Rams and Lady Rams x-country harriers slog through wind, rain, mud in Coaches Invitational
October 25, 2023 at 11:30 p.m.
High steps, glides, strides, lunges, an easy half-mile run, 50-yard sprints at half speed, a cooldown quarter mile jog in the after school sunshine on the Port Chester High School track Monday (10/23) and then it was time for a slow 30-minute run around the streets surrounding the school, but before Rams and Lady Rams cross country coach Cindy Reyes Martinez clicked her stop watch to send her young charges on their way, she asked how her team was feeling.
"Legs sore," came the answer in one form or another from each of her runners.
"I don't blame you after what you just went through," Martinez said, referring to her team's run through the mud and rain this past Saturday (10/21) in the Coaches Invitational at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls. "But get the practice LSD (long slow distance run) in anyway today because it will help in the championship cross country runs during the next two upcoming Saturdays."
'Happy to run'
Click went the watch and off they ran, her eyes on their backs as they disappeared into the side streets.
"They're really just happy that they finally had a chance to run because they have been training hard only to have their last two meets rained out over the previous two Saturdays," Martinez said, explaining that her team was hot to trot in the Coaches Invitational no matter how dismal the conditions.
And they were pretty dismal because it was rainy and muddy, and Bowdoin Park is a rough, hilly course even in the best of conditions. Especially since her team took off in separate male and female waves in what amounted to the third tier because two major races had already been run before their number was called and the course was already beaten down by all those pounding feet that had gone before.
The challenging course
So the three-mile varsity run was more slip and slide than stride and glide and runners were falling all over the place, but the Rams and Lady Rams were glad to just finally be in a race and get the run under their collective belts.
Promising freshman Christian Zamora was the only Port Chester runner to medal, finishing 10th out of 49 runners in the frosh 3,000-meter run. Sophomore ace Santiago Marquez was the first Ram finisher in 79th place in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 20:23.08 (an average of under seven minutes per mile in abysmal conditions). And the promising Lady Rams sophomore duo of Alexa Aguiriano and Abigail Pesantez, finished within seconds of each other in 31:22.4 and 31:45.8 to lead their team in the female division.
So the times were nothing to rave about, but just finishing the race under those horrific running conditions was praiseworthy, according to Martinez, her voice filled with a coach's pride while tinged with the maternal concern that comes from having an eight-month-old child of her own.
Survival of fittest
So she had high praise for Rams Jonathan Abraham (22:34.9), Juan Mejia (23:29.5), Alejandro Salinas (23:32.8) and Nick Wolff (29:14.3) as well as Lady Rams Katheryn Espinosa (32:40.2), Kristen Mejia (35:09.9), Camila Ramos (35:49.9) and Mayrin Perez (35:51.2).
“Many runners from other schools were falling due to the adverse conditions and just dropped out, unable to finish, but the Port Chester kids kept going no matter what happened,” Martinez said.
And that said something about her Rams and Lady Rams and all the practice miles they had run at Crawford Park and in those area runs around the school as well as on the high school track.
Martinez, an all-time Lady Rams distance running great back in the day (she still holds the school record for the Lady Rams mile at five minutes flat), is a language instructor in the Port Chester School District. So there is an authoritative tone in her voice when she predicts her team’s times will be a lot better in the upcoming Saturday meets—the Westchester and Section 1 Championships (10/28 and Nov. 4 respectively) at the Hudson Valley Superdome in Milton, N.Y., and Bowdoin Park. with the first wave scheduled to go off at 9 a.m. She thinks Marquez and Zamora both have a shot at medaling with Aguiriano and Pesantez expected to lead the Lady Rams once again. And hopefully it won't rain.
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