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The Time Trial! Those words evoke so many feelings for current cross country athletes as well as alumni. It also represents the first time many of the athletes have an opportunity to test the training that they have put in all summer. Judging from the results, this team has been working hard!
As we did in 2024, we kept the course on campus this year. This represents a preview of the course we will see Friday morning for our first official race of the season (The Saline Campus Invite). The girls will race at 9:00am with the boys following at 9:40am. More information can be found at anet.
If you don't want to read all of the race notes and are simply looking for results, they can be found here.
We met as a team before the race started. We talked about trusting the training that each of these athletes have put in and giving each other the extra little push they needed. After the obligatory dad joke to calm some nerves, coaches turned over the team to our ultimate hype woman, captain Jillian Hayes. She got the team ready to run their best.
Senior/Captain Lilli Schlack (right) was the eventual champion of the 2025 time trial in a time of 19:37. She and Savannah Staton (left) toured the 3 laps of the course together with Savannah finishing 2nd in 19:43 (a six second improvement from 2024)
Sophomore Addie Turck (right) was the 3rd finisher in a time of 20:25 - that's over a 2 minute improvement from her 2024 time trial!!! Sophie Roth was our 4th place finisher in 20:32 - 6 seconds faster than 2024.
Mimi Staton finished 6th overall with a 10 second PR time of 21:16. She's been working hard this summer and it shows.
Mimi split up a pair of freshmen that have been working hard all summer. Lauren Tomaszewski (LT, on the right) and Caroline Cotner (left) finished 5th and 7th respectively. There is a lot more to come for these 2 young ladies.
Payton Aagesen likes sports that require low numbers to win. Not only is she a member of the cross country team, she also plays for the Saline golf team. After shooting a sub par round on Thursday, Payton finished 8th in a PR of 22:44 - 1:04 PR. That's a great 2 days. I've suggested she talk to Coach Williams-Hoak (the golf coach) about speed golf.
When you're voted the hardest worker on the team for the last 2 years, you know something special is going to happen. Mia Washington ran this year's time trial 2 minutes faster than last year finishing 11th in 23:53. She is the very definition of hard work!
Senior/Captain Claire Oberski is the last of our returners who also ran a PR. Her time of 24:13 was a 2 second PR from her last race of the 2024 XC season. At the time, that was a 1:13 PR. She's not looking back - We're going to see a lot of good things from this senior.
Amongst our newcomers to the team is sophomore Janaye Sifuna. She joined us late in the summer and has been working quite hard. She joined us from the track team where she is a key member of our sprint squad. It takes a lot of courage to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. Going from racing 100 meters, 200 meters, sprint relays and high jump to a 5k race is quite the "jump". Janaye has handled it well, running a 32:33, good for 30th overall. She's set her mark and now we will watch her improve upon it.
One last item to cover from the time trial - team results! I have not seen the compiled results from our timer yet, but they really don't matter that much. I've always said there is no secret sauce in training, but Claire Oberski stumbled across a loophole. Claire and her team donned Ohio State University logo's and paint and won my endorsement for team champions!
Wait! There was another race this weekend, the donut death dash. I'm proud to say that Coach Harrison and his teammate are this years champions. Last year Coach Harrison and I teamed up. This year, he wisely chose to drop me and move to the swifter runner (and eater) Coach Bishop. Together, they retained that championship title for Coach Harrison.
Coaches are really pleased with the work we have seen from these athletes. We're excited to see what the season brings and are looking forward to our race on our home course this Friday.
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