Submitted by the Washington cross-country team

 

Typically, cross country runners focus on times when they run. On Wednesday, Pam Pack cross-country coach Toby McMahon told his runners to focus on a different item when they raced Farmville Central and North Johnston — place.

“I told the runners to try and get the top-five places,” explained McMahon. “We have been working on times and running the pace, I felt they needed to focus on where the other runners were during the race.”

The boys may not have placed all their runners in the top five, but they claimed six of the top-10 places and eight of the first 12 runners were from Washington. For the second week in a row, sophomore Chris Sulc led the boys’ race from start to finish. Junior Jacob Smith overtook the first Farmville Central runner with half a mile left and finished second. Trippe Bonner finished fifth with Win Martin, Austin Coward, and Nick Everette covering eighth, ninth and 10th, respectively. The boys won the meet 25-49-64. The girls finished second and were paced by Kennedy Landen, who finished second overall, and Anna Frisbee, who finished seventh.

Times were slower on Wednesday due to course conditions and the weather. Several cross-country meets in the area were cancelled, but the Pam Pack decided to run. The rain stayed away, but the air was hot and humid with the course riddled with puddles and bridges were slippery. McMahon said that the conditions were good for his team.

“We are relatively young and inexperienced. The runners need to learn that conditions are usually not ideal, especially late in the season. Although most runners ran slower than usual, the lesson of simply running when it is difficult was worth teaching.”

The Pam Pack runners are being taught that lesson, as last Saturday they competed in cold rain at the Bo Run in Greenville against 30 schools and over 1000 runners. Sulc medaled with a 13th place finish and Landen also medaled in 18th place. The boys took 11th place and the girls 13th. With the upcoming storms, running in wet weather is a lesson the Pam Pack runners are going to learn well.