The Monte Vista Invitational - Home of the Eliminator!

JV Coach John Behring named the following dedicated leaders as team captains for the 2012 season:

Boys:   Steven Waal (SR) and Chris Menezes (SR)

Girls:  Ryan Spencer (SR) and Ally Lizano (SR)

At the start of the season, Coach Davis named the following seniors as Team Captains.   All were chosen based on their dedication to the team, their dedication to their training, and of course, their running abilities.   Congrats!

Girls:  Katharine Smiley and Amy Ingram
Boys:  Cameron Somers and Michael Bartz

It's mid season.  The nights are crisp.  The team is trained and bonded through all the hard work at practice.  Everyone needs a little break.   So that can only mean one thing... IT'S TIME FOR THE OVERNIGHT RELAY!!!

And of course, it was an epic night.  The team started assembling early, bring enough food and snacks to fill three full tables.  The grill was ready.  The lights were on (well, most of the time).  Footballs, soccer balls, frisbees, stereos, game consoles, card games and more were quickly unpacked.  The neon and crazy outfits set a new standard - aided greatly by Coach Zach's huge stockpile of costumes!

Before the event, the coaches privately hoped that the team would simply break 100 miles and potentially beat the 102 miles from the previous year.  However, the 2012 team had other ideas, quickly jumping way ahead of pace and never letting up.  It became clear early on that the upperclassmen would turn the baton over to the sophs and freshmen with a nice cushion over the 2011 team.  As the juniors finished their miles, the projected pace was at 107 miles.

Typically, that is when the pace slows and the projected miles drops quickly.  Not this year.  Not with this squad.  Running in the chill of the evening, from 3am until past 6am, the younger teammates did not slow down at all.  In fact, the pace actually improved during the wee hours - an unheard of development!  Showing great depth, the group hammered solid miles one after another. Coach Mandee read off split after split - and in the excitement of the effort, completely forgot that she wasn't going to stay all night.

At 6:30, anyone sleeping was awaken to help cheer as the clock ran down.  Running through the tradional team tunnel, Sr Captain Cameron Somers powered through the last few laps - hitting the finish line of his last lap exactly as the clock hit 0:00 - to the cheers of the tired but proud team.  When the clock was checked - 108.75 miles were run!  Full results in the text file handout below. Some photos from Coach Davis here.

The clean up was the fastest ever, with very little of the usual crackers and skittles ground into the field (Great Job team!)

A big thank you to the MV administration who once again enabled the team to hold this great tradition.  As well as thanks to the parents who purchased the food and drink, and of course, the parents who came at ALL hours of the night to help us run the timing system and keep things flowing at the start finish.  EVERY runner got accurate mile times without a hitch!

GREAT JOB MUSTANGS - WE'RE ALL PROUD OF THIS EFFORT!

The annual MVXC Scavenger Hunt was next up as a Pod contest, as the teams raced against the clock and each other to find the 10 items from Coach Davis' strange list.  Fifty minutes was set as the time limit, with the first team back with all 10 items declared the winner.  Of course, the coaching staff was in charge of confirming whether all items had been collected, which always leads to great controversy and excitement!

The 10 items for this years hunt:
1. A Tic-Tac mint
2. An acorn with the "cap" still on it
3. A photo of a real live horse, taken by a pod member, during the contest
4. A video of a MV teacher or staff member doing the "horse dance" (also known as Gangnan Style dance).
5. A medal or racing bib from a track or cross country race
6. Something with the Fresh N Easy logo on it
7. A photo of the tunnel
8. Something with the Stanford logo on it
9. A "tri-bar" jersey
10. A flip phone

Returning in an amazing (and of course, immediately suspcious) time of 14 minutes, the Los Podres pod returned with all items.  Boom, done, game over.  The judges quickly confirmed their items and boom - game over.  After a few minutes, 12 Peas in a Pod were next in with a clean check-in as well.  The battle for 3rd proved intense, as Podject Runaway tried to check in with 17:03 left in the contest, but failed to produce the Fresh-N-Easy item and was denied!  Porcipod was ready and pounced on the opening, producing all 10 items to seize placement.

In a classic first to worst situation, team i-Pod took last place in total disarray  - failing to turn any items in!

Full results below.

          There's no place like pod.     Go Mustangs!

New for the 2012 season, the team formed a dozen family "pods", each composed of 11 to 12 team members spread among all four classes.  Led by the seniors, these pods help bring a sense of family to the large MVXC team.  Within the "pods", the team checks in each day, and spends time covering a variety of subject like the upcoming race course, scoring meets and more.

For the Ed Sias Invitational, the pods kept track of each members' individual placement within their race, adding up the lowest five scores to get their pod score (just like a real xc meet!).  The competition was close, as most pods needed to check into XC Stats to confirm their placement.

When the dust settled, the "i-Pods" came in first place with a low score of 195.  All the members of the pod received chocolate milk and an energy bar (perfect post workout recovery food).

The i-Pods were led by:
Justin Kim - 9th place
Audrey LaBarthe - 27th place
Gabbi Klein - 46th place
Stephen Kragen - 53rd place
Will Jones - 60th place
TOTAL - 195

The rankings, in order:
i-Pod  195
Los Podres  206
Podern Family  236
Podject Runaway  261
Running Podigees  284
12 Peas in a Pod  326
Odd Pod  343
Porcipod  393
Podestrians  520
The Podfathers  Inc (only 4 raced)
FABTYPs & Pod Racers   Inc  (did not submit scores)