With the setting once again the extremely spectator friendly Bull Run Regional Park, this year\'s meet looks to once again showcase much of the top talent from the metropolitan area. Over forty schools are entered with approximately 1,700 runners expected to compete over Bull Run\'s moderately hilly 5,000 meter (3.1 miles) course.
Once again, the Glory Days officials have made the meet very participant oriented with both boys and girls races at the freshmen, junior varsity and Varsity B levels as well as the top flight Varsity Seeded races culminating the running action with the awards ceremony to immediately follow the seeded races at the pavilion stage.
We would like to once again thank Glory Days Grill for their continued support and sponsorship of the meet with team tri-captains Jeff Newman, Rich Danker and Bob Garner of Glory Days just reaching double figures in stores with the opening of number ten in Towson, MD and two more to follow by the end of the calendar year.
Glory Days Grill would like to extend their thanks to the numerous volunteers who help to make this meet a continued success including the Centreville High parents, the continued activism by former meet director and current West Springfield A.D. Mike Dobson; the sponsorship of Metro Run and Walk with current South Lakes coaches Scott Raczko and Mike Kiernan of MRW taking on many of the meet management chores; the behind the scenes work by Chantilly coach Matt Gilchrist, the continued work in the past decade by current meet director Matt Murray and the appreciative fans who always pack the place.
In the headline seeded events, the boys team race has nationally ranked Thomas Jefferson Science and Tech installed as a heavy favorite. The Jefferson boys squad has been ranked as high as ninth in the country by The Harrier magazine and has a formidable front running trio of junior Christo Landry along with seniors Keith Bechtol and Brian Hanak.
One of Jefferson\'s counterparts in the Northern Region\'s Concorde District is Westfield and they feature a very strong top trio also, led by senior Bryan Buckland and followed by juniors David Groff and James Scheiner.
Lake Braddock, as always, will field a solid team led by seniors Steve Hoogland and James McClellan; Hayfield is coming off a third place finish at the William and Mary Invitational from last week with Sean Riley and Kevin Camp their top finishers in that race; two time team defending champion Good Counsel is always in the mix and Oakton is also a team to be reckoned with as they test Northern Virginia soil for the first time this season led by Kris Cruz and Ben Beiter.
Other top runners to watch include Wakefield\'s Peter Quinzio, C.W. Moran of Potomac Falls, Gonzaga\'s Ryan Woodlee, Sam Rhodes of Robinson, Potomac School\'s James Hawthorne, Andrew Waring of Madison, Langley\'s Colin Groark and Adam Lichtenfels of Lee.
In the battle for the girls team title, it could be the Patriot District prevailing with Glory Days Grill defending champion Robinson along with 2001 runnerup Lake Braddock and last year\'s third place finisher Hayfield all having a shot of sweeping the top three spots again.
Robinson, also the defending AAA state team champion, has not been spectacular thus far this year but is still the team to beat. The Rams are led by seniors Joanna Rodgers and Sam Ference with Vicki Moore and Susan Brooks adding to Robinson\'s depth.
Lake Braddock has been running extremely well all season with senior Kelly Swain one of the area\'s top runners and a close knit pack behind Swain in Abbey McGrath, Kelsey Snowden and Kelly Sherrard. Hayfield has put together solid races all season long led by their tough top runner Morgan Phelan with Melissa Dewey, Jessica Weber and Neela Balkisoon in the next three spots.
In the race for individual honors, Kelly Swain is the top returner from last year, having finished third overall with last year\'s fourth place finisher, Katie Endres of Potomac Falls also entered but C.D. Hylton senior Jemissa Hess has to be considered at least a co-favorite after winning at Great Meadow last week along with Fauquier\'s Sarah Bowman, one of the premeir runners in AA.
Other top girls expected to be among the lead pack include Danielle Light of Oakton, Jefferson\'s Shauneen Garrahan, Kayley Byrne from O\'Connell, Yorktown\'s Katie Read, Rebecca Zimmerman of Wakefield and Chapelgate\'s Laura Holtrop.
Spectators should find the races fairly easy to follow with wanderings along the central gravel path to and fro allowing for seeing the competitors at close range at least a half dozen times. If you\'re not sure where to go, try and follow along behind someone pretending to know what they\'re talking about and you should be able to see plenty of the action.