Boys’ and Girls’ Cross Country Triumph at Manchester

By ETHAN GUO, ASHLEY JANE, CHENGYUE ZHANG

Less than two weeks into the season, the girls’ and boys’ cross country teams faced over 40 schools across the New England area at the Manchester Invitational Cross Country Meet. Across a spread of eight races, split between freshman, JVC, JVB, and varsity divisions, the girls’ and boys’ cross country teams placed 2nd and 5th respectively in the large schools category.

Manchester Invitational presented the team with the new challenge of facing a larger competing circle. “It was our first time not winning a meet for a long time, which is bittersweet,” senior and boys’ cross country captain Mateo Bango said. “Obviously you want to win meets, but we have been confined to a pretty small competing circle for the past couple years, and this was one of our first times getting out.”

To prepare for Manchester, the girls’ team maintained a consistent and focused training schedule. “The biggest thing that we did to prepare is doing hill workouts every Tuesday. Fourteen of our runners go to Stratham Hill, which is a really intense, steep hill that they run eight to ten times. Then the rest of our runners go over to Swayze Parkway and do Crew Hill eight to 10 times, which is a more gradual hill,” coach Emily Quirk said.

“We also do tempo runs every Thursday that help runners practice race pace alternating with active recovery running,” Quirk continued. “That type of interval workout also prepares their hearts for the type of cardio that happens during the race.”

Intense workouts were also on the schedule for the boys team. “Most of the people on the team [did] summer training, so we were able to build a base, and then we’ve been doing intense training for the past two weeks,” lower Paul Kiesling said. The team would expect more rest before a large invitational, and plans to do so at the end of the season.

Bango elaborated on the team’s mindset for the racing and training as well. “We tried to reserve a certain mindset for racing. There’s workouts, and then there’s racing. Something that coaches say a lot is: ‘If you’re on this team, you’re not here to work out. This isn’t a workout club. This is a space to compete and we’re here for competition,’” Bango said.

The competitive environment is bolstered by cross country traditions and strong team spirit across both teams. “During practices during the week, the girls’ and boys’ teams are very separate. We’re doing different workouts, and we’re not really interacting, but it’s so great to see both teams come together on Saturdays for our meets because we take the same bus and we have the same team area,” Quirk said. “Seeing the girls cheer on the boys and the boys cheer on the girls has been really valuable and fun.”

“We have a team cheer, Ache te Vitu, and its meaning is unknown to most,” upper Michael Zhu added. “I like the fact that not even the preps and the coaches know what it means. It really brings the team together.”

Upper Byron Grevious bounced back from an injury a week later, winning the boys varsity race and shattering the meet record by over 40 seconds at the Blackbear Invitational. “I was really eager to race Aidan Cox today because I missed out on the Manchester Invitational due to a fall in training. The team made an outstanding showing today as well. Coming into this meet we knew this would be the last chance for us to see how we stack up against NH public schools. Our captains, Oliver Brandes and Mateo Bango, finished together in 4th and 5th. In the team results PEA finished 1st in all races. Success at Black Bear.”

Both teams are looking forward to a promising season ahead. With three great meet results under their belt, both teams are focused on improvement and team bonding. “The biggest thing that we need to do right now is make our spread smaller, which means reducing the time between our first runner and our 5th runner,” upper Malcolm Courchesne said. “It’s still very early in the season though, so I’m pretty optimistic about how our four and our five can really get up there in races towards the end of the season.”

“Our overarching goal is getting as good as we can as a team while preventing injuries and keeping it sustainable for the future,” Ivanova added. “We also have a lot of new people, so we’re working on building team spirit around that and getting other people to understand what [being a member of the] cross country team means.”