Ralph Epifanio entertains us again this week with his take on last Saturday's Five Star Conference Championships in Bunnell. Also check out his photos from the meet.
Another always entertaining and energetic meet summary from Ralph Epifanio! This was a great meet that included great performances from Amanda Perkins, Ebony Eutsey, Chris Lickfield, and others. Photos will follow tomorrow.
This course had more twists and turns than a bowl of spaghetti. The course map--highlighted in a color that looked suspiciously like Chef Boyardee pasta sauce--showed no less than 27 spots where a runner would have to downshift, then turn a corner, before resuming his race pace. Being young and lean, Andrew Epifanio had no problem at all with the turns. A late entrant because his DeLand High School track team pulled out of a meet the night before, he ate up the roads around Victoria Park. In fact, he was so close to John Boyle’s lead bicycle that it looked for awhile like Boyle might lose the race. Boyle, however, managed to cut him off at the finish line, so Andrew had to settle for second…but was the first runner (18:24).
I had a friend who seemed to make a habit of finishing just beyond road race age group results. If there were three prizes in his age group, he’d finish fourth. If there were five, he would no doubt be sixth. After years of trying different workouts, a vegetarian diet, and who knows what else, he hit upon the idea of searching for the “secret race.” Roughly defined, it was a race that was so under publicized that the subsequent light turnout would give him a fighting chance of finally earning a medal.
On Saturday, at the Daytona International Speedway they hosted a different kind of race--the kind that doesn't omit any polution into the air. A big field of 634 runners and around a thousand walkers turned out for the Daytona 5K. Ralph Epifanio was there and wrote this race summary, along with some photos.
It would probably have been difficult for the organizers of the first Ed Root 10K in 1983 to imagine the popularity and success that this race would achieve. Ed, a member of the family that has been synonymous with commercial and cultural growth throughout the Daytona Beach area, was a well-known personality and talented runner in his own right. It is quite possible, however, that less than a handful of the 600 runners in this race ever met him. Nevertheless, when row after countless row of runners lined up on Pine Street in New Smyrna Beach for the start of the 24th Annual Ed Root, it was a lasting tribute to the man behind the race.
On any given Thanksgiving morning, there are more people entered in road races than on any other day of the year. The onset of cooler weather and the dwindling of triathlons added to the hordes that include unemployed cross country runners (the various championship meets had just concluded), prodigal children (sent home from those colleges needing a time out), and the 19 Stegenmeyerstahlers registered by a generous (and optimistic) uncle Otto who bought matching shirts for all. (Just kidding about the latter.)
In Ormond Beach, a stone’s throw from the ocean, is a sliver of a road that many feel is a highway to a bygone era. In some places it is barely inches above the primordial muck of swamps and estuaries, and is more a home to alligators, frogs, snakes, and turtles than humans. Where the depth of the tea-colored water is sufficient to allow their passage, blue claw crabs, manatees, and mullet slip silently by, unnoticed from the embankments where the hopeful--both feathered and furred--wait for a glimpse of dinner.
Over the past several years the Florida Runners community has become accustomed to dawning the "district of death" and "region of death" on the forum. This year, the "honor" arguably goes to 4A District 1. So what makes a District of Death? Well just look at all the amazing teams from that district who will be advancing to 4A Region 1 next week... then look at those amazing teams staying home. 'Nuff said!
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Ralph Epifanio summarizes the festivities at the Five Star Conference meet complete with around 100 photos of the event!
In my neck of the woods, whenever the subject of the Mount Dora Invitational came up, a refrain about “those hills” invariably followed. Having never been there, I was skeptical. After all, how hilly could it be? I looked it up: Mt. Dora, at most, is 175 feet above sea level. The highest point in the state is only 345 feet above the ocean, and that’s almost in Alabama!
It began like a story with a recurring theme: Cross Country powerhouse from up north visits a local meet; members of said team run incredible times and sweep field in lopsided victory. Unlike the two recent high school invitational meets where this happened (Mountain View at ERAU and Warwick at Edgewater), this was a college meet and the more experienced athletes of UCF, competing over a substantially longer 8K course, refused to give in to Cincinnati’s Xavier College.
UCF junior Daniel Conn was in the thick of the race and gave his perspective afterwards.
Bartram High School coach David Frank billed it as a classic, and it was certainly that. Between the first race and the last, 818 runners from 30 teams gave hundreds of spectators ample opportunity to yell themselves hoarse. Lining a course that can best be described as flat and hard, they shifted this way and that, in tandem with the long line of runners that streamed along like quicksilver on a smooth surface. There wasn’t a single race that didn’t end without excitement, and with each of the four finishes came scores of PRs.
Mandy Perkins and Spruce Creek continue their winning ways at the Deland invitational.
Embry-Riddle Smoothie King Classic was a successful and well-run meet, even if smaller than previous years.
The operative word was heat: sweltering, shimmering, sweat-provoking, sun-driven heat. At 7 AM, before the sun even made its appearance, it was already 79 degrees. That was the coolest it would be. After that, the best you could do was try not to think about it.
Brittany Koziara (Boone) and Steven Fernandez (Colonial) won the individual titles; Boone won the boys team championship. Lake Mary and Winter Springs girls each had 58 points, with Lake Mary winning on its sixth runner. Photos will be coming later in the week.
Preseason cross country meets like this one are the lifeblood of the sport. In the right context they can serve as the supreme motivator for runners in need of an antidote for Florida summer.
Jeffrey Surran and Alyssa Burkert took home the 1st place medals in very different types of races! Read the full summary and quotes, and be sure to check out the race videos!
Ralph Epifanio was at the Atlantic Sun Championships, with college teams from throughout the Southeast, and documented the world through his creative eyes!
Cross country is practiced by the freest of spirits. Nowhere is that more evident than in the 5 Star Conference. Comprised of nine teams from Volusia and Flagler Counties, its athletes come in contact with each other on an almost weekly basis. In between formal events, such as beach runs, multi-team meets, the Deland Invitational, and two levels of conference championships, there is contact by Facebook, e-mails, and even some budding romances…although I have no personal knowledge of the latter. The result has become a giant web of friendships that radiate outwards, beyond their respective high schools, and even transcend the season.
My, oh my, what a difference a year makes! Last year, with 23 teams entered, Flagler-Palm Coast just edged Spruce Creek, 89-78, in the boys team race, and the Creek girls won by 19 ½ over Bolles. This year, with less than half that many teams--10 each--Flagler’s boys rolled over the competition (90 more than second place Spruce Creek), and Spruce Creek’s girls won by 54 over Deland.