Bunker Hill Time Trial

Today, August 11, 2005, the East XC team had its first time trial of the season. Although XC races are 5K, the coaches, for reasons unknown decided on a 1.6 mile course for the time trial. As this race was my first ever over 1mile in length, I had no idea what I was doing. The course was also unfamiliar to me, so when the gun went off, I cautiously pushed the pace, trying not to lose anyone, so I could find my way for the first lap around THE COURSE. Fortunately I was guided by Andrew Baeckstrom (Esq.) who was sidelined due to a Frank Wagner related walking incident. The front pack was led by Brian Deppa, and I followed closed behind with Brandon Cohen, Michael Adler and David Berger in the hunt as well. Pete Tseng was not far behind, running with the first girl, Theresa Cattuna. Coming down the back stretch, I took the lead from Brian, and continued to push the pace, running 4:19 for the first .8 mile. The rest followed shortly behind.

As I continued to "up the ante," only one person had the guts to come with me. I made a gutsy move, forcing our resident genius Michael Adler into a tree as we the first turn off the front stretch. I continued to lead around the "Bowl", and the "Field of Doom," where I again tried to force Michael into a tree. As we headed towards the backstretch, Coach Russo reminded us about the 300m sprint we do to finish out each run, hoping to give us inspiration. He called for one of us to go for the win, and I took the challenge, opening a gap on Mike. As we headed for the finish, Mike sprinted past me, but I refused to let him go. I used my patented "Finishing Kick™" to get back even with Mike at the line, finishing in an impressive 8:31 for 1.6 miles. That is a pace of 5:19 per mile, with splits of 4:19 and 4:12 for the first and second laps, respectively. Third place went to the incoming Freshman David Berger. Senior Brian Deppa snagged fourth, followed shortly by Brandon in fifth. The total gap between the 1st and 5th runner was just 31 seconds.

Theresa edged Pete for 6th at the line, the first girl finisher. Senior Steve Gao finished 7th, barely beating Alaina (8th) and Jarrett, who finished 9th. Overall it was a great race, but the coaches had some choice words with both the boys and girls teams after the race about nutrition, the lack of leadership on the team (could that be because there are no captains yet?), and generally taking care of ourselves after our runs. After the speech we proceeded to split into 2 groups, a short group and a long group for the RUN (not cooldown) back to school. And it was one hell of a run. It was mostly based on ability, but Rueben and Alex Goldman decided to run with the long group, which was not a smart decision. Back at East we did striders and plyometrics to finish out the night, at 8:30, 2 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES after we gathered for practice. Moose has full results from the meet. If we get them we can post them. Keep on Running.

-Mike