WJ’s cross country (XC) team traveled to North Carolina to race against fierce competition.
Selected members of the team took a six-hour bus ride together to run in the Great American XC Festival. They competed against many familiar schools in the Montgomery County area and teams from all over the country.
Leading up to the race, the team had intense workouts in preparation. However, one week before the race they loosened up to prepare their legs.
“We only had one workout that involved repeats around Stratton Park which was roughly 400 meters, as we also had a meet on Tuesday at BCC’s course which got in the way of training,” senior Sam Alesci said. “The runs between the North Carolina meet and the workout was short and easy runs to prepare our bodies for the race.”
The group of runners selected from the team worked together throughout the week in preparation until they all hopped on the bus to head to North Carolina. They drove for hours and eventually arrived to start their pre-race day activities.
“Once we got to North Carolina we ran the course once the day before the meet to acquaint ourselves with the course layout and to get a pre-meet workout in,” senior Gabriel Dirker said. “The day of the meet the team did a short warmup to prepare for our race.”
The team ran the course and gained familiarity with it so they were comfortable and prepared for the actual race the next day. There were two different groups that the runners participated in: the 5,000-meter Blue Invitational and the 5,000-meter high school junior varsity race.
Megan Raue, Mirae Denaro, Natalie McCarty, Annie Linkie, and Anabel Kotek competed in the Women’s Blue Invitational. Jasper Goldstein, Grant Levens, Jonah Daniel, Paul Hanscom, Ramzee Kerouz, and Evan Silberglied ran in the Mens Blue invitational. Many other runners from the team also competed in the Junior Varsity 5,000-meter race.
The meet ended up being a great opportunity for the whole team and an exciting experience.
Many of the runners had never experienced a meet like the Great American XC festival. This exposed them to a big exciting and organized environment which is very different from the meets close to home.
“The environment of the meet was unlike any other cross country meet we’ve had this season,” Alesci said. “Being a large organized running event, it felt a lot more organized and put together. My favorite part of the meet environment was being an announcer. It was my first time hearing an announcer at a cross-country meet and it felt so surreal.”
All runners on the team performed well. In the blue invitational, Megan Raue placed in first place with a time of 18:42.3 and Mirae Denaro in 11th place with a time of 19:20.7. In the junior varsity race Elizabeth Finn came in 16th place with a time of 21:37.4. For the boys blue invitational, Jasper Goldstein came in 82nd at 16:59.6 and for the junior varsity team Jeremy Silberglied with 18:57.3.
The team came home with pride and new experiences. Many of the runners had an amazing time and made memories.
