Monta Vista Cross Country went on as long as possible, finishing the 2019 season in the very last race of the California high school cross country season!
Rohun Agrawal represented MVXC exceptionally well, with a 15:47 personal record on the Woodward Park 5km course. Rohun went out aggressively from the start, recording a 4:50 first mile; reflecting the high quality of the California State Championship meet, that 4:50 put Rohun in 57th place at the mile mark. Rohun continued to push and passed a net of 6 runners over the next 2.1 miles to finish in 51st place. Rohun’s mark makes him the second fastest Monta Vista runner ever on the Woodward Park course.
In 2019, Rohun improved his Woodward Park PR by almost a minute, and his Crystal Springs PR by just over a minute; his race pace on both these courses dropped by about 20 seconds per mile! These improvements were earned by Rohun through twelve months of consistent effort, making positive decisions every day to keep working towards his goals–while simultaneously maintaining a focus upon his academics. Rohun’s race improvements were well earned–yet these kind of improvements are available to others, too. The remarkable thing about the past year is not really the improvements that Rohun made; the remarkable accomplishment was the twelve months of unrelenting, focused effort. The result, which was never guaranteed, was a product of Rohun’s gritty effort. Congratulations to Rohun, for his efforts and for the results!
Also, a big shout out to nine of Rohun’s teammates who made the trip to Fresno to cheer him on! Not every athlete gets this much of a support group. Having Alex, Andrew, Conner, Ellie, Justin, Matthew, Sahil, Sean, and Triya all make the trip was a big boost for Rohun–and says a lot about our team. Very few teams are going to send a group that size to support a teammate! MVXC is a really tight, supportive team and the way we showed up for our teammate says a lot about the positive traits of MVXC19.
Turkey Trot
On Thanksgiving morning, MVXC present and past showed up huge at the 2019 Silicon Valley Turkey Trot! The Turkey Trot is a fun way to get some exercise before holiday indulgence, and it is a lot of fun to see so many familiar faces.
MVXC, true to form, does not arrive simply to make an appearance–MVXC will come to compete, too. Current runner Triya Roy won the open women’s 5km race outright, while Bridget Gottlieb (MVXC14, Johns Hopkins18) took second place overall in the 10km race. Jannah Sheriff took second place in her age group in the 10km, Akshara Majjiga (MVXC18, UC Berkeley22) and Sanjana Borle (MVXC19, UCLA23) went 3-4 in their age group, and Jenny Xu (MVXC15, MIT19) took 3rd in the 20-24 age group. Among the boys in the 10km age group chase, Alex Nguyen snagged a fourth place, Nitin Subramanian and Kyle Tsujimoto went 1-2 with Conner Hsu and Jeffrey Xu (MVXC18, UC Irvine22) also in the top 10. Rohan Choudhury (MVXC15, CalTech19), prepping for an upcoming marathon, also took a top-10 finish in the 20-24 age group for the 10km. In the 5km, along with Triya’s win, Upasana Dilip, Vivian Cheng, and Ananya Rajagopal finish in the top 10 for the girls–while Coach Flatow rolled in for 3rd in the “unbelievably old and hard to believe they still run” division. There were so many MVXC athletes and family members running, both competitively and for fun, it was inspiring to see (as well as a great way to have an annual reunion). At some point, we really need to set up a tent and some chairs where we can hang out and catch up after a future turkey trot–and maybe serve some coffee and brunch food, too!
A partial list of MVXC past, present and family at the Turkey Trot (and I apologize to all that I miss in this list!): Triya Roy, Darren Yang, Leonardo Framba, Upasana Dilip, Vivian Cheng, Ananya Rajagopal, Tommaso Framba, John McNelis, Nerea Northrop, Nikhita Saldi, Sydney Stevens, Sylvana Northrop, Vivian Lau, Melissa Foster, Nandini Saldi, Neeraja Nambula, Riaan Agrawal, Ashraf Dawood, Nilanjana Roy, Rita Au, Megna Agrawal, Jithender Majjiga, Ceci Imamura, Irene McNelis, Rohini Majjiga, Nayyara Dawood, Will Erf, Kyle Ettinger, Chatty Adiga, Garry Ettinger, Terry Ettinger, Namrata Subramanian, Nitin Subramanian, Kyle Tsujimoto, Michael Northrop, Conner Hsu, Elisabeth Hsu, Alex Nguyen, Rohan Choudhury, Jeffrey Xu, Bridget Gottlieb, Derek Lee, Jenny Xu, Ryan Niu, Brian Huang, Rohun Agrawal, Subra Kumaraswamy, Ethan Lam, David Wang, Akshara Majjiga, Ari Rajaram, Jannah Sheriff, Sanjana Borle, Benjamin Chang, John Hsiao, Zach Patti, Ajay Rajamani, Brian Xu, Jing Chen, Ismael Sheriff, Salma Sheriff, John Mracek, Sean Chen, Akshay Thontakudi, Jatin Goyal, Tyler Liu, Liwen Xu, Claire Ettinger, Eric Tsujimoto, Rhea Choudhury, Ben Hsu, Sean Chen, Abhijit Choudhury, Jill McDonough, Tanmoy Roy, Neelika Choudhury, Preethika Rajagopal, Robert Ma, Kirk Flatow–that is 79 people that I counted, and I’m sure I missed a bunch! That is pretty amazing. Well done, MVXC family–this is a healthy, gritty, active group!
Mr Ma came and took photos, too!
XC Records Update…check out the updated records after this year’s stellar cross country season! Prior to this year, the MVXC girls had clawed their way into a tie with the boys for number of league championship varsity team titles, and the boys took back the lead with their win this year…that looks like a see-saw battle for the next few seasons! Check out the team results and the changes to the individual course record lists, too.
MVTF2020 Info Meeting will be on Wednesday, December 4, at lunchtime in the old dance room off of the field house!
