I always feel like at some point things will slow down for me near the end of the season, but until I get on the plane to St. Remy at the end of the month, I never feel like I’m caught up. So sorry for the lateness of some of these items but bear with me!
SCVALs
The Santa Clara Valley Athletic League championships on November 4 displayed the progress our young team made this season. Ashwanth, Aiden White, Ritik, Akshat, and Oliver took the JV boys to a 4th place finish; every team above us had at least one junior scoring, while we had all sophomores and freshman representing. The JV girls took third but the big news was that we had eight girls on the starting line; last year we didn’t have a complete team. MVXC26 had 18 girls on our team, none of them are graduating, which is a huge step forward! We can travel far with this group and we will do all we can to stick together.
The varsity boys scored another fourth place finish, with sophomore Riu taking 12th place; the scoring athletes were one senior, one junior, and three sophomores. The girls took 5th place without a senior on the squad, and with three runners in their first high school championship race ever. Riu Yamanda and Alexandra Qiu both finished on the podium, earning varsity all-league honors, and sophomore Myra Mishra earned a Bob Rush Sportsmanship Award for our team. And both teams move on to CCS…see the next section below.
What matters most, even more than medals (which are, admittedly, very cool), is improvement. MVXC had an impressive 33 personal records set out of 42 opportunities. Several freshman made big jumps over their first runs only four weeks before (Leon 2:33, Sarah 2:16, Jimin 2:10, Kaitlyn 1:44…), showing incredible progress in their first year. Many other first year runners made big strides, while returning runners demonstrated that a year of work can lead to big gains (Myra 2:02, Abhi 2:00, Darren 1:28, Ethan 54 seconds…). Guys, sticking with something and seeing how much you can make out of your talent is the real win here!
Complete results are posted on XCStats.
Personal Records Set at SCVAL
| Athlete | Mark | Improvement | |
| Leon Zhu | Fr | 23:35 | 2:33 |
| Ananya Parakimeethal | So | 27:53 | 2:21 |
| Lucas Chuang | So | 23:37 | 2:20 |
| Sarah Kumar | Fr | 27:33 | 2:16 |
| Jimin Park | Fr | 21:19 | 2:10 |
| Aric Obaidur | So | 23:21 | 2:08 |
| Myra Mishra | So | 23:05 | 2:02 |
| Abhi Kotari | Sr | 22:18 | 2:00 |
| Kaitlyn Lum | Fr | 23:05 | 1:44 |
| Darren Hsu | Sr | 22:25 | 1:28 |
| Eli Wang | Fr | 23:26 | 1:28 |
| Jayden Mattekatt | Fr | 20:22 | 1:14 |
| Shouki Baba | Fr | 21:12 | 1:06 |
| Luna Lee | So | 26:27 | 1:06 |
| Fahad Ali | Fr | 21:18 | 0:58 |
| Ethan Yang | Sr | 17:38 | 0:54 |
| Riu Yamada | So | 16:36 | 0:49 |
| Aiden White | So | 18:29 | 0:49 |
| Oliver Perrault | Fr | 19:31 | 0:41 |
| Aadit Shinde | Fr | 20:59 | 0:38 |
| Akshat Ambekar | So | 19:30 | 0:33 |
| Sophia Li | Fr | 22:47 | 0:33 |
| Yibo Wang | So | 21:44 | 0:32 |
| Brandon Wang | Sr | 19:54 | 0:31 |
| Ashwanth Sundaramoorthi | So | 18:27 | 0:26 |
| Tarun Gandhi | So | 17:01 | 0:14 |
| Josiah Lim | Fr | 20:13 | 0:11 |
| Ethan Ge | So | 20:54 | 0:11 |
| Ritik Shenoy | So | 19:06 | 0:06 |
| Naomi Hsu | Jr | 21:08 | 0:06 |
| Samuel Heinonen | So | 17:49 | 0:03 |
| Melinda Zhao | So | 21:52 | 0:03 |
| Jonah Chang | Jr | 20:23 | 0:01 |
Central Coast Section Championships
The CCS Championships will be held on Saturday, November 15, at Crystal Springs. I’m not going to post a separate meet sheet–I think we all know where Crystal is, you will need to arrange your own transportation. Please get there in plenty of time to get settled and warmed up…my plan is to get there really early so we can get our usual camp spot. The boys will race at 12:20 pm; Monta Vista will be represented by Riu, Tarun, Kento, Ethan, Sam, Constantine, and Akshat. The girls will be running at 12:55 pm, with Alex, Naomi, Melinda, Sophia, Kaitlyn, Myra, and Miranda on the starting line. We do have alternates who have been attending our practices. There will be an admission fee of $12 for spectators ($5 for students) which can be paid on GoFan. Athletes and alternates in uniform will not be charged.
I did say this at practice several times, but I want to repeat this for everyone…practices are still required for anyone competing at CCS, and everyone who wants to work hard is also welcome even if you are not running at CCS. As we have said, if you are running at CCS, you need to be at practice or communicating with your coaches in advance about why you are not attending. Representing your school and your team at CCS is a privilege. I also want to give a huge shout out to all the athletes who have been coming to practice diligently, every day, even though they are not going to be a runner or an alternate at CCS; your dedication and enthusiasm matters to all of us.
Scholastic Honor Team
Guess what? The Monta Vista boys cross country team has been selected as one of the five boys’ cross country scholastic honor teams for the 2025 season! Congratulations to all of you…the team will be honored at a the awards ceremony following the D3 races, at approximately 1:30 pm. Well done, boys! You are excelling at both athletics and academics; that is the goal. We can focus on more than one thing at a time!
Banquet
Please don’t forget to RSVP for the MVXC25 Banquet…do this now!
MVXC Leadership
Leadership isn’t easy. Leadership is more of an art than a science. While there are some core principles and non-negotiables—for example, show up consistently, be on time, be reliable, be honest, live up to the trust you are given, communicate clearly—much of good leadership depends on the people involved and the situation at hand. A leadership style that works well for me might not work for you, and vice versa. And different situations might call for different approaches to leadership. Yet both of us can still be effective leaders, just in different ways or under different circumstances.
Leadership is also a skill—something we can all develop and improve. Our skills and our abilities are malleable. You may not become the next Obama, Messi, Zendaya, or Thunberg, but you can grow in your capacity to support others and strengthen a team’s culture. High school in general, and our team in particular, gives us a great opportunity to practice and develop our leadership skills.
Last Friday, we talked about how we can each become better leaders for MVXC. We used a “Read the Room” approach—trying to be more thoughtful and deliberate about what a situation needs and how we can contribute. One important idea is that you don’t have to be “in charge” to lead. Leadership is too often confused with giving orders, being a captain, having a title. In reality, leadership can be more about setting an example through your actions, sharing your knowledge to help others, or being a strong supporter. Sometimes, the “First Follower”—the person who says, “Yeah, let’s do that!” and helps build momentum, rather than arguing or debating or qualifying—is just as vital as the person who starts the idea.
I hope we all practice Reading the Room—being mindful of what each situation needs and finding ways to use the best parts of ourselves to make a positive impact.
If you think this Reading the Room structure is useful, we owe some thanks to Amanda Litman. I don’t know how to quickly categorize Amanda; Amanda is the cofounder and president of Run for Something, a non-profit which recruits and supports young, diverse leaders running for local office in America. Since 2017, RfS has launched the careers of thousands of millennials and Gen Z candidates. Amanda is working to change what leadership looks like in America, in part by helping Gen Z and Millennials to become better leaders.
Amanda was willing to get on the phone with me last month to talk about how I can help prepare my Gen Alpha and Gen Z children to be better leaders in today’s world. I was worrying, and still worry, about getting out of touch with the current world. I don’t want to be a Boomer teaching you habits that worked for me if these habits and principles won’t work for you in today’s America, and so I wanted some objective feedback from Amanda. That conversation with Amanda lead to this Read the Room presentation. The slide deck is attached. Thank you, Amanda, for the time and thoughtful consideration of how to help my kids. Kids, never forget, you could be a change agent like Amanda. And for that matter…maybe someday you will want to get in touch with Amanda because you are going to run for public office–you, too, could Run for Something! (That is not crazy…an MVXC alumni I coached has already run for a state assembly position, you could too!)
