Reno Twilight Invitational

The 2017 racing season is underway.  A select group of varsity athletes traveled over the Sierras to Reno to open their seasons at the Reno Twilight Invitational.  The goal of the trip was to run a hard effort, have some fun, and bond as a team.  Mission Accomplisehd.

Girls Race

They're Off!

At 7:53 PM, the gun sounded to start the Small School Varsity Girls' race.  This meet is usually pretty small for the small schools, so we felt we could just run a hard tempo effort for the meet.  South Tahoe kind of upset our plans by bolting to the front and pushing the pace.  At the 1k marker, there weren't many Huskies to be seen near the front of the race.

By the second Kilometer, we had begun to come to the front.  Kinsey Langley made a strong move on the second loop of the course to catch early race leader Carissa Buchholz of South Tahoe.  Kinsey had been in a car accident 13 days previously and had missed 9 days of training as a result.  For her to be pushing the pace and moving to the lead after her last 2 weeks was a bold move and reminded me of the old Kinsey that just went out and ran fearlessly.  

The Award Podium

During the second half of the race, Emily Fife moved to the front to join Kinsey and Bucholz.  By the 3rd K marker, Kinsey had begun to struggle a bit, but Emily was running shoulder to shoulder with her altitude trained competitor.  Over the last 400m, Bucholz put in a little surge to open a gap on Emily that Emily in turn began to close on the final straightaway.  In the end, it was Bucholz of South Tahoe who took the race win with Emily placing second in 16:28.  That time is significant for Emily because it was 8 seconds faster than Abbi Mitchell (now running for St. Mary's College) ran to win this race last year. Abbi went on to run 19:11 by state last year, so for Emily to be ahead of her pace at this point is a good sign for us.

The rest of the Huskies ran solidly.  Elizette Ysias, Kinsey Langly, and Esmeralda Campos placed 4th 5th and 6th respectively.  Camille Haupt, running in her first race ever, placed 17th to round out our scoring 5 and seal the win over South Tahoe 31-39.  Running in their first varsity races ever, Monica Yup and Jasmine Barrita placed 22nd and  23rd respectively.

Boys Race

The Boys Relaxing Before the Race

We only took 2 boys to Reno this year.  Our boys are in a rebuilding mode right now and I didn't feel that we had a full team that was ready to travel.  Fortunately, we have a team dominated by juniors and underclassmen, so we should see big time growth from these kids during the rest of this season and into the future.

Austin Hoach and Miguel Ramos were the two Huskies to toe the line in Reno.  Both boys followed a conservative race plan, just like the girls.  After 1 kilometer, the boys were barely inside the top 20.  However, by the second K mark, they had moved into 11th and 12th.  When I saw them again at 3k, they had moved into 8th and 9th, positions they would hold until the finish.  

Austin's time of 14:59 would have put him as the #2 man from last year's TVL championship squad and Miguel's time of 15:12 would have put him as our 3rd man in the same race.  These two boys will form the nucleus and base of success for whatever we are able to do for the rest of the season.  The chalenge for our boys will be for some of our newer, inexperienced athletes to be able to close the gap on our two frontrunners.  I believe we have some candidates to be able to get that done and that we are looking for some solid results by the end of October.

The trip ended with a 7.1 mile training run around Donner Lake in Truckee the following morning. All in all, we had a very productive trip

Photo Album

Times and Splits