Start of Divison 1 Girls Race–See Jenny Go!
The California State Championships are our Olympics–just being able to take part is an honor, and doing well is something to remember forever! Monta Vista should be very proud today with what we have accomplished. Read on…
Rohan at mile 2
Rohan Choudhury, Monta Vista’s individual entry and first boy to represent Monta Vista at State in three years, ran a very smart race. The State meet is different than any other race we run all year–until you have been in the start of State you really can’t picture how hard everyone goes out. Rohan was in the outside of the start and said later he felt like he was crushed to the outside, yet he came through the first mile with a five minute flat split–probably just about perfect for a first mile. Rohan ended the race with an excellent 16:08 finishing time, which is a very fast 5:12 pace (more on how to think about times at State later), and was good for the third fastest time run by any Monta Vista boy on the Woodward Park course!
A bit over an hour later and the girls were out on the rapidly warming Woodward Park cross country course. Jenny Xu was aggressive from the start and stayed with the chase pack most of the way. With a mile to go, Jenny was in 29th place…and in the last mile, passed nine more girls to finish in the top 20, finishing in 19th place in the California State Meet with an 18:34 (making Jenny the second fastest Monta Vista girl ever at Woodward Park!). Not far behind Jenny were Madeleine Yip, also placing in the top 100 in State with a 19:27 clocking, and Kelly Bishop with a 19:49; both Maddy and Kelly made the all-time Monta Vista list on the Woodward Park course! Julia Chang has been fighting a cold or the flu all week, and still bravely ran a new personal record for Woodward Park; I think we all know that Julia had an amazing senior year and this race was another expression of how strong Julia’s character is. Getting sick a week before a race is something that can easily get in an athlete’s head, giving the athlete a built in excuse to check out and stop fighting; Julia fought every inch of the way for her PR and for the team. There is no quit in this girl, she is a strong mentally as any runner. Anna Hsiao came in soon after, with a 20:27 and a PR of her own, while first-time State competitors Namrata Subramanian and Christina Jennings both came in with solid times under 21 minutes.
Maddy Yip
Of the six Monta Vista athletes who have run Woodward Park before, five of these athletes set PRs–!!!–excellent and even more excellent when you realize…this was an EXTREMELY SLOW DAY for the course as a whole!
I was noticing as we finished, I was getting the same reaction for all the athletes–the reaction was typically not too happy, something like ‘yes I PRed but not by as much as I hoped to.’ First off, I do understand this reaction; we are a team of perfectionists with high personal standards, we were having good seasons, we really wanted to attack this race. and you all had set high personal goals. I wouldn’t change you a bit. And I want to compliment all our runners on following the rule, ‘We can’t complain on a PR day’ (well, not much anyway 🙂 ). Five PRs out of six tries is a great day!
Nevertheless, this morning I went back and did some analysis. What did these times mean?
This year, Jenny Xu finished in 19th place; last year, Bridget Gottlieb ran 33 seconds faster and finished in 20th. Fiona O’Keefe, who won the race both years, did not run any slower this year–but she is kind of freaky good, and she did not improve year to year. Great Oak’s star Destiny Collins was 28 seconds slower than last year. Great Oak had one of the greatest teams ever to compete at State, winning the state meet with a score of 45, almost 100 points better than second place–yet Great Oak’s team time was 1:38 SLOWER than their team time last year. Monta Vista’s team time from last year, which was good for a solid 12th in the state, would have placed us 3rd or 4th this year. I looked for several year to year comparable figures and found similar results. So, what was going on?
Julia Chang
My analysis is that the weather conditions, heat and dust and pollen, were a lot worse for our race this year. Last year all of D1 went off at 8:30 in almost perfect conditions, this year we went at 1:20pm and while the weather did not feel all that bad but was relatively much worse for all of us. Last year we had excellent conditions, this year was so-so. My estimate is that this had a 30 second impact on most people’s races. So, while many of you PRed…how would you have felt if you had placed exactly in the same place, but 30 seconds faster? EXACTLY! You would have been walking on air!
In distance running, the weather has to cooperate for any runner to set a record. Any athlete can only fight conditions to a certain point, then science takes over and is implacable. You all fought very bravely. No one, not a single person, said one word to me about the bad conditions. All of you fought without making a single excuse about weather, heat, illness, how you felt, nothing. No excuses, just determination to do your best. And you set lots of PRs that would have been even better with more supportive weather. I’m so proud of you!
So, everyone–I hope that you were proud of your performances yesterday already, you should all feel great, and I hope that as you read this analysis you say to yourself, ‘hey, that was an even better performance than I thought it was!’
Anna Hsiao
Congratulations to:
–EVERYONE!
–All our seniors–Jenny, Julia, Christina and Rohan–go on to great college careers with pride, and please never forget MVXC and your 2014 Olympics California State Meet!
–Julia Chang and Rohan Choudhury, who were awarded California State sportsmanship medals!
–All our underclassmen–Maddy, Anna, Namrata, Kelly–thinking about getting back (well, after a few weeks of rest and easy running!)?
–All our repeaters–Julia, Jenny, Maddy, Anna and Kelly, two state meets! Wow! Not many kids can say they did that!
–Our teammates who came down with us–Paru, Aiden, Brent, Rhea and Andy were all great to see out there supporting their teammates!
–And of course our parents–Thanksgiving weekend in Fresno is not anyone’s first choice UNLESS you are a XC athlete! Thank you so much for supporting your child and being there for them and for us! You have raised great kids who compete at the highest level, both on the trails and in the classroom. Congratulations on your success as parents!
Results are available here, and there are photos on Picasa.
