As promised, Mr. Ma has posted his truly professional photos of the 2022 Watermelon Run! Check out the MVXC/MVTF Photos Website. All photos on this site are free to download–use them for your FB page, to send to your grandmother, for a posting on you wall…for anything, really!
The cross country season became a lot more ‘real’ on Thursday, August 26, as the Monta Vista squad headed out to Stevens Canyon Park for our annual Watermelon Time Trial!
The Watermelon is a much more challenging time trial than most high school cross country teams use. The Stevens Canyon course is 2.6 miles long, with several hills–so the Watermelon run becomes a more realistic preparation for the cross country courses we will face in the season, like Lagoon Valley next week or Crystal Springs for leagues. It helps to dive right into the season and remember, or learn, what it feels like to run a real high school cross country race.
Denny was the first runner to cross the line in 15:36; Sydney lead the girls with her 19:40 mark. Alex and Tanay looked like they were in mid-season form with their all-out kicks to the finish line; Alex prevailed by a scant second, 16:14 to 16:15, and it’s easy to imagine both of them outkicking some competitors all season long!
One of my cherished coaching memories was after an invitational race years ago, probably around 2014 or 15. As I was leaving the course and hauling gear to my car, one of the other coaches called out across the parking lot “hey, are you the Monta Vista coach? I want to talk to you about your kids!” I’m thinking, uh-oh. When someone says they want to talk about your kids, it’s hardly ever good. But, but…he wanted to compliment our team on how competitive we were. We had a really strong girls team that year and had just romped to a team championship, and I started to say something about how I thought we could go pretty far in sections, and he said “no, no it’s not just your top kids. All your kids, top to bottom, they fight for each spot. Your kids hate being passed, anywhere in the race, no matter what place they are in.” I was so proud of that team and so flattered that coach noticed (for years afterwards, every time I’d see him at a meet, he would walk by and say ‘hey, it’s my favorite team that’s not mine’ or something like that).
I was reminded of that moment in the parking lot when I saw Navya pushing herself hard as soon as she could see the finish line, and watch her push herself to the finish cone. When someone pushes hard for the entire race, even when they are not at the front, that says something about that person and their character and their work ethic. Navya was pushing hard right to the end! As long as we have that kind of personal pride and spirit at all levels, freshman to senior, girls and boys, varsity and JV, this team is going to be fine. We will achieve, we will have fun, we can walk tall and with pride! It’s so important in our lives to try to do our best in everything that matters to us.
Our first goal is to improve, as individuals and as a team, and 15 Monta Vista athletes had personal records at Watermelon:
Siran Gao 7 second improvement
Ari Rajaram 21 seconds
Alex Nguyễn 22 seconds
Valerie Ayzenberg 58 seconds
Denny Dong 1:42
Joey Suresh 1:48
Ruhaan Shah 2:02
Paru Joshi 2:45
Manasi Prasad 3:08
Tanay Parikh 3:34
Aaron Lee 3:42
Hemani Karmishi 5:07
Ian Gee 5:32
Darren Lin 5:53
William Wu 9:14
The boys top five runners also dropped a minute and seventeen seconds from last year’s top five, and with a freshman (Ravi) and a sophomore (Tanay) included in that group, there is more upside for this squad!
Complete results for the run are posted on XCStats.
Robert Ma, the parent of two MVXC/MVTF alumni including a CCS podium finisher, was on hand to take photos. Mr. Ma’s photography is legendary! We are so lucky to have him out with us. A link will be posted when he has uploaded the photos he took.
Also, you might have noticed a more mature runner out with us…that was Hank Lawson. Mr. Lawson is our timer for the four league meets this year. He is not only a timer, he is also a fan of high school track and cross, and competes himself, and he wanted to get out and try the course. Make sure to say hi and to thank him when you see him at Baylands and at Crystal later this year.
One last note: Alumni Sotirios Kougiouris dropped by to help out and to cheer at Watermelon. Soti was recognized as one of ten outstanding senior athletes from the 2022 class at Monta Vista. MVXC/TF is traditionally well represented in the annual senior awards list…in addition to Soti, Tufts University-bound Vivian Lau was recognized as an outstanding senior athlete, and Sophia Chen (USC) was chosen as Matador of the Year (Samantha Dunn, now at the University of Chicago, was 2021 Matador of the Year, and Triya Roy, a junior at Johns Hopkins University, was Matador of the Year in 2020). At some point during the pandemic, the school stopped giving away plaques and started giving away paper certificates. Your coach thought this was appalling, being recognized as one of your year’s leading athlete deserves something that will last. An outstanding senior athlete should get something that can be shoved in a shoebox and kept for years so you can bore your children with stories (yes, Dad, I know that you were so super fast when you were my age, gaaahhhk). Since it does not seem to be anything that was going to be fixed, paper was going to continue to be the award for being one of the best Monta Vista athletes, coach took matters into his own hands and designed a medal for the winners. Soti was the first in-person, though retroactive, awardee!
(Cross and track are great paths to having a surprise on awards night! Ask Soti, Vivian, Sophia, Sammi, Syl, Rohun, Brooke, Bianca, Evie, Rohan, Bridget, Kevin, Kelly, Julia, Paru, Maddy, Brent, Akshara, Sarah…)
