Paul Short Recap

(Fair warning, this is a long one)

I'm back in PA for my brother's birthday this weekend and I was fortunate enough to have some free time to go up to Lehigh and see a lot of my friends race at a fantastic meet, the Paul Short Invitational. At these meets, I just kinda feel at home, especially when I can hang out with some great pals. It's also just fun to be around other runners. I caught up with Jack Huemmler and Ned Willig, a couple real nice, real smart state champs from Ivy League schools. Jack introduced me to one of his old teammates (Greg Kotchick, I believe it was) first as Jarrett Felix (a polite hello) and then as etrain (a much more enthusiastic hello). I love it. I will always be more recognizable as etrain than Jarrett Felix and you know what, I'm cool with that.

I was fortunate enough to see some nice PRs for my friends in the 8k. One of my friends broke 28 minutes time, another broke 27 for the first time. There's something special about minute barriers. 4 minutes in the mile. 2 minutes in the 800m. 15 minutes in the 5k.

Which brings me to the historic moment that I was able to witness (sort of) this weekend. The sub 15 hype was buzzing around this weekend and most people were skeptical (including myself). I did keep throwing it out there though. I knew there was one guy out there who had it as a dream and wasn't afraid to try and make it a reality.

Colin Abert ran 14:55 today at Lehigh in dominating fashion against 3 other guys who were considered the remaining members of the best top 4 guys in the state. Truly stunning performance. From the gun Abert was after it, he was way out in front at the mile, coming through in 4:45. I was just before 2 miles and he passed me around 9:50 or so. He looked like he was starting to break down at this point. Nobody was really that close behind him, but his form just looked like it was breaking ever so slightly and he looked slower than he looked when he flew the first mile. I thought there was a chance he'd get caught. A slim chance, but a chance. The next time I saw him, about 400m from the finish, I was cheering for him to break 15. I knew he would be close (he passed me around 13:50ish or so) but I decided it made more sense to watch the race from 400m out and then look at the results afterwards. That way I could piece together ,more of the whole story. So I sacrificed watching a man break the tape sub 15, something that has only happened 3 times and never at Paul Short while I've been around. It was unreal. Abert is really good this year. By the way, this is another meet record for PA. You've got Power, Brehm and Abert plus you have Hoey and Marston right there for their course records. That's really cool. It's an historic year and I hope I can make it out to states this year to see how it ends.

So because I had the luxury of being there, I'll try to give you a brief breakdown of what I saw. First of all, the rain ended up being a bit over hyped. There was a brief down pour while I was driving up at 9 am, but it made things damp, not horribly muddy. I ran on the course after the White Race, cooling down with some old teammates and things weren't in horrible shape. Look it was still a little sloppy, but things could have been a lot worse. And the weather was pretty reasonable. If anything it was a tad hot.

I stood at the start line and Twin Valley got out pretty hard the first 200m, I noticed them most. That was really all I could pick out of the brief start, then I was off to the mile marker. I stood next to some Malvern Prep people and listened to their conversation. I saw the pack of runners moving up towards the turn to the mile and it took me a second or two to realize that Abert was way out in front. It felt like way more than the 5 seconds or so that it says online while I was watching. After Abert it was a gap back to Molino, Hoey and Jack Jibb (from out of state Monore-Woodbury). After that I noticed that Josh Hoey got out pretty hard as well. He was in that next pack. I also was surprised to see Lapsansky run reasonably level headed. I thought he would be cut from the same mold as Abert and crush it out of the gate, but he ended up running a smart 4:59 first mile. I didn't even notice Power it was in the pack but not over extending himself.

I ran off to two miles after about 5:15 or so was on the clock and got in good position. I didn't notice the course being too torn up, despite all the races. I felt like it was in pretty good shape for the most part. Abert was still crushing it at this point, as mentioned. He looked tiring, the weakest I saw him probably. That's kinda the way Abert runs. If someone is going to beat him it's going to have to be that second mile because that is where he tends to fall asleep a bit. But even his "falling asleep" is obviously quite good. Then Power was making a nice move around this point. He looked pretty good and looked like a safe bet for second at this point. If anyone was going to catch Abert, it was probably going to be Power just turning on the jets. I remember also that I noticed the Cumberland Valley guys were making a nice move. Yahya had a huge bounce back from last week and that was huge for Cumby. The Hershey dudes were really up there too. Demko killed it today and made me quite wrong with  my prediction.

Then I was going to try and run to the finish, but ran into Jack. I watched from the 400m mark and figured I'd check the results to fill in the blanks. After Abert zoomed by Power was in second by a bit over Molino. Molino must have put on a nice kick to jump up ahead of him. Jaxson looked pretty tired, he looked a bit like he was about to fall again at this point and I was hoping he was going to be ok to get to the line. The CV boys continued to roll, I noticed also that Fitch from Liberty was having a great race.

Those were kind of memories from the race, but it all went by pretty fast.

When I checked the results at a gas station on the way home, I had a few more takeaways. First off obviously was the whole Abert officially sub 15 thing. Simply amazing stuff. This was a big day for Power. He may not have beat out Molino (who had a very strong day, 15:18 is nothing to sniff at), but he proved he is a top level guy and pre states was no fluke. I also realized that Abert going for it from the gun really draged this field to fast times. The weather holding up helped too. By my count 14 PA guys sub 16 with another 1 in the White Race (Allgayer killed it! Missed that race unfortunately, had to make dinner with my mom).

Matt Kravitz had a fantastic race to grab 15:39. I was calling him for a big day, but I wasn't expecting anything quite like this. He's a serious medal contender at states now. Demko and Sponaugle both broke 16 which was big for Hershey who looked quite good finishing 4th out of PA teams, 18 back from Easton. Demko ran really great with his 15:40. Dahl ran a really solid 15:41 and although it didn't live up to my expectations (which clearly proved to be bold) it was still a fantastic race for the sophomore (top soph in the race). Real nice race for Simon Smith as well in 15:43, he exceeded my expectations.

In the team race, Malvern Prep showed some nice depth through 5 with 5 guys under 16:30. There is a bit of a drop off to the 6-7 which is a little scary because you have to stay healthy and everybody needs to be racing at the top of their game. But you only need 5 guys, that's all that score and this isn't a dual meet where displacing means much. Josh could be sub 16 in a more controlled race and McDevitt looks really good so far this season. Underrated good.

Cumberland Valley had a great day with a big bounce back from Carlilse, beating out Easton, Hershey, Twin Valley and Parkland. The front part of their pack moved up thanks to a step up from Soliman that helped Wasko break through. And I think they have other guys who could step into a starring role from week to week. That's encouraging. Hershey looked great. Just more complicating factors to the already complicated District 3 picture. Twin Valley looked solid as well. If Digiacomo can shrink that spread down to 30 seconds or so, that makes things interesting for those guys. District 3 is madness.

Scranton Prep had a nice showing as well. They aren't quite York Suburban good, but they held their own nicely in this race. As for the District 11 debate, Freedom seems to be missing some guys and unfortunately injuries happen. Quigley and Aplaugh had a great day today, but it looks like it's going to come down to Parkland vs. Easton for who gets the title. Easton is really good, top 10 kinda team in the state thanks to their big two out front. They beat Parkland fairly handily today (200 to 339), but I will say that Parkland was less fresh than Easton and they were missing one of their key guys (Kyvelos I believe). Plus I don't think they ran quite as well out front as they did at Carlisle. Geiger was 44th today and I think he can go faster. They had a solid group of 5 all under 17 and the super powerful front running of Easton is a bit neutralized at the smaller District 11 meet and the 4-5 becomes a bit more important. That being said, Easton is built to have a stronger day at states.

Nice race from Liam Conway, the freshman from Owen J (16:10).

In the White race Allgayer's 15:50 was big time. That's a name to remember everybody. What division is Mercersburg? AAA I think? If not, Allgayer has top 5 potential in AA or A no doubt. He beat Degroot-Lutzner who is a stud as well as Gonoude who is super talented and Ben Wilson who I have been a fan of.

Great meet, super glad to be there. Hope I get to see another one soon.