Oct. 2nd, 2010
Today we made the long journey up to Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast for the largest single sporting event in the state of Maine – The Festival of Champions. 66 schools attended the meet, most from Maine, but some from all over New England and Canada. With almost 600 girls competing in the meet the races were broken up into an unseeded heat, a freshman heat, and a seeded heat. Runners were placed in heats based on previous performances over the course of the season.
The Belfast course is the same one that the State Championship race will be held on at the end of October and so heading up for this meet was a great chance to preview it and some our competition from northern Maine. The course is flat and fast, though can be slippery after the rain. Saturday was muddy, but the terrain held up well which can be seen in the fast times.
The first heat to run was the unseeded heat (252 girls). NYA had 5 girls in this heat. Morgan Scully dropped her best 5k time significantly running 23:55 and finishing 16th. Next up was Hadley Gibson who continued a recent trend of improvement dropping her season best by another minute over 5k running 24:45 and finishing 40th. This is the first time this season Hadley has been able to sneak under an 8 min/mi pace (7:59). Anna Jaeger finished next for us running 26:00 finishing 90th and improving more than I could have imagined given her light training. Ruth Gray was able to complete her first race of the season to finish next for NYA in 28:41 (180th) and Alison Znamierowski finished in 29:27 (212th) which is about 6 minutes faster than last week and there is more in the tank!
The next race up was the freshman race. Adela McVicar was our only freshman racing and she ran a strong race. Her goal was to run under 30 minutes for the first time and she finished the race in 27:00. Adela had never run under 10 min/mi and jumped right down into the 8s.
The last race on the day was the seeded heat. We had 3 girls running. All improved their times from the prior week and made some great surges in the last mile of the competition. Hillary Detert led the way for NYA finshing in 21:19 to place 36th out of 177 with a very strong finish. Sarah Jordan was next up for NYA running 22:43 (103rd) and passed about half the field in the last mile. Maggie Meixell finished the race right behind Sarah catching 4 or 5 girls over the last 100 meters in a time of 22:51 (111th).
Overall the 3 heats are then combined and the team scores are determined. NYA finished 26th out of 46 total teams (you need 5 or more runners to be a “team”). We were the 2nd highest Class C team which looks good for our chances of getting a bid to the state meet at regionals in a few weeks.
To see how the NYA girls finished in the overall standings or compare to the competition check out the results below.