Since yesterday was the coldest day of the season – and a quick 30 minute run on the XC course at Hammonasset provided ample confirmation – we decamped to Hill House last night to watch indoor track.

Katie’s event schedule timing predictions were off by a little – 2 hrs or so – so we got to watch interminable sprint heats – which was fun – for the first 20 heats or so….. It was worth the wait to see some of the big guns from SCC XC in action in the 1600. Great to see Sarah Cotton, who missed her senior XC season, back healthy and close to top form finishing second to Kellie Davies in a race that featured fine performances from Katie and Emily.

  Girls 1600 Meter Run
================================================================
 Standard For Publication: 5:50.24
    Name                         School                  Finals
================================================================
  1 Davis, Kellie                Hillhouse              5:21.31
  2 Cotton, Sarah                Daniel Hand            5:22.56
  3 Ferrall, Kathleen            Guilford               5:24.30 
  4 Taylor, Emily                Guilford               5:29.05  
  5 Kalbian, Kathleen            Cheshire               5:31.94
  6 Hahne, Jennifer              Daniel Hand            5:37.06
  7 Vess, Brianne                Mercy                  5:37.36
  8 Chang, Amanda                Cheshire               5:37.39
  9 Phillips, Kathryn            Daniel Hand            5:37.68
 10 Beedle, Leanne               Amity                  5:40.71
 11 Wickenheisser, Victoria      Cheshire               5:41.16
 12 Jonathan, Sarah              Guilford               5:44.25
 13 Brennan, Sinead              Wilbur Cross           5:44.77
 14 Hiller, Valerie              Jonathan Law           5:45.67
 15 Gorham, Lisa                 Amity                  5:47.49
 16 Curtis, Whitney              Hillhouse              5:47.51
 17 Sejourne, Gabrielle          Guilford               5:48.51

For a good while during the second 1600 heat I thought Sarah Jonathan was going to win but in the end she had to settle for a PR and 4th place. Sarah hasn’t run many (any?) indoor miles and she wondered what the difference in time between indoor and outdoor miles might be. That question seemed worthy of some research…….

Here’s some data for 1600m culled from last year’s SCC indoor and outdoor championships results:

Athlete                      School               Indoor         Outdoor      Diff

Davis, Kellie                Hillhouse            5:17.21        5:17.32       0
Darling, Kathleen            Mercy                5:32.64        5:23.23      -10
Kowolenko, Allie             Branford             5:36.62        5:36.70       0
Lynch, Megan                 HAND                 5:40.15        5:34.47      -6
Hahne, Jennifer              HAND                 5:40.79        5:23.74      -8
Barrow, Natasha              HAND                 5:41.43        5:32.72      -8
Vess, Brianne                Mercy                5:44.01        5:35.53      -9

Obviously this isn’t a lot of data so – as ever with this sort of exercise – be careful about what conclusions you draw. Think about all the other variables involved and then – for the sake of argument and goal setting – say “wow it looks like it is not unreasonable to suppose that I might be able to run about 5 seconds faster for 1600m during spring track”

Here are two sets of results that make me happy we concentrate on XC……. It’s hard to pick between Kellie and Precious: Both ran the sprint medley but Kellie ran and won two other events (600, 1600), Precious only ran the 300 but running from the inside line she smoked the others. That alone was worth the $5 entrance fee.

Event 4  Girls 600 Meter Run
================================================================
 Standard For Publication: 1:49.24
    Name                    Year School                  Finals
================================================================
  1 Davis, Kellie                Hillhouse              1:41.61
  2 Ruth, Nia                    Hillhouse              1:43.97
  3 Curtis, Sydney               Hillhouse              1:45.12  

Event 5  Girls 300 Meter Dash
===================================================================
 Standard For Publication: 47.24
    Name                    Year School                  Finals  H#
===================================================================
  1 Holmes, Precious             Hillhouse                40.23   1
  2 McDaniel, Jayvona            Hillhouse                44.26   3
  3 Peterson, Johnesse           Hillhouse                44.60   2

The online weather bug at Adams Middle School was showing 49F which may be part of the reason that an enormous field of close to 800 runners turned out for the “Frosty 5K”. It doesn’t explain why there were fewer XC representatives than usual but those that did come had a great start to the year.

Corinne was fourth woman overall (in a loaded field) and 1st in her age group; Tim Kenefick was 3rd overall and 1st in his age group. As coach Ford sometimes says: “Outstanding”.

This is the Girls XC web site so their results come first: sorry Tim . The last results, after the boys, represent the ecletic and higly competitive “Friends of Guilford Girls XC” division.

26   Corinne Sejourne             17F F1319 Guilford CT              19:58   6:26     1/40     287
40   Fiona Doolan                 16F F1319 Guilford CT              20:37   6:39     2/40     117
105  Lauren De Marco              14F F1319 Guilford CT              23:10   7:28     5/40     93
295  Madison Fucci                16F F1319 Guilford CT              27:12   8:46     20/40    2838   

3    Timothy Kenefick             15M M1319 Guilford CT              17:27   5:37     1/39    2915
9    Christopher Burkle           16M M1319 Guilford CT              18:36   5:59     2/39    2914
11   Ian Connell                  15M M1319 Guilford CT              18:48   6:03     4/39    2893
408  Nick Landock                 16M M1319 Guilford CT              29:33   9:31    35/39    396

25   John Landock Jr              21M M2029 Guilford CT              19:53   6:24     6/17    395
30   Paul Doolan                  55M M5059 Guilford CT              20:04   6:28     4/101   116
84   Allison Clark                51F F5059 Guilford CT              22:19   7:11     1/58    194
143  Eric Sejourne                45M M4049 Guilford CT              24:01   7:44    33/120   2878
473  Dennis Culliton              53M M5059 Guilford CT              30:43   9:54    79/101   2674

And about that “loaded” womans field…… 2nd overall in the race was was PC alum and Irish Olympian Marie Davenport, her 16:39 has got to be a new course record. Lets hope so. Well done Marie.

Other take aways from today:

• It really screws up your pre-race warmup to have to go back home for your number (Fiona).
• If you do this well while “not really running, just taking it easy recovering from cross country” – what happens if you’re training hard? (Corrine)
• It pays to have Olympic finals experience (Marie Davenport – 10k Athens 2004)
• You can’t take pictures without a camera (My bad)
• Everyone has a major streak going on for this first day of 2012

Happy New Year to all who’ve read this far And especially to all those from St Killian’s AC – great to see an Irish lady do so well huh? Go the Ladeen!

Don’t you just love the Holidays? Just when you thought you had enough time to go for a run there’s all this other stuff to do. And so it goes on…. That’s my attempt at an excuse for the lack of recent postings here.

Since we got the first blast of cold temperature this weekend I’ve set the Website’s banner photo back to random images from the season – enough already with Varsity sunbathing at Nike regionals.

The girls doing indoor track had their first developmental meets this past week. I don’t know exactly who’s doing what but I think the roster includes Katie, Emily, Marieke, Sarah, Sarah and Lauren. Apparently Katie and Emily won events at Wilton. Freg Gaston has a great set of photos at http://fredgaston.smugmug.com/Sports/WHS-Track/2011-Reindeer-Relay/ The images below are from his pages and he may have asserted copyright over them. If you want big prints of any of them you can get them via the link above.

First up Sarah and Lauren chasing down a Wilton runner. Marieke is just out of focus behind them. This, by the way, is the sort of tight finish we need in XC

Here’s the older and, it has to be said, faster of the two Sarah’s, schooling some dudes in the fine art of the high speed turn which, as well all know, is an integral part of indoor track……

Visualization is a key technique of elite athletes. You can actually improve your performance by visualizing it…….. you close your eyes and just imagine yourself crossing the finish line ahead of the field.

And here’s Tim again. So comfortably in front he has time to check that his laces are done up. Maybe that’s what the note on his singlet says? “Remember – check laces. Before start.”

But enough pictures of people having fun…..

Any idea what this is?

It’s a mess. A mess of rope. Any idea how long a 5k course is? Well I know it’s 5k but I mean in terms of rope? Its about a gazillion feet. And somehow, no matter how hard we try, it all gets to be a mess. Like the one in the picture only – cause we’re Guilford – our rope’s green. And to get to the point, someone or some bodys needs to untangle that gazillion feet. Coach Ford, Carolyn and Fiona are hosting rope untangling parties at Baldwin most Saturdays. Please come help – and thanks to those who already have…. including Evelyn (who isn’t even at GHS yet) and Marieke (who came and helped after a monster 3 x 1 mile workout one weekend). Contact Fiona or Carolyn if you can help. They usually fit in a run afterwards (probably to warm up).

I have other news and rumors but I can’t tell you what they are at the moment. You’ll have to come back and see if I can tell you then.

Jackie Nicholas and Lindsey Crevoiserat. What more do you need to know? Sit back and enjoy…..

2010 CT Womens State Indoor open 1000M

Now you’ve had your long break best wishes for the indoor season

I mean I love that they cover XC and they feature us a lot but you’ld think by now (4 years) they’d be able to tell the difference between Emily and Megan…….

Photo by Jess Smith/The Guilford Courier

First things first; it is a great photo. It shows EMILY TAYLOR on the run in to the finish at Edgewood Park New Haven in mid October when EMILY TALYOR finished 4th as GHS beat Hill House and Hand to win the Hammonasset division 9-0.

The courier’s caption is “Megan Powell was a senior member and four-time All-State runner for the Guilford girls’ cross-country team that continued its dominance over the SCC and the state”. Which is true and would be a great caption for a photo of Megan. Which this is not.

Unfortunately I’m not sure who the Hill House girl is because there was an issue with the scoring that day, my guess is that it’s Nia Ruth (because Kelly Holmes won).

Anyway here’s a challenge. How about you use the ‘Leave a reply’ link to provide your own captions. Winner gets a new pair of Coach Ford’s old socks.

My entry is: “Taylor’s red shoes wing her to speedy finish”