MVXC traveled to Crystal Springs for the first time in 2022 on Tuesday, October 4.
Crystal may be the best cross country course in California, maybe the country. It’s hard to say exactly where Crystal ranks but for sure, it is a treasure. Since the development of the course in 1971, more than 600,000 high school athletes have run these same trails–including your Coach Flatow, who ran on Crystal in the Serra Invitational and Region 3 meets in 1975 and 1976. Crystal was just a baby then!
In 2022, MVXC got some good weather, 70ish temps and reasonable humidity, for the SCVAL Crystal Preview race. The meet started with the Varsity 2 Boys (that’s JV in most races…don’t ask) (no, you can ask if you must). Paru Joshi and Arda Cinnioglu finished only four seconds apart, 21:58 and 22:02, as the boys finished 11th as a team to get our day started. The frosh-soph boys were up next, and Ravi Polisetti was first a cross the line with a 18:41 mark that was good for 20th place. Ruhaan Shah was also under 19 minutes with an 18:54 that put him in 23rd, and Soham Beesetti, Darren Lin, and Ethan Yang wrapped up the scoring as the frosh-soph boys took sixth place (third among De Anza league schools). For the Junior Varsity girls, Katie Lee went 24-flat for 13th place and combined with Madi Polidoro, Lilia Murase, Siran Gao and Jasmine Varma to finish in fourth place as a team. Katie, Madi and Lilia are all first year cross country runners so they have a lot of room to grow and improve as distance runners!
Unfortunately, injuries and other issues kept the boys from fielding a full varsity team, but the remaining four athletes acquitted themselves well. Denny Dong ran a 16:32 PR to take 13th place, and Tanay Parikh also placed in the top 25 of all finishers with a 16:53. Seniors Ari Rajaram and Gene Zhou finished close to each other with 18:07 and 18:17 marks. These are all marks to build upon over the next month. The varsity girls nailed down a nice seventh place team finish behind Nikhita Saldi’s return to competition with a 20:25/21st place, Sydney Stevens’ 21:16, Avani Kalari and Anika Bhandarkar finishing bang-bang 21:44 and 21:49, and Valerie Ayzenberg sprinting home with a 22:24. The varsity girls were only five points out of fifth place, so they are right in the mix for more exciting team races.
Personal records were recorded by eight Monta Vista athletes: Darren Lin (3:11 PR), Tanay Parikh (1:35), Anika Bhandarkar (1:06), Manasi Prasad (37 seconds), Denny Dong (26 seconds), Megan Nieh (8 seconds), Valerie Ayzenberg (4 seconds) and Ruhaan Shah (3 seconds).
The Crystal Preview race is intended to give athletes, teams and coaches a good feel for the course, and prepare us for the SCVAL Championships in four weeks. I feel like the MVXC runners did run competitive, thoughtful races that will lead to some satisfying results on November 1!
Complete results are posted on XCStats. Malcolm Slaney posted some sweet photos and there are more photos to come so check back later.
Coach Gets Philosophical (again)
After her race, an MVXC athlete said she was looking for another runner she had ended up running with/against for much of the race…”I don’t know who it was, but she had a red uniform”. (Saratoga, Cupertino, Fremont…) The MVXC athlete wanted to thank the athlete in red for pushing.
Later, when asked if she found the athlete in red, the athlete said, “She found ME! She said that I helped her along…but that was not right, I could not have run that without her”. *
This sent coach off on a talk, which goes something like this.
You could have run that run without her. Sure, the competitor helped you. And you helped them. But it’s not like they ran the run for you or the other way around. You ran every step yourself, and it was hard. But having a partner, being part of a community, being part of a team can make things easier. Not necessarily easy, but easier that doing it on your own. That’s one reason a team, a group, a company, a community, a society can be so helpful in achieving goals. You support each other. When you reach out and encourage or help or support someone, you are getting something back. Maybe directly, maybe indirectly. Be open to all the ways you can find and develop and nurture these opportunities to make something that is important to you, something that might be really hard, and it is a little easier by taking on the challenge with others. You still have to run every step yourself, but you have company.
And Now, For The Most Important News Of The Day
It’s FAT BEAR WEEK! Fat Bear Week and the Brooks Falls bear cam helped me get through a big chunk of the pandemic lock down. 747 is a monster, Holly is my sentimental favorite, I’ve pushed Otis and then had my heart broken. Just saying, Fat Bear Week makes me so happy.
Last off the course at Crystal!
Malcolm Slaney (our photographer) and Hank Lawson (our timer) deserve your thanks. It’s not like the events you run in just ‘happen’, the race and photos don’t appear by magic! The dedication of people like this who want to support you make all this possible. Take a moment and some thought and say a genuine thank you and tell them what it is that you appreciate! You will feel good afterwards.
*Don’t get after me if this quote is not 100% accurate…let’s go with ‘may have been lightly edited for clarity’. 😂