NBL vs. SCL

Total Time: 69:55
Total Distance: 9.78 miles

Time I: 45:58
Distance I: 6.70 miles
Pace I: 6:51
Map I

Time II: 23:57
Distance II: 3.08 miles
Pace II: 7:45
Map II:

When I was at MCHS yesterday evening running a few 200s, the coach invited me to the cross country meet between 4 NBL and 4 SCL teams. When I was in high school the Sonoma County League stood for "Second Class League" because that's exactly what it was. The North Bay League had much better runners and schools for that matter. In recent years a move has been made to raise the bar in the SCL which has come with races between half of each league.

I jogged from my mom's house to the start of the race and stood around for a bit chatting with old coaches from my youth years. I saw Dan Aldridge, Bobby Shore and Doug Courtemarche. All three have been involved in Sonoma County youth running for at least 20 years each. Danny and Bob were my first track coaches when I started in the sport with Santa Rosa Express. Danny was a big time high school (1:49 800m), college (1500 DII champ for Cal Poly SLO) and professional (Athletics West) runner. He was my high school coach at Maria Carrillo and definitely nurtured my young talents for competing at the college level. Bob has been the starter of almost every track meet and cross country race in Nor Cal for as long as I can remember. Doug was the co-coach (along with Danny) of high school phenoms Julia Stamps and Trina Cox at Santa Rosa High School. People joke about there being something in the water for all the great runners coming out of the Santa Rosa area and I think the speculators might be right.

I watched the jv girls race and ran a few laps around Spring Lake during the jv boys and varsity girls races to add to my mileage. I paid better attention to the varsity boys race where Dan Hauptman won in a solid 15:51. He's interested in Brown and I hope to put in a good word for him while I'm in Providence soon. After the race I had the chance to talk with my former school's athletes and some of their parents. We took a few photos and I even cooled down with them chatting about running in college, training in high school and the post-collegiate running scene. I'm no Angelina Jolie, Florence Nightingale, or Mother Teresa but I try to make the most of running with the younger crowd and pass on some knowledge that will hopefully bring a bit more passion to the sport.