Monday, October 4, 2010

It's 'Race Week' at the Apalachee Regional Park Trail!

This will be the biggest week of racing for Leon County's Apalachee Regional Park Trail since it was dedicated last October. Athletes will compete on three different days in eight different races over distances ranging from two miles up to eight kilometers. There will be middle school races, high school races, college races, and races for anyone else who just wants to run on Leon County's cross-country playground.


It all starts on Wednesday evening, 6 October 2010, with Leon County Schools' middle school championship meet, the climax to the league's four-meet season. The distance is two miles, with the girls racing at 6:00pm ET and the boys going at 6:30pm ET. The girls' season started with Swift Creek winning the Battle at Tom Brown on September 15, but since then Raa has come out on top at the Fort Braden meet on September 22 and again at the Owl Run on September 30. Will Swift Creek come charging back at the championship? Will Raa keep winning? Or will some other team emerge from the pack to take the title? Individually, Raa's Rebecca Clendinen has won the first three races of the season, but teammate Lindsay Hughes was less than a second behind at the Owl Run. Who will win when the league championship is at stake? The Raa boys have won all three of the season's contests, two with perfect scores of 15 points. Will they continue to dominate when competition moves to Apalachee Regional Park? Will Luca of Raa won the Battle at Tom Brown, but Raa's Sukhi Khosla took the next race at Fort Braden. Luca came back to win the Owl Run ahead of Khosla, but the championship is another race. Who wins on Wednesday? Amid all the questions, one thing is certain. The two-mile distance is a new one at the Apalachee Regional Park Trail, so whoever wins will establish the course record for that distance.


The Apalachee Regional Park's famous feral hogs get a rest from the runners on Thursday, then racing resumes on Friday evening, 8 October 2010, with the collegiate races of the Florida State University Cross-Country Invitational. The women race 5K at 6:20pm ET with the men's 8K following at 6:45pm ET. The Invitational is Florida State's only home meet, and the only time that both Florida State and Florida A & M compete in Tallahassee. And it's the first meeting of the season between Florida State and the University of Florida. This week, the USTFCCA ranks the FSU women first and the UF women second in the South Region, while the FSU men are ranked first and the UF men third in the South Region. Is that enough drama for you?


After just enough time for a night's sleep the FSU Invitational's high school races start at 7:40am ET on Saturday, 9 October 2010, with the boys' 5K. Leon's Matt Mizereck, the course record holder and 2009 champion, has graduated, but local favorites Riley Doherty of Leon and Patrick Swain of Maclay are scheduled to compete, as are the defending team champions from Leon High. The girls run their 5K at 8:05. 2009 champ Jana Stolting has moved on to the University of San Francisco, but last year's runner-up, Lily Williams of Chiles, is expected to return, as is the defending state champion, Chiles' Carly Thomas. Maclay's Stefanie Kurgatt finished behind both Williams and Thomas at the 2009 Invitational, but has already beaten both Chiles runners this season at Jacksonville's Katie Caples Invitational. Kurgatt brings a perfect 4-0 racing record to this year's Invitational. In the team competition, the defending FSU Invite champions (not to mention defending state champions) from Chiles have to be considered the favorites to repeat--but they still have to run the race. The high school competition continues with a 5K Junior Varsity (and open) boys' race at 8:35, then concludes with a 5J Junior Varsity (and open) girls' race at 9:00am.


After that, the Apalachee Regional Park Trail should be free of the turmoil of competition and host to nothing but quiet training runs for a few weeks. The Florida Athletic Coaches' Association Senior All-Star Meet is slated for the Trail on 4 December 2010, but that's a couple months away--we'll let it rest for a while, okay?


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Posted by Herb Wills at 11:56 AM
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1 comment:

  1. dugcoOctober 5, 2010 at 9:45 AM

    Great preview of the week's events at the ARP xc playground! Can't make the middle school races, but wouldn't miss the others. I'm looking to mop up a few JV boys running the open on Saturday morning... you know, the ones running in the calf-lenghth basketball shorts.

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