Agreed. Kilbourne looked uh.... confused at best. Kids looking around, shrugging shoulders, trying maybe to group up? Weird. Whatever it was, it was well behind North. And Scioto. They certainly didn't look like the team that beat Coffman last week, that same Coffman team who we all know just beat Jackson, St X, Jerome, etc.
From what I've seen so far, Westerville North is the best team in the state. And Gabelman is either state champ or runner up.
But to state the obvious... November is still two months away. Much can change.
I ran XC at Westerville north in the 90s. Exciting to me to hear they’re so good now. There was no Westerville central back then, so talent is even more divided now, but we were never close to best in state. Is this just a luck thing or have they built a good program that is sustainably competitive?
Their coaches are young, knowledgable, and passionate. And they've landed an incredible talent in Gabelman. He's not quite Kennedy (yet), but he's damn good. And they've got a stable of 16:00-16:45 guys behind him.
1 word of caution. They do tend to peak early. Last year their best team racing was in August and early September. Maybe this year will be different. If they raced tomorrow, I think they'd give Mason all they can handle. And Gabelman would beat Mason's #1 by 40 seconds.
Kilbourne’s runners were told not to race and instead to run together for roughly the first 2 miles. You could see some of the runners looking around and talking during the early stages on the race. Fitness wise, they’ll be fine. But some of them were certainly frustrated with the decisions that were made yesterday.
That’s a waste of a day.
If you’re going to race, race.
If you’re not going to race, just do a workout.
Supertramp, when I read that initial paragraph from SeeYouInNovember, your thoughts were my thoughts exactly. What's the point of treating a big Saturday invitational like a Tuesday dual meet?
It's good to get those racing chops sharpened now: the season really isn't that long--September invitationals quickly lead into the October gauntlet of conference-district-regional meets. November 4th will very quickly be upon us.
I ran XC at Westerville north in the 90s. Exciting to me to hear they’re so good now. There was no Westerville central back then, so talent is even more divided now, but we were never close to best in state. Is this just a luck thing or have they built a good program that is sustainably competitive?
Their coaches are young, knowledgable, and passionate. And they've landed an incredible talent in Gabelman. He's not quite Kennedy (yet), but he's damn good. And they've got a stable of 16:00-16:45 guys behind him.
1 word of caution. They do tend to peak early. Last year their best team racing was in August and early September. Maybe this year will be different. If they raced tomorrow, I think they'd give Mason all they can handle. And Gabelman would beat Mason's #1 by 40 seconds.
Thanks, that’s awesome! Hope they can peak at the right time this year.
And glad to hear that people still remember Bob Kennedy! He went to Westerville North before my time but people still talked about him. But even then, North never had a complete team of 5.
Their coaches are young, knowledgable, and passionate. And they've landed an incredible talent in Gabelman. He's not quite Kennedy (yet), but he's damn good. And they've got a stable of 16:00-16:45 guys behind him.
1 word of caution. They do tend to peak early. Last year their best team racing was in August and early September. Maybe this year will be different. If they raced tomorrow, I think they'd give Mason all they can handle. And Gabelman would beat Mason's #1 by 40 seconds.
Thanks, that’s awesome! Hope they can peak at the right time this year.
And glad to hear that people still remember Bob Kennedy! He went to Westerville North before my time but people still talked about him. But even then, North never had a complete team of 5.
If you are a HS runner in Ohio and don’t know who Bob Kennedy is, shame on you, and shame on your coach.
Such a dumb decision by Worthington Kilbourne not to race. Race experience is rare and invaluable, especially against a team you are really going to want to beat late in the year. There’s a reason you don’t see the top teams in Ohio do anything like this.
Such a dumb decision by Worthington Kilbourne not to race. Race experience is rare and invaluable, especially against a team you are really going to want to beat late in the year. There’s a reason you don’t see the top teams in Ohio do anything like this.
Coach probably doesn’t want them to peak too early.
No coach wants their team to peak too early? That doesn't explain a workout effort during a race.
Is this a common practice? A race was a race back when I ran. It was a big deal to win an invitational
It’s somewhat common practice for coaches to rest their runners for a week. It’s definitely not common practice for coaches to tell their runners to only race during the 3rd mile of a 5k.
Interesting. So why even bother entering the race if you're not going to race? Just say you're training through it. Just kind of seems disrespectful to the other runners to treat it as less than a race.
I don't think any of you guys understand what our true motive was. We wanted to try to tighten up the back end of our varsity team, so our coaches told us to go out in 5:30. This was so our back end runners could hold with the faster guys, and then when our faster guys sped up, we could hopefully push the back end to stick with them. It really is not as big of a deal as you guys are making it out to be, and I am sick of the message board absolutely HATING on kilbourne as a team. Just wait for our true potential...
I don't think any of you guys understand what our true motive was. We wanted to try to tighten up the back end of our varsity team, so our coaches told us to go out in 5:30. This was so our back end runners could hold with the faster guys, and then when our faster guys sped up, we could hopefully push the back end to stick with them. It really is not as big of a deal as you guys are making it out to be, and I am sick of the message board absolutely HATING on kilbourne as a team. Just wait for our true potential...
I don't think any of you guys understand what our true motive was. We wanted to try to tighten up the back end of our varsity team, so our coaches told us to go out in 5:30. This was so our back end runners could hold with the faster guys, and then when our faster guys sped up, we could hopefully push the back end to stick with them. It really is not as big of a deal as you guys are making it out to be, and I am sick of the message board absolutely HATING on kilbourne as a team. Just wait for our true potential...
It seems like you should be "pushing the back end" to try and beat your competitors, not trying to keep up with faster teammates. Stick with the WN guys next time and try to beat them. If you're relying on your top guys to help you do it, you'll never learn to do it yourself. Or ever believe that you can.
I don't think any of you guys understand what our true motive was. We wanted to try to tighten up the back end of our varsity team, so our coaches told us to go out in 5:30. This was so our back end runners could hold with the faster guys, and then when our faster guys sped up, we could hopefully push the back end to stick with them. It really is not as big of a deal as you guys are making it out to be, and I am sick of the message board absolutely HATING on kilbourne as a team. Just wait for our true potential...
It really is not as big of a deal as you guys are making it out to be
. . . but it really is a big deal: a wasted chance to beat a team that will be in the way of getting to the state meet come October. Build those habits of beating teams now.
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