Coach’s Race Report: Memphis Twilight Classic Overall, it was a good race for us. This was the first race of the season, so the basic goal was for everyone to pick a good, hard pace and try to maintain it. Tonight’s efforts give us something to work with regarding training paces and goal race times for our next couple of races. We had a lot of unknowns going into this race—lots of new runners on the team and several returning runners coming off of serious injuries. Those questions were answered favorably for us. Tonight was the first collegiate race for Kaitlyn, Lexie, Molly, Kate, Sheyenne, Whitney, Brandon, and Noah. I was pleased with how all of them ran. And after their season-ending injuries last season, it was a wonderful sight to see Sloan, Hayden, and Davis run well tonight. The Mississippi State University men’s and women’s teams won the races. Inexplicably, in the official race results, only NCAA D1 schools were included in the team scores. We have all the individual finish times on the score sheet, but the runners at schools like Rhodes, Bethel, Christian Brothers (which hosted the race), and Freed were counted as running unattached. Very confusing. The men got more than they expected tonight out of the course. On the first lap of the course, the cart that was leading the pack took a wrong turn, doing the longer loop instead of the correct shorter one. So split times at the 1 mile mark were confusing to both the runners and coaches. The official race results were changed to reflect that it was a 4.2 mile race instead of the planned 4 miles, though a couple of coaches whose teams run there often believe that 4.25 would be more accurate. So who knows exactly how far the men ran, but they took it all in stride. Other highlights: Kierra and Cassie both set new PRs tonight. Kierra’s was 3 seconds faster and Cassie’s 26 seconds faster than their previous best marks, which they each set in the final race of their freshman year last year. Great way to begin the season. Sloan’s time tonight was 30 seconds faster than her time at Twilight her freshman year, (it was also the first race of the year), a year when she earned all-conference honors. So that may bode well for us. Christean’s minute per mile pace tonight was only one second slower than his 8K PR pace. That also may point to some big achievements this season. (That’s based on a 4.2 mile race tonight. For a 4.25 mile race, his pace tonight was faster than his 8K PR pace.) And a very notable highlight: We had far more friends and family members cheering us on tonight than we’ve had at any race since the team was started in 2009. So to all of you who came out to support us, thank you so much. Your presence and encouragement make a big difference. We’ll be right back at work this week. Vandy is in two weeks.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 16:37:06 +0000
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