by Jarrett Felix
XC is
nearly in the books with only two races left before the end. I’m not positive I’ll
be doing a nationals recap at this point, so my XC posts on this blog are
wrapping up! I thought it might be fun to look back over the posts I made and
link up some of my favorites. Most of the posts are recaps which are helpful
and can be fun in their own way, but the posts I personally like writing are
the more random or creative ones so that is what I tried to link up below. Feel
free to share some of your favorites as well!
Here’s
my list in chronological order …
10/25/2014 Introducing the 1st
etrain All-Stars!
Sometimes state qualifying is tricky
business and top names get left out. I made this post in 2014 to honor some of
those names and remind our runners that the state meet isn’t everything. There’s
plenty to be proud of outside of one defining race and that’s a lesson I think
we can all take with us regardless of what we view as our “defining race”.
10/20/2015 Run It Back: An
Interview with Matt Beyerle
12/6/2015 The King of Leans:
Catching Up with O’Hara/Syracuse Stand Out Kevin James
12/26/2015 Happy Holidays: An
Interview with CB East’s Two-Time State Champ Jake Brophy
I got lucky in 2015 as I got to
interview three insightful PA alumni. I think these posts turned out pretty
cool and each have their questions that I found particularly memorable. Not
specifically XC, but certainly has some XC focus.
1/1/2016 XC All Decade Team: 10-1
This was a list that went out to
101 names after the 2015 XC season was in the books. The post above has links
to the prior ranking posts before 10-1, but 10-1 is probably what most people
care about. It would be interesting to see how this list would change based on
the extra two years of runners we’ve had come through Pennsylvania. There’s a
long list of runners over that two year span that could join this group if it
was reconsidered. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on that …
8/26/2016 Team Titles Revisited:
2009
I revisited a variety of state
meets, including the 2011 meet that got a lot of talk this year. Personally, I
picked the 2009 edition for my favorite as this race was my senior season of
high school. I never raced that meet (and I didn’t have any teammates in the 2009
race), but I’ll always remember this season.
10/13/2016 In The Class “A Team”
Rankings will always be an important
part of the blog. But sometimes you have to mix the rankings up and add some
fun wrinkles to the equation. This post combined Drake lyrics with team
rankings. So yeah, this one was always going to make the list.
10/18/2016 Super ‘Nova: An
Interview with Conestoga Grad Andrew Marston
Another interview makes the list!
Although 2015 was probably the biggest interview year, I was fortunate enough
to talk to Andrew Marston in the 2016 season. This was another great interview and
kind of makes me miss doing them. Maybe I can find a few other guys to talk to before
all is said and done …
11/3/2016 AAA Top 10 Team
Predictions
The state prediction posts will
always be the most important posts I make all season. The individual stuff is
cool, but the team stuff is what really drives me. The 2016 edition of the team
rankings may have been my best pick in terms of content. Not necessarily in
terms of accuracy, but, I mean, if we judge based on accuracy there won’t be
much to brag about …
12/1/2016 The Etrain 11: Cross
Country Edition
The Etrain 11 style posts have been
pretty solid feature style articles here on the blog. I’m pretty happy with how
most of them turn out and think they are part of what made the blog as
successful as it was. The story behind the numbers is always worth telling.
8/5/2017 Bulletin Board Material
This was another untraditional post.
The actually body of the post says almost nothing, but the comments (the most
important of the blog) drive the story. It’s fun to look back at these
predictions I made for all the various teams and see how things turned out. It
also shows you how many different teams are represented or at least cared about
by our readers.
7/6/2017 The Etrain 11 Series XC
Finale – Radio Broadcast
A fun, fictional all-time race
complete with runhigh style results and face British accents. I put a good amount
of work into this, so it had to make the list.
11/1/2017 2017 PIAA XC State
Previews: AAA Team Preview
Personally, this may be my favorite
preview post I’ve ever written. I guess I saved my best for last.
11/4/2017
An artsy post to close it out. I
don’t usually make posts like this, so I think that made it the most fun to
write out of arguably anything I wrote this year. Heck, out of arguably anything
I wrote ever.
Your post about xc states this year still gives me goosebumps.
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