Wisconsin Rapids Invitational 2011
Today was a beautiful day but a little warmer than most runners would have liked. Temperatures were in the upper 70’s and by the last race it was over 80. As always the course seemed to run a little slow. It looks like a fast course because of the dry firm footing, short grass, and few hills, but year after year the times don’t seem to reflect that. Several of our guys, Anderson, Cruz, and Hansen raced very well and yet our average of 16:59 is our slowest of the season. To put it in perspective, we were a second faster than last year and only 11 seconds slower than our 08 state champion team. It’s interesting to note that the team from Darlington averaged 16:38 at the Midwest meet two weeks ago while here they averaged 17:18. I don’t think they raced especially well today, but it shows how much courses and conditions vary. Woodford from Waukesha South ran very well (15:58) but his team’s average of 17:17 was slower than they normally run as well.
Darlington has an outstanding team (Ranked #1 in D3), but aside from them the meet was not very competitive. This is our 7th consecutive win here, 15 of the last 18, and 25th in the last 35 years. It is a little hard too get excited about this meet, but we were able to put in a very tough week of practice, race pretty well, and prepared ourselves for a big test next week at our conference meet.
Hansen had a great race and was our only guy anywhere near his P.R. Anderson took a big step today , ran with the lead group, and beat another very good sophomore from Darlington. Cruz did a much better job of getting out in good position, ran with Sheibley much of the way, and had a nice finishing kick.
For the past 10 years the varsity and J.V. races were run together at this meet. Today the races were separated as they are at most invitationals. While the old format had its advantages, this gives our J.V. runners a chance to lead a race and show off our team depth. It’s also helpful for our varsity guys to gauge how the course is running. Isaiah did a great job of leading through the mile in 5:15 and the 2 mile in just over 11 minutes. The 3rd mile was a little slow, but that seemed to be true for everyone except Woodford. Isaiah’s 17:44 was a little faster than his Stoughton time and would have put him around the 20th in the varsity race. This was good enough to get him back on our varsity for the first time since his severe ankle sprain at the D.C. E. meet in mid September.
Most of our guys were 10 to 20 seconds slower than they ran last week, but there were a few exceptions. Tanko, Palmgren, Wysocki, Ferrone, Summers, Eron, and Stef and Ali all ran a little faster which was good to see.
While this meet was not very interesting it did serve the purpose of a very hard training run at the end of our toughest week of the season. We didn’t have to get very excited, which is good. Next week Everest will present a serious challenge to us at the Valley Conference meet. We have won the last 23 titles and 33 of the last 34. Everest is currently ranked 3rd in the state while we are ranked 7th so the stage is set of a very good matchup. We have known for a long while that it will be difficult to defend our title this year, but isn’t it supposed to be?