All photos by Ted Plunkett
Welcome once again to all competitors, coaches, parents and also other relatives and friends along with just plain old supporters of high school cross country to the 17th Annual Glory Days Invitational at Bull Run Regional Park.
Everyone involved in meet management is looking forward to another fine day of competitive racing with more than 2,000 runners representing 71 different schools expected to compete in one of the nine different races to be contested on Bull Run's approximate 5,000 meter (3.1 miles) layout.
The course has undergone a few changes through the years but has now remained very much the same for the past four years as the originator of the meet, Mike Dobson, has tried to keep it as close to the original concept he had in laying out the course each and every year since 1992 while still maintaining a continual reputation as one of the most spectator friendly courses around.
For those first time fans to this high school cross country course, if you position yourself somewhere between the starting line at the bottom of the long, gradual incline and the finish line area noted by the Glory Days Grill vertical banners for the beginning of the races and then follow the general flow of what looks like the experienced onlookers in the crowd, it should allow you at least a half dozen opportunites to be close to and encouraging, but of course not impeding, any of the athletes competing.
This invitaional meet, held annually on the second Saturday in October, is usually a very good barometer for the upcoming championship season, which will begin in just over two weeks, and will once again try to fulfill all the runners and coaches needs; with a variety of races scheduled to accommodate various skill levels of participation.
At each level, the boys race will precede the girls race. The freshmen boys race will start things off promptly at 10:00 a.m. followed by the freshmen girls at 10:30 a.m..
Both races have an unlimited number of entries for each school as these ninth graders get an important opportunity to race solely against their other first year high school counterparts.
The junior varsity races begin at 11:00 a.m. and greatly benefit the large number of hardworking youngsters who are very involved in their respective school's distance running programs, and like the freshman races, are also set up to have an unlimited number of entries for each school.
Due to the large number of junior varsity runners on the boys side, there will be two J.V. boys races determined by a random split, with Division I junior varsity boys starting at 11:00, followed by the Division II Boys at 11:30 a.m. and then the J.V. Girls at 12:00 noon in what is usually the biggest race in terms of finishers.
The Varsity B boys race then follows at 1:00 p.m. with the Varsity B Girls scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in races that pit many of the top runners from schools with smaller enrollments against the second tier of the larger enrollment schools entered.
Highlighting the day for many will be the Varsity Seeded Races with the boys set for 2:05 p.m. and the girls slated for a 2:30 p.m. start as many of the top individuals and teams from the area square off against each other.
Closely following the conclusion of the last race, the awards ceremony at the stage area will begin at approximately 3:15 p.m.
Glory Days Grill is now in its eleventh year of sponsoring the meet and restaurant co-founders Jeff Newman, Rich Danker and Bob Garner are once again greatly pleased to be involved in the myriad of action and cooperation which is necessary to pull off an event like this and which needs a great number of people to be pro-active in order to gaurantee a successful day.
Jeff, Rich and Bob, along with the rest of the Glory Days Grill staff, would like to thank in advance all of the volunteers involved in concessions, parking, results compilation and all other necessary forms of meet management and would especially like to thank Mike Dobson, Mike Kiernan, Scott Raczko, Matt Gilchrist, Dan Woolley, George Siragusa, Gale Faulkner, Mark Stripe and Charlie Lihn for all of their extra time and help they put into the meet every year.
Further Reminders:
Parking will be the same $5.00 per vehicle as it was last year.
Concesssions will be sold throughout the meet behind the press box area along with a tent set up for tee shirt sales.
Please do not impede the progress of any of the runners during the race by being to close to the course's race line.
This is important at all times and especially near the finish line area where some spectators invariably display various degrees of overexuberance.
Team and individual results will be posted during the meet at the press box area as soon as we have them. It should be a fairly quick turnaround from the finish of one race to the posting of the results since we will be using the chip timing for the second year in a row.
Immediately following the conclusion of the meet, results will be sent and posted very quickly on www.milestat.com as Brandon Miles once again keeps everyone informed on the actions and happenings of the cross country season.
Thanks in advance and good luck to all the participants.
Boys Seeded Varsity Preview:
Hard to have a clear cut favorite among the teams which are entered. Robinson is the defending boys team champion and have graduated a number of their top runners from last year's team with Nick Reed as their top returnee.
The team scoring total among the top five or six schools could certainly turn out to be much higher than in many years past with Herndon, Potomac Falls, West Potomac, Jefferson, Centreville, Clarke County and Lake Braddock also "in the mix".
Top individuals entered incluse Corey Puffett of Dematha, runnerup at the Maymont Festival in Richmond two weeks ago; Yazid Zouaimia from Centreville, who finished second at Monroe Parker four weeks ago in a fine time on the Burke Lake 2.98 mile course of 15:13 and who won the Octoberfest Invitational at The Plains last week in 15:45 on their 5k course.
Chantilly's Chris Foley won the Monroe Parker meet in an extremely quick early season time of 15:03 but is nursing a slight injury that has kept him out of meets the last two weeks, with his status uncertain for this week.
Others to watch include the R.E. Lee duo of Natnael Meseret and Abraham Yacob; Lake Braddock's Alex Clark, Paul Gates from W.T. Woodson, Herndon's Jack Jasper, Alex Howe of Falls Church, Jefferson's
Jimmy Wu and a youngster on the rise, freshman Sean McGorty of Chantilly.
Girls Seeded Varsity:
Jefferson is the defending team champion from last year but has yet to completely field what had looked to be their probable top six or seven for this year and Lake Braddock won Monroe Parker and was second at the FLrunners.com Invite in Titusville, Florida last week but may not field their full complement due to SAT testing for this Saturday, which also brings the girls team title chase into a bit of guesswork.
Lake Braddock is led by Monroe Parker individual winner Liana Epstein and Stephanie Marzen ran number one for Jefferson at the Oatlands Invite in Leesburg two weeks ago, but their squads will also have to contend with West Potomac.
The Wolverines scored a nice victory at Octoberfest last week with Julianne Bigler once again finishing as their top runner but will seek to lower their number one through number five spread from the one minute 26 second duration.
West Potomac won Octoberfest with 187 points with O'Connell second at 221 points and with a tighter 58 second spread from #1 to #5 and Brentsville can also not be counted out after finishing third at Octoberfest with 233 points.
Other top individuals include Edison's Myah Hicks, Christina Lee from Potomac Falls, Gar-Field's Lindsi Arrington, Allison Bartels and Morgan Price of Brentsville, Carrie Payne of W.T. Woodson, Chantilly's Rachel Grochowski, Eva Estrada from George Mason, O'Connell's Devin Nihill, Eleanor Roosevelt's Amirah Johnson, Shannon Smythe from T.C. Williams and Robinson's Taylor Crosson.
