I didn’t realize until I read this post but…this is was the 20th Watermelon run! At least I have records for 20. That’s kind of stunning, to think that more than 1,000 Monta Vista athletes have trotted around that course.
The main goal of the Watermelon Run (other than crushing a dozen watermelons, and getting another bib to pin on our bedroom wall) is to remember what it is like to race: how to prepare the night before, what to eat, get into a warm up routine, feel that buzz in the belly on the starting line, remember how to tell the little voice in our heads to shut up when the running gets hard. I told the MVXC that Watermelon was like a dress rehearsal; if things go great, that’s super! If the run didn’t go well, think about what you want to do differently in the future, then wad the rest of the memory up and toss it away. One bad run does not define us.
The thing is…I think we should all be happy! We should always be thinking of how we might want to improve, but still, I think you all had good runs. And there were some terrific runs! Tarun Gandhi was first across the line with a sparkling 15:31, the 11th fastest all time on the 2.6 mile Stevens Canyon course. Sam Heinonen was right behind him with a 15:38 (16th all time). Trailing the two juniors was freshman Ethan Wong who put up a 15:54, which is the second fastest time ever for a freshman! Outstanding. This was the 11th fastest all-time combined mark for the top five boy finishers. Miranda Hsu lead the girls with an 18:17, and her workout pal Taylor Orr was right there with an 18:33; these are the 12th and 15th marks all-time.
There were 14 PRs scored by our runners (out of 18 opportunities). Taylor knocked an astounding 7:42 off of her 2025 Run for Pie time (pumpkin pie is not a performance enhancing substance), and Alex Perrault also crushed her Run for Pie time by 6:08. Medha Rustagi (3:41), Naomi Hsu (2:23), Caroline LaBudde (2:03), and Myra Mishra (1:08) all had big improvements. Leon Zhu had the biggest improvement among the boys (5:47), while Tarun knocked off 2:34, Ritik Shenoy 2:47, Jonah Chang 2:15, Contantine Chua 1:24, Sam improved by 1:15, and Vikram Mallya shaved 31 seconds off his prior PR.
Improvement is so important. We can always get better, whether we are the fastest runner or the last across the finish line. What matters is working to continue to improve and make the most out of our capabilities–as a runner, but also as a teammate and a friend. And this is the same in our academic work also; we don’t have to be the best in a particular class, but we certainly want to have learned as much as we can during a semester. Steve Prefontaine said that how far you traveled from where you started matters more than where you end up. It’s easy to nitpick a quote like that, but I completely agree with the spirit of his statement.
Watermelon is only the beginning of the season, and the beginning of our journey, individually and as a group.
Complete results are at XCStats. If you are new to MVXC, play around with the XCStats app…it is an interesting race results tool, and there is a lot of race data there.
Saturday, October 5, Monta Vista will open the season with our first race, at Lagoon Valley. Look for a meet sheet shortly. We are off to a great start, MVXC!
