Cross Country Race Wrap-Up: October 3rd and the 10th

Ponte Vedra XC Invitational

After a successful meet at Ridgeview, we hoped to continue our dominance at a moderately sized meet right in our backyard. On Saturday, bright and early, the Nease Cross Country contingent traveled right down the road to the newly built Ponte Vedra High School. After previewing the course the day before, my teammates and I felt ready to crank out some PRs on a fast course. On another note, we received favorable weather leading up to Saturday and hoped the recent spell of heat would be long gone.

Varsity Girls were up first and the Nease Girls improved on the times from last week, many of whom PRed, en route to a 10th place team finish. The girls confirmed that the course was indeed fast and spectator friendly, providing a multitude of opportunities to cheer the team on. Varsity Boys toed the line next and soon throngs of runners from different teams stormed across the field and towards the woods. After one mile, five of the seven Nease Varsity guys were in the Top 25. But a threat in the form of Lake Brantley loomed behind the boys and was closing fast. With a half mile to go, the meet went from an invitational to a Lake Brantley vs Nease dual meet; the top seven were either Nease or Lake Brantley. But in the final turn, Lake Brantley unfortunately prevailed, taking the top three spots. Still, Nease didn't go down without a fight and took home 2nd Place out of 15 teams. Next up, was Girl's JV, the penultimate race of the day. Nease JV Girls didn't fail to impress, demonstrating their impressive depth. Again, many PRed.

Finally, it was time for the Guys JV Race. By now the mercury was closing in on 80 degrees, so I was anxious to get the race over with. 126 runners crammed into their starting blocks and waited for the pistol to fire. With a boom everyone sprinted but luckily Josh, our number one guy on JV, assumed the lead from the get go. I tucked in a few steps behind him and tried to prevent throngs of runners from passing me. The course meandered around the baseball complex and a lake before hitting the first mile. I worked my way up about twenty positions and now I was surely in the top 20. Josh was still leading the pack as the course took us for a loop on the track. Once retracing our previous steps, mile 2 was passed. On the second time on the track, with a half mile to go, I started to kick and attempted to make my way up through the ranks. With 300 meters to go, it was a race for 5th place as I duked it out with a couple - you guessed it - Lake Brantley kids. The familiar ending repeated itself as I was passed as if I were standing still. Little did I know, I crossed the line in 19:38, a new PR which got me 8th overall. Luke and Alex followed 10 seconds later, finishing in 9th and 10th respectively. Brad rounded out the top 5 in 21st place while Luis and Kyle finished in 34th and 37th, respectively. As you can tell, a common trend is exhibited here: everyone PRed. I stop at the 7th spot for writing purposes but the rest of the JV all had excellent showing; great job Grinder, Joe, Tim, David, Alex and Jeremy! To wrap up, Nease JV took four spots in the top 10 and came home with 2nd Place, losing slightly to the elusive Lake Brantley squad. Needless to say, it was a job well done by every member of the team.

Bale N Trail

October 10th brought us what is considered by many to be the state's fastest course. It was the Bale N Trail Invite at Bartram Trail High. Due to SATs coinciding with the race, three varsity runners were absent from the meet thus catapulting me into the team's number 6 spot. Being on varsity, I felt obliged to run fast against teams that were close to us in ability.

Everyone arrived at the meet at around 6:30 AM, giving the varsity runners ample time to lounge around before heading into their pre-race routines. At the Ponte Vedra Meet the week before, it seemed that our first spell of cool weather was here. But after lingering around for a few minutes at the team tent, I already detected the omnipresent humidity. Once the sun was up, the mercury was pressing 90 degrees and didn't seem to be going down anytime soon. Due to pre-race nerves, I sought a bathroom only to find to my dismay that the line was literally making it's way into the parking lot. A few minutes later, the seven of us started our warm up, running on some of the course. We passed by a bathroom that had a line that was about one tenth as long as the previous one, so a couple teammates and I decided to wait. Thirty minutes later and the three of us finally emerge, rushing to finish our warm up and get ready to race.

The whole team arrived at the start with seconds to spare before the gun sounded. After a loop behind the baseball fields followed by a loop around the lake, we passed by one mile. The heat and humidity had reached an unbearable point and it was dramatically affecting everyone's performance. The second mile looped back around the baseball fields while the third mile looped around the lake and then towards the finish. I suffered across the finish line in 20:08, falling short of my goal time, which also was true for most of my teammates. The team finished a disappointing 14th out of 32 teams. But, little did we know, that we would have an excellent showing the following week.