Monta Vista Cross Country must love artichokes. How else do you explain the running we did on Saturday, October 1? Oh…maybe our team came out ready to really work hard and compete, and we did–from first to last, MVXC gave a great effort, testing ourselves and fighting for every spot and every second!
The Artichoke Invitational is a race that Monta Vista circles on it’s calendar every year. The Artichoke is an incredibly well-run race, with exceptional organization by the Half Moon Bay coach, Paul Farnsworth, and an army of volunteers. The spirit of the race is very positive; for example, the runners waiting to start their race will often spontaneously cheer for the last runners in the prior race. The infamous ‘Cougar Hill’, while disheartening to many teams, is a big advantage to Monta Vista; we train in the hills of Stevens Canyon and Fremont Older, so the tougher the course is the better for MVXC. And of course, your coach will never let you forget…in 1976, the fifth year of the Artichoke, Coach Flatow won a medal here (Coach Farnsworth will ask if this is the only medal Coach Flatow ever won…that hurts a little because it’s too close the the truth!).
Our day started with the freshman boys race. This young group ran a strong race, going out smart and controlled and moving up steadily, often working together as a group. With Pranesh taking an individual 6th place and our first three runners (including Kamyar and Jeff) finishing within six seconds of each other. Kavish and Christian completed the team scoring. The freshmen displayed great teamwork, and the team came in with a second place finish–only a single point behind the champion Mountain View team (the ‘other’ MV!).
Coming in second place by one point is a good lesson, actually. I’m not calling out any one runner–we all did our best, no criticism is implied at all. The lesson is, that every point might count, and that knowledge can be helpful when you are trying to find the drive and courage to push to pass or hold off one more person in a race. Your coach, captain and teammates all say that ‘every spot matters’ yet I know we are human–it’s easy to say, yea, sure coach, whatever and not really take the lesson to heart. Yet in our freshman race at Artichoke, this really did happen–we took second by one point! For all of us, it’s worth remembering; not to beat ourselves up over the outcome at Artichoke, that’s not the point. We can use that memory as a tool in the middle of the race at Mt. SAC or the SCVAL Championships or CCS, when the little man on our shoulder is telling us to back off; remember that maybe, maybe, passing that last person will help our team place a little higher, and tell the little voice in your head to shut up. Try to pass one more person; don’t let anyone pass you. Every tool that helps motivate you is useful, and if we all take that away from the first race at Artichoke, then that’s worth more than any medal!
Next up were the frosh-soph girls, and they wanted to leave no doubt that our young girls wanted to make a mark. Within a minute of each other, Triya, Anjali, Sanjana, Lauren and Serena came racing in; 7-8-11-13-17, for a victory and the second straight year the MVXC frosh-soph girls won at Artichoke. Our girls might be young but they ran like veterans, moving up during the race and passing runners in bunches as the race went on.
The frosh-soph boys continued to pile on, with Andy Fang winning the race with another tight pack behind him; Kyle, Aravind, Ryan N and Nitin were all within 30 seconds of each other, and Vish and Vishal were within five seconds of them. This team has incredible depth, and I have to think that the freshmen and sophomores will show very well at Mt. SAC in three weeks.
The JV teams did not want to be overlooked. The MVXC girls were certainly ready to compete. The first four MVXC finishers are all in their first season of cross country, as Cindy Wang raced in with a third place finish with her twin Kelly in 12th (where have you girls been the past two years? We love having you on the team! The Wang twins are examples of why we should be out encouraging more girls to join earlier!) and freshmen Athena and Anjana racing home in the top 10. Together with Bhavna’s clutch performance as our fifth JV runner, these young women held off Evergreen Valley for a narrow 57-61 win. The JV Boys came in with a solid 6th place finish, lead by sophomore Darren Yang, who despite arriving directly after the SAT (missing his target race) jumped right in to the JV race and medalled with an 18th place finish.
The big races came last and provided some real fireworks. Kelly Bishop lead the Varsity girls to their third consecutive Artichoke championship, recording a 14:11 over the 2.33 mile course, the fastest time of any girl all day. Sarah, Claire, Paru and Salma came in within a minute of each other, and along with Akshara the team held off College Park for the meet championship. The Varsity boys joined the party, as Bennett’s second place finish was followed by Jeffrey, Andy, Justin and Scott giving us a top five only 40 seconds apart from each other and giving MVXC another close victory, eking out a four point victory over Gregori. One of the really cool things about this year’s boys teams is that the top boys are finishing in a different order in every race. Having our top seven be virtually interchangeable means that everyone can push everyone else, finding new inspiration and sources of strength. If someone that you practice with every day is having a great day, go with them!–if you feel like you are having a rough day, and someone often behind you is with you, go with them! Who knows…you might start finding something more inside yourself.
The girls recorded eight PRs out of 11 opportunities, lead by Serena’s 50 second improvement and with Sarah, Sanjana, Anjali and Bhanva all cutting 20 seconds or more off their previous bests. The boys racked up 20 PRs, with Heewon, Aravind, Scott, Richard, Victor, and Ethan all beating their prior selves by more than a minute! Bennett, Darren, Aiden, Derek and Kingsley also knocked the better part of a minute off of their own prior PRs.
And after the races…we headed to the beach for a great evening at the ocean, good food, a whale, and a nice sunset!
Winning four championships in a single invitational is not a feat to be taken likely. MVXC can be fantastic for the next decade and never duplicate that accomplishment. That’s OK. We should not take days like this for granted; there are 25 other teams that would have been happy winning ONE of the varsity or frosh-soph races! So we should feel good about what we did…and at the same time, use this day as fuel for the next effort. We honor our accomplishments, not by resting on these memories, but by working hard to reach even higher levels of excellence.
So…great job, team! Now let’s go see what we can do next!
Complete results are at XCStats.
People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But don’t think that’s the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest.
Haruki Murakami
