keep running, since - once again - it seemed very rude to tell her, "actually, I'm planning on dropping out, but good luck, have fun, and don't give up."

The course was brutal - extremely hot, very little shade, and the big climb of the race occured betweek 14km and 17km. Not exactly where I would have liked it! I never thought that 3km could feel as long as they did at the end! Still, when I think of what it was like to run the course, I can only imagine the wheelchair competitors who braved it! Besides the fact that only two of them had modern-style racing wheelchairs, the road was covered in potholes, and there was a 4km stretch on the dirt/gravel road in the national park. I don't think I have ever had so much respect for wheelchair racers. Ever.

In spite of my foot, I was able to keep a more or less consistent pace for the first two-thirds of the race, passing 5K in 26:30 and 10K in 53:20. But I walked 4 times between 14k and 20k (once for a water stop).

Perhaps the most lovely thing about this race was that the last 300 meters was a loop of an elementary school field - running on grass turning tightly along a flagged path. It reminded me so much of xc season - in the best possible way. On the last turn, I realized I had a whole - yet to be utilized, and completely unknown to me - gear, and sprinted past someone who had caught me about 100 meters earlier. It felt great, and if you look at the results, I beat her by 1 second.

There is a very large part of me that is glad that I ran. Perhaps it is because it adds a little bit of legitimacy to the image I have around the office of the crazy mzungu who likes to jog. Now they talk about how I keep fit. I somehow prefer that over being a jogger. Also, I feel like I accomplished a huge mental task. Running through that pain may not give me any kind of credit when it comes to mental ability (clearly not the smartest decision I have ever made), but in a way I proved to myself that ultimately pain affects you how you let it affect you. It is a signal that there is something wrong, but knowing that I can push through that - fully knowing the consequences - is somehow freeing. If I can run through pain in my foot, than what is stopping me from running just a little bit faster when I think I am totally exhausted?

To allay your fears, my foot is (rather miraculously) feeling much better. It doesn't really make any sense to me - especially given the pain I was in Saturday, race day, and even monday, except that perhaps i was right that it was a pinched nerve, and the electric thing-a-ma-jiggy managed to loosen the muscles enough to relax whatever was causing the pain in the first place... Anyway, it is still nagging, and yes, i will continue to stay off it until it is ENTIRELY better...

Strangest things about running in Africa:

• no port-a-potties
  
• wheelchairs
  
• water/red gross stuff handed out in cylindrical plastic bags
  
• post race food was beer, hard cider, and fancy little delicacies like
  mini toast with carmelized onion and fig and bruschetta on mini leek
  pancakes.
  
• no VIP treatment for anybody (while walking to the start, I asked a guy -- also walking -- what kind of time he was hoping to run for the half marathon; his response: 1 hour)
  
• Baboon and Warthog sitings on the side of the road
  

Joni (#385) smiling through the pain