The Monte Vista Invitational - Home of the Eliminator!

Results can be found under the MV Invite Link.  Photo's and story to follow.

Tyler Breen, Alumni Jordan Ritenour and Connor Donley at the 1st Alumni Race in 2006

Friday Aug 11th, 2006

With Mustang cross country runners from as far back as the Class of 2000 in attendance, the inaugural Alumni Run was a great gathering of current and former runners - all sharing the common bonds of MV Cross Country!  And of course, the Eliminator!  

The social hour started at 9AM, with former runners seeing old teammates, and meeting the current team.  The course was readied, bib numbers were obtained, and the finish chute set up.  At 9:35 Coach Huntsman - on crutches due to ankle surgery - called everyone to the line.  Coach Mark handled the photo's, while Coach Davis snuck into the back line to run.  Several parents and siblings ran as well (way to go Mrs Hoppens and Mr Kanzaria, along with Parker Hoppens). 

Prior to the start, both the Alumni and the Current Squad performed their ritual cheers, and then the horn was sounded.  Running yet another new course didn't seem to faze anyone, as new courses are as much a part of MV XC tradition as the Overnight Relay and the Eliminator.  The race itself featured a mixture of hard racing by the front runners, while some of the alumni were just hoping to get through the course.  Several alumni -Ted Vergis, Will Rogers and Cole Kuiper - seemed to appear and disappear at various points in the course!  As a fun run, no DQ's were issued by race management.

For many of the 2006 Summer Running Club members, this was their first 'race' at Oakhill Park.  While the first time up the Eliminator is a challenge for sure, most all runners reported that they had fun and survived the hills just fine.

 

After being challenged early by 2006 grad Chris Simpson, current team member Bhavik Kanzaria (Jr) pulled away to win the overall race title.  Alumni Jason Kanar (2006) and Matt Bieniosek (2005) were second and third, followed by yet another alum Jordan Ritenour (2004).  It looked good for the boys alumni!  However, the 2006 team took the next four places (Connor Donley, Keith Romoser, Tyler Breen and Jake Smith) to edge the Alumni by a score of 27 to 29!!  John Berhing (2000) and Hunter Oliver-Allen (2005) rounded out the Alumni Boys scoring.

One the girls side, a couple injuries kept the Alumni from fielding a full scoring team, but that didn't stop Alumni Brittany Rezowalli (2004) and Joei Yau (2004) from racing very fast.  Brittany was 10th overall and the first female finisher, while Joei was 3rd.  Current team member Kaitlin Kelly took second place on the girls side, with a strong race effort.  Alex D'Souza, Ali Grupe, Christine Barake and Paula Taylor completed a 26 point effort.  Amanda Swan (2005) and Jamie Callahan (2006) completed the Alumni team.

After the race, trophies for the top 3 in each race were handed out, and some birthday cake was eaten (happy b-day Chris Gergley!)

Special thanks to our race helpers - Mr Quade, Mrs Kanzaria, alumni Jenni Davis (04), Claire Hoppens and alumni Daniela Gergley (06). 

Plans were already started to alert more alumni next year, and build on this tradition.  Will we see you all next year? 

(See attached file for complete results)

While the State meet marks the "official" end of the MV Cross Country season, there were a number of events since the Nov 26th State meet that brought out Mustang Harriers for yet another race.  Since most cross country runners never really stop, these updates can probably keep coming...  But we'll call it a wrap on the '05 season after these events:

November 27th - Run to the Far Side 5K - Golden Gate Park, SF.
With the coolest t-shirts around, the 22nd annual Run to the Far Side was too much of a lure for several members of the varsity girls team.  Perhaps encouraged by their NCS results, Jamie, Claire and Daniela decided to test the San Francisco competition, and the cold, and join nearly 10,000 participants of this big race.  Coach Davis ran, as did Claire's Mom - Monica Hoppens.  Lining up well towards the front, all the mustangs got off to a quick start.  The course was an out and back through the "panhandle" of Golden Gate park.  When it was over - Jamie nailed down 6th place in their age group, out of 145.  Claire grabbed a medal, finishing 3rd (79th overall) and Daniela grabbed the gold with a 1st place race (43rd overall).
Coach D finished 33rd overall, which was only good for 11th in the gray hair division...but he was happy with sub 19 time!

Full results - http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/120265_140560_2005.html

December 3rd - Footlocker West Regional XC Championships
For over 15years, Footlocker has sponsored the only true national high school championship event of any kind - and it's in Cross Country.  After all the State Meets have been run, 4 regional races are run to select 10 boys and 10 girls to represent their regions in a national meet.  The "West" takes on XC teams from the Midwest, East and South.  This year, the Western Regional race was held at one of the most famous of California XC courses - no, not Oak Hill Park - Mt San Antionio College (Mt SAC!) in the Southern California city of Walnut. 

In what Coach Davis plans to make an annual tradition, this year Chris Simpson and Daniela Gergley flew down to Southern California to run with the top runners from not just California, but all the Western States.  In fact, the front line holds 100 runners, most of whom are State divisional champions.  A TV crew and a jumbo-tron reports on all the activity.  The top runners are introduced,,, it's like the Olympic Trials for high school cross country.

Fighting off nerves, both Daniela and Chris preformed very well - breaking into the top 100 in both of their 'seeded' races.  Daniela placed 84th in a course PR time for her (she's run the Mt Sac course before).  Chris placed 75th in a crowded boys race (231 runners), running a smart race over a challenging course he had never raced before.  The Mt Sac course features three big hills - all of which have names.  And we know what that usually means (when a hill has a name, that's never good). 

And Coach Davis ended the season with a top 100 finish in the Coaches race (82nd).  He is thankful that nobody captured him on the hills on camera...lets just say he was faster on the flat portions of the course.
http://footlockerwest.com/cgi-bin/Archives/2005Results/Race15.pdf
http://footlockerwest.com/cgi-bin/Archives/2005Results/Race16.pdf
http://footlockerwest.com/cgi-bin/Archives/2005Results/Race03.pdf

December 3rd - San Ramon's "Bah Humbug 5K Race"

(report pending - check back soon)
http://onyourmarkevents.com/results.asp?id=1597

Danny Bartz finishes 12th overall!  He owns this event!    Paul Suffoletta takes 41st,  and word has it that Katie Blair and friends win a team costume prize!   Who else braved the cold morning air?

Choking Defined By Richard Ferguson, PhD Running Journal/October 2002 Have you ever had someone tell you not to choke before a big event in your life? Has a coach ever told you that? Do you ever think to yourself, "I just can't choke in this race?" Okay, so you know you don't want to choke, but do you really know what choking is? Choking seems to be when you begin to perform poorly and your performance then becomes progressively worse from there. It's as if you begin to struggle a little bit in a race and from then on you just don't feel very well and you struggle to the finish, even though you know you have prepared well and have run much faster in training. Why does this occur? Let's delve a bit deeper into the science of choking. Dr. Robert Nideffer has developed a model of choking that I will attempt to explain in the next few paragraphs. First, few of us ever choke when we do something that's not really that important to us. I don't hear about a lot of people choking when they train or when they mow their grass. Choking seems to occur in certain situations. One situation is when we personally label an event as very important. It may only be the Acorn Festival 5K, but if it's important to you personally then it becomes a "big" race! The other situation is when we fear failure in an event, such as getting beat by a particular competitor, running slower than we would like, or physically hurting during a race. Choking usually occurs in races that we deem important and in ones which we may be just a bit scared. Sound familiar? When we place great importance on an event or are fearful of negative things happening, we tend to get high levels of anxiety. When we get too anxious our thought process and even our physiology may change for the worse. Physiologically, our muscles tend to tighten when we are anxious. Heart rate and breathing rate can skyrocket when high anxiety occurs. We have all known someone to hyperventilate when they get stressed. This occurs because the breathing rate becomes so fast that too much carbon dioxide is blown off from the body, which makes the individual feel light-headed. The high anxiety can lead to shaking, and weak muscles as well. All of these responses can hinder performance and begin a downward performance spiral. Psychologically, if we make a life or death event out of a race or are scared to death of performing below our expectations, our concentration and thinking patterns may change as well. When we get very anxious our thoughts tend to narrow, which means we don't make decisions well. Could this be why people go out too fast in races or fail to maintain contact with runners at critical points during a race even when they feel good? Possibly. Anxiety also causes us to focus too much on ourselves and how we feel. This usually results in further anxiety, increased muscular tension, and ultimately, poor performance. In all reality, if we place too much importance on an event or have a tremendous amount of fear of failure, we will tend to have muscle coordination problems. We may rush and not be patient and we may not process information as we normally would, leading to poor decisions, tight muscles, and feeling fatigued. All of these increase the chance of having a really poor performance in a race that's important to us. In other words we might just "choke." So how can we decrease the likelihood of choking? The key is changing how we think going into a big race. Work to keep things in perspective. Focus on just going out and running your race and staying with your race plan, whether the race is the New York City Marathon or the Frog Leg Festival 2-Miler. Remember to have a consistent approach as you prepare for all competitions. Next, work to reduce fear of failure. Think logically as you go into a race. Remind yourself that you've prepared really well and that you will give nothing less than 100 percent effort during the race. Our preparation and our effort level are things under our control. There is no way we can control how fast other people are going to run, so don't waste mental energy thinking about other runners. Work on being positive, being relaxed, and reducing anxiety levels. If you do feel your muscles getting tense and tight, try to take a couple of deep breaths, tense your leg muscles, and then relax them. Couple this simple procedure with some positive self-talk. Also remind yourself that feeling a little anxious can be good because it signals your stress response is active and preparing you to be physically at your best. By changing your interpretation of the event, muscle tension and fatigue can be lessened. We probably can't totally prevent the choking process but we can lessen the likelihood of it occurring. By learning to relax in training and mentally rehearsing race situations during training, we will be better able to cope with the situation when it actually occurs. By psychologically simulating stressful competitive situations and developing mental plans to cope with the "big race" atmosphere we can learn to become less reactive to races we consider to be very important. By having less of an emotional reaction to important races, tension and fatigue can be controlled to levels that choking is less likely to occur. Try not to think about the outcome of the important race. If our thought pattern immediately before and during a race is focused on winning or losing we will get anxious. It's simply not good to think about the importance of a race during the race. Keep the focus in the present! Think about some technical aspect of running, like upper body relaxation or getting locked into a pack of other runners. In other words, be sure to focus on the process, not the product. Good process leads to good product. Remember that choking can't be 100 percent prevented, but it can be reduced through sound pre-race mental preparation and a process-oriented thinking pattern during the race!