Timing is everything. Consider that a week earlier, because of some wacky weather, a cross-town mega-meet was forced to cancel, combine, and otherwise reconsider the sanity of finishing its schedule of nine races on the afternoon of a freaky Friday. (Some went off as planned, some went Saturday, and some went bye-bye…not a happy turn of events when some teams drove hundreds of miles and spent thousands of dollars to run this “invitational.”)
As another saying goes, gaps are incongruous…okay so I made that one up, but in this case it is worth considering. With the 2010 retirement of Stetson coach John Boyle, UCF Coach Caryl Smith Gilbert claimed the abandoned date of his mildly popular “Hatter Invitational,” and with it the attention of every college team within driving distance.
Despite its name, however, the Black & Gold is more than just an invitational. Scheduled two weeks prior to the various college championships, it is one more stab at that final fantasy of dreams dreamt and a season survived before a conference-regional-national triple (if your team is so blessed). Colleges, for the most part, in their months-long preparation for that all-important end run, do twice the mileage and half the meets as their prep counterparts, and this last regular season meet was one last chance for tinkering with the team strategy.
In addition, for Florida women, this was one of only two “local” chances—the other being FSU--to run a 6K (take that extra .62 miles into account as you attempt to digest their times); the last chance for the hangers-on to run anything (it is do-or-die time in college cross country, as only seven run next); and the best time to take photos. (Oh, how I love the direct rays of an autumn setting sun!)
College Men
As far as this race, ten of the top fifteen finish places went to just two Florida colleges—and five more had “Florida” in their name—each from opposite ends of our ship-of-state’s political “rudder.” (That’s as close as I get to acknowledging anything to do with the impending election.) For the two top dogs, the race played out like an old English wedding verse: “something old, something new, something borrowed, something…white.” (Such is a writer’s luck that the white of the winning team’s racing singlet, as well as that of the current fashion of white wedding dresses, has become the “new blue.”)
According to the coaching section in my edition of The Oxford Companion to Cross Country, pack running is as old as chasing foxes, and both the University of North Florida and the University of Miami men’s teams started this race with that same idea.
Sean Pezzulo (Miami): “We came out here looking to win. We had a good pack going between North Florida and our top five, which made it very tactical.”
Chris Haynes (UNF): “I felt it was an important team race. We wanted to prepare for the (A-Sun) conference meet, and practice running as a pack.”
Sean: “I think some of our guys were unprepared for their (UNF’s) move. They (UNF) performed very well here.”
Chris: “We were trying to stay together—keep the pack together—longer.”
Sean: “At about 4K, four of them”—UNF—“kind of picked up the pace, and went after the leaders at that time, FAU (Michael Vidal, who finished eighth in 26:40.65) and FGCU (Argeo Cruz, who finished third overall in 26:11.62).
“I stuck with them. When I looked back, our team was spread out, so then it just became a focus of my finishing well.”
Chris: “I think that it was important to get a race within the (same) month as the conference meet. We wanted to get in a tune-up race; (and) it was. Now we have two weeks to focus on the Atlantic Coast Championships (Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Virginia on October 2th).”
Haynes’ sentiments are shared by “something new” in the Osprey nest, Coach Jeff Pigg.
“I ran at Florida, then at Georgia. I just left Georgia last summer, so this is all new. Fortunately, I came into a wonderful group of kids. They’re great to work with.”
Unfortunately, the fledgling coach has had to make some adjustments to his original flight plan, so as to rise above some unexpected turbulence.
“We had one kid get sick, then another. We had some kind of traveling upper respiratory infection, so we haven’t been able to put it together. What we’re trying to do is regroup, put it together in the next two weeks, and have a good conference meet.”
UNF will be running their A-Sun Conference Championships at FGCU, in Fort Myers, on October 27th. And no matter which way you describe it, that race will be a hot one.
“For the most part, it shouldn’t affect us. We should be okay. Maybe that’s not true for the kids from North Carolina. That”—running further south—“is one of the reasons we came here, to run in a warmer, flatter race. Maybe it will transfer out. In hindsight it was (a good decision).
“This was a very solid showing. It was what we had hoped for. We’re starting to put it together. It was not only encouraging for me, but more importantly, it was also encouraging to them.”
The aforementioned athletes, both juniors, were solidly in contention for the top spot in this race until the final sprint. Chris Haynes finished first in 25:53.69, and Sean Pezzulo was second in 26:01.
Miami’s Sean Pezzulo, interestingly enough, always seems to settle in places where names are “borrowed” from the Indians. In high school, Pezzulo ran for Burnt Hills High School, in New York State (so named for a Native American practice of setting fire to hillsides in order to attract the deer that foraged on its re-growth), and in college runs for the University of Miami (which as near as I can tell, was the brainchild of one Julia Tuttle--the city’s founder--formerly of Cleveland, Ohio, and reflects the name the indigenous tribe from her former state of residence).
Like Tuttle, Sean was drawn to one of the few “frost proof” places in America. (Before casting judgment on this rationale, first consider that back home, his high school offers such bone chilling sports as alpine skiing and ice hockey.)
“I knew I wanted to come down to warm weather,” he admitted to me. “I run better in warm weather. The coach, Damon Griffiths, seemed to want to build a program involving me. And they had my major--advertising.”
Wow, from sub-zero to sub-tropical.
“My freshman year, it took some getting used to. But it seems to have gotten cooler, so I guess I’ve gotten used to it. Training is no problem now.”
UNF’s Chris Haynes—who previously ran for a high school that carries the name of that demigod of Old Dixie, Robert E. Lee--made his choice from an entirely different perspective.
“I chose UNF because it was close to home, had my major—sports management—and I was familiar with the surroundings.
“My biggest challenge was finding a balance between running and my school work during my freshman and sophomore years. Now I am very comfortable. We practice at 7 AM in the morning, and maybe two or three days a week we do a second workout in the afternoon…maybe 85 miles a week…although some are at around 75.”
In the early stages of this race, it wasn’t particularly easy to spot Chris Haynes. His was just another white shirt—his team’s colors are blue lettering on a white background—among a group of 15 similarly clad runners from UNF, USF, FGCU, and St. Leo. This snow-pack trailed what looked like the entire Miami team, with a sprinkling of three other schools, by a yard or so.
“We knew that we were going to go out slow. My first mile was 5:20, really slow. I think the first two were 10:30. We were just looking to bring the whole pack with us in a negative split. That was the plan.
“After three miles, he (Coach Pigg) said we could go. I think I went through the 5K in about 16:20, but I’m not sure.”
The results show that six Ospreys finished in the top 11.
“I think, as a team, it worked out. We accomplished what we set out to do.”
College Men’s Team Results
What started out as a two-team race, quickly became a near white-out (Sean Pezzulo’s worst fear). UNF won with 27 (1-4-5-6-11-17-29), Miami had 45 (2-7-9-12-15-20), and FGCU—which seemed to be missing some key runners—was third with 83 (3-14-16-24-26-30). 78 men and 11 teams scored.
College Women’s 6K
In central—and most of the rest--of Florida this year, the women’s team to beat had been UCF. Besides some stiff competition, however, two things came into play soon after that of Lionel’s gun. The first was that the Knights had no less than nine first year runners (plus four sophomores and two juniors). And this was their first 6K (3.72823 miles). That added .62 mile to a well-established diet of the women’s normal 5K distance (3.10685 miles). Since few (any?) of the entered freshmen had ever run that longer distance, as fatigue set in, the finish line must have seemed to recede.
Undaunted by challenges of added distance and college experience, first-year runner Anne-Marie Blaney shattered UCF’s previous, 14 year old freshman record—22:36 by Sonja Shedden—and did her best to prevail as one of the field’s leaders.
As the women’s race unfolded, from a small and ever-dwindling lead pack, emerged a single member of Jacksonville’s first five; Joane Pierre. Coming off a 21:10.80 PR (at the October 5th FSU Invitational), she wasted little time in taking control of the race.
“I think I did a good job; it was a little hot, but good.” Pierre said. “I like running on this course. I think here, and the course we ran at FSU, are my favorites. We (JU) don’t race much in Florida, but these are nice.”
As far as the extra K….
“I think every race has a different game plan. The distance is not a big deal, it’s just preparing for the next race. This is my senior year, so I do want to leave a good impression. I don’t feel that I’ve reached where I want to be. But now I’m taking it one race at a time, to see how far I can go.
“Conference is at FGCU, which is—maybe—45 minutes from where I live,”—Joane ran for Immokalee High School, where she was a three-time state champion in track—“and my family will all be there. In my junior year, they saw the track regionals at UNF, but conference will be the first collegiate cross country race they’ll have seen me run.”
Seven seconds behind Pierre, and a much longer way from her home in Woodbridge, Virginia, was University of Miami junior Lindsi Arrington.
“Coach (Damon Griffiths) was at one of my first races during my senior year,” Lindsi told me. “It was in October, and maybe my second meet. He mentioned an actual academic scholarship. So he walked me through it during an unofficial visit.
“I am a film student—Motion Pictures Production and Creative Writing—and Miami is a great city for that. There’s a lot of everything there, but for sure, there are a lot of film studios and independent film makers.
“The only negative thing was that it was soooo hot running there. But we run at 6 AM and at 5 PM—on different days—and you get used to it.”
Lindsi’s best in the 5K is 17:26.39 (April 19, 2012 ACC Championship); she also competes in track. She has PRs of 2:14.90 in the 800, 4:30.1 in the 1500, 5:06.96 (from high school) in the “metric mile,” and has also added the 4 X 4 to her resume.
In this race, she was part of a team effort to challenge the eventual winner, UNF.
“The plan was to stay with the lead girls as much as I could,” she said after the race, “and then pick it up when I could.”
Coach Griffiths added, “She wanted to stay with them, and if she had the opportunity, to pick at them when she could.”
Lindsi: “She (Joane Pierre) didn’t come up (on us) until a little less than a mile, but she kept a decent pace, and so did the other girls. It kept going back and forth.”
Griffiths: “You passed the UCF girl (Blaney) at the end.”
Lindsi: “She was right with me until the very end. She was good. It made us both work harder.”
Next up is the ACC, two weeks from this meet.
“I’ll have to go quicker, right from the beginning, and make sure that each mile is at a faster pace, so that I can maintain better. (In other words) going faster, earlier.”
College Women’s Team Results
Like the men’s team, the Lady Ospreys had a bunch up front—5-7-11-12-14-19-40—to win with 49 points. UCF (3-16-21-23-25-27-40; 88) was second and Jacksonville third (1-6-31-33-35-76-80; 106). 151 women and 16 (scoring) teams participated.
Footnotes: This is one of the most pleasant courses that I’ve seen in my neck of the woods. The event was extremely well-organized, and executed like clockwork. I want to extend many thanks to Elite Timing for providing printed results, which made finding the interviewees possible, especially considering the evening’s third race, that between the teams’ retreat to dinner and the rapid descent of dusk….One thing that I’m wondering, however; what was with all those campers, and people sitting around on folding chairs, watching the meet? Has college cross country finally gotten the attention it deserves?