Category Archives: Cross Country 2013

Jonny traveled with his team 114 miles each way to his Cross Country Regional Championship meet today. The meet was located in Troy Ohio which is just north of Dayton. His race was scheduled at 2:15 today and the weather was 49 with winds at 24 mph which brought the feels like temp down to 41 degrees. The team needed to be in the top 4 out of 16 teams today to earn a spot at the State Championship meet next week. Unfortunately they took 5th out of 16 teams in the Regional Championship for Division II boys. Two of the boys from the team, Tyler Otterstedt and Robbie Weaver were fast enough to make it to the State Championship as individual runners.

Jonny placed 91st out of 133 runners for Division II Boys in the Regional Race which is one of 4 Regional Races in the state. We are very proud of him and look forward to watching him run next year.

The Girls HS took 3rd out of 16 teams in the Division II girls race and will move on to race as a team at the State Championship next week. Congratulations to the Girls HS team and we wish them luck in next weeks race as well as our two individual runners for Boys.

The official results can be found on Finish Timing Results Website and on the Granville Aces Running Database

Video of Jonny in the race can be found here

Jonny ran at the Central Ohio District Championship Cross Country Meet held at Watkins Memorial High School in Pataskala, OH. The weather was wet and cool with the temperature at 49 degrees. Jonny got himself a good start and again held on throughout the race. He was feeling much better today, compared to the last two weeks were he wasn’t feeling up to par, and proved it with a personal best time of 17:39. He finished 27th out of 155 runners and placed 5th on the Granville Varsity team. The team took 2nd in the Central District and the top 4 teams move on to the Regional Championships next week held in Troy Ohio, located just north of Dayton.

He beat his personal best by 18 seconds. His other times at Watkins this year were 18:24 back on September 7th and 18:00 last week. He looked strong throughout the race and if you look closely on the video as he approached the finish line he has a big smile on his face, because he knew he was going to crush his personal best.

The official Results can be found on Watkins Track website or the Granville Aces Running Database.

Video of Jonny running at the meet has been posted here or below.

Jonny ran at the Licking County League Championship today held at Watkins Memorial High School located in Pataskala, OH.  Granville swept all events by taking first place in every event they raced.

Jonny started out well in the Boys High School 5K Varsity race. At the one mile marker. Jonny said he was starting to feel nauseous. He fought through the rest of the race and still completed in a respectable time of 18:00, which is 24 seconds faster than when he ran that same course earlier in the year. He finished 19th out of 60 varsity runners. He did take a lot longer to recover from this race that he has in previous races.

If you look at the results, on the 3rd and 4th place teams he would have been their 3rd runner. On the 5th and 6th place teams he would have been their 2nd runner. On the 7th and 8th place teams he would have been their number 1 runner.

Since Granville won this meet they will move on next week in the State Tournament to the District Tournament Championship for Central Ohio at Watkins Memorial High School once again along with the dominating Varsity Girls Team.

The official results can be found on the Watkins Track website or on the Granville Aces Running Database.

The video can been seen here.

Today Jonny ran at the Les Eisenhart Invitational.  The meet was held at the Thomas Worthington High School in Worthington, OH.  Race conditions for the Boys Varsity Race was 77 degrees and 85% humidity.

Jonny got an OK start and appeared to be in the middle of the pack after the first 200 meters.  He held his own from there on out and wasn’t passed much, but didn’t pass many either.  He placed 93 out of 219 runners in his meet and finished with a personal best of 17:57 in official timing. If he would have raced in his bracket of HS Boys 9-10 graders he would have finished 2nd out of 328.

The boys ended up 9th out of 25 teams which included top division I schools from throughout the state. Some came from Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland and Dayton.

The official meet results can be found on the Baums Page website or the Granville Running Database website.

Video of Jonny running at the meet can be found here.

Today Jonny ran in the High School Boys 5K Varsity race at the Erin Nance Cross County Invitational located at the London Country Club in London, OH. This is a High School only meet and will be a short day as the Middle School team is running in the Heath Invitational, in nearby Heath.

Since this is a High School only race, Jonny had never run here before and had never seen the course, which is on the golf course,  and is mostly flat with just a few small hills.  This race is run with all three divisions running in the same event and then the divisions are separated out later for team results.  There were 11 Division II schools participating and Granville took 1st.  Again they were not running with on of their top runners and he was given a rest this weekend.  Our other top who has been out for weeks did run in his first race in weeks.

Jonny near the finish line

Jonny ran a good race from the start and positioned himself very well from the beginning. With all the divisions running together he finished 83rd in a field of 194. In his division he placed 14th out of 71 varsity runners. He was the 5th Granville runner and earned 14 points for his efforts. Granville’s 7th runner displaced points on all but one other team and their 6th runner displaced points on all the other teams. It really shows the depth of this squad. The Girls Varsity also took 1st place at this meet out of 8 schools.

Jonny passing other runners near the finish line.

The results can be found at the FinishTiming.com website or on the Granville Running Database.

Video can be found here.

Today Jonny ran in the varsity race at the Bob Reall Cross Country Invitational in Lancaster, OH. This is one of the more hilly courses. The weather was in the mid to upper 60’s and very muddy as it had been raining all morning up to about an hour and a half before their race. There were several races before them which turned the grass course in a sloppy mud pit.

Jonny ran well and finished with a 19:04 which put him 76th in a field of 171. He was 6th on the Granville team this race.

You can find the results on Baums Page or at the Granville Aces Running Database

Race video can be found on YouTube.

Granville is running in the Denny Stevens Cross Country Invitational this coming Tuesday at the Kokosing Recreational Area in Fredricktown, OH. Jonny will not be running in that race this year as decided by his coaches. That was the race last year that Stephanie ran that showed a lot character. She ran with the leaders for the first two miles of the race and then her asthma kicked in and resulted in her cramping up, instead of quitting or walking the rest of the way, she continued to struggle on, climbed the last big hill to the top of the dam and still finished the race around the top quarter of the pack instead of the within the top 15. She was devastated at the time, but we were so proud of her that she soldiered on and completed the race under heavy duress.

Jonny ran in the varsity race again this week. He ended up in 60th out of 136 and had a time of 18:09 for the 5K race, a new personal best. He didn’t drink enough before the race and within a minute or two he realized he was a little dehydrated, which I’m sure effected his performance. He was unable to maintain his early position or improve on it like he has in previous races. He did finish very strong at the end and probably moved up 10-15 spots in the last 100 meters. I think he learned a lot from this race and he will benefit from the lessons learned.

Overall the team took 4th out of 19 Division II teams. They were missing one of their top 2 runners and their number 3 runner. Hopefully they will be back next weekend. Their coaches are pretty conservative with the kids health as they realize that these kids have a lifetime ahead of them.

Jonny running at Gallion XC Festival - 09/14/2013

Gallion 2013

Jonny about to start the last 1000 meters

Jonny starts his kick to the finish line

At the finish you can even see the kids he passed at the start of his kick

Race results can  be found on Baums Page or the Granville Cross Country Database

Race video can be found here.

Today Jonny ran at Watkins Memorial High School. This meet they are running the Boys Open and Varsity together in the same race. We have been to this race in the past and it has always been very wet. This time it is dry and should be a nice run. A large portion of the run is in the woods and the kids have to watch out for tree roots and the narrow path which hinders passing.

Jonny finished in 18:24 and was the 4th runner overall for Granville. The top 7 runners are considered varsity with the top 5 runners earning points for the team. The 6th and 7th runner do not get totaled in the team points, but they earn points that displace top five runners on other teams. The team with the lowest point total wins the meet. Jonny earned 42 points for Granville and was very pleased to finish 42 out of 283 runners in his solid effort. His conditioning and speed allowed him to sprint faster and move up 3 more spots in the last 50 meters of the race.

One other thing to point out about this race is that one of Granville’s top two runners was unable to run in this meet. If he was healthy enough to run in this meet, Granville would have moved up to 3rd easily and potentially 2nd overall as he would have placed right around our number one runner for this race. As a matter of fact the athlete who missed this race was our number one runner last week.

Results for the meet can be found at aces.ourhobby.com or www.baumspage.com

His race video can been seen on YouTube

YouTube HD Video

Today, August 31st 2013, is the first Cross Country Meet of the 2013 Season for the Granville Blue Aces. The meet is a home meet and held at the beautiful Mansion at Bryn Du. This year we only have one runner. Stephanie has stress induced asthma and will not be racing her senior year. Jonathan is a Freshmen this year and will be competing in his first 5K race today.

The morning didn’t go so well as Jonny was unable to find his race uniform. There was a lot of frantic searching for it going on, and we still haven’t found. He went to meet anyway and had to borrow a uniform from one of the varsity runners, who raced right after he finishes, so he could compete. After that drama ended, he was able to stay focused on the race. He looked relaxed during warm ups and looked ready to run. At the start of the race he was able to keep himself positioned near the front 1/3 of the pack. At around the 1K mark he was moving up in position already and was about 10th out of the 250+ runners and focusing on the leaders of the race. By the 2K mark he was about 4th or 5th and keeping pace with the leaders. At 3K he had positioned himself in third and the top three runners were clear of the pack. He ended up about 13 seconds behind the leader and finished a very strong race in 3rd. I think there were 23 schools invited to this meet with about 1/3 or more Division I schools. There were over 250 runners in the Boys HS Open 5K race.

The race video can be seen here on You Tube.

As always you can view official race results either from www.baumspage.com or from aces.almostmy.com