Schools from around the state and even IL & TX gathered on a beautiful fall morning at Blackhawk Golf Course in Janesville, WI for the 83rd Annual Midwest Invitational. The course was in great condition, the competition was out of this world, and the weather definitely cooperated. Many JMM Spartan runners took advantage of this opportunity to run personal lifetime and season records! I hope we can learn from this meet and bring this intensity to the final 3 weeks of the season as we try to chip away even a little more from these fast times and finish the season strong.The JV Blue race was competitive from the get go and it was great to see Rees & Alvaro lead our group into the top 10 early in the race. To win a race like this you need 2 things: Single digit finishes (top 10) AND a less than 30 second gap between 1 - 5. We nailed 1 of these 2 which is what led to our strong 4th place finish. Although we didn't have anyone hold on to the top 10 our gap between our 1 - 5 was less than 20 seconds (we actually had 7 runners within 30 seconds of our #1). This group continues to improve and I look forward to us becoming more comfortable running at the front of these races and scoring those low cards. Rees dipped under 18:00 today for 17th place finish in 17:54. Freshman Finn (18:01) and Nick Z (18:07) were close behind to be our #2 & 3 runners. Charlie M finished strong in a PR of 18:11 and Alvaro hung in there for the team with gutsy finish of 18:13. The wave of green didn't stop there as Felipe (18:15) and Alex Br (18:17) ran great PRs to earn top 50 finishes. Tommy S broke 18:30 for the first time in 18:27 and Alex Ba crushed the 19:00 mark running 18:41. Diego and Alex T broke 19:00 as freshman Hunter ran a great PR just missing in 19:05. Gio B and Owen R rounded out the great racing in the Blue JV race with this season best times on the course. I look forward to this group replicating this performance at Stoughton as we will try to compete with SPASH & Middleton in the JV races for some more competitive times.
The Varsity race was out fast and only got faster. As a team we always talk about finding your teammates to run with and in a huge field like this it is even more important. Today we didn't do that and our gaps got large (between our #1 - 2 = 35 secs, between 3 - 4 = 40 secs, our 1 -5 gap was a 1:35). In the pack at a meet like this 10 seconds can be 20 points. Today was another learning experience for our group and we can grow and become better from this experience. Jake Z had a great PR in 16:12 earning a 25th place finish. AJ & Mick were 50th & 51st respectively with their sub 17:00 minute performances. Henry was our 4th runner in 17:29 and Jonathan finished in 17:47. Jakob M and Jack G rounded out our seven runners in varsity. We let some teams slip by us in this race that we can beat and now we need to get healthy, learn from this experience, and come back out next week ready to compete.
The JV White race finished up the day for our high school runners as we saw Logan & Aatman chase that elusive top 10 finish. Aatman ran a great PR of 19:29 to grab 10th as Logan held on for 16th in 19:41 in his own PR. Peter S ran great in 20:04 and Elliot I hit 21:00 right on the mark. Owen B stepped up to be our 5th today running 21:03 and freshman teammate PJ was close behind in 21:15. Will T & Max L continue to improve & run well and newcomer Fred took nice chunk of time of his best performance of the season. Elijah finished strong again passing multiple guys at the end. Alex V and David B both went sub 23:00 as Maccoy & Liam B joined the sub 24 club. Jack & Sai continue to improve their PR times and Tommy and Daleep finished strong with season best too. It was a bit warmer for this race but the guys still came ready to compete and through some very tough racing found those fast times too. Some guys have to rewrite their goals for the last weeks of the season while others are going to continue that grind towards those elusive times.
MEET RESULTS
Blue Race
Varsity
White Race
NEXT COMPETITION
Saturday October 2nd
Stoughton Invite @ Stoughton HS
Bus - 7:00am
9:30 am - Boys Varsity (2019 Results)
10:30 am - Boys JV (2019 Results)
12:00 pm - Awards - Varsity 1 team & 25 individuals, JV 1 team & 15 individuals
** We will NOT stop to eat on the way home...approximate return to JMM is 1:00pm
NEWS & NOTES
Monday practice...right after school --> done around 5:15pm, please plan accordingly
Progress report grades coming out...make sure you have all your work turned in & be prepared for quizzes/tests
Take care of your body & mind...stay healthy = get some sleep
Clothing order...we got some items on Friday but many items were on backorder
