I think most runners weren’t necessarily thrilled with the idea of the new course layout, as they now had to make that slow climb from the start line up to the flat area 3 times instead of just one.  But watching the races on Saturday, I’d say it didn’t slow anyone down as the course ran fast and the meet was stacked with good competition.  This was a much faster meet than last year.  Looking at the guys, you had 6 runners under 16 minutes Saturday, where only one did it last year. And the girls may have been even more loaded.  For example, Molly Hanlon ran faster than she did here a year ago but got rewarded with a finish 11-places worse than last year.  That’s tough!

From my view, I’d say it was a good day.  I heard rumblings that some were disappointed with their times, but to that I’d say two things.  First, don’t let this race define your season - you have a lot more races and chances to show off what you're capable of.  Second, while comparing things to a PR is the easy option, I’d suggest you go a little deeper in the statistics.  In fact, let’s go do that!

The Boys

The varsity guys started things off and with the early 7:30 a.m. start and unusually mild humidity for mid-August, they made the most of it.  As the gun went off and the huge throng of nearly 300 runners made their way down the open field and started converging as it narrowed, it wasn’t lost on me what a fortunate starting box South got out on the far left.  It kept them, if they chose, to stay on the outside of the scrum and not get boxed in. That was certainly the strategy employed by Ben Winn, who stayed wide and got out well and was rewarded as he found himself sitting around 6th as they came through the half loop. I didn’t get a count on where Adam Zorko was sitting, but Adam has spoiled me in recent years to not worry about where he starts as that’s rarely any indication of where he’ll finish. Then I was impressed to see Thomas Lichtenwalner holding the 3rd spot for South, but after that was what got me really excited and that was how close together so many of the 4-10 guys were.  

After the first mile, the pack of 6 had pulled away and Ben was comfortably tucked in at the back. Adam was steadily climbing, Thomas was holding firm and Wyatt Longstreth and Rishi Nagappan were close together so South was looking pretty solid. Now, unfortunately, there were a whole lot of Harrison guys up there, including 2 in the top pack and West Forsyth felt like they had an army marching together back by Adam, so South still had some work to do.  

Coming off the second lap, the lead pack was down to 3, with two Harrison guys along with Ben.  Adam had noticeably advanced, leaving the West guys behind, Thomas was hanging tough and Rishi had overtaken Wyatt but were both close.  And Camden Coker and Aariv Gupta had joined forces and were pushing each other.  

Ben gave a good push over the last 800 meters or so, but the Harrison boys were giving no ground and the pair of freshman (yes, you read that right, FRESHMAN) came through 1-2.  But it was a brilliant effort by Ben and he was rewarded with a 3rd place finish, a new PR and his first sub-16 performance with a 15:52.  What was Ben’s take on his fantastic day?  “It was okay.” Guess that’s what getting bested by a couple of 9th graders does to you!  Trust me, Ben, it was a little better than okay.  Adam continued to move up over that final mile to land in 15th. Thomas may have looked a little spent coming down the final chute, but remarkably consistent mile splits garnered him a new PR and a 40th place finish. How impressive was that?  Consider Thomas was 38th last year…in the JV race. Way to go Thomas! Wyatt managed a little stronger finish to take the 4th spot for South in 53rd, but Rishi was right on his heels with a new PR and 56th place finish. Aariv (91st) pulled away from Camden (98th) in the last mile, but both had solid performances and new PR’s.  

Where did that leave South on the team-front?  Harrison’s 1-2 punch and putting all 5 scorers in the top 25 was too much as they easily took 1st.  West showed they will be a challenger as they had their front-runner in 5th and then had 2-5 all finish within 3 seconds of each other taking 32nd-35th place.  The early live results showed South taking 3rd, which caused much confusion at the award presentation when they announced Creekview as the  3rd place team.  Apparently, Creekview had 3 runners that lost chips during the race, so officials had to go back and watch video to see where they finished, which pushed South back to 4th by just 3 points.  Might I suggest some remedial shoe-tying lessons for the Creekview boys!

But don’t feel too bad for South.  It was an impressive showing, especially if you compare to this same meet last year.  First of all, you had 3 of the top 7 (Thomas, Aariv & Camden) that were in the JV race a year ago.  Next, every one of the top 7 ran faster than they did here a year ago.  On average, that improvement was dramatic - nearly a minute and thirty seconds faster, with Thomas and Aariv both over 2 minutes improved and 5 of the runners PR’d.  Bottom line, all of these guys are starting this season in a much stronger place so it will be fun to see how the improvement continues.

The JV boys had a nice showing as well, with another 5 guys starting off with new PR’s (by the way, I’m not counting the new runners in that number, who all had PR’s since this was their first race).  That was enough to earn them a 6th place team finish.  And it was definitely a team effort, as South was running in bunches throughout the race.  The separation between our 1st and 5th runners was only 22 seconds.  Ben Dubrow led the way for South, taking 37th, closely followed by Pierson Long in 40th, Yash Panchal in 47th, Jaxson Herman 49th and Josh Wilson 55th.  The group running didn’t stop there, as the gap between the 6-10 runners was only 23 seconds.  It’s always good to see the team working together.  And congrats to Pierson, Yash, Jaxson, Nikil Selladurai and Coleman Burch for setting new lifetime PR’s.

The Girls

I’ve been around the SFHS XC team since 2015 and the South ladies have had a remarkable stretch of competitiveness during that time, pushing for high team finishes and winning trophies at state.  So it is a little jarring to look at the team scores and see South in 10th place on Saturday.  But the reality is this is where they are right now and as I said at the top, don’t let this race define you. I, for one, am choosing to look forward, so what you’ll hear from me is the many positives that can be taken away from this race.  

Let’s start at the top with Izzy Yonas.  I don’t think anyone was surprised to see Izzy fighting it out up front, but I have been curious to see what Izzy looks like outside the shadow of her big sister.  And it looked pretty darn impressive.  Izzy was in the lead pack from the start and went with Pace Academy’s Zahara Bernal when she made her move to separate from the rest.  The 2nd half of the race saw Izzy make a move of her own, taking the lead for a bit.  But lurking behind both of them was 2-time defending 7A XC champion Samantha McGarity, who closed on both of them with a strong last mile to take the title.  Zahara was able to overtake Izzy to nab 2nd, with Izzy 3rd, with a solid season opening time of 19:25.  Why do I say solid?  Because it was a big improvement over her time here last year and was just a few seconds off what sister Carmel ran a year ago. Digging a bit deeper, Izzy was 10 seconds faster than Carmel on the first mile, nearly identical on the 2nd and it was just Izzy fading a bit on the final mile that led to the gap on finish time. That last mile will get stronger as she builds over the season, so she should feel really good about this start.  

Paige Harden looks like she is taking up right where she left off last year.  She moved up steadily throughout the race and used a strong final mile to slide into a top 25 finish, taking 24th.  Molly Hanlon got out well and worked her way as high as 22nd before dropping a few spots over the last mile to finish 3rd for South in 35th.  The gap to the 4-7 runners is going to prove the biggest challenge for South this season. Danielle Schmuckal was that 4th runner this week, taking 108th, with Pratima Yellayi finishing the South scoring in 128th.  Ava Wright snuck past Susan Price down the final straightaway to land in 144th with Susan in 146th.  The good news is, out of the top 8 girls (which included Landon Layman), the 7 repeat runners from last year’s race all ran faster than a year ago.  And some of that improvement was dramatic, particularly Pratima, who earned a new PR as she dropped a whopping 4:11 off her Pickens time from last year.  I also want to give some props to Katie Wilusz, who also PR’d in the varsity race.  

The JV girls had the unfortunate luck to fall later in the morning, with full sun and temperatures starting to climb (they actually reduced the Open race that followed this one from a 5k down to 2 miles), so I’ll give some grace to the ladies in this race.  As a team they finished 14th and were led by Jules Min in 77th, followed by Arushi Mishra 81st, Kaitlyn Stinson 88th, Lilly Jenkins 111th and Sadie Morgan 113th.  

Summing up Pickens, you had 23 runners that went faster than they did at this same race last year, with 12 of those folks setting new PR’s.  All in all, a very solid start to the season!

This week South heads northeast, going up to Jefferson, GA.  If you ask your runner about the North GA Championships, you’re likely to get blank stares in return.  But ask them about the “prison run” and they’ll know exactly what you are talking about.  For the new runners, don’t pay any attention to your joking teammates - while you really are running next to a prison, they don’t let the prisoners out in the yard to yell at you as you go by.  

This one will be a different look for South. Coaches have decided to have many of the varsity runners train through this week, so they won’t be in action again until the Alabama meet.  It is also SAT testing on Saturday, so there will be a number of runners out for that.  South normally competes in the Championship varsity and JV races, but given all the moving pieces, they are actually shifting and entering runners in the boys and girls varsity (non-championship) races, so make sure you note the different times for those races and spectators note that there will be the championship girls race run in between the two.  Best of luck to everyone that runs this weekend!