Category Archives: Kent State University Running

Jonny ran in his third collegiate cross country race and his second 8K race today at Cedarville University located in Cedarville, Ohio.  This is the biggest collegiate race in the state of Ohio.  All colleges and universities are invited from all divisions.  Only 5 Universities in the state didn’t show up with their varsity team.  Two of those teams sent their running clubs instead.  Jonny was excited for this race, as we was going to be able to see all his friends from high school that went on to run cross country at the next level in the state of Ohio.

Stephanie came up from Cincinnati to watch him race and brought her puppy Braxton as well.  After the race she came up to visit for the weekend.

Of the 38 Men’s varsity teams that attended Kent State came in 6th overall, placing 4th out of the 7 Division I schools.  Jonny placed 114th overall out of 325 runners in the Men’s Varsity race with a time of 26:52.9, which averages out to a 5:24.5 average mile pace.  In Division I he placed 44th out of 68 runners.  Out of Division I runners at the varsity level Jonny placed 6th out of 17th runners.  Overall out of freshmen runners in the Varsity race Jonny fisnished 15th out of 96 freshmen.

It was a fun race to watch as it reminded me of some of the big high school races Jonny used to run in.

The official results can be found here.

This meet they live streamed and the event and then offered the live stream on demand, which can be found here.

Jonny’s 19th birthday is today and we got to see him on his birthday down in Oxford, OH at the Red Hawk Rumble invitational where Miami University Red Hawks hosted the Kent State University Golden Flashes. It was unusually hot for the end of September as the temps were in the low 80’s and the humidity was 82%, not an ideal day for the runners. They were originally going to race after noon when the temps were going to be approaching 90 degrees but the coaches decided to bump up the schedule almost 2 hours so the kids could compete when it wasn’t going to be as hot. This meant that Nikki and I had to hustle to get there as we were planning on arriving at 11:00 and now they were racing at 10:30. We pulled into the parking lot and made it to the start line as the official was ready to start the race.

This was Jonny’s first 8K race as the last race was reduced to a 5K due to weather up in Akron. After a the first 200 meters he was near the back of the pack, but settled into a good rhythm and started to advance his position shortly after that, Jonny ended up 21st out of the field of 44 runners. Due to the temps and humidity 8 runners were not able to finish the race. Of the 10 Kent State runners Jonny finish 6th with a time of 27:36.4.

After the race it looked like he jumped in a pool with his clothes on! He was a sweaty mess. Just like high school he went around and congratulated everyone for doing well in a tough race in harsh conditions.

We only got to spend about an hour with him before they were preparing to load up the school vans and head back to Kent State on the opposite corner of the state. It was good to see him and watch him compete again and display his sportsmanship after the race.

The official results can be found here at crossroads timing.

Jonny after running an 8K in the heat and humidity at Miami University.

Here is the video I was able to get of the race.  You could see most of the course which was great, but when zoomed in so far, I really need a stabilizing stick for my video camera.

The track team took their team photo this last week as well.

2018 Kent State Men’s Track Team

Jonny ran his first cross country meet for the Golden Flashes today at Silver Creek Metro Park which is the home of the Akron Zips.  The weather was cool in the upper 50’s leading up to race time.  Just before the girls race started there was thunder and lightning and the race was delayed 30 minutes.  The wind really picked up and the rain started coming down harder with more thunder and lightning.  We were told the race was cancelled.  We met up with Jonny to drop off more provisions for his pantry in the dorm room and started heading home.  We got about 20 minutes away and Jonny texted back saying the race was just delayed and they were planning on running.  We turned around and headed back and parked the car and waited for the rain to stop.  We were checking the live timing site and as we were looking at the site trying to get some information, they changed from girls preparing for the race to boys on deck.  We got out and started walking towards the course and within a couple of minutes we heard a gun go off.  We talked to some of the Akron volunteers and they decided instead of scrapping the entire evening they were going to run both the boys and girls in a 5K race instead of the boys running a 4 mile race.   They started the boys and after they were on the course for 5 minutes they started the girls, so they had boys and girls on the course at the same time, but on different parts of the course.

Because of the change of events, Jonny didn’t get a good long warm up and they walked the course earlier as a 4 mile course.  So Jonny wasn’t really sure exactly where he was in the race since the course changed on him.  He looked nice and relaxed on the course and after the race he said it was more like a hard workout than an actual race.  He didn’t kick until late, but finished very strong with a time of 16:22.4 and finished 34th out of 45 runners.

We were happy we got to see him run instead of them cancelling the entire race after driving 2 and a half hours to get to the meet.

The official results can be found here on the Finish Timing web site.

I took some video of the race.