Monta Vista Cross Country made the journey north to Vacaville on September 3, and got the 2022 XC season rolling on the dusty trails of the Lagoon Valley Classic!
Lagoon Valley is hosted by Vacaville High School. The meet director uses a North Coast Section organization, with Varsity running three mile races and other divisions running two miles. That is standard Lagoon Valley racing. The curveball this year was the weather–the weather forecast predicted a high of 106 degrees in Vacaville for Saturday! What the meet director and the timers decided was that they would ‘stack’ races. In a division, the boys would start first and then the girls would start two minutes later; the timers would sort out the results at the end. This organization put more pressure on the athletes to be where they needed to be on time–the start area was busier, the schedule was more compressed, and the coaches had less time to shepherd wayward freshman. The faster girls would have to work around slower boys as they caught them (I would argue this is a net positive as the fast girls had targets to aim for–I’m betting most of the girls had faster times than if they had run alone. There is nothing like racking up roadkill to motivate someone at the back end of a race). And the big win for everyone, of course, is the meet was half as long–the last gun fired at 10am instead of 11:45, which probably was a 15-20 degree savings for the JV runners. (Athletes, I really and truly hope that some of you said ‘thank you’ to the timers and meet organizers–they earned a thank you this year!).
The frosh-soph girls opened the meet and the season for Monta Vista; sophomore Katie Lee was the first MVXC runner to cross a finish line with a 16:38 mark, good for 45th out of 184 finishers. Vera Bondar, Hemani Kamarshi and Siran Gao were not far behind as the girls’ team claimed a 12th place team finish out of 18 schools. The frosh-soph boys were next, and that group was lead by Ravi Polisetti’s 13th place finish with a 12:41 clocking–good for Monta Vista’s first medal of the season! Ruhaan Shah and Soham Beesetti joined Ravi on the medal stand with their bang-bang 38-39 finish just one second apart. Ravi and Soham recorded the two fastest freshmen times ever on the two mile Lagoon Valley course, breaking a record held by Alex Nguyen since 2019. The boys’ group efforts earned a 9th place finish out of 19 schools.
The varsity boys were paced by sophomore Tanay Parikh’s 18:21 run, good for 32nd place and a medal of his own. Seniors Ari Rajaram and Alex were less than 30 seconds back of Tanay, as together with newcomer Gene Zhou and vet William Wu the boys notched a 9th place finish in the large school varsity division. Senior Sydney Stevens lead the girls to a 7th place finish with her 21:43 mark, good for 24th place. Sophomore captain Anika Bhandarkar joined Sydney on the medal stand with a 31st place finish, senior Avani Kalari added a medal in 40th with Nerea Northrop and Manasi Prasad completing the varsity scoring.
Sean Basu and Paru Joshi added two more medals for MV in the JV boys race, and the JV girls wrapped up the day with three more podium finishes as Meena Kolli, Katie Li and Joey Suresh all brought home hardware. Joey deserves some kind of recognition for efficient use of energy, as her day included a 0.6 second personal record while taking the very last medal awarded in her race (and all day)!
Nine MVXC runners came home from Lagoon Valley with personal records. Cross country is all about improvement. An improvement at Lagoon Valley is a testament to some hard work since we last visited in September of 2021. Darren Lin and Vera both improved their times by more than two minutes, which is so impressive! The coach has heard reports that Darren was out with the summer run group at 7am for all of June and July–seeing Darren’s long term, consistent effort pay off with the biggest year-to-year improvement at Lagoon Vally is so satisfying. Grit and work will pay off! In addition to these PRs, Anika moved from the two mile race to the three mile race while improving her pace almost a full minute!–8:23 per mile for two miles in 2021 to 7:25 per mile for three miles in 2022! Manasi Prasad made an even bigger jump from her 9:33 two mile pace to 7:57 pace for three miles, and Tanay turned a simlar trick, going from a 6:58 pace to a 6:07 pace this year. Anyone has the ability to make a BIG JUMP in results–but it can take a year of consistent, hard work. That’s the thing about cross country…talent does matter, but the choices an athlete makes day after day matter much more. Everyone wants to have a great day on race day. But who was out day after day all summer long, getting up early or getting the best out of a hot dusty run? Deciding that you want to accomplish something, and then following through on that desire with 16 weeks of hard work–or 52 weeks of hard work, or 156 weeks of hard work–that is impressive, no matter where that person ends up.
Don’t we look great?!?
Boys Personal Records at Lagoon Valley
| Athlete | Gr | Distance | Result | PR By |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Darren Lin | So | 2 | 14:30 | 2:35.8 |
| Aaron Lee | So | 2 | 15:46.2 | 1:24.5 |
| Ruhaan Shah | So | 2 | 13:19.1 | 1:03.2 |
| Parmarth Joshi | Jr | 2 | 15:33 | 0:38.8 |
| Sean Basu | Sr | 2 | 15:26.9 | 0:05.7 |
Girls Personal Records at Lagoon Valley
| Athlete | Gr | Distance | Result | PR By |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vera Bondar | So | 2 | 17:38.1 | 2:16.6 |
| Hemani Kamarshi | So | 2 | 18:16.1 | 0:34.7 |
| Sydney Stevens | Sr | 3 | 21:42.9 | 0:17.7 |
| Joshitha Suresh | Sr | 2 | 19:05.9 | 0:00.6 |
Complete results are posted on XCStats.
Two weeks to our next meet, in Concord at the Nike De La Salle Invitational.
MVXC on the Starting Line
Frosh Soph Girls’ Team
Frosh-Soph Boys’ Team
Varsity Boys’ Team
Varsity Girls’ Team
JV Boys Team
JV Girls’ Team
Odds and Ends From Week Four of MVXC22
- We got our uniforms…thank you, Mrs. Flatow!
- The first time up Fire Trail and the hill repeats on Matt’s Hill was a success–the team really worked those hills!
- The girls team had a hair ribbon presentation ceremony…a tradition that goes back more than 20 years!
- Thank you to the Kolli family for hosting the pasta party before Lagoon Valley!
Some Photos From Lagoon Valley
Not Strictly from 2022 but…
Here is a photo of Meena Kolli at the top of Big Mama (the first monster hill on the course). Meena’s father took this photo in 2021. I love this photo! Notice…Meena is the only one running. Everyone else looks like they are being punished but Meena is competing. This picture tells a complete story about Meena’s toughness, and it also reflects MVXC at it’s best–a gritty team, a team that looks for challenges, athletes that want to compete.
A Story From 2011-2012
Whenever I think about MV athletes committing to a long term goal and then following through, I think about Arvind Rao.
Towards the end of the first season I coached track at Monta Vista, in 2011, I was out on the track with Arvind as we were having a workout in the runup to the SCVAL Championship meet. Arvind had qualified in the 800m. The top six athletes would advance to CCS. We were running a tough workout and at some point, Arvind had his hands on his knees, gasping, and looked at me and asked “Coach, how do I get more wind?” as if maybe I had a magic coach wand, or there was a secret coaches kept to themselves like ‘think hard about the color blue!’ I remember responding kind of bluntly, saying ‘sorry, Arvind, there is no magic. You want to have better wind? Here is what you do: Pile up mileage all summer long. Then, even though I know you are not a fan of cross country, you need to join again and really work hard. Then next winter, pile up some more miles, and we will work hard during track season, and then, next year when we are standing here, you will have better wind.’
In my experience, most high school kids listen to this and say “good talk, coach” and that’s it. Arvind didn’t really think of himself as a distance runner–he started as a sprinter and thought he was a 100-200 guy before we encouraged him to find more success in the 400-800. But Arvind did everything on that list. He ran a lot of summer miles, and he busted the workouts in cross even though he did not make the varsity cross country team as a senior. He came into the track season really fit. In March, 2012 he broke the two minute mark in the 800 for the first time, putting up a 1:59.84 (his previous PR was 2:02.23). We piled more hard workouts on him for the next month and in all the meets in April, he didn’t crack two minutes again–we were biding our time. And starting with the El Camino League championships, Arvind started one of the most exciting months of running I’ve ever been a part of–four consecutive weeks of personal records in bigger and bigger meets:
- El Camino Championships: 1:58.00
- SCVAL Championships: 1:57.76
- Central Coast Section Semi-Finals: 1:56.58
- Central Coast Section Championships: 1:55.84
That month was so fun! And Arvind earned it with a level of long term commitment and dedication and grit that is rarely seen. Arvind went on to UC San Diego, he ran for the track team there and studied computer science, earning a masters’ degree in CS.
The thing is…anyone can decide to work like that for a year. That dedication is a choice that anyone can make. The rewards are going to be different for everyone, but there will be satisfaction at the end.
