Fall Weather and Fall Racing

The weather finally seems to have turned towards fall (for the time being, it is Chicagoland after all), dewy grass, long sleeves, cross country weather. The Wildcats got their first taste of fall racing with the Macnider Invitational, and historic course at Hoover school, 3 hilly loops and a 5K total distance.

The varsity girls got things started, 10 girls toed the line. It was the first time some of the underclassmen got varsity experience. Before the race we talked about being aggressive at the start, and we saw some great effort off the line. Bridget Kemp and Selah Fornelli got out hard and stuck with Hannah Kilday at the front of the Wildcat pack, Cassie Salkas, Alexis Pacholski and Carrie Kraft were right on their heels. The front three stayed together through the first 1200 meters with Hannah moving ahead at that point. Bridget continued to stay close to Hannah the rest of the way, and was able to run her best time of the season. Cassie moved up throughout the race as well, as she closed the gap on Selah as they finished within 1 second of each other. Carrie Kraft was next in, running her strongest race of the season by far. Some injury and illness set backs have been a part of the team the last few weeks and despite some strong efforts, not racing at 100% can make the race a struggle sometime, but the entire varsity crew battled tough the whole way and made some big strides going forward.

The varsity boys were next on the line with our top 2 frosh/soph runners getting a chance to race with varsity for the first time. Both guys stepped up in a big way. Harlan Matson, Tyler Schick and Arnold Arce went straight towards the front, and stayed close the whole way until the 2 and quarter when Arce stepped in a hole and his ankle wouldn’t allow him to finish. Both Harlan and Tyler ran well enough to finish in the top 7. Next in was Tanner Torri and Ubaldo Rodriguez who were both battling some illness, but still managed to run. Luke Adair and Michael Kawa also finished right with each other as they came through 3 miles in season best times as well. Richie Ruane was aggressive from the start at that paid off with a season best time as well, and his best race in a few years. Despite injury and illness, the guys still fought for a 4^th place finish behind two SPC rivals.

The open girls race produced some incredible negative splits! Isabelle Reyes ran splits of 10:50, 9:50, and closed in 8:44! To not only break 30:00 for 3 miles, but also for 5K! Paige Hart also had a huge season best as she nearly broke 28 minutes for 3 miles enroute to a sub 29 5K. Alyssa Link was super aggressive off the starting line and came the through mile faster than she has all season, Alyssa now knows what that effort feels like and will benefit greatly from it moving forward, she was rewarded today for that effort with a PR through the 3 mile mark.

The open boys had some massive PRs! Adrian Castillo led the way with a huge race coming through 3 miles in 18:22, a nearly 30 second lifetime best. Adrian finished 17^th overall and just missed out on a medal. Adrian was followed closely by season bests from Colin Elder who was super aggressive off the line and battled the entire way, Stephen Cameron also flexed his muscle as he showed his wrestling toughness and ran a new PR coming through 3 miles under 20 minutes for the first time. Troy Henschen was a rolling today, he came through 3 miles almost a minute and a half faster than he ever has before, Tory has gotten better and better each race and the future is very bright for him. Gabe Ibarra was next to finish with a PR as well, some nice new trainers this week and PR to go with. T-Bone aka Thomas Coleman who wore spikes for the first time today and they carried him to a full minute PR! Closing out the race was Runner of the Week Aden Veljacic who kept his PR train rolling with a sub 29 run!

Progress over time is something to be celebrated, here are the athletes that ran both last year and this year at Macnider and ran faster this year:

The frosh/soph boys are back at it racing on Thursday at the Andrew frosh/soph meet and the rest of the team gets a week off before we head to Will County Girls Championship and Lakes Twilight the following week.