It had been 11 months since I had driven the familiar route through Brookline, past the Arboretum and Forest Hills, and through narrow back streets into the quiet neighborhood that borders the North side of Franklin Park and my "secret" parking spot. From there it is a short walk to White Stadium, and then to Playstead field and the start of the cross-country course.
The occasion, of course, was the Collegiate Open New England Championships and a chance to see some exciting races, cheer for runners I knew, and reconnect with others who were there to support certain runners or teams, or who, like me, were just spectating. It certainly was a great day for that. The leaves were still green on the trees; the sun was warm but not hot; and the mood was festive.
It was almost enough to make you forget that, as Tyler wrote to me after the race, "cross country is just really hard."
Yeah, it is. When the gun goes off and you begin that mad sprint across the field, there's not a lot of time to appreciate any scenery other than the immediate view of the backsides of hundreds of crazed runners in sharp spikes. It takes a ton of energy to move up through the agitated pack, and if you tire and slow for even a few moments, you're immediately passed by ten guys. Only a couple of dozen runners at the very front and a handful at the back aren't running in constant danger from the mayhem that surrounds them.
Given all that, numbers from the races were quite impressive. There were 322 finishers in the women's varsity 5K, 372 in the women's JV 5K. In the varsity race, there were stretches where over 100 women crossed line within a minute of each other, creating near-chaos in the chutes. The men's varsity 8k had 318 finishers and was, if anything, even more congested, with two men per second piling into the chutes between 26:00 and 26:40.
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Among Bay State runners, performance of the day probably belongs to Quinnipiac sophomore and Natick alum Rebecca White, who placed 8th in the varsity women's race in a time of 17:54. On the men's side, BU junior transfer and Brookline alum Robert Gibson placed 27th in the men's varsity race in 25:20.
There were impressive times from other Massachusetts natives, however. Whitman-Hanson's Eric Ashe was second overall in the men's varsity race in 24:21, just 13 seconds behind winner Glarius Rop of AIC. Angus Macdonald, a Central Catholic grad was 6th overall, and Haverhill alum Pat Fullerton was 10th. Pentucket grad Eric McDonald was 15th, and another former W-H star, Peter Gilmore, finished 18th. Two-time MA state mile champion Coby Horowitz (now a freshman at Bowdoin) finished 22nd.
4 comments:
Although Brown didn't appear to send their A women's team, it looks like two of their runners (Ranti, Fineman) were Newtonites, along with another MA runner (Mepham).
Thanks for the comment, Josh. I've corrected the original post to add Carolyn to the short list of NNHS competitors.
Just looking over the results and not to open up another unnecessary discussion about his coaching style, but Tom Davis ran 1:09 for the BAA 1/2 marathon today. Regardless of what anyone thinks of his coaching or posting style, that kid can flat out move.
That placed him 12th by the way.
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