Pole Green Classic Invitational Preview
The second largest meet of the weekend will be up in Mechanicsville at Pole Green Park. This meet, not on the flat-fast course, should still produce quick times and telling results. The biggest of which will be how does Bethany Graham look out on the course.
Last year she blew away the competition and nearly broke 18 on a hilly-woods course. That is comparable to Libby Davidson at her peak. Put plainly, if she is anywhere near that kinda shape this season she is going to be the name to watch.
Virtual Meet
She will have competition though from Allison Fick who has already won an invitational this year and looks very strong.
Lily Snow, Rachel Mudd, Abigail Church, and others are also names to watch in this race.
Team wise Colonial Forge is the favorite but Midlothian is close behind. Freedom, Cosby, and Western Branch all have shots at the title as well. The real question here though is what part of training are each of these teams in and how ready are they for a race.
2017 Race Results & Coverage
In the guys team race this race could be described as one thing, a preview for the 5A state meet. It features Deep Run, L.C. Bird, Glen Allen, and John Champe. They are also joined by Patriot, L.C. Bird, James River, and Cosby to make it quite the meet.
This meet, just like 5A States, is too close to call but John Champe would be our early season favorites.
Individually Chase Osborne enters the weekend as the favorite with hometown runner Ali Ibrahim seeded just behind him. Colby Burcham and others will also be in contention. They are also joined by Dan O'Brien.
This course makes for great races but definitely is not the best course for a big lead pack. What that means is it will take quite some time to thin out the lead pack. That in turn should make for a very strong final mile where some athletes finally break away and have to fight for the win. There most likely will be no cruising in here.
MileStat.com will be on-site with video coverage this weekend.