GIRLS WINNER: Julia Montgomery - Sophomore @ Pine Crest
This summer the Pine Crest cross country teams headed north to Camp Highlander in Asheville, North Carolina. There they built team bonds, trained, and well proved who was the best athlete on the team in their own version of the Ironman Triathlon. Defending state champion, Julia Montgomery beat her female teammates in all the events, and even dominated the boys when it came to the swim. That competitive nature was on display this cross country season. Coach Paul Baur says anytime you win the title your freshman year with no pressure, the next year is like having the weight of the world on your shoulders.
"Julia felt this year she had a target on her back and once we got back to school in August she knew it would be an uphill climb towards repeating at state."
Baur was cautious in grooming his young standout making sure they didn't do more than her body could handle during her first year. This year the training picked up. Montgomery worked harder and embraced the challenge. Leading up to the state meet, she had tallied four wins and finished in the top five in two others. Helping her success was an increase in her finishing speed and having the ability to train with teammates Katherine Jovanovic and Tsion Yared to push her in workouts and constantly keep her on her toes. Baur says her goal for the Cross Country Finals was to go out and be within striking distance at the one mile mark of Miami Jackson freshman Daesha Rogers who beat her at regionals.
"After that, it would be waiting to make her move and take the lead for good. It's exactly what she did and played out exactly the way she had planned it would. From then on, she would continue to press and not let anyone get back in the race. She executed it perfectly! Anyone who watched her race throughout the year probably had doubts she would repeat, but she is a champion and always rises to the top when it matters the most."
Unlike most of the races on the afternoon that were very straight forward: great runners battling it out over the course of a 5k, Montgomery was not favored in her race and finished second behind Rogers at regionals. Baur calls it one of the hardest race she has had to run and says the more he looks back over the season, he appreciates what she had to do this year to win more than last year.
"She said it best too, Many people said last year was luck, but this year she even felt she earned it more and proved to herself what she was able to accomplish and what it is going to do for the future. Anytime your athlete realizes what they had to do to accomplish their goals and how it will shape their future is a huge positive. She figured that out on her own."
Montgomery who not only excels on the cross country course, but in the classroom as well, will head back to North Carolina where her and her teammates will compete in the Nike Southeast Regional. Only a sophomore, Baur says Montgomery has a bright future not only as an individual, but with a young supporting cast around her.
"Her future is incredibly bright. She continues to gain confidence as her training progresses. She continue to push herself to new limits in her quest to win four titles in a row. The great thing is that she has awesome teammates to push her and an unfinished goal of helping her team achieve ultimate success in winning the team championship."
Julia's Athlete Profile
BOYS WINNER: Franco Martins - Junior @ Windermere Prep
As a freshman and sophomore at Windermere Prep Franco Martins was averaging seventeen to eighteen minutes for 5000 meters. In 2013, Martins began to work with local coach Gary Cohen. When Cohen first started working with the junior in early August he had just returned from running camp and was able to run 50-55 miles per week with a long run of 10-12 miles. The two started a plan with stamina repeats early in the week then rotated on a three week cycle of miles, 1,200s, and 800. Cohen says a more cohesive training regiment has helped his growth.
"The stamina repeats were always done with negative splits. Care was also taken to run with the same type of effort that he would use in races with the first third of the session ‘comfortably fast,’ the middle while maintaining good form, breathing and posture and the final third to use conserved mental energy when he was getting tired. The second intense session each week usually rotated between hill repeats one week and structured time fartlek the next week."
After finishing second in the "Varsity A" race at the Pre-State, Martins won the West Orange Invitational and the district championship, and crossed the line as the regional runner-up. It was at the 1A Region 2 Championships, where Martins finished nine seconds behind Troy Clark of Mount Dora Bible. His improvement against Clark had Cohen believing that a state title wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
"Franco and I talked and I noted that in the three times he had faced Clark he had been 30, 20 and nine seconds behind. I told him with another ten second improvement you’re right with him."
"Our plan was for Franco to be in contention and in the lead pack at the start of the final hill. Here is where he had two strategies and had to make a decision. The primary strategy was to wait until one third of the hill remained and then to make a move as the other runners would be fatigued. The secondary strategy was that if he sensed weakness, to take off right at the bottom of the hill, catch them off guard and run the hill like it was a hill repeat in training. Franco executed the plan perfectly and, even more so, as on each hill he didn’t just drop back, but passed the leaders and assumed the lead after the top on the downhill to flat stretches."
Martins sensed weakness on the final hill and put the second strategy to use. When he heard he had a thirty meter lead his focus shifted to the finish. He sprinted to the line finishing in a new personal best time of 15:44.23 to claim the 1A crown. Cohen says it was a supreme mental and physical effort by the junior.