UPDATE: Lake Braddock's Sophie Chase, Hannah Christen, and Nick Tuck are all training through and not racing this afternoon at the =PR= Kick-Off Invitational.
MileStat.com will be on-site today covering the =PR= Kick-Off Invitational at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville. The meet is a season opener for many Northern Region schools at a two mile distance broken up into six races for freshmen, sophomores, and upperclassmen (juniors/seniors). The junior/senior girls' race could be interesting in featuring two teammates in Sophie Chase and Hannah Christen, the state's top two and nationally ranked runners making season debuts.
At last year's =PR= Kick-off Invitational, Chase (11:39) and Christen (12:08) had the fastest times overall in the meet but in separate races. Together in the same race this season, the 10:19 2 miler Chase and 10:26 2 miler Christen on the track could push each other closer to 11 minutes on the grass at Bull Run. The lone runner capable of breaking up the Lake Braddock duo on Thursday would be James Robinson junior Macey Schweikert, an All-State finisher in cross country last year and has a 5K personal best of 18:01. Chase has the meet record at 11:36 from her 2010 sophomore year.
Past All-State 3200 meter runners, Lake Braddock senior Nick Tuck and Thomas Edison junior Louis Colson will be the top runners individually in the boys' races. With Chantilly and Sean McGorty not competing in this meet, it is an opportunity for runners like Tuck, Colson, and others to get a taste of winning. Tuck ran a strong race at the 2011 =PR= Kick-Off Invitational to finish only five seconds behind eventual state champion Ahmed Bile of Annandale with a time of 10:21 on the 2 mile course at Bull Run Regional Park. A minute slower seems to be roughly the difference between two mile track PR's and times posted at Bull Run in this meet, so Tuck and Colson will see if they can run within a minute of their track bests of 9:17 and 9:24. Western Branch's Blake Theroux has the fastest split or time recorded in this meet at 9:45 from the 2009 meet, which was relay based.
Despite some teams having their top 7's split up in different races with some of their varsity runners being underclassmen, it will be see interesting to see how collectively teams match up when combining times. Lake Braddock girls are the top ranked team coming into the meet with a MileSplit US top 25 national ranking, while ranked #3 in Group AAA according to MileStat.com. West Potomac has been one of the region's top teams over the past few years with two key reasons for that success graduated in Sarah Jane Underwood and Dale Lescher, so it will be an opportunity for other returnees, especially Katie Genuario and Sophia Passacantando, for their squad to step up in their losses.
The boys squads at the meet includes several teams who have high aspirations of qualifying for state competition with top 4 finishes at the Northern Region Meet. Lake Braddock boys have a great front two like their female counterparts with Tuck and sophomore Alex Corbett who ran close to 9:30 as a freshmen for 3200 meters, but would like to improve the back end of their top five to feel more secure about themselves at season's end. The James Robinson boys, who will head Southwest this weekend to compete at the Blue Demon Invitational in Christiansburg, are a team with great potential who faltered last season due to injury and misfortune, but return a formidable squad this year thinking about a state meet podium finish. Robinson has four guys back who have broken 17 minutes for 5K. The West Potomac boys are in the same situation as the West Po girls with some questions after graduations, but have a great tradition of reloading and keeping a tradition of being competitive. Led by Colson, Thomas Edison boys saw many of their returnees develop well over the track season and look to see that translate over to this fall to make them a sleeper team out of the National District.