Wildcats 4k

Jan 31, 2021

As our team gears up for our first interscholastic competition in nearly 11 months, we decided to replicate a “normal” XC season by kicking it off with a 4K.  Every year we do an early season 4K at the Oakmont Invitational.  It’s a halfway distance between a standard frosh soph 2-mile race, and the 5K distance for varsity (4K is pretty close to 2.5 miles).

Our event, which we call WILDCATS 4K, had a twist that our previous time trials did not have.  Once we were told our team was our cohort, we were able to mix our runners into 8 teams.  Then we scored the results like a XC meet.  We tried to make the teams as equal as possible; but with covid protocols, last minute quarantines, etc., it wasn’t perfect.  Still, our spread from 1st place to 8th place was a mere 22 points (93 to 115).

Individually, one cause for celebration was quite a few lifetime PR’s.  A lot of our runners, especially freshmen and rookies, have no 4K on their record, so this was a first for them.  But 21 of our runners have run at Oakmont, and of those 21, we had 15 who hit a lifetime 4K PR!

  • The overall top finisher was senior Jason Finta.  Jason has been training really well, and so it was not too surprising that he hit his 4K PR of 12:42.  Jason sits at #4 on the all-time Whitney list for 4K.  Junior Charlie Gioia also hit right on his PR of 14:56.

  • Junior Ashlyn Fujioka improved by 4 seconds over her previous best, earning a new PR.

  • Senior Aidan Ransford and sophomore Teo Delgadillo each beat their PRs by 9 seconds. Aidan’s time puts him in the top 10 on the all-time list.  As a young sophomore, Teo’s time breaks him into the top 20 all-time at #19.  Teo has been regularly in the top group during training, and has earned a spot running varsity at the NU Invite.

  • The next biggest gap of improvement was by senior Jessica Becker, dropping her 4K PR by 18 seconds down to 16:20, moving her into 13th all-time.

  • Junior Ryan Hart PR’d by half a minute with a time of 12:48, which is 7th fastest all-time.

  • By nearly a full minute, sophomore Katie Kopec improved to 14:42.  Only the school record is on the books as a faster time.

  • We have an incredible group of sophomore boys who are training very consistently together, and improving in chunks.  Jaden Rapp, Brandon Olah, Callum Turner, and Nick Herrmann all posted PR’s by more than a full minute, with Nick having the largest jump by nearly 90 seconds.

  • Senior Byron Chadwick cut 73 seconds off of his 4K best, running a time that is 6th best in Whitney history.

  • Junior Hunter Schwab is one of our most improved runners over the course of this extended summer conditioning.  Hunter improved his 4K time by more than a minute and a half.  He has been training very consistently in the top 7 overall, and has earned a spot in the varsity race at the upcoming Nevada Union meet.

  • Of all our runners who had a previous 4K, sophomore Mariana Blanding enjoys the largest improvement, dropping her PR from 19:19 to 17:01.  More than 2 minutes improvement!  Way to go Mariana!

This event was our final intrasquad tune-up for actual races with other teams, a first since early track season a year ago.
Our runners are trained, prepped, and ready for game day.